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A BOOK OF THE WEST
VOL. I.
DEVON
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
THE TRAGEDY OF THE CESARS
THE DESERT OF SOUTHERN FRANCE
STRANGE SURVIVALS
SONGS OF THE WEST
A GARLAND OF COUNTRY SONG
OLD COUNTRY LIFE
YORKSHIRE ODDITIES
FREAKS OF FANATICISM
A BOOK OF FAIRY TALES
OLD ENGLISH FAIRY TALES
A BOOK OF NURSERY SONGS
AN OLD ENGLISH HOME
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
THE CROCK OF GOLD
^^IH ^Y^
i
SWEET HAY-MAKEKS
A
BOOK OF THE WEST
BEING AN INTRODUCTION
TO DEVON AND CORNWALL
BY S. BARING-GOULD
VOL. I.
DEVON
WITH THIRTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS
r
NEW YORK : NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK CO.
LONDON: METHUEN & CO.
1900
or
^^«4-^r •J' . - ^^
iNDiAMA UNlVEgSlTY LIBRARY
PREFACE
T N this " Book of the West " I have not sought to
-^ say all that might be said relative to Devon and
Cornwall ; nor have I attempted to make of it a
guide-book. I have rather endeavoured to convey
to the visitor to our western peninsula a general
idea of what is interesting, and what ought to attract
his attention. The book is not intended to super-
sede guide-books, but to prepare the mind to use
these latter with discretion.
In dealing with the history of the counties and of
the towns, it would have swelled the volumes unduly
to have gone systematically through their story from
the beginning to the present ; it would, moreover,
have made the book heavy reading, as well as heavy
to carry. I have chosen, therefore, to pick out some
incident, or some biography connected with the
several towns described, and have limited myself
thereto.
My object then must not be misunderstood, and
my book harshly judged accordingly. There are
vi PREFACE
ten thousand omissions, but I venture to think a
good many things have been admitted which will
not be found in guide-books, but which it is well for
the visitor to know, if he has a quick intelligence and
eyes open to observe.
In the Cornish volume I have given rather fully
the stories of the saints who have impressed their
names indelibly on the land. It has seemed to
me absurd to travel in Cornwall and have these
names in the mouth, and let them remain nuda
noniina.
They have a history, and that is intimately asso-
ciated with the beginnings of that of Cornwall. But
their history has not been studied, and in books
concerning Cornwall most of the statements about
them are wholly false.
I have not entered into any critical discussion
concerning moot points. I have left that for my
" Catalogue of the Cornish Saints " that is being
issued in the Journal of the Royal histitiition of
Cornwall,
There are places that might have been described
more fully, others that have been passed over with-
out notice. This has been due to no disregard for
them on my part, but to a dread of making the
volumes too bulky and cumbrous.
Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to many kind
PREFACE vil
friends who have assisted me with their local know-
ledge, as Mrs. Troup, of Offwell House, Honiton ;
the Rev. J. B. Hughes, for some time Head Master
of Blundell's School, Tiverton, and now Vicar of
Staverton ; Mr. R. Burnard, of Huckaby House,
Dartmoor, and Hillsborough, Plymouth, my alter
ego in all that concerns Dartmoor ; Mr. J. D. Enys,
whose knowledge of things Cornish is encyclopaedic ;
Messrs. Amery, of Druid, Ashburton ; Mr. J. D.
Prickman, of Okehampton ; and many others.
S. BARING-GOULD
Lew Trenchard House, Devon
June, 1899
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. The Western Folk .
.
II.
Villages and Churches
III.
HONITON
IV.
A Landslip
V.
Exeter
VI.
Crediton
VII.
Tiverton
VIII.
Barnstaple .
IX.
Bideford
X.
Dartmoor and its Antiquities
XI.
Dartmoor : Its Tenants
XII.
Okehampton .
XIII.
Moreton Hampstead
XIV.
ASHBURTON
XV.
Tavistock
XVI.
Torquay
XVII.
TOTNES
CVIII.
Dartmouth .
XIX.
KiNGSBRIDGE .
XX.
Plymouth
PAGE
I
30
43
60
68
79
lOI
122
134
155
176
208
22 15
248
266
289
310
323
337
352
ILLUSTRATIONS
Sweet Hay-makers
From a photograph by Mr. Chenhall, Tavistock.
Clovelly Fishermen
From a photograph by the Rev. F. Partridge.
Sheepstor
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
HoLNE Pulpit and Screen .
From a photograph by J. Amery, Esq.
HoNiTON Lace
From specimens kindly lent by Miss Herbert, Exeter, and
Mrs. Fowler, Honiton. Photographed by the Rev,
F. Partridge.
High Street, Exeter
From a photograph by the Rev. F. Partridge.
A Cob Cottage, Sheepwash
From a photograph by the Rev. F. Partridge.
East Window, Crediton Church, before
" Restoration " .
From a sketch by F. Bligh Bond, Esq.
Tiverton ...
From a photograph by Mr. Mudford, Tiverton.
Queen Anne's Walk, Barnstaple
From a photograph by the Rev. F. Partridge.
Chapel Rock, Ilfracombe .
From a photograph by Wellington and Ward, Elstree.
Hartland Smithy .
From a photograph by the Rev. F. Partridge.
Clovelly
From a photograph by the Rev. F. Partridge.
Staple Tor
From a photograph by James Shortridge, Esq.
RippoN Tor Logan Stone .
From a photograph by J. Amery; Esq.
Frontispiece
To face page i6
30
38
51
68
80
S2
lOI
122
128
134
160
Xll
ILLUSTRATIONS
Broadun Pounds .
Barrow on Chagford Common
Drawn by R. H. Worth, Esq.
Lakehead Kistvaen
From a photograph by R. Burnard, Esq.
Urn from Kistvaen
Drawn by R. H. Worth, Esq.
Vixen Tor
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
Lower Tarr
From a photograph by J. Amery, Esq.
Tavy Cleave
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
Taw Marsh
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
Yes Tor
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
The Calculating Boy
From a miniature in the possession of Miss Bidder.
Grimspound
From a plan by R. H. Worth, Esq.
J. Dunning, Lord Ashburton
From a painting by Sir J. Reynolds.
Old Oak Carving, Ashburton
From a photograph by J. Amery, Esq.
Brent Tor
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
On the Dart
From a photograph by the Rev. F. Partridge.
Dartmouth Castle
From a photograph by the Rev. F. Partridge.
Grammar School, Plympton
From a drawing by F. Bligh Bond, Esq.
In Plympton
From a drawing by F. Bligh Bond, Esq.
Sutton Pool
From a photograph by the Rev. F. Partridge.
Alms-houses, S. Germans
From a drawing by F. Bligh Bond, Esq.
To face
page
165
166
168
172
176
182
197
208
212
232
239
252
258
266
310
323
354
354
358
366
DEVON
CHAPTER I.
THE WESTERN FOLK
Ethnology of the Western Folk — The earliest men — The Ivernian race
— The arrival of the Britons— Mixture of races in Ireland— The
Attacottic revolt — The Dumnonii — The Scottic invasion of
Dumnonia — The story of the Slave of the Haft — Athelstan drives
the Britons across the Tamar — Growth of towns— The yeomen
represent the Saxon element — The peasantry the earlier races —
The Devonshire dialect — Courtesy — Use of Christian names —
Love of funerals — Good looks among the girls — Dislike of
* * Foreigners " — The Cornish people — Mr. Havelock Ellis on
them — The types — A Cornish girl — Religion — The unpardonable
sin — Folk-music — Difference between that of Devon and Corn-
wall and that of Somersetshire.
IT is commonly supposed that the bulk of the
Devonshire people are Saxons, and that the
Cornish are almost pure Celts.
In my opinion neither supposition is correct.
Let us see who were the primitive occupants of the
Dumnonian peninsula. In the first place there were
the men who left their rude flint tools in the Brixham
and Kent's caverns, the same people who have de-
posited such vast accumulations in the lime and chalk
caves and shelters of the V^zere and Dordogne. Their
B
2 THE WESTERN FOLK
remains are not so abundant with us as there, because
our conditions are not as favourable for their preserva-
tion ; and yet in the Drift we do find an enormous
number of their tools, though not in situ, with their
hearths, as in France ; yet sufficient to show that
either they were very numerous, or what is more
probable, that the time during which they existed
was long.
This people did not melt off the face of the earth
like snow. They remained on it.
We know that they were tall, that they had gentle
faces — the structure of their skulls shows this ; and
from the sketches they have left of themselves, we
conclude that they had straight hair, and from their
skeletons we learn that they were tall.
M. Massenat, the most experienced hunter after
their remains, was sitting talking with me one even-
ing at Brives about their relics. He had just received
a volume of the transactions of the Smithsonian
Institute that contained photographs of Esquimaux
implements. He indicated one, and asked me to
translate to him the passage relative to its use.
" Wonderful ! " said he. " I have found this tool
repeatedly in our rock-shelters, and have never known
its purport. It is a remarkable fact, that to under-
stand our reindeer hunters of the Vezere we must
question the Esquimaux of the Polar region. I
firmly hold that they were the same race."
A gentle, intelligent, artistic, unwarlike people got
pressed into corners by more energetic, military, and
aggressive races. And, accustomed to the reindeer,
some doubtless migrated North with their favourite
ETHNOLOGY 3
beasts, and in a severer climate became somewhat
stunted.
It is possible — I do not say that it is more than
possible — that the dark men and women found about
Land's End, tall and handsome, found also in the
Western Isles of Scotland and in West Ireland, may
be the last relics of this infusion of blood.
But next to this doubtful element comes one of
which no doubt at all exists. The whole of England,
as of France, and as of Spain, was at one time held
by a dusky, short-built race, which is variously called
Iberian, Ivernian, and Silurian, of which the Basque
is the representative so far as that he still speaks
a very corrupted form of the original tongue. In
France successive waves of Gaul, Visigoth, and Frank
have swept over the land and have dominated it. But
the fair hair and blue eyes and the clear skin of the
conquering races have been submerged by the rising
and overflow of the dusky blood of the original
population. The Berber, the Kabyle are of the same
race ; dress one of them in a blue blouse, and put
a peaked cap on his head, and he would pass for
a French peasant.
The Welsh have everywhere adopted the Cymric
tongue, they hug themselves in the belief that they
are pure descendants of the ancient Britons, but in
fact they are rather Silurians than Celts. Their build,
their coloration, are not Celtic. In the fifth century
Cambria was invaded from Strathclyde by the sons
of Cunedda ; fair-haired, white-skinned Britons, they
conquered the North and penetrated a certain way
South; but the South was already occupied by a
4 THE WESTERN FOLK
body of invading Irish. When pressed by the
Saxons, then the retreating Britons poured into
Wales ; but the substratum of the population was
alien in tongue and in blood and in religion.
It was the same in Dumnonia — Devon and Corn-
wall. It was occupied at some unknown time, perhaps
four centuries before Christ, by the Britons, who be-
came lords and masters, but the original people did
not disappear, they became their " hewers of wood
and drawers of water."
Then came the great scourge of the Saxon invasion.
Devon remained as a place of refuge for the Britons
who fled before the weapons of these barbarians, till
happily the Saxons accepted Christianity, when their
methods became less ferocious. They did not exter-
minate the subject people. But what had more to do
with the mitigation of their cruelty than their Christi-
anity, was that they had ceased to be mere wandering
hordes, and had become colonists. As such they
needed serfs. They were not themselves experienced
agriculturalists, and they suffered the original popula-
tion to remain in the land — the dusky Ivernians as
serfs, and the freemen, the conquered Britons, were
turned into tenant farmers.
This is precisely what took place in Ireland. The
conquering Gadhaels or Milesians, always spoken of
as golden-haired, tall and white-skinned, had subdued
the former races, the Firbolgs and others, and had
welded them into one people whom they called the
Aithech Tuatha, i.e. the Rentpaying Tribes ; the
Classic writers rendered this Attacotti.
In the first two centuries of our era there ensued
THE DUMNONII 5
an incessant struggle between the tenant farmers and
the lords ; the former rose in at least two great revolu-
tions, which shows that they had by no means been
exterminated, and whole bodies of them, rather than
be crushed into submission and ground down by hard
rents, left Ireland, some as mercenaries, others, perhaps,
to fall on the coasts of Wales, Devon, and Brittany,
and effect settlements there.
When brought into complete subjugation in
Ireland, the Gadhelic chiefs planted their duns
throughout the country in such a manner as to
form chains, by which they could communicate with
one another at the least token of a revival of dis-
content; and they distributed the subject tribes
throughout the island in such a manner as to keep
them under supervision, and to break up their clans.
As Professor Sullivan very truly says, " The Irish
tenants of to-day are composed of the descendants
of Firbolgs and other British and Belgic races ;
Milesians, . . . Gauls, Norwegians, Anglo-Saxons,
Anglo-Normans, and English, each successive
dominant race having driven part at least of its
predecessors in power into the rent-paying and
labouring ranks beneath them, or gradually falling
into them themselves, to be there absorbed. This
is a fact which should be remembered by those who
theorise over the qualities of the 'pure Celts/ who-
ever they may be.""*
The Dumnonii, whose city or fortress was at
Exeter, were an important people. They occupied
• Introduction to O'CURRY (E.), Manners and Customs of the
Ancient Irish, 1873, I. xxiv.
6 THE WESTERN FOLK
the whole of the peninsula from the river Parret to
Land's End. East of the Tamar was Dyfnaint, the
Deep Vales ; west of it Corneu, the horn of Britain.
The Dumnonii are thought to have invaded and
occupied this territory about four centuries before the
Christian era. The language of the previous dusky
race was agglutinative, like that of the Tartars and
Basques, that is to say, they did not inflect their
substantives. Although there has been a vast influx
of other blood, with fair hair and white complexions,
the earlier type may still be found in both Devon
and Cornwall.
Then came the Roman invasion ; this affected our
Dumnonian peninsula very slightly ; Cornwall hardly
at all. When that came to an end, a large portion
of Britain had fallen under the sway of the Picts,
Saxons, and Scots. By Scots are meant the Irish,
who after their invasion of Alba gave the present
name to Scotland. But it must be distinctly under-
stood that the only Scots known in the first ten or
eleven centuries, to writers on British affairs, were
Irish.
In alliance with the Picts and Saxons, Niall of the
Nine Hostages poured down on Britain and exacted
tribute from the conquered people. In 388 he
carried his arms further and plundered Brittany.
In 396 the Irish supremacy was resisted by Stilicho,
and for a while shaken ; it was reimposed in 400.
In 405, Niall invaded Gaul, and was assassinated
there on the shores of the English Channel.
In 406 Stilicho a second time endeavoured to repel
the Hiberno-Pictic allies, but, unable to do much by
THE SLAVE OF THE HAFT 7
force of arms, entered into terms with them, for Gildas
speaks of the Romans as making confederates of Irish.
Doubtless Stilicho surrendered to them their hold
over and the tribute from the western part of Britain.
And now I must tell a funny story connected with
the introduction of lap-dogs into Ireland. It comes
to us on the authority of Cormac, king-bishop of
Cashel, who died in 903, and who wrote a glossary
of old Irish words becoming obsolete even in his
day.
" The slave of the Haft," says he, " was the name
of the first lap-dog that was known in Erin. Cairbre
Muse was the man who first brought it there out of
Britain. At that time the power of the Gadhaels
(Scots or Irish) was great over the Britons ; they had
divided Albion among them into farms, and each
of them had a neighbour and friend among the
people." Then he goes on to say how that they
established fortresses through the land, and founded
one at Glastonbury. " One of those divisions of
land is Dun Map Lethan, in the country of the
Britons of Cornwall." This lasted to A.D. 380.
Now Cairbre was wont to pass to and fro between
Britain and Ireland.
At this time lap-dogs were great rarities, and were
highly prized. None had hitherto reached Ireland.
And Cairbre was desirous of introducing one there
when he went to visit his friends. But the possessors
of lap-dogs would on no account part with their
treasures.
Now it happened that Cairbre had a valuable
knife, with the handle gold-inlaid. One night he
8 THE WESTERN FOLK
rubbed the haft over with bacon fat, and placed
it before the kennel of the lap-dog belonging to
a friend. The dog gnawed at the handle and sadly
disfigured it.
Next morning Cairbre made a great outcry over
his precious knife, and showed his British host how
that the dog had disfigured it. The Briton apolo-
gised, but Cairbre promptly replied, " My good friend,
are you aware of the law that 'the transgressor is
forfeit for his transgression?' Accordingly I put in
a legal claim to the dog." Thus he became its
owner, and gave it the name of Mogh-Eimh, or the
Slave of the Haft.
The dog was a bitch, and was with young when
Cairbre carried her over to Ireland. The news that
the wonderful little beast had arrived spread far and
wide, and the king of Munster and the chief king,
Cormac Mac Airt (227-266) both laid claim to it;
the only way in which Cairbre could satisfy them
was to give each a pup when his lap-dog had littered.
So general was the amazement over the smallness
and the beauty of the original dog, that some verses
were made on it, which have been preserved to this
day.
" Sweet was your drink in the house of Ailil (King of Munster) !
Sweet was your meat in the house of Cormac !
Fair was your bread in the house of Cairbre !
O doggie, Slave of the Hilt ! "
It was probably during the Irish domination that
a large portion of North Devon and East Cornwall
was colonised from the Emerald Isle.
But to return to the Saxon conquest. When
SAXON RULE 9
Athelstan drove the Britons out of Exeter and made
the Tamar their Hmit, it is not to be supposed that
he devastated and depopulated Devon ; what he did
was to destroy the tribal organisation throughout
Devon, banish the princes and subjugate the people
to Saxon rule.
The Saxon colonists planted themselves in "Stokes"
mostly in the valleys. The Celts had never been
anything of a town-building people ; they had lived
scattered over the land in their treffs and boths, and
only the retainers of a chieftain had dwelt around his
dun.
But with the Saxons, the fact that they lived as
a few surrounded by an alien population that in no
way loved them, obliged them to huddle together
in their "Stokes." Thus towns sprang into existence,
and bear Saxon names.
It is probable that the yeomen of the land at
the present day represent the Saxon ; and most
assuredly in the great body of the agricultural
labourers, the miners, and artisans, we have mainly
a mixture of British and Ivernian blood.
Throughout the Middle Ages, and indeed till this
present century, there can have been no easy, if
possible, passage out of the labouring community
into that of the yeoman class — hardly into that of
tenant farmer ; whereas the yeomen and the trades-
men, wool merchants and the like, were incessantly
feeding the class of armigeres, squires ; and their
descendants supplied the nobility with accretions.
There is, perhaps, in the east of Devon a pre-
ponderating element of Saxon, but I have observed
lo THE WESTERN FOLK
in the Seaton and Axmlnster district so much of the
dark hair and eye, that I believe there is less than
is supposed, and that there is a very large under-
stratum of the earlier Silurian. Perhaps in North
Devon there may be more of the Saxon. West
of Okehampton there is really not much difference
between the Devonian and the Cornishman, but of
this more presently.
It is remarkable that the Devonshire dialect
prevails in Cornwall above a diagonal line drawn
from Padstow to Saltash, on the Tamar ; west
of this and below it the dialect is different. This
is probably due to the Cornish tongue having been
abandoned in the west and south long subsequent
to its disappearance in the north-east. But this
line also marks the limits of an Irish-Gwentian
occupation.
The dialect is fast dying out, but the intonation
of the voice will remain long after peculiar words
have ceased to be employed.
The "z" has a sound found nowhere else, due to the
manner in which the tongue is turned up to the
palate for the production of the sound; "ou" and
"oo" in such words as "you" and "moon" is precisely
that of the French u in " lune."
Gender is entirely disregarded ; a cow is a " he,"
who runs dry, and of a cock it is said " her crows in
the morn." But then the male rooster is never a
cock, but a stag.
The late Mr. Arnold, inspector of schools, was
much troubled about the dialect when he came into
the county. One day, when examining the school
DIALECT II
at Kelly, he found the children whom he was question-
ing very inattentive.
" What is the matter with you ? " he asked testily.
" Plaaze, zur, us be a veared of the apple-drayne."
In fact, a wasp was playing in and out among
their heavily oiled locks.
"Apple-drayne!" exclaimed Mr. Arnold. "Good
gracious ! You children do not seem to know the
names of common objects. What is that bird yonder
seated on the wall ? " And he pointed out of the
window at a cock.
" Plaaze, zur, her 's a stag."
" I thought as much. You do not know the differ-
ence between a biped and a quadruped."
I was present one day at the examination of a
National School by H.M. Inspector.
" Children," said he, " what form is that ? "
"A dodecahedron."
"And that?"
"An isosceles triangle."
"And what is the highest peak in Africa?"
" Kilima Ndjaro."
"Its height?"
" Twenty thousand feet."
" And what are the rivers that drain Siberia ? "
" The Obi, the Yenesei, and the Lena."
Now in going to the school I had plucked a little
bunch of speedwell, and I said to the inspector,
"Would you mind inquiring of the children the
name of this plant?"
" What is this plant ? " he demanded.
Not a child knew.
12 THE WESTERN FOLK
"What is the river that flows through your valley?"
Not a child knew.
"What is the name of the highest peak of Dart-
moor you see yonder ? "
Not a child knew.
And this is the rubbish in place of education that
at great cost is given to our children.
Education they do not get ; stuffing they do.
They acquire a number of new words, which they
do not understand and which they persistently mis-
pronounce.
"Aw my ! isn't it hot } The prepositions be runin'
all hover me."
"Ay! yii'm no schollard! I be breakin' out wi'
presbeterians."
The " oo " when followed by an " r " has the sound
" o " converted into " oa " ; thus " door " becomes
« doar."
"Eau" takes the sound of the modified German
" u " ; thus " beauty " is pronounced " blity."
" Fe " and " g " take " y " to prolong and emphasise
them ; thus " fever " becomes " fey ver," and " meat "
is pronounced " mayte."
"F" is frequently converted into "v"; "old father"
is "ole vayther." But on the other hand "v" is often
changed to " f," as " view " into " fii."
The vowel "a" is always pronounced long; "landed"
is "landed," "plant" is "plant." "H" is frequently
changed into " y " ; " heat " is spoken of as " yett,"
" Heathfield " becomes " Yaffel," and " hall " is " yall."
" I " is interjected to give greater force, and " e " is
sounded as " a " ; " flesh " is pronounced " flaish."
DIALECT 13
" S " is pronounced "z," as in examples already given.
" O " has an " ou " sound in certain positions, as
" going," which is rendered " gou-en." " S " in the
third person singular of a verb is "th," as "he
grows," " a grawth," " she does " is " her diith."
Here is a form of the future perfect : " I shall 'ave
a-bin an* gone vur tu dii it."
There is a decided tendency to soften harsh
syllabic conjunctions. Thus Blackbrook is Blacka-
brook, and Matford is Mattaford ; this is the Celtic
interjected y and ty.
This is hardly a place for giving a list of peculiar
words ; they may be found in Mrs. Hewett's book,
referred to at the end of this chapter, and collected
by the committee on Devonshire provincialisms in
the Transactions of the Devonshire Association,
As a specimen of the dialect I will give a couple
of verses of a popular folk song.
" The giigii es a purty burd,
'Er zingeth as er vlieth ;
'Er bring'th glide tidin's,
'Er tell'th naw lies ;
'Er zucketh swate vlowers
Tu kaype 'er voice clear,
An' whan 'er zingeth giigii
Tha zummer draeth near.
" Naw all yu vair maidens
Wheriver yii be,
Your 'earts dii nat 'ang 'em
On a zicamore tree.
The layfe it will wither,
The mores (roots) will decay ;
Ah me, I be waistin'
An' vaydin' away."
14 THE WESTERN FOLK
The Devonian and Cornishman will be found by
the visitor to be courteous and hospitable. There
is no roughness of manner where unspoiled by
periodic influx of strangers ; he is kindly, tender-
hearted, and somewhat suspicious. There is a lack
of firmness of purpose such as characterises the
Scotchman ; and a lively imagination may explain
a slackness in adhesion to the truth. He is prone
to see things as he would like them to be rather
than as they are. On the road passers-by always
salute and have a bit of a yarn, even though per-
sonally unacquainted ; and to go by in the dark
without a greeting is a serious default in good
manners. A very marked trait especially noticeable
in the Cornish is their independence. Far more in-
timately than the inhabitants of any other part
of England, they are democrats. This they share
with the Welsh; and, like the Welsh, though
politically they are Radicals, are inherently the most
conservative of people.
It is a peculiarity among them to address one
another by the Christian name, or to speak of a man
by the Christian name along with the surname, should
there be need to distinguish him from another. The
term "Mr." is rarely employed. A gentleman is
" Squire So-and-so," but not a mister ; and the trade
is often prefixed to the name, as Millard Horn, or
Pass'n John, or Cap'n Zackie.
There is no form of enjoyment more relished by
a West Country man or woman than a "buryin'."
Business occupations are cast aside when there is
to be a funeral. The pomp and circumstance of woe
LOVE OF FUNERALS 15
exercise an extraordinary fascination on the Western
mind, and that which concerns the moribund person
at the last is not how to prepare the soul for the
great change, but how to contrive to have a " proper
grand buryin'." " Get away, you rascal ! " was the
address of an irate urchin to another, " if you gie'
me more o' your saace you shan't come to my
buryin'." " Us 'as enjoyed ourselves bravely," says
a mourner, wiping the crumbs from his beard and
the whiskey -drops from his lips ; and no greater
satisfaction could be given to the mourners than
this announcement.
On the other hand a wedding wakes comparatively
little interest ; the parents rarely attend.
The looks of Devonshire and Cornish lasses are pro-
verbial. This is not due to complexion alone, which
is cream and roses, but to the well-proportioned
limbs, the litheness of form, uprightness of carriage,
and to the good moulding of the features. The
mouth and chin are always well shaped, and the nose
is straight ; in shape the faces are a long oval.
I am not sure that West Country women ever
forget that they were once comely. An old woman
of seventy-five was brought forward to be photo-
graphed by an amateur : no words of address could
induce her to speak till the operation was completed ;
then she put her finger into her mouth : " You
wouldn't ha' me took wi' my cheeks failed in? I
just stuffed the Western Marnin^ News into my
mouth to fill'n out."
Although both in Devon and Cornwall there is
great independence and a total absence of that
i6 THE WESTERN FOLK
servility of manner which one meets with in other
parts of England, it would be a vast mistake to
suppose that a West Country man is disrespectful to
those who are his superiors — if he has reason to
recognise their superiority ; but he does not like a
"foreigner," especially one from the North Country.
He does not relish his manner, and this causes mis-
understanding and mutual dislike. He is pleased to
have as his pass'n, as his squire, as a resident in his
neighbourhood, a man whom he knows all about,
as to who were his father and his grandfather, as also
whence he hails. A clergyman who comes from a
town, or from any other part of England, has to learn
to understand the people before they will at all take
to him. " I have been here five years," said a rector
one day to me, a man transferred from far, "and I
don't understand the people yet, and until I under-
stand them I am quite certain to be miscomprehended
by them."
The West Country man must be met and addressed
as an equal. He resents the slightest token of
approach de haut en bas^ but he never presumes ;
he is always respectful and knows his place ; he
values himself, and demands, and quite rightly, that
you shall show that you value him.
The other day a bicyclist was spinning down the
road to Moreton Hampstead. Not knowing quite
where he was, and night approaching, he drew up
where he saw an old farmer leaning on a gate.
" I say, you Johnnie, where am I ? I want a bed."
"You'm fourteen miles from Wonford Asylum,"
was the quiet response, "and fourteen from Newton
CORNISH PEOPLE 17
Work'us, and fourteen from Prlncetown Prison, and I
reckon you could find quarters in any o' they — and
suitable."
With regard to the Cornish people, I can but
reiterate what has already been said relative to the
Western folk generally. What differences exist in
character are not due to difference of race, but
to that of occupation. The bulk of Cornishmen in
the middle and west have been associated with mines
and with the sea, and this is calculated to give to
the character a greater independence, and also to
confer a subtle colour, different in kind to that which
is produced by agricultural labour. If you take a
Yorkshireman from one side of the Calder or Aire,
where factory life is prevalent, and one from the
other side, where he works in the fields, you will
find as great, if not a greater, difference than you will
between a Devonshire and a Cornish man. Compare
the sailors and miners on one side of the Tamar with
those on the other, and you will find no difference at
all.
There will always be more independence in miners
who travel about the world, who are now in Brazil,
then in the African diamond-fields, next at home,
than in the agricultural labourer, who never goes
further than the nearest market town. The mind is
more expanded in the one than in the other ; but in
race all may be one, though differing in ideas,
manners, views, speech.
I venture now to quote freely from an article on
Cornishmen that is written by an outsider, and which
appeared in a review.
C
i8 THE WESTERN FOLK
" The dweller in Cornwall comes in time to perceive the
constant recurrence of various types of man. Of these,
two at least are well marked, very common, and probably
of great antiquity and significance. The man of the first type
is slender, lithe, graceful, usually rather short ; the face is
smooth and delicately outlined, without bony prominences,
the eyebrows finely pencilled. The character is, on the
whole, charming, volatile, vivacious, but not always reliable,
and while quick-witted, rarely capable of notable achieve-
ment or strenuous endeavour. It is distinctly a feminine
type. The other type is large and solid, often with much
crispy hair on the face and shaggy eyebrows. The arches
over the eyes are well marked and the jaws massive ; the
bones generally are developed in these persons, though
they would scarcely be described as raw-boned; in its
extreme form a face of this type has a rugged prognathous
character which seems to belong to a lower race."
Usually the profile is fine, with straight noses ; and
a well-formed mouth, with oval, rather long face is
general, the chin and mouth being small. I do not
recall at any time meeting with the "rummagy"
faces, with no defined shape, and ill-formed noses
that one encounters in Scotland.
There is a want of the strength and force such as
is encountered in the North ; but on the other hand
there is remarkable refinement of feature.
I had at one time some masons and workmen
engaged upon a structure just in front of my dining-
room windows, and a friend from Yorkshire was
visiting me. The men working for me were perhaps
fine specimens, but nothing really extraordinary for
the country. One, a tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed mason,
my friend at once designated Lohengrin ; and he was
THE CORNISH 19
the typical knight of the swan — I suspect a pure
Celt. Another was not so tall, lithe, dark, and hand-
some. "King Arthur" was what my friend called him.
The writer, Mr. Havelock Ellis, whom I have
already quoted, continues : —
" The women are solid and vigorous in appearance, with
fully-developed breasts and hips, in marked contrast with
the first type, but resembling women in Central and
Western France. Indeed, the people of this type gener-
ally recall a certain French type, grave, self-possessed,
deliberate in movement, capable and reliable in character.
I mention these two types because they seem to me to
represent the two oldest races of Cornwall, or, indeed, of
England. The first corresponds to the British neolithic
man, who held sway in England before the so-called Celts
arrived, and who probably belonged to the so-called Iberian
race; in pictures of Spanish women of the best period,
indeed, and in some parts of modern Spain, we may still
see the same type. The second corresponds to the more
powerful, and as his remains show, the more cultured and
aesthetic Celt, who came from France and Belgium. . . .
When these types of individual are combined, the results
are often very attractive. We then meet with what is prac-
tically a third type : large, dignified, handsome people,
distinguished from the Anglo-Saxon not only by their
prominent noses and well-formed chins, but also by their
unaffected grace and refinement of manner. In many a
little out-of-the-world Cornish farm I have met with the
men of this type, and admired the distinction of their
appearance and bearing, their natural instinctive courtesy,
their kindly hospitality. It was surely of such men that
Queen Elizabeth thought when she asserted that all
Cornishmen are courtiers.
" I do not wish to insist too strongly on these types which
20 THE WESTERN FOLK
blend into one another, and may even be found in the same
family. The Anglo-Saxon stranger, who has yet had no
time to distinguish them, and who comes, let us say, from
a typically English county like Lancashire, still finds much
that is unfamiliar in the people he meets. They strike him
as rather a dark race, lithe in movement, and their hands
and feet are small. Their hair has a tendency to curl, and
their complexions, even those of the men, are often incom-
parable. The last character is due to the extremely moist
climate of Cornwall, swept on both sides by the sea-laden
Atlantic. More than by this, however, the stranger accus-
tomed to the heavy, awkward ways of the Anglo-Saxon
clodhopper will be struck by the bright, independent intelli-
gence and faculty of speech which he finds here. No
disguise can cover the rusticity of the English rustic; on
Cornish roads one may often meet a carman whose clear-
cut face, bushy moustache, and general bearing might easily
add distinction to Pall Mall."
There are parts of Devon and of Cornwall where
the dark type prevails. " A black grained man " is
descriptive of one belonging to the Veryan district,
and dark hair and eyes, and singular beauty are found
about the Newlyn and St. Ives districts. The darkest
type has been thrust into corners. In a fold of Broad-
bury Down in Devon, in the village of Germansweek,
the type is mainly dark ; in that of North Lew, in
another lap of the same down, it is light. It has been
noticed that a large patch of the dusky race has re-
mained in Bedfordshire.
The existence of the dark eyes and hair and fine
profiles has been attempted to be explained by the
fable that a Spanish vessel was wrecked now here,
now there, from the Armada, and that the sailors
THE CORNISH 21
remained and married the Cornish women. I believe
that this is purely a fable. The same attempt at
solution of the existence of the same type in Ireland
and in Scotland has been made, because people would
not understand that there could be any other explana-
tion of the phenomenon.
I have been much struck in South Wales, on a
market day, when observing the people, to see how
like they were in build, and colour, and manner, and
features to those one might encounter at a fair in
Tavistock, Launceston, or Bodmin.
I positively must again quote Mr. Havelock Ellis
on the Cornish woman, partly because his descrip-
tion is so charmingly put, but also because it is so
incontestably true.
"The special characters of the race are often vividly
shown in its women. I am not aware that they have ever
played a large part in the world, whether in life or art. But
they are memorable enough for their own qualities. Many
years ago, as a student in a large London hospital, I had
under my care a young girl who came from labour of the
lowest and least skilled order. Yet there was an instinctive
grace and charm in all her ways and speech which distin-
guished her utterly from the rough women of her class. I
was puzzled then over that delightful anomaly. In after
years, recalling her name and her appearance, I knew that
she was Cornish, and I am puzzled no longer. I have since
seen the same ways, the same soft, winning speech equally
unimpaired by hard work and rude living. The Cornish
woman possesses an adroitness and self-possession, a modu-
lated readiness of speech, far removed from the awkward
heartiness of the Anglo-Saxon woman, the emotional inex-
pressiveness of the Lancashire lass whose eyes wander
22 THE WESTERN FOLK
around as she seeks for words, perhaps completing her
unfinished sentence by a snap of the fingers. The Cornish
woman — at all events while she is young and not submerged
by the drudgery of life — exhibits a certain delightful volu-
bility and effervescence. In this respect she has some
affinity with the bewitching and distracting heroines of
Thomas Hardy's novels, doubtless because the Wessex folk
of the South Coast are akin to the Cornish. The Cornish
girl is inconsistent without hypocrisy; she is not ashamed
of work, but she is very fond of jaunts, and on such
occasions she dresses herself, it would be rash to say
with more zeal than the Anglo-Saxon maiden, but usually
with more success. She is an assiduous chapel-goer, equally
assiduous in flirtations when chapel is over. The pretty
Sunday-school teacher and leader of the local Band of Hope
cheerfully confesses as she drinks off the glass of claret you
offer her that she is but a poor teetotaller. The Cornish
woman will sometimes have a baby before she is legally
married ; it is only an old custom of the county, though less
deeply rooted than the corresponding custom in Wales."*
The Cornish are, like the Welsh, intensely religious,
but according to their idea religion is emotionalism
and has hardly enough to do with morality.
"So Mr. So-and-So is dead," in reference to a local
preacher. " I fear he led a very loose life."
" Ah ! perhaps so, but he was a sweet Christian."
Here is something illustrative at once of West
Country religion and dialect. I quote from an
amusing paper on the " Recollections of a Parish
Worker" in the Cornish Magazine (1898) : —
" ' How do you like the vicar ? ' I asked. * Oh, he 's
a lovely man,' she answered, 'and a 'ansome praicher^
* The New Century Review ^ April, 1897.
RELIGION 23
and such a voice ! But did 'ee hear how he lost un to-day ?
Iss, I thought he would have failed all to-wance, an' that
wad have bin a gashly job. But I prayed for un an' the
Lord guv it back to un again, twice as loud, an' dedn't 'ee
holler ! But 'ee dedn't convart me. I convarted meself.
Iss a ded. I was a poor wisht bad woman. Never went
to a place of worship. Not for thirty years a hadn't a bin.
One day theer came word that my brother Willum was
hurted to the mine. So I up an' went to un an' theer he
was, all scat abroad an' laid out in scritches. He was in
a purty stank, sure 'nuff. But all my trouble was his poor
sowl. I felt I must get he convarted before he passed.
I went where he was to, an' I shut home the door, an'
I hollered an' I rassled an' I prayed to him, an' he nivver
spoke. I got no mouth spaich out of him at awl, but I
screeched and screeched an' prayed until I convarted
myself! An' then I be to go to church. Iss, we awl have
to come to it, first an* last, though I used to say for
christenings an' marryin's an' berrin's we must go to church,
but for praichin' an' ennytheng for tha nex' wurld give me
the chapel ; still, I waanted to go to church an' laive every-
body knaw I wur proper chaanged. So I pitched to put
up my Senday go-to-mittun bonnet, an' I went. An' when
I got theer aw ! my blessed life 'twas Harvest Thanksgivin',
an' when I saw the flowers an' the fruit an' the vegetables
an' the cotton wool I was halved up on end ! ' And heaved
up on the right end she was."
The table of Commandments is with the Cornish
not precisely that of Moses. It skips, or treats very
lightly, the seventh, but it comprises others not found
in Scripture : " Thou shalt not drink any alcohol,"
and " Thou shalt not dance."
On Old Christmas Day, in my neighbourhood,
a great temperance meeting was held. A noted
24 THE WESTERN FOLK
speaker on teetotalism was present and harangued.
A temperance address is never relished without some
horrible example held up to scorn. Well, here it
was. " At a certain place called , last year, as
Christmas drew on, the Guardians met to decide
what fare should be afforded to the paupers for
Christmas Day. Hitherto it had been customary
for them to be given for their dinner a glass of ale —
a glass of ale. I repeat it — at public cost — a glass
of ale apiece. On that occasion the Guardians
unanimously agreed that the paupers should have
cocoa, and not ale. Then up stood the Rector — the
Rector, I repeat — and in a loud and angry voice
declared : ' Gentlemen, if you will not give them
their drop of ale, I will.' And he — he, a minister
of the gospel or considering himself as such." — (A
shudder and a groan.) " I tell you more — I tell you
something infinitely worse — he sent up to the work-
house a dozen of his old crusted port." (Cries of
" Shame ! shame ! " and hisses.)
That^ if you please, was the unpardonable sin.
If we are to look anywhere for local characteristics
in the music of the people in any particular part of
England, we may surely expect to find them in the
western counties of Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall.
These three counties have hitherto been out of the
beaten track ; they are more encompassed by the
sea than others, and lead only to the Land's End.
And as a matter of fact, a large proportion of the
melodies that have been collected from the peasantry
in this region seem to have kept their habitation, and
so to be unknown elsewhere.
DEVONSHIRE SONGS 25
I take it for granted that they are, as a rule, home
productions. The origin of folk-song has been much
debated, and it need not be gone into now. But it
would be vain to search for local characteristics in
anything that has not a local origin.
In folk-song, then, we may expect to see reflected
the characteristics of the race from which it has
sprung, and, as in the counties of Devon and Corn-
wall on one side and Somersetshire on the other,
we are brought into contact with two, at least,
races — the British and the Saxon — we do find
two types of melody very distinct. Of course, as
with their dialects, so with their melodies, the dis-
tinctions are sometimes marked, and sometimes
merged in each other. The Devonshire melodies
have some affinity with those of Ireland, whilst the
Somersetshire tunes exhibit a stubborn individuality
— a roughness, indeed, which is all their own.
Taking first the Devonshire songs, I think one
cannot fail to be struck with the exceeding grace
and innate refinement which distinguish them.
These qualities are not always perceptible in the
performance of the songs by the untutored singers ;
nor do the words convey, as a rule, any such im-
pressions, but evident enough when you come to
adjust to their proper form the music which you
have succeeded in jotting down. It surprises you.
You are not prepared for anything like original
melody, or for anything gentle or tender. But the
Devonshire songs are so. Their thought is idyllic.
Through shady groves melodious with song, the
somewhat indolent lover of Nature wanders forth
26 THE WESTERN FOLK
without any apparent object save that of " breathing
the air," and (it must be added) of keeping an open
eye for nymphs, one of whom seldom fails to be
seeking the same seclusion. Mutual advances
ensue ; no explanations are needed ; constancy is
neither vowed nor required. The casual lovers
meet and part, and no sequel is appended to the
artless tale.
Sentiment is the staple of Devonshire folk-song ;
it is a trifle unwholesome, but it is unmistakably
graceful and charming. Take such songs as " By
chance it was," " The Forsaken Maiden," " The Goss-
hawk," " Golden Furze ; " surely there is a gush of
genuine melody and the spirit of poetry in such
tunes.
In some respects the folk-song of Devonshire is
rather disappointing. There is no commemoration,
no appreciation, of her heroes. The salt sea-breeze
does not seem to reach inland, save to whisper in a
wailing tone of " The Drowned Lover," or the
hapless " Cabin Boy." Sea-songs may be in her
ports, but they were not born there.
Nor are the joys of the chase proclaimed with such
robustness as elsewhere, any more than are the
pleasures and excitements of the flowing bowl. This
may be attributed to the same refinement of character
of which I have spoken.
A pastoral and peace-loving community will not
be expected to develop any special sense of humour.
Devonshire is by no means deficient in it, but it is of
a quiet sort, a sly humour something allied to what
the Scotch call " pawky," of which " Widicombe
FOLK MELODIES 27
Fair " is as good an example as can be had. Of
what may be called the religious element, save in
Christmas and Easter carols, I have never discovered
any trace.
The Rev. H. Feetvvood Sheppard, who has spent
ten years in collecting the melodies of Devon and
Cornwall, says of them, " I have found them delight-
ful, full of charm and melody. I never weary of
them. They are essentially poetical, but they are
also essentially the songs of sentiment, and their one
pervading, almost unvarying theme is — The Eternal
Feminine."
When we pass into Somersetshire the folk-music
assumes quite a different character. The tenderness,
the refinement have vanished. Judging from their
songs, we might expect to find the Somersetshire folk
bold, frank, noisy, independent, self-assertive ; and this
view would be quite in keeping with their traditional
character. In Shakespeare's time bandogs and bull
baiting were the special delight of the country
gentry,* and Fuller describes the natives of Taunton
Dean as "rude, rich, and conceited." If one turn
to the music, " Richard of Taunton Dean," or " Jan's
Courtship," "George Riddler's Oven," and the like,
are in entire keeping with the character of the people
as thus depicted. There is vigour and go in their
songs, but no sweetness ; ruggedness, no smoothness
at all ; and it is precisely this latter quality that
marks the Cornish and Devonshire airs.
Take such a tune as that to which the well-known
hunting song of Devon, "Arscott of Tetcott," is
* See M. Drayton's Polyolbion on this.
28 THE WESTERN FOLK
wedded. The air is a couple of centuries older than
the words, for the Arscott whom the song records
died in 1788, though we can only trace the tune
back to D'Urfey at the end of the seventeenth
century. The music is impetuous, turbulent, excited,
it might be the chasing the red deer on Exmoor;
the hunt goes by with a rush like a whirlwind to
a semi-barbarous melody, which resembles nothing
so much as that of the spectral chase in Der
Freischutz.
But Somersetshire song can be tender at times,
though not quite with the bewitching grace of
Devonia. There is a charming air which found its
way from the West up to London some sixty years
ago, the original words of which are lost, but the
tune became immensely popular under the title of
" All round my hat," a vulgar ditty sung by all little
vulgar boys in the streets. The tune is well worth
preserving. It is old, and there is a kind of wail
about it which is touching.
But who were the composers of these folk-airs?
In the old desks in west galleries of churches remain
here and there piles of MS. music : anthems, and,
above all, carols, the composition of local musicians
unknown beyond their immediate neighbourhood,
and now unknown even by name.
A few years ago I was shown such a pile from
Lifton Church. I saw another great library, as I
may call it, that was preserved in the rack in the
ceiling of a cottage at Sheepstor, the property
of an old fiddler, now dead. I saw a third in
Holne parish. I have seen stray heaps elsewhere.
MUSIC 29
Mr. Heath, of Redruth, published two collections
from Cornwall and one from Devon, the latter from
the Lifton store in part, to which I had directed his
attention. I cannot doubt that some of the popular
tunes that are found circulating among our old
singers — or to be more exact, were found — were
the composition of these ancient village musicians.
Alas ! the American organ and the strident har-
monium came in and routed out the venerable
representatives of a musical past ; and the music-
hall piece is now driving away all the sound old
traditional melody, and the last of the ancient con-
servators of folk-song makes his bow, and says : —
" I be going, I reckon, full mellow,
To lay in the churchyard my head,
So say — God be wi' you, old fellow !
The last of the zingers is dead."
Note, —For the history of Devon: Worth (R. N.), History of
Devonshire. London, 1886. For Devonshire dialect : Hewett (S.),
The Peasant Speech of Devon. E. Stock. London, 1892. For Devon-
shire folk -music: Songs of the West. Methuen, London, 1895.
(3rded.) A Garland of Country Song. Methuen. London, 1895.
For most of what has been said above on the folk-songs of Devon I
am indebted to the Rev. H. Fleetwood Sheppard, who has made it
his special study.
CHAPTER II.
VILLAGES AND CHURCHES
Devonshire villages not so picturesque as those of Sussex and Kent — Cob
and stone — Slate — Thatch and whitewash — Churches mostly in the
Perpendicular style — Characteristics of that style — Foliage in stone
— Somerset towers — Cornish peculiarities of pinnacles — Waggon-
headed roofs — Beer and Hatherleigh stone — Polyphant — Treatment
of granite — Wood-work in Devon churches — Screens — How they
have been treated by incumbents — Pulpits — Bench-ends — Norman
fonts — Village crosses — How the Perpendicular style maintained
itself in the West — Old mansions — Trees in Devon — Flora — The
village revel.
A DEVONSHIRE village does not contrast
favourably with those in Essex, Kent, Sussex,
and other parts of England, where brick or timber
and plaster are the materials used, and where the
roofs are tiled.
But of cottages in the county there are two kinds.
The first, always charming, is of cob^ clay, thatched.
Such cottages are found throughout North Devon,
and wherever the red sandstone prevails. They are
low, with an upper storey, the windows to which are
small, and the brown thatch is lifted above these
peepers like a heavy, sleepy brow in a very pic-
turesque manner. But near Dartmoor stone is em-
ployed, and an old, imperishable granite house is
delightful when thatched. But thatch has given way
30
SLATE 31
everywhere to slate, and when the roof is slated a
great charm is gone. There is slate and slate. The
soft, silvery grey slate that is used in South Devon is
pleasing, and when a house is slated down its face
against the driving rains, and the slates are worked
into patterns and are small, they are vastly pretty.
But architects are paid a percentage on the outlay,
and it is to their profit to use material from a dis-
tance ; they insist on Welsh or Delabole slate, and
nothing can be uglier than the pink of the former
and the chill grey of the other — like the tint of an
overcast sky in a March wind.
I once invited an architect to design a residence on
a somewhat large scale. He did so, and laid down
that Delabole slate should be employed with bands
of Welsh slate of the colour of beetroot. " But,"
said I, "we have slate on the estate. It costs me
nothing but the raising and carting."
" I dislike the colour," said he. " If you employ an
architect, you must take the architect's opinion."
I was silenced. The same day, in the afternoon,
this architect and I were walking in a lane. I ex-
claimed suddenly, " Oh, what an effect of colour !
Do look at those crimson dock-leaves !"
" Let me see if I can find them," said the architect.
" I am colour-blind, and do not know red from
green."
It was an incautious admission. He had forgotten
about the slates, and so gave himself away.
The real objection, of course, was that my own
slates would cost me nothing. But also of course
he did not give me that reason.
32 VILLAGES AND CHURCHES
Where the slate rocks are found, grauwacke and
schist, there the cottages are very ugly — could not
well be uglier — and new cottages and houses that are
erected are, as a rule, eyesores.
However, we have in Devon some very pretty
villages and clusters of cottages, and the little group
of roofs of thatch and glistening whitewashed walls
about the old church, the whole backed by limes and
beech and elm, and set in a green combe, is all that
can be desired for quiet beauty; although, individually,
each cottage may not be a subject for the pencil, nor
the church itself pre-eminently picturesque.
The churches of Devonshire belong mainly to the
Perpendicular style ; that is to say, they were nearly
all rebuilt between the end of the fourteenth and the
sixteenth centuries.
Of this style, this is what Mr. Parker says : " The
name is derived from the arrangement of the tracery,
which consists of perpendicular lines, and forms one
of its most striking features. At its first appearance
the general effect was usually bold and good ; the
mouldings, though not equal to the best of the
Decorated style, were well defined ; the enrichments
effective and ample without exuberance, and the
details delicate without extravagant minuteness.
Subsequently it underwent a gradual debasement :
the arches became depressed ; the mouldings im-
poverished; the ornaments crowded, and often coarsely
executed ; and the subordinate features confused
from the smallness and complexity of their parts.
A leading characteristic of the style, and one which
prevails throughout its continuance, is the square
CHURCH ARCHITECTURE 33
arrangement of the mouldings over the heads of
doorways, creating a spandrel on each side above the
arch, which is usually ornamented with tracery,
foliage, or a shield. The jambs of doorways are
generally moulded, frequently with one or more small
shafts."
The style is one that did not allov/ of much variety
in window tracery. The object of the adoption of
upright panels of glass was to allow of stained figures
in glass of angels filling the lights, as there had been
a difficulty found in suitably filling the tracery of the
heads of the windows with subjects when these heads
were occupied by geometrical figures composed of
circles and arcs intersecting.
In the west window of Exeter Cathedral may be
seen a capital example of "Decorated" tracery, and in
the east window one in the " Perpendicular " style.
Skill in glass staining and painting had become
advanced, and the windows were made much larger
than before, so as to admit of the introduction of
more stained glass.
Pointed arches struck from two centres had suc-
ceeded round arches struck from a single centre, and
now the arches were made four-centred.
Foliage in carving had, under Early English treat-
ment, been represented as just bursting, the leaves
uncurling with the breath of spring. In the Decorated
style the foliage is in full summer expansion,
generally wreathed round a capital. Superb examples
of Decorated foliage may be seen in the corbels in
the choir at Exeter. In Perpendicular architecture
the leaves are crisped and wrinkled with frost.
D
34 VILLAGES AND CHURCHES
In Devonshire the earlier towers had spires. When
the great wave of church building came over the
land, after the conclusion of the Wars of the Roses,
then no more spires were erected, but towers with
buttresses, and battlemented and pinnacled square
heads. In the country there are no towers that come
up to the splendid examples in Somersetshire ; but
that of Chittlehampton is the nearest approach to
one of these.
In the Somerset towers the buttresses are fre-
quently surmounted by open-work pinnacles or small
lanterns of elaborate tabernacle work, and the para-
pets or battlements are of open tracery ; but in
Devon these latter are plain with bold coping, and
the pinnacles are well developed and solid, and not
overloaded with ornament. Bishop's Nympton,
South Molton, and Chittlehampton towers are
locally described as " Length," " Strength," and
" Beauty."
A fine effect is produced when the turret by which
the top of the tower is reached is planted in the
midst of one side, usually the north ; and it is
carried up above the tower roof There are many
examples. I need name but Totnes and Ash-
burton.
A curious effect is produced among the Cornish
towers, and those near the Tamar on the Devon side,
of the pinnacles being cut so as to curve outwards
and not to be upright. The effect is not pleasant,
and the purpose is not easily discoverable ; but it
was possibly done as being thought by this means
to offer less resistance to the wind.
STONE 35
The roofs are usually "waggon-headed." The
open timber roof, so elaborated in Norfolk, is not
common. A magnificent example is, however, to
be seen in Wear Gifford Hall. But cradle roofs do
exist, and in a good many cases the waggon roofs
are but ceiled cradle roofs. A good plain example
of a cradle roof is in the chancel of Ipplepen, and
a very rich one at Beaford.
The mouldings of the timbers are often much
enriched. A fine example is Pancras Week. The
portion of the roof over the rood-screen is frequently
very much more elaborately ornamented than the
rest. An example is King's Nympton, where, how-
ever, before the restoration, it was even more gorgeous
than at present. The waggon roof presents immense
advantages over the open timber roof; it is warmer;
it is better for sound ; it is not, like the other, a make-
shift. It carries the eye up without the harsh and
unpleasant break from the walling to the barn-like
timber structure overhead.
Wherever white Beer stone or rosy Hatherleigh
stone could be had, that was easily cut, there delicate
moulding and tracery work was possible ; but in
some parts of the county a suitable stone was
lacking. In the neighbourhood of Tavistock the
doorways and windows were cut out of Roborough
stone, a volcanic tufa, full of pores, and so coarse that
nothing refined could be attempted with it. Near
Launceston, however, were the Polyphant quarries,
the stone also volcanic, but close-grained and of a
delicate, beautiful grey tone. This was employed
for pillars and window tracery. The fine Decorated
36 VILLAGES AND CHURCHES
columns of Bratton Clovelly Church, of a soft grey
colour, are of this stone. The run of the stone was,
however, limited, and was thought to be exhausted.
It was not till the Perpendicular style came in
that an attempt was made to employ granite. The
experiment led to curious results. The tendency
of the style is to flimsiness, especially in the mould-
ings ; but the obduracy of the material would not
allow of delicate treatment, and the Perpendicular
mouldings, especially noticeable in doorways, are often
singularly bold and effective. A tour de force was
effected at Launceston Church, which is elaborately
carved throughout in granite, and in Probus tower, in
Cornwall. For beauty in granite work Widecombe-
in-the-Moor tower cannot be surpassed ; there the
tower is noble and the church to which it belongs
is mean. In using Ham Hill stone or Beer stone,
that was extracted in blocks, the pillars, the jambs
of doors and windows were made of several pieces
laid in courses and cut to fit one another. But when
the architects of Perpendicular times had to deal
with granite there was no need for this ; they made
their pillars and jambs in single solid blocks. A
modern architect, bred to Caen stone or Bath oolite,
sends down a design for a church or house to be
erected near Dartmoor, or in Cornwall, and treats
the granite as though it came out of the quarry in
small blocks ; and the result is absurd. An instance
of this blundering in treatment is the new east window
of Lanreath Church, Cornwall, designed by such a
" master in Israel " as Mr. Bodley. The porch door-
way is in six stones, one for each base, one for each
SCREENS z^
jamb, and two form the arch. The old windows are
treated in a similar fashion — each jamb is a single
stone. But Mr. Bodley has built up his new window
of little pieces of granite one foot deep. The effect
is bad. Unhappily, local architects are as blind to
local characteristics as London architects are ignorant
of them. So also, when these gentry attempt to
design hood mouldings, or indeed any mouldings,
for execution in granite, they cannot do it — the
result is grotesque, mean, and paltry : they think in
Caen stone and Bath, and to design in granite a
man's mind must be made up in granite.
In Cornwall there are some good building materials
capable of ornamental treatment, more delicate than
can be employed in granite. Such are the Pentewan
and Catacleuse stones. The latter is gloomy in colour,
but was used for the finest work, as the noble tomb
of Prior Vivian, in Bodmin Church.
As stone was an intractable material, the Devon-
shire men who desired to decorate their churches
directed their energies to oak carving, and filled them
with very finely sculptured bench-ends and screens
of the most elaborate and gorgeous description.
So rich and elaborate are these latter, that when
a church has to be restored the incumbent trembles
at the prospect of the renovation of his screen, and
this has led to many of them being turned out and
destroyed. South Brent screen was thus wantonly
ejected and allowed to rot. Bridestowe was even
worse treated : the tracery was cut in half and
turned upside down, and plastered against deal
boarding — to form a dwarf screen.
38 VILLAGES AND CHURCHES
"What will my screen cost if it be restored?"
asked a rector of Mr. Harry Hems.
" About four hundred pounds."
" Four hundred pounds ! Bless me ! I think I had
best have it removed."
" Very well, sir, be prepared for the consequences.
Your name will go down to posterity dyed in infamy
and yourself steeped in obloquy."
" You don't mean to say so ? "
" Fact, sir, I assure you."
That preserved the screen.
Then, again, some faddists have a prejudice against
them. This has caused the destruction of those in
Davidstow and West Alvington. Others, however,
have known how to value what is the great treasure
in their churches entrusted to their custody, and they
have preserved and restored them. Such are Staver-
ton, Dartmouth, Totnes, Harberton, Wolborough.
That there must have been in the sixteenth century
a school of quite first-class carvers cannot be doubted,
in face of such incomparable work as is seen in the
pulpit and screen of Kenton. But if there was good
work by masters there was also some poor stuff,
formal and without individual character — such as the
screens at Kenn and Laneast.
The pulpits are also occasionally very rich and of
the same date as the screens. There are noble
examples of stone pulpits elaborately carved at
South Molton, Bovey Tracey, Chittlehampton, and
Harberton, and others even finer in wood, as Holne,
Kenton, Ipplepen, Torbrian.
Among churches which have fine bench-ends may
HOLNE PILPIT AN'U SCREEN
VILLAGE CROSSES 39
be noted Braunton, Lapford, Colebrook, Horvvood,
Broadwood Widger (dated 1529), North Lew (also
dated), Plymtree, Lew Trenchard, Peyhembury.
Several early fonts remain of Norman style, and
even in some cases perhaps earlier. The finest Nor-
man fonts are Stoke Canon, Alphington, S. Mary
Steps (Exeter), Hartland, and Bere Ferrers. In the
west, about the Tamar, one particular pattern of
Norman font was reproduced repeatedly ; and it is
found in several churches. There are a number of
village crosses remaining, a very fine one at South
Zeal ; also at Meavy, Mary Tavy, Staverton, Samp-
ford Spiney, Holne, Hele, and some extremely rude
on Dartmoor.
There was a churchyard cross at Manaton. The
Rev. C. Carwithen, who was rector, found that the
people carried a coffin thrice round it, the way of
the sun, at a funeral ; although he preached against
the usage as superstitious, they persisted in doing so.
One night he broke up the cross, and removed and
concealed the fragments. It is a pity that the cross
did not fall on and break his stupid head.
It is interesting to observe how late the Per-
pendicular style maintained itself in the West. At
Plymouth is Charles Church, erected after the Res-
toration, of late Gothic character. So also are there
aisles to churches, erected after the Reformation, of
debased style, but nevertheless distinctly a degenera-
tion of the Perpendicular.
In domestic architecture this is even more notice-
able. Granite-mullioned windows and four-centred
doorways under square hoods, with shields and flowers
40 VILLAGES AND CHURCHES
in the spandrels, continued in use till the beginning
of the eighteenth century.
A very large number of old mansions, belonging
to the squirearchy of Elizabethan days, remain. The
Devonshire gentry were very numerous, and not extra-
ordinarily wealthy. They built with cob, and with
oak windows, or else in stone with granite mullions,
but neither material allowed of great splendour. A
house in granite cost about three times as much as
one of a like size in brick.
The mansions are too numerous to be mentioned.
One who is desirous of seeing old houses should provide
himself with an inch to the mile Ordnance Survey
map, and visit such houses as are inserted thereon
in Old English characters. Unhappily, although this
serves as a guide in Cornwall, the county of Devon
has been treated in a slovenly manner, and in my
own immediate neighbourhood, although such a fine
example existed as Sydenham House, it remained
unnoticed ; and the only two mansions indicated in
Old English were a couple of ruins, uninhabited, that
have since disappeared. Where the one-inch fails
recourse must be had to the six-inch map.
Devonshire villages and parks cannot show such
magnificent trees as the Midlands and Eastern coun-
ties. The elm grows to a considerable size on the red
land, but the elm is much exposed to be blown over
in a gale, especially when it has attained a great size.
Oak abounds, but never such oak as may be seen in
Suffolk. The fact is that when the tap-root of an
oak tree touches rock the tree makes no progress, and
as the rock lies near the surface almost throughout
THE VILLAGE REVEL 41
the county, an oak tree does not have the chance there
that it does in the Eastern counties, where it may
burrow for a mile in depth without touching stone.
Moreover, situated as the county is between two
seas, it is windblown, and the trees are disposed to
bend away from the prevailing south-westerly and
westerly gales. But if trees do not attain the size
they do elsewhere, they are very numerous, and the
county is well wooded. Its rocks and its lanes are
the homes of the most beautiful ferns that grow with
luxuriance, and in winter the moors are tinted rainbow
colours with the mosses. The flora is varied with the
soil. What thrives on the red land perishes on the cold
clay ; the harebell, which loves the limestone, will not
live on the granite, and does not affect the schist.
The botanist may consult Miss Helen Saunders'
" Botanical Notes " in the Transactions of the Devo7i-
shire Association; Miss Chaunters' Ferny Combes; and
the appendix to Mr. Rowe's Dartmoor,
The village revel was till twenty years ago a great
institution, and a happy though not harmless one.
But it has died out, and it is now sometimes difficult
to ascertain, and then only from old people, the days
of the revel in the several villages. In some parishes,
however, the clergy have endeavoured to give a better
tone to the old revel, which was discredited by
drunkenness and riot, and their efforts have not
been unsuccessful. The clubs march to church on
that day, and a service is given to them.
One of the most curious revels was that at
Kingsteignton, where a ram was hunted, killed,
roasted, and eaten. The parson there once asked
42 VILLAGES AND CHURCHES
a lad in Sunday School, " How many Command-
ments are there ? " " Three, sir," was the prompt
reply ; " Easter, Whitsuntide, and the Revel."
Another, where a sheep was devoured after having
been roasted whole, was at Holne. At Morchard, the
standing dish at farmhouses on Revel day was a
" pestle pie," which consisted of a raised paste, kept
in oval shape by means of iron hoops during the
process of baking, being too large to be made in
a dish. It contained all kinds of meat : a ham, a
tongue, whole poultry and whole game, which had
been previously cooked and well seasoned.
The revel, held on the reveil or wake of the saint
of the parish, was a relic of one of the earliest insti-
tutions of the Celts. It was anciently always held
in the cemetery, and was attended by funeral rites in
commemoration of the dead. This was followed by
a fair, and by a deliberative assembly of the clan, or
subdivision of a clan, of which the cemetery was the
tribal centre. It was the dying request of an old
Celtic queen that her husband would institute a fair
above her grave.
CHAPTER III.
HONITON
One long street — The debatable ground — Derivation of the name —
Configuration of the East Devon border — Axminster — The Battle
of Brunnaburgh — S. Margaret's Hospital — Old camps — S. Michael's
Church— Colyton — Little Chokebone — Sir George Yonge — Honiton
lace — Pillow-lace — Modern design — Ring in the Mere — Dunkeswell.
THIS town," said Sir William Pole in 1630, "is
near three-quarters of a mile in length, lying
East and West, and in the midst there is one other
street towards the South." The description applies
to-day, except only that the town has stretched itself
during two hundred and eighty years to one mile
in place of three-quarters. A quarter of a mile in
about three centuries, which shows that Honiton is
not a place that stands still.
It is, in fact, a collection of country cottages that
have run to the roadside to see the coaches from
London go by, and to offer the passengers enter-
tainment.
The coach-road occupies mainly the line of the
British highway, the Ikenild Street, a road that
furnished the chief means of access to the West, as
the vast marshes of the Parret made an approach to
the peninsula from the North difficult and dangerous.
43
44 HONITON
And the manner in which every prominent height
has been fortified shows that the whole eastern
boundary of the county has been a debated and
fiercely contested land, into which invaders thrust
themselves, but from which they were hurled back.
Honiton is on the Otter (jy dwr, W. the Water)
a name that we find farther west in the Attery, that
flows into the Tamar. Honiton does not derive from
" honey," flowing with milk and honey though the
land may be, but from the Celtic hen (old), softened
in a way general in the West into hena before a hard
consonant.
We have the same appellative in Hennacott,
Honeychurch, and Honeydykes, also in Hembury,
properly Henbury, and in Hemyock. Perhaps the old
West Welsh name for the place was Dunhen, or
Hennadun, which the Saxons altered into Henna-
tun or Honeyton.
The singular configuration of the eastern confines
of Devon and Dorset has been ingeniously explained.
Till 1832 the two parishes of Stockland and Dal-
wood belonged to the county of Dorset, although
surrounded entirely by Devon. In 710 a great battle
was fought by Ina, King of the West Saxons, against
Geraint, King of the Dumnonii, the West Welsh, on
the Black Down Hills, when Geraint was defeated
and fled. Then Ina built Taunton, and made it
a border fortress to keep the Britons in check.
Simultaneously, there can be little doubt, the men
of Dorset took advantage of the situation, made an
inroad and secured a large slice of territory, possibly
up to the Otter.
AXMINSTER 45
Ina was succeeded by inert princes, or such as had
their hands engaged elsewhere, and the Devonians
thrust themselves forward, retook Taunton, and
advanced their borders to where they had been
before 710.
It has been supposed that on this occasion they
were unable to dispossess the Dorset men from their
well-fortified positions at Stockland and Dalwood,
but swept round them and captured the two camps
of Membury and Musbury. The possession of these
fortresses would thrust back the Dorset frontier for
some miles to the east of the Axe. So matters
would remain for a considerable period, such as
allowed the boundaries to become settled ; and when
the final subjugation of Devon took place, this tract
to the east of the Axe remained as part of the
lands of the Defnas, while the Dorsaetas retained
the islet which they had so long and so successfully
defended. It was not till eleven hundred and twenty
years had elapsed that the Devon folk could recover
these points.*
Axminster was the scene of a great battle in the
reign of Athelstan, in which five kings and seven
earls fell. The minster, as a monastic colony, had
been in existence before that, but Athelstan now
endowed a college there for six priests to pray for
the souls of those who fell in the battle.
Now, what battle can that have been? In the
register of Newnham Abbey is a statement made in
the reign of Edward III., that the battle took place
* Davidson, "The Saxon Conquest of Devonshire," in the Trans-
actions of the Devonshire Association^ 1877.
46 HONITON
" at Munt S. Calyxt en Devansyr," and that it ended
at Colecroft under Axminster. S. Calyxt is now
Coaxdon.
The only great battle that answers to the descrip-
tion was that of Brunanburgh, fought in 937.
It was fought between Athelstan and the Ethelings,
Edmund, Elwin and Ethelwin, on one side, and Anlaf
the Dane, from Ireland, united with Constantine, the
Scottish king, on the other. It is this latter point
which has made modern historians suppose that the
conflict took place somewhere in the North.
But, on the other hand, there are grave reasons for
placing it at Axminster.
First, we know of no other battle that answers the
description. Then, during the night before it, the
Bishop of Sherborne arrived at the head of a con-
tingent The two younger Ethelings who fell were
transported to Malmesbury to be buried ; clearly
because it was the nearest great monastery. And
it seems most improbable that Athelstan should have
endowed Axminster that prayers might there be
offered for those who fell in the battle, if Brunan-
burgh were in Northumberland. The difficulty about
Constantine may thus be solved. Constantine had
been expelled his kingdom by Athelstan, and had
taken refuge in Ireland. He had, indeed, been
restored, but when he resolved on revolt, he may
have gone to Dublin to Anlaf, and have concerted
with him an attack on the South, where the assist-
ance of the Britons in Devon and Cornwall might
be reckoned on, whilst the North British would rise,
and the Welsh descend from their mountains.
ANLAF THE DANE 47
The story of the battle is this, as given by William
of Malmesbury.
The Danes from Dublin, together with Constantine
and a party of Scots (Irish), came by sea, and fell
upon England. Athelstan and his brother marched
against them. Just before the battle Anlaf, de-
sirous of knowing the disposition of the English
forces, entered the camp in the garb of a gleeman,
harp in hand. He sang and played before Athelstan
and the rest, and they did not recognise him. As
they were pleased with his song, they gave him
a largess of gold. He took the money, but as he
left the camp, he put it under the earth, as it did not
behove a king to receive hire. This was observed
by a soldier, who at once went to Athelstan and in-
formed him of it. The king said angrily, " Why did
you not at once arrest him and deliver him into my
hands?" "My lord king," answered the man, "I
was formerly with Anlaf, and I took oath of fidelity
to him. Had I broken that, would you have trusted
me? Take my advice, O king, and shift your
quarters."
This was good advice, and Athelstan acted on it,
but scarcely had he shifted his quarters than Werstan,
Bishop of Sherborne, arrived, and he took up the
ground vacated by the king.
During the night Anlaf made an attack and broke
through the stockade, and directed his course towards
the king's tent. There he fell on and killed the
bishop, and massacred the Sherborne contingent.
The tumult roused the king, and the fight became
general, and raged till day. Great numbers fell on
48 HONITON
both sides, but in the end Anlaf was defeated, and
fled to his ships. The only trace of the name
Brunanburgh is in Brinnacombe, under the height
whereon traditionally the fight raged ; and Membury
may be the place where the king was fortified. The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle calls the place Brumby : B
and M are permutable letters.
Honiton has not many relics of antiquity about it.
Repeated fires have destroyed the old houses ; the
High Street still retains its runnel, confined within
a conduit, with square dipping-places at frequent
intervals. The street runs straight down hill to the
bridge and across the Giseage, and up again on
the road towards Exeter. The town is completely
surrounded by toll-gates ; the tolls collected do not
go to pay for the maintenance of the roads, but to
defray a debt incurred by removing buildings, in-
cluding the ancient shambles, from the middle of
the street early in the century. This accounts for
the street being particularly wide.
The Dolphin, the principal inn, is supposed to
still possess some portion of the ancient building
once belonging to the Courtenays, whose cognisance
is the inn sign.
S. Margaret's Hospital is one of the points of
interest, and is picturesquely pretty. It was intended
as a leper hospital, but is now used as almshouses.
It was built and endowed by Dr. Thomas Chard,
the last abbot of Ford.
One thing no visitor should fail to see, and that
is the superb view from Honiton Hill. It commands
the valley of the Otter, with the town beneath, and
S. MICHAEL'S CHURCH 49
the old earthworks of Hembury Fort, Buckerell Knap,
and Dumpdon towering above. The flat -topped
hills and the peculiar scarps are due to the forma-
tion being greensand. These scarps may be
observed in process of shaping at the head of every
combe. The church of S. Paul in the town is
modern and uninteresting. It occupies the site of
an old chapel of All Hallows. The parish church
is S. Michael's on the hill, and this contains points
of interest. The fifteenth-century screen is of carved
oak, and stretches across nave and both aisles. The
church was formerly cruciform, but north and south
aisles were added to nave and chancel. Probably
it formerly had a central tower. Four carved beams
now support the roof where the tower should be, and
bear sculptured bosses, representing an angel, a bishop,
a priest, and a man in armour. Two finely carved
capitals in the chancel carry the sentence, " Pray for
ye souls of John Takel and Jone his wyffe." They
were liberal benefactors to the church and the town.
The view from the churchyard is magnificent.
On a suitable day Cosdon Beacon on Dartmoor is
visible. A row of cypresses in the churchyard was
transplanted from the garden of Sir James Shepperd
(d. 1730).
In old times the parsons of Honiton were supposed
to have been addicted to field sports, perhaps unfairly,
just as one hunting abbot gave a bad name to all
the abbots of Tavistock. Barclay, in his Ship of
Fools, says : —
" For if any can flatter and beare a hawke on his fist,
He shall be made parson of Honington or of Clist."
E
50 HONITON
There is much deserving of visit within reach of
Honiton, Colyton with its fine church, and the tomb
of '' Little Chokebone," a good monument, long
supposed to be that of Margaret, daughter of
William, Earl of Devon, and Katherine his wife,
seventh daughter of Edward IV., who was supposed
to have been choked by a fish-bone in 15 12. But
there is evidence that the lady lived long after the
date of her presumed death. What also tells fatally
against the identification is that the arms of
Courtenay are impaled with the royal arms, sur-
rounded by the bordering componee, the well-known
token of bastardy. Now this belonged to the
Beauforts, and the tomb is either that of Margaret
Beaufort, wife of Thomas, first Earl of Devon, of
that name, or else of one of their daughters.
Of Colcombe House, the great Courtenay, and then
the Pole seat, but a fragment remains. At Colyton is
the Great House, a fine old building, once the residence
of the Yonges. The last of the family, Sir George
Yonge, was wont to say that he came in for ;^8o,ooo
family property, received as much as his wife's
jointure, obtained a similar sum in the Government
offices he enjoyed, but that Honiton had " swallowed
it all " in election expenses. And when he stood for
the last time there, in embarrassed circumstances ;
because he could not bribe as heavily as formerly,
one of the burgesses spat in his face. He died in
18 1 2, aged eighty, a pensioner in Hampton Court,
and his body was brought down very privately to
Colyton from fear of arrest for debt. Another old
house is Sand, the seat of the Huyshe family.
HONITON LACE
HONITON LACE 51
Honlton has become famous for its lace, although
actually the manufacture does not take place to any
considerable extent in the town, but in villages, as
Beer, Branscombe, Ottery, etc.
In the beginning of the sixteenth century Honiton
was a centre of a flourishing trade in bone-lace, but
how it was introduced is very uncertain. It has been
supposed, but not proved, that Flemish refugees came
to Honiton and introduced the art, but one does not
quite see why they should have come so far. There
is an inscription on a tombstone in Honiton church-
yard to James Rodge, bone -lace seller, who died
July 27th, 1 61 7, and bequeathed to the poor of the
parish the benefit of a hundred pounds. A similar
bequest was made in the same year by Mrs. Minifie,
a lace maker, so that both lace dealer and maker
may have carried on their business for thirty years
before they died.
In the latter part of James I.'s reign Honiton
lace is frequently mentioned by contemporary writers.
Westcote, in his View of Devon, 1620, says, " At
Axminster you may be furnished with fine flax-thread
there spunne. At Hemington and Bradnich with
bone-laces now greatly in request." Acts were passed
under Charles I. for the protection of the bone-lace
makers, "prohibiting foreign purles, cut works, and
bone-laces, or any commodities laced or edged there-
with;" and these benefited especially the Devonshire
workers, their goods being close imitations of the
much-coveted Flemish pillow-laces.
Pillow-lace was preceded in England, as else-
where, by darned netting and cut-work, A fine
52 HONITON
example of the ancient English net embroidery may-
be seen on the monument, in Exeter Cathedral, of
Bishop Stafford, who died in 1398.
The pillow was introduced in the early part of
Elizabeth's reign, and at first coarse thread-laces of
geometrical design were worked on to it. Plaited
and embroidered edgings, or purles, for the ruff,
worked in silk, gold and silver wire, or thread came
next, and formed the staple article during the first
half of the seventeenth century. The patterns were
imitated from Italian cut- work and reticella, with some
marked peculiarities of workmanship and detail, such
as the introduction of stars, wheels, and triangles,
which are only found on English laces. The sculptor
of Lady Pole's monument in Colyton Church (1623),
evidently copied the bone-lace on her cape from a
specimen of Devonshire make, and equally character-
istic of the ancient patterns of the county is the
probably plaited lace on a tucker and cuffs that
adorn the effigy of Lady Doddridge in Exeter
Cathedral (1614). Illustrations of these interesting
examples of early Devonshire workmanship are given
in Mrs. Palliser's " History of Lace." *
There is another very fine specimen in Combe
Martin Church, the effigy of Judith Hancock (1637).
The figure is life-size, and the dress is covered with
point-lace and looped with points of ribbon.
The reason of the coarseness of early lace was
that pins were rare and fetched a high price, and
the humble workers in cottages employed fish-bones
* "Antique and Modern Lace," in the Queetiy 1874. The last
chapter is devoted to Honiton Lace.
HONITON LACE 53
about which to twist their threads, stuck into the
parchment in the shape of the pattern. The bobbins
were made of " sheeps' trotters." It is now very diffi-
cult to procure specimens of this fishbone-lace.
The lace produced by James Rodge and his con-
temporaries had large flowing guipure patterns,
united by bride picotees, the latter worked in with
the Brussels ground. Brides are the small stripes
or connection of threads overcast with stitches which
bind the sprigs together. The English lace-makers
could not make this exquisite stitch with the thread
that England produced, and the thread was brought
from Antwerp. At the end of last century it cost
from £^0 to £100 per pound. Old Brussels lace was
made on pillows, while the modern Brussels is worked
with needles.
The visitor to Honiton, Beer, or any village
around may see lace - making on pillows. The
women have round or oval boards, stuffed so as to
form a cushion, and placed on the knees of the
worker : a piece of parchment is fixed over the pillow,
with the pattern drawn on it ; into this the pins are
stuck through holes marked for the purpose. Often as
many as four hundred bobbins are employed at a time
on a pillow. Many of the " bobbins " and " turns " to
be seen in Devonshire cottages are very old : the
most ancient are inlaid with silver. On some, dates
are carved, such as 1678 or 1729. On some. Christian
names are cut, such as John and Nicholas ; probably
those of the sweethearts of the girls who used them.
Jingles, or strings of glass beads, may be seen hang-
ing to them, with a button at the end, which came
54 HONITON
from the waistcoat of the John or the Nicholas who
had given the bobbin as a keepsake. What life-stories
some of these old bobbins could tell ! *
Children began to make lace as early as four years
old ; indeed, unless early trained to the work their
hands never acquire deftness. Board schools and
compulsory education are destroying the ability to
work as of old, as well as too often killing the desire
for work in the hearts of the children.
Boys and girls were formerly taught alike, and in
some of the seaside villages fishermen took up their
pillows for lace-making when ashore.
Guipure a bride and scalloped-border laces in the
Louis XIV. style were followed by laces grounded
with Brussels vraie reseau. In the working of the
latter, Devonshire hands were decidedly superior
to their Continental rivals. This beautiful ground,
which sold at the rate of a shilling the square
inch, was either worked in on the pillow after
the pattern had been finished, or used as a sub-
stratum for lace strips to be sewn on. The detached
bouquets of the Rococo period, and the Mechlin style
of design towards the end of last century, eminently
suited the Devon lace-workers, as dividing the labour.
Each individual hand could be entrusted with the
execution of a floral design, which was repeated
mechanically. The superior finish of the Honiton
sprigs between 1790 and 181 5 was mainly due to
this, but it was fatal to all development of the
artistic faculty and to general deftness. During this
period Honiton produced the finest laces in Europe.
* The Devon and Exeter Gazette, December 31st, 1885.
HONITON LACE 55
What greatly conduced to the improvement of
Honiton lace was the arrival of Normandy refugees
at the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1793.
The Normans were quicker and sharper than the
Devon workers, and they stirred them up to great
advance in their work. They taught them to make
trolly lace, which is worked round the pillow instead
of on it ; and through their example the Devonshire
women gave up the slovenly habit of working the
ground into which they had slipped, and returned
to the old double-threaded reseau, or ground like the
old Flemish, the flowers worked into the ground
with the pillow, instead of being applique.
Honiton lace made in proper fashion with sprigs was
formerly paid for by covering the work with shillings.
There is a curious notice of Honiton lace in a note
by Dr. James Yonge ; who " was again at Honiton,
April 23rd, 1702," and witnessed the rejoicings in cele-
bration of the coronation of Queen Anne.
"Saw a very pretty procession of three hundred girls
in good order, two and two march with three women
drummers beating, and a guard of twenty young men on
horseback. Each of the females had a white rod in her
hand, on the top of which was a tossil made of white and
bleu ribband (which they said was the Queen's coleurs)
and bone-lace, the great manufacture. Then they had
wandered about the town from ten in the morning [it was
eight in the evening when he saw them] huzzaing every
now and then, and then wearing their rodds. Then they
returned at nine, and then break up very weary and
hungary."*
* Quoted in "Some Seventeenth Century Topography," Western
Morning News ^ May 9th, 1876.
56 HONITON
Taste declined during the latter part of last
century, and some of the designs of Honiton lace
were truly barbarous — frying-pans, snails, drumsticks,
and stiff flowers. But there were always some who
did better. At the beginning of this century all
taste was bad. Bald imitations of nature prevailed,
without any regard to the exigencies of art. Roses
and other flowers were worked in perspective ; it was
thought sufficient to servilely copy nature and leave
grouping to chance.
Queen Adelaide had a dress made of Honiton
lace. By her desire all the flowers were copied from
nature, and the first letter of each spelt her name.
Amaranth.
Daphne.
Eglantine.
Lilac.
Auricula.
Ivy.
Dahlia.
Eglantine.
The present Queen also had her wedding-dress
of Honiton lace, and it cost a thousand pounds.
Unhappily, design sank very low. Perhaps the
lowest stage of degradation in design was reached
in 1867, when a Honiton lace shawl sent to the Paris
Exhibition from Exeter received a prize and com-
mendation. Nothing can be conceived worse. That it
should have been rewarded with a medal shows
that either the judges pardoned the ineptitude in
design for the sake of the excellence of the work,
or else that they themselves stood on the same level
HONITON LACE 57
of artistic incompetence which then prevailed. Since
then, happily, design has been more studied. There
is still a good deal of very sorry stuff produced —
as far as artistic design is concerned — but at the
same time there is much faithful copying of good
antique work. All old work is not good ; there were
bad artists in the past, but the general taste was
better than it is now. I was once in the shop of
one of our foremost furniture dealers and decorators
in town, when a young married couple came in to
choose curtains and carpets for their new home. I
had been talking with the head of the establishment
about artistic furniture, and he had shown me carpets,
curtains, and wall-papers, such as no designer in
the fifteenth, sixteenth, or seventeenth centuries
would have blushed to produce. The young couple
passed all these samples by — blind to their merits,
and pounced on and chose some atrocious stuff, bad
in colour and bad in art. When they were gone, the
proprietor turned to me : " You see," he said, " the
public is still uncultivated ; we are forced to keep
rubbish in our trade to satisfy those whose taste
does not rise above rubbish." Now it is the same
with regard to lace. There is badly designed lace
as well as that which is as good as anything drawn
by a great master in the past. Let the public eye
be discerning to choose the good and reject the evil,
and then the poor lace-workers will not be set to
produce stuff that never ought to have time, labour,
eyesight devoted to it.
There are some trades that are hurtful to those
employed in them. The lace-making by machinery
at Nottingham is said to induce decline.
58 HONITON
The following letter I have received on \he subject
of the Honiton lace-workers : —
"They are most certainly not a short-lived lot — until
within the last eight or nine years Mrs. Colley was the
youngest worker I knew, and she is fifty-one; Mrs.
Raymond is sixty-four. There are a good many over
sixty, and several still at work over seventy. I have never
had cases of decline come under my notice, and if there
was any I must have known it. Until the fresh impetus
was given to the trade by exhibitions, the younger
workers stopped learning, and there was no school, so
that the trade depended on the old ones, and all have
to commence the work from five to seven years of age.
I think it may fairly be assumed to be at any rate not
injurious to health, and judging from the age to which
they continue to work, not to the sight either."
Thus the buyers of lace can do It with a safe
conscience.
There is a woman's name associated with Devon,
who was a great landed proprietress and an heiress,
and this was Isabella de Fortibus. She was sister
of Baldwin, Earl of Devon, a De Redvers, and on
his death, without issue, she inherited the splendid
estates of the earls of Devon, and became Countess
of Devon in her own right. She, however, also died
without issue in 1292.
On Farway Common, near Honiton, three parishes
meet, and there were incessant disputes as to the
boundary. Isabella decided it thus. She flung her
ring into the air, and where it fell that was to be the
point of junction for Gittisham, Farway, and Honiton.
The spot is still called " Ring-in-the-Mere." Such
at least is the local legend accounting for the name.
OLD MANSIONS 59
In the neighbourhood of Honiton are the ruins
of Dunkeswell Abbey, but they are reduced to a
gateway only. It belongs to Mrs. Simcoe, of Walford
Lodge, Dunkeswell, a handsome house built about the
end of last century by General Simcoe, famous in
the American Revolution as the commander of Sim-
coe's Rangers. He was Governor of San Domingo at
the time of the insurrection, and afterwards Governor-
General of Canada. Mrs. Simcoe possesses interesting
relics connected with him, as well as Napoleonic relics
that belonged to her father, Lieut-General Jackson,
aide-de-camp to Sir Hudson Lowe at St. Helena.
Mohuns-Ottery, once a great seat of the Carews,
was burnt down in the beginning of this century, and
all that remains of the mansion are three arches.
The Grange, Broadhembury, has been more fortunate ;
it has a magnificent oak-panelled room, with ghost
stories attached, and there are those alive who declare
that they have seen the ghost. The church possesses,
among other points of interest, a curious window
with projecting corbels that represent the spirits
of the good in happiness within, and the spirits of
the bad without in discomfort — not to put too fine
a point on it, as Mr. Snagsby would say.
There are several fine fortifications, as already said :
Dumpden, accessible only on foot, and Hembury are
the most important.
Books to be consulted : —
Rogers (W. H. H.), Memorials of the West. Exeter, 1888.
Farquharson (A.), The History of Honiton. Exeter, n.d.^ but
1868 {scarce.)
For the Axe Valley: PuLMAN (G. P. R.), The Book of the Axe.
London, 1875.
CHAPTER IV.
A LANDSLIP
The chalk beds on sand — The subsidence of 1839 — The great chasm-
Present conditions — The White Cliff — Beer quarries — ^Jack Ratten-
bury.
THERE are a good many more curious things to
be seen in England than is generally supposed,
if we will but go out of the highways to look for
them. Certainly one of the most extraordinary and
impressive is the great landslip between the mouth
of the Axe and Lyme Regis ; one which even
extended further west beyond the estuary. On this
bit of coast, where Devonshire passes into Dorset,
the cliff scenery is very fine. The White Cliff is a
magnificent headland that possesses the peculiarity
of appearing to lean over preparing to slide into the
waves, owing to the inclination of the varicoloured
strata of which it is composed. To understand the
phenomenon which occasioned the subsidence of a
whole tract of coast with the alteration of the coast-
line, something must be said of the cause of the
catastrophe. The chalk bed striped with lines of
glistening black flints is superposed upon a bed of
what is locally termed fox earth, a bed of gravel or
sand that intervenes between it and the clay beneath.
60
A LANDSLIP 6i
Now the rain that falls on the chalk downs infiltrates
and, reaching the sand and unable to sink through .
the clay, breaks out in land springs.
But where the chalk cliffs start sheer out of the
sea, there the springs ooze into the sea itself, and,
dissolving the texture of the sandy bed, resolve it
into a quicksand, liable at the time of great floods
to be washed out from under the superincumbent
chalk. Should this take place, there is no help for
it, but down the chalk bed must go. If you were
lying on a bed, and the mattress under your feather
bed were pulled away, you would descend, sinking
to a depth equivalent to the thickness of the sub-
tracted mattress. That is plain enough.
Now all along the coast to the east of Lyme Regis
there is an undercliff — evident tokens of a subsidence
of this description which has taken place at some
time. When this undercliff has been eaten up by
the sea, and a fresh face of crag exposed, then again
there will occur a displacement, a pulling out of the
mattress, and down will go the chalk above with
all the houses and fields upon it. But the sea has
not as yet done more than nibble at this undercliff.
It was not quite so to the west of Lyme. There
sheer cliffs of glistening white rose above the pebbly
shore, so abruptly and with such slight undulations,
that several miles ensued before it was possible for
those on the height to descend to the beach.
Naturally, where the rain-water percolated through
the chalk it formed no valleys with streams.
Thus the cliffs stood — for no one knows how long
— till the end of December, 1839.
62 A LANDSLIP
Previous symptoms of the approaching convulsion
were not altogether wanting. Cracks had been ob-
served for more than a week opening along the brow
of the Downs, but they were not sufficiently remark-
able to attract much attention, as such fissures are by
no means uncommon on this bit of coast. However,
about midnight of December 24th, the labourers of
Mr. Chappel, the farmer who occupied Dowlands
(about a quarter of a mile inland from the brow of
the cliff, and over half a mile from the nearest points
of the approaching convulsion) were returning from a
supper given them by their employer, whereat the
ashen faggot had been burnt according to custom,
and were making their way to their cottages, situated
near the cliff. Then they noticed that a crack which
crossed their path, and which they had observed on
their way to the Christmas Eve supper, had widened,
and that the land beyond had sunk slightly. Never-
theless they did not consider the matter of great
importance, and they went to their homes and to
bed. About four o'clock in the morning they were
roused by their houses reeling, by the concrete floors
bursting and gaping, and the walls being rent. They
started from their beds in great alarm, and about six
o'clock arrived at the farm to rouse their master ; they
had found their escape nearly cut off, as the crack had
widened and the land on the sea side had sunk con-
siderably, so that they had, with their wives and
children, to scramble up — and that with difficulty,
and, in the darkness, with no little danger.
Happily all escaped in time.
During Christmas Day there was no great change ;
A CHASM 63
parties of the coastguard were stationed on the Downs
throughout the ensuing night to watch what would
happen.
About midnight a great fissure began to form which
ran in almost a direct line for three-quarters of a mile.
This fissure rapidly widened to 300 feet, descending,
as it seemed at first, into the very bowels of the earth,
but as the sides fell in it finally was choked at a depth
of 1 50 feet.
One James Robertson and a companion were at
that hour crossing the fields which then extended
over this tract, and stumbled across a slight ridge of
gravel, which at first they thought must have been
made by some boys, but one of them stepping on to
it, down sank his leg, and his companion had to pull
him out of a yawning chasm. Next moment they
saw that the whole surface of turf was starred and
splitting in all directions, and they fled for their lives.
The sound of the rending of the rocks they described
as being much like that of the tearing of cloth or
flannel. Two other members of the coastguard, who
were stationed on the beach, now saw something
begin to rise out of the sea like the back of a
gigantic whale ; at the same time the shore of
shingles on which they stood lifted and fell, like the
heaving of a breast in sleep. The water was thrown
into violent agitation, foaming and spouting, and
great volumes of mud rushed up from below. The
great back rose higher and ever higher, and extended
further till at last it formed a huge reef at a little
distance from the beach. This ridge was composed
of the more solid matter, chert and other pebbles,
64 A LANDSLIP
that had been in the sand under the chalk, and which
by the sinking of the chalk was squeezed out like so
much dough. It remained as a reef for some years,
but has now totally disappeared, having been carried
away by the waves.
As the great chasm was formed, the masses from
the sides falling in were, as it were, mumbled and
chewed up in the depths, and to the eyes of the
frightened spectators sent forth flashes of light ; they
also supposed that an intolerable stench was emitted
from the abyss. But this was no more than the
odours given out by the violent attrition of the
cherty sandstone and chalk grinding against each
other as they descended.
Throughout the 26th the subsided masses of the
great chasm continued sinking, and the elevated reef
gradually rising ; but by the evening of that day
everything had settled very nearly into the position in
which it remains at present, although edges have since
lost their sharpness and minor rents have been choked.
A writer whose reminiscences have been recently
published describes briefly the aspect of the place
after the sinkage.
" I rode over to see this huge landslip. The greater part
of a farm had subsided a hundred feet or more. Hedges
and fields, with their crops of turnips, etc., were undisturbed
by the fall, and broken off sharply from the ground a hun-
dred feet above. There was a rather dislocated ridge on
the shore, which formed a sort of moraine to the slip. On
this part were some cottages twisted about, but still holding
together, and having their gardens and even their wells
attached ; yet the shock of the falling mass had been so
great as to cause the upheaval of an island off shore."
PRESENT STATE 65
The aspect of the landslip on the farms of Bindon,
Dowlands, Rousdon, and Pinhay at present is full of
interest and of picturesque beauty. Ivy has grown
luxuriantly and mantles the crags, elder bushes have
found the sunk masses of rock suitable to their
requirements, and in early summer the air is strong
with the scent of their trusses of flowers, and in
autumn the whole subsidence is hung with thousands
on ten thousands of shining black clusters of berries.
Above a sea of foliage the white cliffs shoot out in
the boldest fashion, and out of the gorge start horns,
pinnacles of chalk of the most fantastic description.
The whole is a labyrinth of chasms, not to be ven-
tured into with good clothing, as the brambles grow
in the wildest luxuriance and are clawed like the
paws of a panther. But, oh ! what blackberries may
be gathered there — large, sweet, luscious as mul-
berries. Moreover, the whole sunk region is a
paradise for birds of every description, and not a
step can be taken that does not disturb jackdaws,
magpies, warblers of every kind. One of the
cottages that went down has been rebuilt with the
old material. As already said, it descended at least
a hundred feet with its well. The well still flows
with water ; that, however, is not now marvellous —
how it was that it held water previously is the extra-
ordinary fact.
At the extremity of the landslip the visitor will
see that there is still movement going on, but on a
small scale — cracks are still forming and extending
through the turf It may be safely said that the
landslip between the mouth of the Axe and Lyme
F
66 A LANDSLIP
Regis is one of the most interesting and picturesque
scenes to be found in England.
There is a good deal more in the neighbourhood
to be seen than the landslip at Rousdon and Pinhay.
If the cliffs be explored to the west of the mouth
of the Axe, they will be found to well repay the
visit. The splendid crag of the White Cliff towers
above the sea, showing the slanting beds of the
cherty matter below the dazzling white of the chalk,
and from their inclination giving to the whole cliff
an appearance of lurching into the waves. Beyond
this is Beer, a narrow cleft in the hills, in which are
fishermen's cottages, many of them very picturesque,
and above them rises a really excellently designed
modern church.
A walk up the valley leads to the famous Beer
quarries that have been worked for centuries. This
splendid building- stone lies below the chalk with
flints. There are eight beds, forming a thickness
of twelve feet four inches, resting on a hard, white,
calcareous rock five or six feet thick, which reposes
in turn on sandstones. There is very little waste
from these quarries, which are carried on under-
ground ; and all that is seen of them are the yawning
portals in a face of white cliff. But a shout at the
entrance will summon a workman, who will conduct
the visitor through the labyrinth underground. The
roof is sustained by large square pillars formed by
portions of the workable beds left standing.
The stone is nearly white, and chiefly composed
of carbonate of lime, with the addition of some
argillaceous and silicious matter, and a few scattered
BEER e^
particles of green silicate of iron. When first quar-
ried this stone is somewhat soft, and is easily worked,
but it rapidly hardens on exposure.
Opposite the new quarry are the mounds that
mark the site of the old quarry, from which the
stone was extracted for Exeter Cathedral. The
subterranean passages there are now blocked, but
during the time of the European war they were
much used by smugglers, who abounded in Beer.
The Memoirs of Jack Rattenbury, the most notorious
of these, were published at Sidmouth in 1837, but
are not of conspicuous interest. Beer Head has
suffered from landslips, and is broken into spires
of rock in consequence.
Books on the Landslip, and on Seaton : —
CONYBEARE and Dawson, Memoir and Views of Landslips on the
Coast of East Devon, 1840. A very scarce work.
Hutchinson (P. O.), Guide to the Landslip near Axnionth, Sid-
mouth, 1840.
Davidson (J. B.), "Seaton before the Conquest," in Transactions
of Devonshire Association, 1885.
MuMFORD (G. F.), Seaton, Beer, and Neighbourhood. Yeovil, n.d.
CHAPTER V.
EXETER
The river Exe — Roman roads — The Saxons in Devon and Exeter —
Saxon and British Exeter — The Battle of Gavulford — S. Boniface
at Exeter — His persecution of Celtic missionaries — S. Sidwell —
Bishop's seat transferred to Exeter — S. Olave's Church — The
Cathedral — Its merits and demerits — Ottery S. Mary — Excursions
from Exeter — Fingle Bridge — Fulford — Ecclesiological excursions.
EXETER, the Isca Dumnoniorum of the Romans,
was the Celtic Caer Wise ; that is to say, the
caer or fortress on the Usk. The river-name has
become Exe ; it derives from the Celtic word which
signifies water, and which we have in whiskey and
Usquebaugh, i.e. fire-water.
The same word has become also Ock. Thus the
Ockment River at Okehampton, a few miles down,
becomes the Exe, at Exbourne ; and a tributary of
the Exe is the Oke, that flows into it near Hampton.
There have been but few Roman remains found in
Exeter, and it can never have been an important
settlement. Several Roman roads converge on it
and radiate from it.
The great Fosseway, that ran from Lincoln through
Leicester, reached it. It struck from Honiton,
by Rockbeare and Clyst Honiton, and shows its
68
ROMAN ROADS 69
antiquity by being the bounds of Broadclyst and
Rockbeare, Sowton and Pinhoe parishes. It entered
Exeter by Heavitree. Another Roman road from
Lyme Regis enters Exeter by Wonford, where it
joins the Fosseway. This road also proclaims its
high antiquity by being a parish boundary. From
Exeter an ancient road ran direct for Launceston :
it is called in places the Old Street. It branched at
Okehampton, and a road ran thence to Stratton, in
Cornwall.
The Fosseway continued to Moreton Hampstead,
and crossed Dartmoor, where it has served as the
equator of that desolate region ; all above it is
esteemed the northern half, all below the southern
half of Dartmoor. Further it has not been traced.
Another road, the Ridgeway, ran from Exeter to
Totnes, and thence has been followed to Plympton
Castle.
Whether these roads proceeded far in Cornwall can-
not now be determined.
That these ways were possibly pre-Roman, but
improved by the conquerors of the world, is probable.
Hard by the roadside at Okehampton, in 1898, was
found a hoard of the smallest Roman coins, all of
the reign of Constantine the Great. It had probably
formed the store of a beggar who " sat by the way-
side begging." He hid it under a rock, and probably
died without having removed it. About 200 coins
were found, all dating from between A.D. 320 and 330.
The Saxons must have crept in without violent
invasion, across the Axe, rather than through the
gaps in the Black Down and Exmoor — for to the
70 EXETER
north, as already said, the vast morasses were a
hindrance — and have established themselves without
violent opposition by the riversides. Their manner
of life was unlike that of the Britons. The latter
clung to the open highlands, their Gwents as they
called them, clear of trees, breezy downs ; whereas
the Saxons, accustomed to forests, made their stock-
ades in the flat hams and ings by the rivers, in
woi'tks and on hangers.
Very probably the Dumnonii suffered their in-
trusion with reluctance, but they did not venture
on forcible resistance, lest they should bring down
on themselves the vengeance of Wessex.
When, however, the Saxons had established them-
selves in sufficient numbers, they had their head-
quarters in Exeter; but there they did not amalgamate
with the natives. The Saxon town was quite apart
from that occupied by the Britons, or West Welsh, as
they called our Dumnonians. That part of Exeter
which contains dedications to Celtic saints was the
British town, as was also Heavitree,* with its daugh-
ter churches of S. Sidwell and S. David ; but the
Saxons occupied where now stands the Cathedral ;
and each settlement was governed by its own laws.
It was not till 823 that Egbert, by a decisive battle
at Gavulford {Gafi a holdfast, and ffordd a road),
established Saxon supremacy. He apparently drove
the Devonshire Celts back along the Old Street, or
Roman road, past Okehampton, till they made a
* Names of places, as Heavitree, Langtree, Plymtree, take the
"tree" from the Welsh "tref," a farm or habitation. Heavitree is
Tre-hafod, the summer farm.
SAXONS IN DEVON 71
stand at Coombow {Cwni-bod^thQ habitation in a
combe). There the hills close in on the road on
both sides, and the way branched to Lydford. Com-
manding both roads is Galford Down ; there the
Britons threw up formidable entrenchments, or,
what is more probable, occupied an earlier camp
that remains intact to the present day. Here they
made a desperate stand, and were defeated ; after
which the king, Egbert, cast up a burgh beyond
the old dun^ which gives its second name to the
place, Burleigh, or Burgh-legh. The last relics of
the independence of the Dumnonian kingdom dis-
appeared after Athelstan's visit in 926 and 928. A
relic of this visit may be seen in Rougemont Castle,
Exeter, where the Anglo-Saxon work — notably some
herring-bone masonry, and windows rudely fashioned
without arches — remains.
A Saxon school had been established in Exeter
before A.D. 700, to which S. Boniface, or Wynfrith
as he was then called, had been sent. He was a
native of Crediton, then a Saxon stockaded settle-
ment, and over the palisades, as a boy, he had looked
with scorn and hatred at the native Britons occupying
the country. When he was in Exeter he, in like
manner, regarded the native Christians with loathing
as heretics, because they did not observe Easter on
the same day as himself, and perhaps with accentu-
ated hate, because he knew that they had possessed
Christian teachers and Christian privileges three
centuries before his own people had received the
Gospel. Perhaps also his German mind was offended
at the freshness, vivacity, and maybe as well the
72 EXETER
fickleness of purpose of the native Celt. This early
acquired aversion lasted through life, and when he
went into Germany and settled at Mainz, to posture
as an apostle, he was vexed to discover that Celtic
missionaries had preceded him and had worked
successfully among his Teutonic forefathers in their
old homes. Thenceforth he attacked, insulted, and
denounced them with implacable animosity, and did
his utmost to upset their missions and supplannt
them with his own. Virgilius, an Irishman, with a
fellow Paddy, Sidonius, was at Salzburg, and Virgilius
was bishop there. Boniface beat about for an excuse
to get rid of them both. He found that the bishop,
having discovered that one of his priests had been
accustomed to baptise using a bad Latin formula,
had acknowledged this man's baptisms as valid, for
the will was present : the fault was due to ignorance
of the Latin tongue. Boniface, hearing of this, laid
hold of it with enthusiasm, and denounced Virgilius
at Rome. Pope Boniface, however, took the side of
the Irishman against his over-zealous henchman.
Mortified at this rebuff, Boniface lay in wait to
find another excuse for ruining Virgilius. He ascer-
tained presently that the Irishman taught that the
earth was round, and that there was an antipodes
to those living in Germany. Now the Irish schools
were the most learned in Europe, and Irish saints
had sailed far into the west over the Atlantic : they
had formed their own opinions concerning the shape
of the world. Boniface wrote to the Pope to denounce
the doctrine of Virgilius as " perverse and unjust,
uttered against God and his own soul."
S. SIDWELL 73
This doctrine Pope Zacharias hastened to condemn
as heretical.* VirgiHus had to go to Rome to justify
his opinion before ignorant Latin ecclesiastics — with
what results we do not know.
Athelstan came to Exeter in 926, and drove out
the British inhabitants. He built towers and repaired
the old Roman walls ; he it was who founded the
monastery of SS. Mary and Peter, afterwards to be-
come the Cathedral ; and, we are told, he gave to
it relics of S. Sidwell. This was a local saint, of
whom very little is known, save that she was the
sister of Paul, who became abbot and bishop of
Leon, in Brittany. She had two sisters, Wulvella and
Jutwara, called also Jutwell and Eadware. Though
the names seem Saxon, they are corruptions of Celtic
originals. Wulvella became an abbess at Gulval,
near Penzance, where she entertained her brother as
he was on his way to Armorica. Sidwell is supposed
to have been a martyr, possibly to Saxon brutality,
but this is very uncertain, as her story has not been
preserved. She has as her symbols a scythe and a
well — " canting " symbols framed from her name.
Her brother Paul founded a church that still retains
his name, in the British portion of Exeter.
The bishop's seat had been at Crediton : the Saxon
* In my Lives of the Saints^ written in 1874, I accepted M.
Barthelemy's view, that Virgilius held that there were underground
folk, gnomes ; but I do not hold this now, knowing more than I
then did of the learning of the great Irish scholars, and of the
voyages made by the Irish. The earliest gloss on the Senchtis Mor
says, " God formed the firmament around the earth ; and the earth,
in the form of a perfectly round ball, was fixed in the midst of the
firmament." — I. p. 27.
74 EXETER
bishops did not like it. There were no walls there,
and the Danes made piratical excursions. So Bishop
Leofric induced Edward the Confessor to move the
seat to Exeter, and this was done by Edward in
person, in 1050.
In Fore Street is an odd misshapen little church,
S. Olave's. This was endowed by Gytha, sister of
Sweyn, the Danish king, and wife of Earl Godwin.
She was the mother of Harold. She is said to have
endowed it (1053) that prayer might be offered for
the soul of her husband, and in honour of Olaf, King
of Norway, who had fallen in battle in 1030. As
S. Olaf fought against the Danes, and it was through
the machinations of Canute that he came to his end,
it is hard to see how a Danish lady should have felt
any enthusiasm about Olaf, who was regarded as a
saint and martyr by the national Norwegian party,
which was bitterly opposed to the Danish. I suspect
that the church already existed, and was dedicated
to S. Gwynllyw of Gwent, who at Newport was
also converted into Olave, by the English-speaking
colonists. Both Gwynllyw and Olaf were kings, and
it is noticeable that S. Olave's Church is in the British
portion of Exeter. When William the Conqueror
arrived before the city, Gytha, who was within the
walls, escaped and took refuge in Flanders. William
gave the church, with her endowments, to Battle
Abbey. But I am not writing a history of Exeter.
For those who desire to learn its story in full, I must
refer them to the work of Mr. Freeman.
The Cathedral is disappointing, and that because
it is built, not of the warm, red sandstone that
BISHOP GRANDISSON 75
abounds In the neighbourhood, and is very good
building material, but of Beer stone, which is cold
and grey. It has another defect : it is too low ; but
this was determined by the towers. When it was
resolved to rebuild the Cathedral, it was decided to
preserve the Norman towers, employing them as
transepts. This settled the business. The church
could not be made lofty ; and on entering the western
doors the visitor is at once disappointed. He feels
a lack of breathing-space ; the vaulting depresses
him. The architectural details are not to be sur-
passed, but the whole effect is marred by the one
mistake made at the outstart. One cannot wish that
the towers had been removed, but one does regret that
they were allowed to determine the height of nave and
choir. The choir was begun by Bishop Quivil, in
1284, when also the great and incomparably beautiful
windows were inserted in the towers. The nave was
finished by Bishop Grandisson, in 1369, the year of
his death.
Grandisson was a friendof the detestable John XXII.,
one of the Avignon Popes ; and John appointed his
intimate to Exeter in total disregard to the rights of
the chapter to elect. He was consecrated at Avignon.
Hitherto almost all the bishops had been local men.
Grandisson was a man very Romanly inclined, and
appointed to a see that was redolent with Celtic
reminiscences. He did not relish these. Whenever
he had the chance of rededicating a church he en-
deavoured to substitute a patron from the Roman
calendar in place of the British founder. He drew
up a Legendarium, a book of Lessons on Saints'
76 EXETER
Feasts to be used in the Cathedral Church, and
ignored nearly every saint whose name was not
approved by admission into the Latin martyrology.
"The Church of Exeter is a remarkable case of one
general design being carried out through more than a
hundred years. It was fixed once for all what the new
Saint Peter's should be like, and it grew up after one
general pattern, but with a certain advance in detail as
the work went westward. Bishop Grandison, when the
church was about half built, said that when it was finished
it would surpass in beauty all churches of its own kind
in England and France. Whatever he meant by ^ genus
suuni^ the prediction was safely risked. As far as outline
and general effect goes, the Church of Exeter forms a class
by itself." — Freeman.
A more remarkable church than the Cathedral of
Exeter is that of Ottery S. Mary, also built by
Grandisson. It is, of course, not by any means so
large. It gave, perhaps, the original type to Exeter,
for there also the towers have been employed as
transepts, and was begun in the Early English style.
But there a stateliness and an originality of effect are
reached that Exeter cannot approach.
There the side aisles have but lancet windows, and
a flood of light pours down through the very original
clerestory lights. There is no east window. What
the general effect must have been before the levels
were wantonly altered at the " restoration " one can
now hardly surmise. But the church, in spite of this
and some odiously vulgar woodwork, is one of the
most striking in England, and perhaps the boldest
in originality of conception.
FULFORD HOUSE ^^
The Guildhall, in High Street, is a good example
of Elizabethan architecture, in bad stone.
A beautiful excursion may be made from Exeter
to Fingle Bridge,* on the Teign, where the river
winds between the hills densely wooded with coppice,
that close in on each other like the fangs of a rat-trap.
With this may be combined Shilstone cromlech, the
sole perfect specimen of the kind remaining in the
county, and once but a single member in a series of
very remarkable monuments.
The Teign is frowned down on by several strongly
fortified camps. Fingle should be seen when the
hills are clothed in flowering heather, as though rasp-
berry cream had been spilt over them. White heather
may be picked there.
Fulford House is a quadrangle in a sad state of
dilapidation ; originally of Tudor architecture, but
disfigured by bad alterations in the Prince Regent's
days, when cockney Gothic was in vogue. In the
house is a bad portrait of the " Royal Martyr," pre-
sented by Charles H., and one of "Red Ruin," a
spendthrift Fulford. In the hall is some superb
carved panelling, early Tudor.
Exeter may be made a centre for ecclesiological
excursions of no ordinary interest. Dunchideock
Church has a well-restored screen ; but by far the
richest carved oak rood-screen in the county is that
of Kenton, where also the pulpit is of incomparable
beauty. The carver employed thereon was a man
of no common talent, and the work is one of brilliant
* Ffin — limit, ^a/— the level land, i.e. in comparison with the Dart-
moor highlands.
78 EXETER
execution. There is much difference in the carving in
the county — some is common, mechanical ; that in the
Kenton screen and pulpit is of the very finest quality.
In the little church of S. Mary Steps, in Exeter,
may be seen a portion of the screen removed from
S. Mary Major when that monstrosity was erected.
At Plymtree the screen bears on it contemporary
portraits of Prince Arthur (son of Henry VII.) and
Cardinal Morton. That of Bradninch has on it paint-
ings of the Sibyls, the Doctors of the Church, and
the Legend of S. Francis.
Pinhoe was the scene of a great battle with the Danes
in 1 00 1. They had come up the Exe, and burned
Pinhoe, Broadclyst, and some of the neighbouring
villages. Levies in Devon and Somerset met them,
but were defeated with great slaughter. The church
contains a fine coloured screen with the vaulting-ribs
and gallery. The alms-box is curious : it represents
a serving-man supporting himself with a stick in one
hand, the other extended soliciting alms.
East Budleigh should be visited for its fine bench-
ends, some very curious ; one represents a cook
roasting a goose ; another a ship in full sail. Their
date is 1 5 34. There is a screen, but not of first quality.
Littleham, near Exmouth, has a good screen.
Screens are the features of Devonshire churches : a
church was built to contain one. Without it the
proportions are faulty.
Books on Exeter : —
Freeman (E. A.), Historic Towns : Exeter. 1895.
NoRTHY (T. J.), Popular History of Exeter. 1886,
Jenkins (A.), History of Exeter. 1841.
CHAPTER VI.
CREDITON
Red stone and red cob — Cob walls — The river Greedy — Birthplace of
S. Boniface — See of Crediton — The Church — Kirton. serge— Apple
orchards and cider-making — Francemass — Apple the basis of many
jams — Song of the apple trees — The picking of apples — "Griggles"
— Saluting the apple trees — The apple-crusher — Pomage— The
cider-press — Apple cheese — Cider -matching — Racking — Cider for
rheumatism — A Cornish cider song — ^John Davy — Seats near Credi-
ton — Elizabeth BuUer and Frances Tuckfield — The Coplestone —
The North Devon savages — Lapford — Churches round Crediton —
Rev. S. Rowe.
A CURIOUS, sleepy place, the houses like the
great church built of red sandstone, where not
of the red clay or cob. But in the latter case the
cob is whitewashed. No house can be conceived
more warm and cosy than that built of cob, especi-
ally when thatched. It is warm in winter and cool
in summer, and I have known labourers bitterly
bewail their fate in being transferred from an old
fifteenth or sixteenth century cob cottage into a
newly-built stone edifice of the most approved style.
As they said, it was like going out of warm life into
a cold grave.
The art of building with cob is nearly extinct.
Clay is kneaded up with straw by the feet, and then
put on the rising walls that are enclosed in a frame-
79
So CREDITON
work of boards, but this latter is not always necessary
as the clay is consistent enough to hold together,
and all that is required is to shave it down as the wall
rises in height. Such cob walls for garden fruit are
incomparable. They retain the warmth of the sun
and give it out through the night, and when pro-
tected on top by slates or thatch will last for cen-
turies. But let their top be exposed, and they
dissolve in the rain and flake away with the frost.
They have, however, their compensating disadvan-
tage — they harbour vermin.
Crediton takes its name from the Creedy river
that flows near the town. The river is designated
{Crwydr) from its straggling character, crumbling
its banks away at every flood and changing its
course. At a very early period the Saxons had
succeeded in establishing a settlement here, a tun,
and here Wynfrith, better known as S. Boniface,
was born in 680. Willibald, a priest of Mainz who
wrote his life, tells us that his father was a great
householder, and of "eorl-kind," or noble birth. He
loved his son Wynfrith above all his other children,
and for a long time withheld his consent to his
embracing the monastic life. During a serious ill-
ness, however, when death seemed near at hand, he
relented, and Wynfrith was sent to school at Exeter.
Thence he moved to Nutschelle, where he assumed
the name of Boniface. At the age of thirty he was
ordained. King Ina, of the West Saxons, honoured
him with his confidence, and he might have risen to
a high ofiice in his native land, but other aspirations
had taken possession of his soul. No stories were
S. BONIFACE 8i
listened to at his time in the Anglo-Saxon monast-
eries with greater avidity than those connected with
the adventurous mission of Archbishop WilHbrord
among the heathen Frisians, and Boniface longed to
join the noble band beyond the sea. The abbot
opposed his design, but Boniface was obstinate, and
with three brethren left Nutschelle for London ; there
they took ship and landed in Frisia in 716. But the
time was unpropitious, and he was forced to return
to Nutschelle.
Next year he went to Rome, and then the Pope
urged him to establish papal authority in Germany,
which had been converted by Celtic missionaries,
who had their own independent ways, that were
not at all relished at Rome. Boniface, who hated
the Celts and all their usages, eagerly undertook
the task, and he went into Thuringia. He did
a double work. He converted, or attempted to
convert, the heathen, and he ripped up and undid
what had been done independently by the Irish
missionaries. In his old age he resumed his attempt
to carry the Gospel into Frisia, and was there killed,
A.D. 755.
A Saxon see was established at Crediton about
909, and was given three estates in Cornwall — Poul-
ton, Lawhitton, and Callington. The Bishop was
charged to visit the Cornish people year by year " to
drive away their errors," for up to that time "they
had resisted the truth with all their might, and had
disobeyed the Apostolic decrees," that is to say, they
clung to their ecclesiastical independence and some
of their peculiar customs.
G
82 CREDITON
Creditor! remained the seat of the Romano-Saxon
bishops till 1046, when Leofric got the see moved
to Exeter, where his skin would be safer behind walls
than in exposed Crediton.
The church, dedicated to the Holy Cross, is a very
stately building; the tower is transition Norman at
the base. The rest is Perpendicular, and a fine effect
is produced by the belt of shadow under the tower,
with the illumined choir behind, which has large
windows. The east window was mutilated at the
" restoration." It was very original and delightful ;
it has been reduced to the same commonplace pattern
as the west window.
Crediton was a great seat of the cloth trade, and
many of those whose sumptuous monuments decorate
the church owed their wealth to " Kirton serge."
Westcote says that the "aptness and diligent in-
dustry of the inhabitants " (in this branch of manu-
facture) "did purchase it a pre-eminent name above
all other towns, whereby grew this common proverb,
' as fine as Kirton spinning ' (for we call it briefly
Kirton), which spinning was very fine indeed, which
to express the better to gain your belief, it is very
true that 140 threads for woollen yarn spun in that
town were drawn together through the eye of a
taylor's needle, which needle and threads were for
many years together to be seen in Watling Street, in
London, in the shop of one Mr. Dunscombe, at ' The
Sign of the Golden Bottle.'"
Crediton is now a great centre of apple culture
and cider-making. The rich red soil lends itself
admirably to the production of delicious apples,
""^^.^^^■'"' ^
CREDITON CHURCH
CIDER 83
It is quite a mistake to suppose that any fruit
serves for cider. There are certain kinds that
are vastly superior to others for this purpose, as the
Bitter-sweet, the Fox-whelp, the Kingston Black and
Cherry Pearmain ; but the best all round is the
Kingston Black.
When there is going up a general cry for legisla-
tion to ameliorate in some way the condition of
agriculture, it is a satisfaction to think that one act
of Government has had a beneficial effect on the
English farmer, if not throughout the land, at all
events in the West of England and in other cider-
making counties, and that act was the laying of
heavy duty on foreign sparkling wines. Quite as
much champagne is drunk now as was before the
duty was increased, but unless we are very much
mistaken some of that champagne comes from the
apple and not from the grape.
A story is told that a gentleman the other day
applied to a large apple-orchard farmer in the West
of England for a hogshead or two of his sparkling
cider. The farmer replied that he was very sorry
not to be able to accommodate him as in previous
years, but a certain London firm had taken his whole
year's " pounding." He gave the name of the firm
and assured his customer that he could get the
cider from that house. The gentleman applied, and
received the answer : —
"Sir, — We are not cider merchants. You have made
some mistake. We are a firm of champagne-importing
merchants from the celebrated vineyards of MM. So-and-so,
^t So-^n(^-so,"
84 CREDITON
Well, the money goes into English pockets, into
those of the hardly-pressed and pinched English
farmers. And cider is the most wholesome and
sound of beverages. So all is well.
There are, as may have been noticed, three cold
nights in May — not always, but often. At Crediton,
and throughout the apple-growing districts in North
Devon, these are called "Francemass" or "S. Fran-
kin's days;" they are the 19th, 20th, and 21st May.
When a frost comes then it injures the apple blossom.
The story relative to this frost varies slightly. Accord-
ing to one version there was an Exeter brewer, of the
name of Frankin, who found that cider ran his ale so
hard that he vowed his soul to the devil on the condi-
tion that he would send three frosty nights in May
to annually cut off the apple blossom. The other
version of the story is that the brewers in North
Devon entered into a compact with the Evil One, and
promised to put deleterious matter into their ale on
condition that the devil should help them by killing
the blossom of the apple trees. Accordingly, when-
ever these May frosts come we know that his majesty
is fulfilling his part of the contract, because the
brewers have fulfilled theirs by adulterating their
beer. S. Frankin, according to this version, is an
euphemism for Satan.
Our dear old friend, the apple, not only serves as
a kindly assistant to help out the supply of wine, but
also forms the basis of a good many jams. With
some assistance it is converted into raspberry and
plum, but no inducement will persuade it to become
strawberry. It is certainly instructive to pass a jam
"THE APPLE TREES" 85
factory in October and thence inhale the fragrance of
raspberries.
For some twenty or thirty years the orchards were
sadly neglected. The old trees were not replaced,
there was no pruning, no cleaning of the trunks, the
cattle were turned into the orchard to gnaw and
injure the bark and break down the branches, no
dressing was given to the roots, and the pounding
of apples was generally abandoned. But thanks to
the increased demand for cider — largely, no doubt, to
be drunk as cider, also, it is more than suspected, to
be drunk under another name — the farmers in Somer-
setshire, Devonshire, Hereford, and Worcestershire
have begun to cultivate apple trees, and care for
them, as a means of revenue.
In former days there were many more orchards
than at present ; every gentleman's house, every
farmhouse had its well - stocked, carefully pruned
orchard. Beer ran cider hard, and nearly beat it
out of the field, and overthrew the apple trees, but
the trees are having their good times again.
There is a curious song of " The Apple Trees "
that was formerly sung in every West of England
farmhouse. It was a sort of Georgic, giving complete
instructions how apples are to be grown and cider to
be made. It is now remembered only by very old
men, and as it has, to the best of my knowledge,
never appeared in print, I will quote it in full : —
" An orchard fair, to please,
And pleasure for your mind, sir,
You 'd have — then plant of trees
The goodliest you can find, sir ;
86 CREDITON
In bark they must be clean,
And finely grown in root, sir,
Well trimmed in head, I ween,
And sturdy in the shoot, sir.
O the jovial days when the apple trees do bear,
We '11 drink and be merry all the gladsome year.
" The pretty trees you plant.
Attention now will need, sir.
That nothing they may want,
Which to mention I proceed, sir.
You must not grudge a fence
'Gainst cattle, tho 't be trouble ;
They will repay the expense
In measure over double.
O the jovial days, &c.
" To give a man great joy,
And see his orchard thrive, sir,
A skilful hand employ
To use the pruning knife, sir.
To lop each wayward limb.
That seemeth to offend, sir ;
Nor fail at Fall, to trim
Until the tree's life end, sir.
O the jovial days, &c.
" All in the month of May,
The trees are clothed in bloom, sir.
As posies bright and gay,
Both morning, night and noon, sir.
'Tis pleasant to the sight,
'Tis sweet unto the smell, sir,
And if there be no blight.
The fruit will set and swell, sir.
O the jovial days, &c.
" The summer oversped,
October drawing on, sir ;
The apples gold and red
Are glowing in the sun, sir.
THE APPLE TREE ij
As the season doth advance.
Your apples for to gather,
I bid you catch the chance
To pick them in fine weather.
O the jovial days, &c.
" When to a pummy ground,
You squeeze out all the juice, sir,
Then fill a cask well bound,
And set it by for use, sir.
O bid the cider flow
In ploughing and in sowing,
The healthiest drink I know
In reaping and in mowing.
O the jovial days, &;c."
This fresh and quaint old song was taken down
from an ancient sexton of over eighty near Tiverton.
The young apple trees have a deadly enemy in
the rabbit, which loves their sweet bark, and in
a night will ruin half a nursery, peeling it off and
devouring it all round. Young cattle will break over
a hedge and do terrible mischief to an orchard of
hopeful trees that promise to bear in another year
or two. The bark cannot endure bruising and break-
ing — injury to it produces that terrible scourge the
canker. Canker is also caused by the tap-root
running down into cold and sour soil ; and it is
veiy customary, where this is likely, to place a slate
or a tile immediately under the tree, so as to force
the roots to spread laterally. Apple trees hate stand-
ing water, and like to be on a slope, whence the
moisture rapidly drains away. As the song says,
the orchard apples when ripe glow " gold and red,"
and the yellow and red apples make the best cider*
88 CREDITON
The green apple is not approved by the old-fashioned
cider-apple growers. The maxim laid down in the
song, that the apples should be "the goodliest you
can find," was not much attended to some thirty
years ago when orchards were let down ; farmers
thought that any trees were good enough, and that
there was a positive advantage in selecting sour
apples, for that then the boys would not steal them.
It is now otherwise ; they are well aware that the
quality of the cider depends largely on the goodness
of the sort of apple grown. The picking of apples
takes place on a fine windy or sunny day. The
apples to be pounded are knocked down with a
pole, but those for " hoarding " are carefully picked,
as a bruise is fatal. After that the fallen apples
have been gathered by women and children they are
heaped up under the trees and left to completely
ripen and be touched with frost. It is thought that
they make better cider when they have begun to turn
brown. Whether this be actually the case, or the
relic of a mistaken custom of the past, the writer
cannot say.
All apples are not usually struck down — the small
ones, "griggles," are left for schoolboys. It is their
privilege to glean in the orchard, and such gleaning
is termed " griggling."
What the vintage is in France, and the hop-pickiag
is in Kent and Bavaria, that the apple-picking and
collecting is in the cider counties of England. The
autumn sun is shining, there is a crispness in the air,
the leaves are turned crimson and yellow, of the
same hues as the fruit. The grass of the orchard
CURIOUS CUSTOM 89
is bright with crimson and gold as though it were
studded with jewels, but the jewels are the windfalls
from the apple trees. Men, women, and children are
happy talking, laughing, singing snatches of songs —
except when eating. Eat they must — eat they will
— and the farmer does not object, for there is a limit
to apple-eating. The apple is the most filling of all
fruit. And yet how unlimited seems the appetite of
the boy, especially when he gets into an orchard !
The grandfather of the writer of this book planted
an orchard specially for the boys of the parish, in the
hope that they would glut themselves therein and
leave his cider orchard alone. It did not answer;
they devoured all the apples in their special orchard
and carried their ravages into his also.
The farmer knows that the apple is tempting, and
the apple-pickers and collectors are allowed to eat —
within limits. But he can afford to be generous. In
a good year how abundant is the supply on every
tree ! How every tree resembles those that Aladdin
saw in the enchanted world underground laden with
topaz and ruby !
There was a curious custom in Devon, now com-
pletely gone out, which consisted, on Old Christmas
Day, in going at night into an orchard and firing
blank charges from fowling-pieces at the apple trees.
It was supposed that this ensured there being a good
harvest of apples the ensuing year. In Somerset-
shire the wassailing of the trees continued till within
the memory of old folk. Sir Thomas Acland related
to Mr. Brand, in 1790, that in his neighbourhood on
Christmas Eve it was customary for the country
90 CREDITON
people to sing a wassail or drinking song, and drink
the toast from the wassail-bowl to the apple trees in
order to have a fruitful year. And Herrick alludes
to this when he enjoins : —
" Wassaile the trees, that they may bear
You many a plum, and many a peare ;
For more or lesse fruits they will bring,
As you do give them wassailing."
The wassail song was as follows : —
"Old Apple tree, we are come to wassail thee,
All for to bloom, and to bear thy flowers and fruit so free.
Wassail ! wassail ! all round our town ;
Our cups are white and our ale is brown.
Our bowl is made of a good ashen tree.
And here 's kind fellows as will drink to thee.
Hats full, caps full, five-bushel bags full.
Barns full, floors full, stables full, tallats full,
And the little hole under the stairs, three times three !
Hip, hip, hurrah ! shout we."
When the apples are considered fit to pound,
which is usually in November, they are taken to the
crusher. This consists of a large circular stone
trough with a rim about it, and in this rolls a great
stone wheel, set in motion formerly by a horse
attached to a "roundabout." The great wheel re-
volved and crushed the apples to a pulp. The
crushing was, however, also done by the hand, in
small quantities. There is, however, a method of
cutting them small between rollers. The machine
is now commonly set in motion by water.
The pounded apple pulp is called pomage, or
CIDER-MAKING 91
apple-mock (mash). The apples are ground to one
consistence, with kernels and skins. The kernels
give flavour, and the skins colour ; or are supposed
so to do.
The pulp is next conveyed to the cider -press,
where it is placed in layers, with clean straw or
haircloths between the layers. Below is the vat ; in
Devonshire and Cornwall commonly called the "vate."
Above are planks with a lever beam weighted, so as
to produce great pressure, or else they are pressed
by means of a screw. The pressing - planks are
locally termed the " sow." The cider now begins to
flow. The first flow is by no means the best.
The pulp thus squeezed is termed the "cheese."
This is pared down, and the parings added to the
block and again subjected to pressure.
The cider as it flows away is received in " kieves."
No water whatever is added to the apples. What
comes away is the pure unadulterated juice. When,
however, the cider has been wholly pressed out, then
it is customary to make a hole in the " cheese " and
pour in some water, which is left to be absorbed by
the spongy matter. This is afterwards pressed out,
and goes by the name of "beverage." It is not
regarded as cider. It is sharper in taste, and is
appreciated by workmen.
Outside old farms is often to be seen a huge
block of stone, with a ring at the top. This was
the weight formerly attached to the beam. The
pressing of the "cheese" was anciently performed
by men pulling the wooden beam, weighted with the
great mass of granite or other heavy substance that
92 CREDITON
pressed down the "sow." A later contrivance was
a wheel with a screw, by means of which far more
pressure could be brought on the "cheese." The
cider that oozed out under pressure ran out of the
trough by a lip into a flat tub called a " trin ; " or
into the "kieve." The great scooped-out stones in
which the apples were crushed were often of great
size, as much as ten or even twelve feet in diameter.
The stone that rolled in them was termed the
"runner." Where much pains was taken with the
cider, there the several kinds of apples were crushed
separately, and also pressed separately. But the
usual custom was to throw in all together into the
" chase " or crushing basin. In a good many places
small discarded " chases " may be seen. These were
employed not for making cider, but cider spirit,
which was distilled. This is indeed still manufac-
tured in some places on the sly. In Germany it is
largely distilled and sold as "schnaps," and very
fiery, nasty stuff it is. The manufacturers of British
spirits know the use of cider spirit as a base for
some of their concoctions.
Formerly a duty of ten shillings a barrel was
imposed on the making of cider, but this was re-
pealed in 1830.
The " cheese " of the apples is of little value. It
is given to pigs. Keepers are glad of it for the
pheasants they rear; and made into cakes it serves
as fuel, smouldering and giving forth a not very
aromatic smoke.
The juice of the apples is left in the " kieves " for
a period that varies according to the weather and
CIDER-MAKING 93
the temperature, but generally is from three to four
days.
During this period fermentation commences, and
all the dirt and impure matter come as a scum to
the surface. This head is skimmed off as it forms.
If this be not done, after a time it sinks, and spoils
the quality of the cider. The liquid, by fermenta-
tion, not only develops alcohol, but also cleanses
itself The fresh, sweet cider is of a thick and muddy
consistency. By fermentation it purifies itself, and
becomes perfectly clear.
The cider is now put into casks. In order to
make sweet cider the cask is " matched." A bucket-
ful of the new cider is put in, then brimstone is
lighted in an old iron pot, and a match of paper or
canvas is dipped in the melted brimstone and thrust
into the cask through the bung-hole, which is closed.
The fumes of sulphur fill the vessel, and when the
barrel is afterwards filled with cider all fermentation
is arrested. Sweet cider, if new, is often rather un-
pleasant from the taste of the sulphurous acid.
This may be avoided by " racking," that is to say,
the cider when made may be turned from one hogs-
head to another at intervals, whenever it shows signs
of fermenting. This continuous " racking " will
arrest the progress of fermentation as effectually
as " matching."
The sweet cider is in far greater demand by the
general public than that which is " rough," but a
West Country labourer will hardly thank you for
the cider that will be drunk with delight by the
cockney. He prefers it " rough," that is to say acid,
94 CREDITON
the rougher the better, till it almost cuts the throat
as it passes down.
Unless bottled, cider is difficult to preserve owing
to the development of lactic acid. Moreover, in
wood it turns dark in colour, and if allowed to stand
becomes of an inky black, which is not inviting. This
is due to having been in contact with iron.
It is bottled from Christmas on till Easter, and
so is sold as champagne cider ; sometimes as cham-
pagne without the addition, we strongly suspect.
The amount of alcohol produced by fermentation
varies from five and a half to nine per cent. In the
sweet sparkling cider the amount is very small, and
it would take a great deal of it to make a man
inebriate.
Much difference of opinion exists as to the good
of cider for rheumatic subjects. The sweet cider
is of course bad, but it is certain that in the West
of England a good many persons are able to drink
cider who dare not touch beer — not only so, but
believe that it is beneficial. Others, however, protest
that they feel rheumatic pains if they touch it.
The manufacturers of champagne cider very com-
monly add mustard to the liquid for the purpose
of stinging the tongue ; but apart from that, cider
is the purest and least adulterated of all drinks.
In conclusion I will venture to quote another West
of England song concerning cider, only premising
that by "sparkling" cider is not meant that which
goes by the name in commerce, but the homely
cask cider ; and next, that the old man who sang
it tP the writer of this article — a Cornish tc^nner — =
JOHN DAVY 95
claimed (but the claim may be questioned) to have
composed both words and melody, so that the song,
though of country origin, is not very ancient : —
" In a nice little village not far from the sea,
Still lives my old uncle aged eighty and three,
Of orchards and meadows he owns a good lot,
Such cider as his — not another has got.
Then fill up the jug, boys, and let it go round.
Of drinks not the equal in England is found.
So pass round the jug, boys, and pull at it free,
There 's nothing like cider, sparkling cider, for me.
" My uncle is lusty, is nimble and spry (lively),
As ribstons his cheeks, clear as crystal his eye,
His head snowy white, as the flowering may,
And he drinks only cider by night and by day.
Then fill up the jug, &c.
" O'er the wall of the churchyard the apple trees lean
And ripen their burdens, red, golden, and green.
In autumn the apples among the graves lie ;
' There I '11 sleep well,' says uncle, * when fated to die.
Then fill up the jug, &c.
" ' My heart as an apple, sound, juicy, has been.
My limbs and my trunk have been sturdy and clean ;
Uncankered I 've thriven, in heart and in head,
So under the apple trees lay me when dead.'
Then fill up the jug, &c."
Near Crediton, at Greedy Bridge, was born John
Davy, the composer of the popular song " The Bay
of Biscay." He was baptised on Christmas Day,
1763, at Upton Hellions, and was an illegitimate
child ; but he was tenderly brought up by his uncle,
a village blacksmith, who played the violoncello in
Upton Hellions Church choir,
96 CREDITON
When in Crediton one day as a child with his
uncle, he saw some soldiers at the roll-call, and was
vastly delighted at the music of the fifes ; so much so
that he borrowed one and very soon learned to play
it. After that he made fifes with his penknife of
the hollow-stalked weeds growing on the banks of
the Greedy, locally called "bitters," and sold them
to his playfellows.
A year later the chimes of Crediton made such an
impression on this precocious child, that he purloined
twenty or thirty horseshoes from his uncle's smithy,
and the old fellow was sadly perplexed as to what
had become of them, till he heard a mysterious chim-
ing from the garret, and on ascending to it, found
that John had suspended eight of the horseshoes
from the rafters so as to form an octave, and with
a rod was striking them in imitation of the Crediton
chimes.
This story getting to the ears of the rector of the
parish. Chancellor Carrington, he felt interested in the
child and showed him a harpsichord, on which he
soon learned to play. Davy also at this time applied
himself to learn the violin.
When Davy was eleven years old the rector intro-
duced him to another parson, named Eastcott, who
possessed a pianoforte, an instrument of recent intro-
duction. With this the boy soon became familiar.
An effort was now made by these two kindly clergy-
men, and they placed him with Jackson, the organist
of Exeter Cathedral, with whom he remained some
years and completed his musical education.
He then went to London, where he was employed
PARKS 97
to supply music for the songs of the operas of that
day, and was retained as a composer by the managers
of the Theatre Royal until infirmities, rather than
age, rendered him incapable of exertion, and he
died, before he was sixty-two, in penury. It was
due only to a couple of London tradesmen, one of
whom was a native of Crediton, that he was not
consigned to a pauper's grave. He wrote some
dramatic pieces for the theatre at Sadler's Wells,
and composed the music for Holman's opera of
What a Blunder, which was performed at the little
theatre in the Haymarket in 1800. In the following
year he was engaged with Moorhead in the music of
Perouse, and with Mountain in that of The Brazen
Mask. His last opera was Woman s Will. Some
of his songs have obtained a firm hold, as "Just
Like Love," " May we ne'er want a Friend," " The
Death of Will Watch the Smuggler," which I have
heard a village blacksmith sing, and "The Bay of
Biscay."
He was buried in St. Martin's churchyard, February
28 th, 1824.
There are some fine seats and parks near Crediton :
Greedy Park, that of Sir H. Fergusson Davie, Bart. ;
that of Shobrooke, the seat of Sir I. Shelly, Bart. ;
and Downes, the property of Sir Redvers BuUer.
This latter place takes its name from the dun which
occupied the hill-top between the Yeo and Greedy,
which unite below it. All traces of the old ramparts
have, however, disappeared under cultivation. There
is a somewhat pathetic story connected with Sho-
brooke and Downes. The latter belonged to William
H
98 CREDITON
Gould, and James Buller, of Morval, obtained it by
marrying his eldest daughter and heiress Elizabeth,
born in 17 1 8. The younger and only other sister,
Frances, married John Tuckfield, of Shobrooke Park,
then known as Little Fulford. This was in 1740,
when she was only eighteen. The respective husbands
quarrelled about money and politics, and forbade
their wives to meet and speak to each other. John
Tuckfield was member for Exeter 1747, 1754, 1760,
when he died. The sisters were wont to walk every
day to a certain point in the respective grounds and
wave their handkerchiefs to each other, and they
never met in this world again, for Elizabeth died in
1742.
There is not much of great interest in the neigh-
bourhood of Crediton. Perhaps the church that
most deserves a visit is Colebrook, with its curious
wood carving and a fine original and late piece
of screen - work. There is also Coplestone Cross,
a very remarkable piece of early Celtic interlaced
work, such as is not to be found elsewhere in
England except in Northumbria. It is mentioned
in a charter in 974, but it is far older than that.
It stands at the junction of three parishes, and has
given a name to a once noted family in the county,
that comes into an old local rhyme, which runs : —
" Crocker, Cruwys, and Coplestone,
When the Conqueror came were found at home."
But who the ancestors of these families were at the
time of the Conquest we have no means of knowing.
Of the few English thegns who retained their lands
SCREENS 99
in Devonshire after the Conquest, not one is recorded
as holding any of the estates that later belonged to
these families. The cross is of granite, and stands
lo feet 6 inches high. It is, unhappily, mutilated at
the top.
At Nymet Rowland, near Crediton, the savages
lived, to whom Mr. Greenwood drew attention. They
were dispersed by becoming a prey to typhoid, when
their hovel was torn down. The last of them, an
old man, lived the rest of his life and died in the
parish of Whitstone in a cask littered with straw,
the cask chained to a post in an outhouse. I have
given an account of them in my Old English Home,
At Lapford is a fine screen, and the carved benches
are deserving of attention. Lapford was for long,
too long, the place over which " Pass'n Radford "
brooded as an evil genius. I have told several
stories of him in my Old Country Life, under the
name of Hannaford. He has been sketched in Mr.
Blackmore's Maid of Sker beside Parson Froude, of
Knowstone. The latter has been drawn without
excessive exaggeration.
At Down S. Mary the screen has been admirably
completed from a fragment by the village carpenter.
There is a good screen at Bow.
A good walk through pretty scenery to Dowrish,
an ancient mansion, and once dating from King
John's reign, but modernised in suburban villa style.
Though there is nothing remaining of interest in
the house, the view thence, stretching across the
richly wooded land of the new red sandstone to
the heights of Dartmoor, will repay the walk. For
lOo CREDITON
many years Crediton was the residence of the
Rev. Samuel Rowe, the Columbus of Dartmoor.
He laboriously explored that region, till then almost
unvisited, and chronicled its prehistoric relics.
Although he was hopelessly involved in the pseudo-
antiquarianism of his period, and put everything
prehistoric down to the Druids and Phoenicians, yet
his researches were most valuable, and he has
recorded the existence of many relics that have
since disappeared. His Perambulation of Dartmoor
was published in 1848. He had indeed been pre-
ceded in 1832 by the Rev. Edward A. Bray, vicar
of Tavistock, but the visits of the latter to Dartmoor
had been confined to the immediate neighbourhood
of the town of which he was parson.
CHAPTER VII.
TIVERTON
Two-fords Town — The Seven Crosses — Numerous chapels — Tiverton
Church — Blundell's School — Parson Russell — Washfield — Sampford
Peverell Ghost — "Old Snow" — White Witches — Instance of evil
done by them — The Four Quarters — Machine lace — John Heath-
coat — CuUompton — Bampfylde Moore Carew — Bampton Pony Fair
— The Exmoor ponies.
TIVERTON, or, as it was originally called,
Twyford, takes its name from being planted
between the Exe and the Loman (Gael, liomh,
smooth or sluggish*), which are here fordable. It
rises picturesquely above the Exe, and the height
when crowned with castle as well as church must
have presented a remarkably fine group of towers.
The main castle tower was, however, pulled down
and left as a stump about thirty-five years ago.
The castle was a great Courtenay stronghold, and
occupied a site that had doubtless been previously
fortified. There is, however, a large and strong
earthwork, Cranmore, that occupies the height above
Collipriest and looks down upon the town.
At Hensleigh, a hamlet to the west of the town,
is a spot called "The Seven Crosses." The origin
* The same in Loch Lomond and in Lake Leman, in the Lyme
in Dorsetshire, and the Leam by Leamington,
lOI
I02 TIVERTON
of this name is, according to a generally accepted
tradition, as follows : —
One day the Countess of Devon was taking her
walk abroad in the direction of Hensleigh, when she
met a tailor descending the hill, laden with a large
covered maund, or basket. As he passed, she heard
a cry from the hamper. She stayed her steps and
inquired what he was carrying.
" Only seven puppies that I be going to drown
in the Exe," was his reply.
" I want a dog," said the Countess. " Open the
hamper."
The tailor tried to excuse himself, but in vain.
The Countess insisted, and, on the lid being raised,
seven little babes were revealed.
" Alas, my lady ! " said the tailor. " My wife gave
birth to all seven at once, and I am poor, poor as a
church mouse. What other could I do than rid
myself of them? — they are all boys."
The Countess saw that they were lovely and
vigorous babes, and she made the tailor take them
back to his wife, and charged herself with the cost
of their bringing up and education. When they
were sufficiently old she had them all sent to
Buckfast Abbey, to be reared for the priesthood,
and in due time they were ordained and became
— that is, four of them — rectors of Tiverton (for
Tiverton had four together), and the three others
their curates. As they were all of a birth, they
loved each other, and never disagreed ; and that
was — so it is averred — the only instance within a
historic period that the rectors of the four portions
THE CHURCH 103
of Tiverton have agreed, and have got on smoothly
with each other and with their curates. As the seven
hung together in life, in death they were not parted.
All died in one day, and were buried on the spot
where the Countess of Devon saved their lives,
and there above their heads seven crosses were
reared, but not one of these remains to the present
day.
Formerly there were in Tiverton parish eighteen
chapels, of which the only remains are found in a
cottage at Mere, and a restored chapel at Cove.
Tidcombe Rectory was built by a former rector,
named Newte, on the graveyard of one of these
chapels, and it is pretended that none of the eldest
sons of the Newte family have ever since come of
age, as a punishment for this act of profanation.
Tiverton Church, dedicated to S. Peter, represents
three periods of architecture. In the north aisle is
a Norman doorway, with zigzag moulding. The
tower, a hundred feet high, is the most beautiful
feature — Perpendicular. The nave, chancel, and
north aisle are of early Perpendicular work ; the
south aisle, with its Greenway chapel, dates from
early in the sixteenth century. It was built by John
Greenway, a rich merchant of Tiverton, and running
round it, represented in relief, are twenty scenes from
the life of our Lord, beginning with the Flight into
Egypt, and ending with the Ascension. The roof of
the south porch is also Greenway's work, and is very
fine. He and his wife Joan are represented over the
door kneeling in adoration. He died in 1529, but the
chapel was built in 15 17. The exterior is covered
I04 TIVERTON
with lavish enrichments — representations of ships,
wool-packs, men, and horses. Formerly this chapel
was separated from the south aisle by a richly-
carved, gilt and coloured screen of stone, containing
paintings in panels. This was wantonly destroyed
in 1830, but the fragments were happily rescued by
the Earl of Devon and removed to Powderham. At
the "restoration" in 1854 the rood-screen was also
removed, but was secured by the Rev. W. Rayer,
rector of Tidcombe Portion, who had just purchased
the whole of the Holcombe estate from the Blewett
family, and his son had it restored and erected in
Holcombe Rogus Church.
The screen was in a very worm-eaten condition,
and its restoration was a very expensive matter.
Blundell's Grammar School was founded in 1604,
and was for many years the leading school of Devon-
shire. Under Dr. Richards it contained the largest
number of pupils, 200, ever within the walls, until
the new buildings were erected on a suitable spot
to the east of Tiverton, where there are now 250
boys.
Dr. Richards was a good teacher, but a very
severe disciplinarian. Perhaps the most famous of
his pupils, both as a clergyman and sportsman, was
the late John Russell, "Parson Jack" as he was
called. He was a great favourite as a school-
boy, and always showed a considerable amount of
shrewdness. With another boy, named Bovey, he
kept a scratch pack of hounds. Having received
a hint that this had reached the ears of Dr. Richards,
he collected his share of the pack, and sent them
-PARSON JACK" 105
off to his father. The next day he was summoned
to the master's desk.
" Russell," said the Doctor, " I hear that you have
some hounds. Is it true ? "
" No, sir," answered Russell ; " I have not a dog in
the neighbourhood."
"You never told me a lie, so I believe you. Bovey,
come here. You have some hounds, I understand ? "
" Well, sir, a kw — but they are little ones."
"Oh! you have, have you? Then I shall expel
you."
And expelled he was, Russell coming off scathe-
less. I tell the following tale because it was told
in Blundell's School of Russell, during his lifetime,
as one of his pranks, but I mistrust it. I believe
the story to be as old as the twelfth century ; and
if I remember aright, it occurs in one of the French
Fabliaux of that period.
Dr. Richards had some very fine grapes growing
against his garden wall, under the boys' bedroom
windows. "Jack was as good as his master," and
the young scamp was wont to be let down in a
clothes-basket by night, by his mates, to the region
of the grapes, and to return with a supply when
hauled up.
The Doctor noticed how rapidly his grapes dis-
appeared, and learning from his man John the cause,
took his place under the vine along with his gardener,
who was ordered to lay hold of the boy in the basket
and muffle his mouth, lest he should cry out. This
he did when Russell descended ; and Dr. Richards
took his place in the clothes-basket. The boys
io6 TIVERTON
hauled away, wondering at the accession of weight,
but when they saw the Doctor's head level with the
window, panic-stricken they let go their hold of the
rope, and away went Doctor and basket to the
bottom.
No bones were broken, and nothing came of it,
the Doctor being rather ashamed of the part he had
played in the matter.
It was said of Russell, as Napoleon said of Ashton
Smith, that he was " le premier chasseur d'Angle-
terre." His love for sport made him always a poor
man. On one occasion he invited a young curate
to breakfast with him, and preach for him. After
breakfast two likely-looking hunters, perhaps a little
screwy, were brought round and steadily mounted.
" No time for going round by the road," said Parson
Jack ; " we will ride to my church across country, and
so save a couple of miles."
Off they rode. The curate presently remarked,
" How bare of trees your estate is," as they crossed
lands belonging to Russell. "Ah!" responded the
sportsman " the hounds eat 'em." Coming to a stiff
gate, Russell, with his hand in his pocket, cleared it
like a bird, but looking round, he saw the curate on
the other side crawling over the gate, and crying out
in piteous tones, " It won't open."
" Not it," was the reply, " and if you can't jump
a gate like that, I 'm sure you can't preach a sermon.
Good-bye."
But he was not only a mighty hunter, he was also
an excellent parish priest and a fine preacher, though
not always depending on his own sermons. He was
BLUNDELL'S SCHOOL 107
ordered to preach at one of Bishop Phillpotts' visita-
tions. His sermon was good, and at the consequent
dinner the Bishop complimented him in almost ex-
aggerated terms for " his splendid sermon." Russell
knew that the Bishop when most oily was most
dangerous, and suspected that he had recognised the
sermon, so, as always, ready, he said in returning
thanks, "As to the sermon, my lord, I quite agree with
you. I have ever considered it as one of Barrow's
best." Needless to say, the Bishop collapsed.
I can cap that with another anecdote.
The late Dr. Cornish, of Ottery S. Mary, was
pompous and patronising. A curate under him,
recently ordained, preached his first sermon. In
the vestry the vicar, swelling out, said, " For a be-
ginner it was not wholly bad." " Ah, Doctor, I
must not take any credit to myself. It is one of
Bishop Andrews' finest discourses." Needless to say
that Doctor Cornish's stomach went in.
There have not been many conspicuous lights from
Blundell's. Perhaps the most famous of them is the
present Archbishop of Canterbury.
The school has passed through many vicissitudes.
By a Chancery decision in 1846 all boarders were
swept away and the school reduced to seventeen
boys. ;£"io,ooo were put into the lawyers' pockets
in defending the suit, whereby the school was reduced
well-nigh to bankruptcy. By another decision of the
courts and at the cost of another iJ" 10,000, boarders
were restored, and new buildings were erected. The
old school has been altered into private dwellings.
Near Tiverton is Washfield, where there is a very
io8 TIVERTON
fine Jacobean screen with the arms of James I. upon
it, and in the north aisle those of Charles as Prince of
Wales. It deserves a study. In this church the old
parish orchestra still performs on Sunday, or did so
till recently. There is here a curious church -house
with an oriel window.
Outside the churchyard was buried a squire of the
parish, so wicked that he was denied a place in con-
secrated ground. Three times were Acts of Parlia-
ment passed to enable either sale of property or the
management to be taken from successive squires as
one after another was mad. Worth House has now
passed away from the family of that name, which has
died out in the male line.
In 1 8 10 much public interest was excited by a
report of spiritual manifestations at Sampford
Peverell, five miles from Tiverton, and the Rev.
C. Colton published an account of them. They
consisted of the usual rappings, dealing of heavy
blows, and the throwing about the room of heavy
articles. That these were produced by some cunning
servant-maid cannot be doubted. Mr. Colton, who
vouched for the truth of the phenomena, did not
bear a good character ; he ended his days by suicide,
after having been "unfrocked," and his last years
spent in gambling -houses.
That these tricks were at one time not unfrequently
resorted to is probable. The Germans give them as
the work of a Poltergeist. In my own neighbour-
hood, in or about 1852, a precisely similar exhibition
took place. Stones, cups, pans flew about a room,
and strange knockings were heard. Many people
-OLD SNOW" 109
went to witness them, and came away convinced that
they were the work of spirits ; especially was it so
with one yeoman, whose hat was knocked off his
head by the spirit. My father investigated the
matter, and came to the conclusion that the whole
was contrived by a girl of low intelligence but of
much cunning. It is now, with the advance of
education, persons of a superior grade who are the
dupes of spirit-mediums. Education will not give
brains, but it will varnish emptiness.
At Tiverton lived, till a few years ago, "Old
Snow," a rather famous "white witch," to whom
many persons had recourse, among others a farmer
who was a churchwarden and a well-to-do man.
I knew him well, and in 1889 believed him to be
a doomed man, with a hacking cough, worn to a
shred, and bent by weakness. Having consulted
all the prominent doctors in the south of the county,
he went in desperation to "Old Snow." What the
white witch did to him I cannot say, but I can
testify he was a changed man from that day, and
is at present a robust, hale man, looking good for
another twenty or thirty years.
In an article I wrote on " White Witches " for the
Daily Graphic I mentioned this case. Some days
after I met the farmer. " Why," said he, " you have
put me in the papers." "So I have," I answered,
" but what I told was literally true." " True — aye,"
he said, " every bit. Old Snow cured me when the
faculty gave me up. How he did it, neither you nor
I know."
The white witch is an institution that has not been
no TIVERTON
killed by board schools in the West, nor, as far as
can be judged from the favour in which he is still
regarded, is he likely to die. A witch is generally
supposed to be the feminine of wizard, but in the
West of England " witch " is of common gender, and
those in highest repute are men. Their trade con-
sists in prescribing for the sick, in informing those
who have been " overlooked " whose evil eye has
influenced them for ill, where lost articles are to be
found, and how spells cast on their cattle are to
be broken.
A white witch is one who repudiates utterly having
any traffic with the Evil One. His or her knowledge
is derived from other sources — what, not specified.
I had for many years as a tenant in one of my
cottages a woman who was much consulted as a
white witch. She is now dead, and her decease is
a matter of outspoken regret.
The village inn frequently had guests staying there
to undergo a course of " blessing " from this woman.
She was an ill-favoured person, with a wall-eye, and
one eye higher in her head than the other. She was
bent, heavy-featured, and stoutly built. A worthy
woman, scrupulously neat in her person, and who
kept her cottage in beautiful order. She certainly
believed in her own powers, and as certainly per-
formed very remarkable cures, which it was not
possible to deny, though they might be explained.
For instance, in the hayfield in a parish four miles
distant as the crow flies, eight by road, a young man
cut his leg with the scythe, and the blood spurted
out. At once the farmer dipped the man's hand-
WITCHCRAFT iii
kerchief in the blood, mounted one of his men on
a horse, and sent him galloping to the white witch,
who took the kerchief, blessed it, and simultaneously
four miles off as the crow flies, the blood was
stanched. The son of the largest farmer in the
place, a man who is worth his thousands, was suffer-
ing from glandular ulcerations in the neck. The
village doctor attended him and did him no good.
He consulted the principal medical man in the
nearest market town, also to no advantage. Time
passed and he was no better ; he gave up consulting
doctors, who sent him in bills and left him rather
worse than when they began on him. At last he
went to the white witch. Whether she " struck " his
glands or prescribed some herbs I cannot say, but
what I do know is that within a month the young
man was perfectly well.
The woman, who was my tenant, was no conscious
impostor, of that I am convinced. What her secret
was she would not communicate, but most earnestly
did she deprecate any communication with evil
spirits. Not only did the village innkeeper derive
a certain revenue from patients lodging in his house
to be under treatment by her, but the postmen of
the neighbourhood also earned their crumbs by carry-
ing kerchiefs blessed by her to sufferers within their
districts. It was no uncommon sight to see a walking
postman careering along with arms extended holding
a kerchief in each hand, fluttering as he walked.
It is held that the blessing is drawn out of the
material if it be folded, put in a pocket, and handled
other than most gingerly between finger and thumb.
112 TIVERTON
When among the educated, the cultivated classes,
we find belief in faith-healing, and so-called
"Christian Science," is it to be wondered at that
in classes lower down in the scale there should be
credulous persons who not only believe in white
witches, but believe in their own powers as white
witches ?
It is the same as in the Lourdes miracles ; the
imagination acts on the nervous system, and that
stimulates the body to throw off disease. That is
the true secret.
I cannot doubt but that in many cases herbs are
employed that have been sadly neglected ever since
our doctors have gone in for mineral medicines. The
latter act violently, but the herbs slowly, and, in many
instances, more surely.
However, in the majority of cases the white witches
are mere impostors, and may do much harm, as in
that I will now record, which took place three years
ago only. I shall, for obvious reasons, not give the
true names, nor indicate the locality.
A cattle dealer in 1896 had a daughter, who two
years previously had been a victim to influenza.
This had affected her head and produced profound
melancholy. As doctors proved unavailing, the man
went to Exeter and consulted a white witch there.
According to his statement the witch showed him the
face of a neighbour, Mrs. Thomas, in a glass of
water, and told him that his daughter was "over-
looked" by the person he saw. The white witch
further informed him that the individual who had
" ill wished " his daughter passed his door every day,
WHITE WITCHES 113
but had hitherto never entered it, but that on the
following Saturday she would do so. The cattle
dealer returned home, and, sure enough, next en-
suing Saturday Mrs. Thomas entered his house and
asked if he would take of her a little meat she had
to spare, as she had been killing a pig.
Next night the Thomases' house was set on fire.
It was thatched, and six persons slept under the
thatch. By the merest chance Mr. Thomas woke
in the night, and hearing a strange sound went out-
side his house to see what was the matter, and
found his roof in flames. He had barely time to
rouse and bring forth his wife and family before the
roof fell in.
It was ascertained by the police that the thatch
had been deliberately fired. The incendiary had
struck two matches, which had failed, and in draw-
ing the matches from his pocket had dropped two
halfpenny stamps. He had climbed on to a hedge
to effect his object, and the third match had ignited
the thatch. But it was never ascertained who had
done the deed.
A few years ago I wrote the little account of
" Devonshire White Witches " for the Daily Graphic
already referred to. This brought down on me a
copious shower of letters from all parts of Eng-
land, entreating me to furnish the addresses of some
of our white witches, as the correspondents had
found it profitless and expensive to apply to medical
practitioners, and they were anxious to try the cures
of these conscious or unconscious impostors.
Tiverton parish was ecclesiastically divided into
I
114 TIVERTON
four quarters, each under an independent rector, and
all co-equally regnant in the parish church. The
arrangement was not happy — and led to constant
ruffles and conflict of opinion. The condition was
so unsatisfactory that the late Bishop of Exeter
and present Archbishop carried an Act to alter it.
Tiverton is a seat of machine -lace manufacture,
introduced by Mr. John Heathcoat in 1816.
Lace is said to have been brought into France by
Mary de Medici from Venice ; and the making of
this beautiful work of art rapidly spread and took
root in the Low Countries. Refugees from Flanders
brought it into England, when they settled at Cran-
field, in Bedfordshire. The lace made was Brussels
point ; the network was formed by bone bobbins on
a pillow, which held the threads, and the sprigs were
worked with a needle.
The introduction of machinery told heavily on the
commoner and coarser lace-making.
In the reign of George II., or about a hundred and
fifty years after the introduction of the first knitting
machines, many additions and improvements were
made in them, and the so-called "tickler," guided
by mere accident, was now applied for the first time
to the manufacture of lace. This attempt was suc-
ceeded by a " point-net " machine, an invention that
was nearly, but not entirely, successful.
In 1768 a watchmaker, named Hammond, applied
the stocking-frame to the manufacture of lace, but it
worked slowly and without accuracy. Attempts
were made in various parts of the kingdom to make
fishing -nets by machinery, and a workman dis-
NET-MAKING 115
covered, by observing a child at play, the secret of
the " bobbin and carriage," which was first applied
to the manufacture of fishing -nets. It was not,
however, till 1809 that Mr. Heathcoat patented his
machine, which combined the discoveries of the past
with immense improvements of his own.
The point-net frame had been invented in the
early years of the century. Attempts were made to
produce a twist mesh. Heathcoat divided the warp
threads and put them on a beam, apart from the
transverse threads, which latter he wound upon thin
bobbins, and arranged them so that they could pass
around and amongst the former.
This machine was, however, complex, having
twenty-four motions to the series for twisting the
mesh, and four for the pins to secure the twist when
unravelling, but after the expiration of the patent
it was simplified so as to require only six, with two
motions to prevent the unravelment.
The introduction of mechanism threatening the
manufacture at home provoked grave riots in the
counties of Nottingham, Derby, and Leicester,
headed by a weaver named Ludd, who gave his
name to the riots. The man himself was really
insane. Troops of men went about breaking
machines and intimidating workers in the factories.
William Horsfall, a Marsden manufacturer, they
murdered. This was in 181 3. Although peremptory
punishment fell on the rioters, still insecurity to
life and property continued for some years, and
induced Mr. Heathcoat to transfer his frames to
and start as a manufacturer in Tiverton in 18 16,
ii6 TIVERTON
and abandon his factory at Loughborough. He
brought with him as a foreman Mr. Asher, who
had been shot at and wounded in the back of his
head by the rioters. This transfer was so much
loss to Loughborough and gain to Tiverton, and
that not temporary, but lasting, for what was begun
in i8i6 is continued to this day in full vigour, find-
ing employment for 1400 hands and 130 children.
John Heathcoat's only child and daughter married
a solicitor named Amory, and their son was made
a baronet by Mr. Gladstone in 1874, a well-deserved
honour, as, but for the introduction of the lace
manufacture, Tiverton would have sunk to the
position of a stagnant county town.
The Exe valley below Tiverton presents pleasant
scenery, but nothing fine. An excursion should
be made to CuUompton in the Culm (Welsh cMly
Gael, caol, narrow, slender) valley to see the interest-
ing church with its fine restored screen in all the
splendour of colour. CuUompton had the wit to pre-
serve and cherish what Tiverton cast away. Ufifculme
has also a screen ; near this is Bradfield House, a
rare treasury of old oak carving. Culmstock has a
stone screen, which has stupidly been converted
into a reredos.
Holcombe Rogus is a very fine specimen of an
Elizabethan house and hall. In the church is
some beautiful cinque-cento carved screenwork to
the manorial pew.
At Bickleigh was born Bampfylde Moore Carew
in 1693. His father was the rector, and the son
was educated at Blundell's School at Tiverton, where
KING OF THE BEGGARS 117
he showed considerable ability. He and other boys
kept a pack of hounds, and as these, with Carew
and others behind them, once gave chase to a deer
strayed from Exmoor over standing corn, so much
damage was done that the farmers complained.
Bampfylde Moore Carew was too great a coward
to wait and take his whipping. He ran away from
school, and sheltered among some gipsies. He
contracted such a love for their vagrant life, and
such satisfaction in getting their applause for thefts
that manifested low cunning, that nothing would
induce him to abandon their mode of life and return
to civilisation. At one time he postured as a non-
juring parson who had been forced to leave his
rectory, and preyed on the sympathy of the Jacobite
gentry. Then learning from a newspaper that a
cargo of Quakers bound for Philadelphia had been
wrecked on the Irish coast, he disguised himself as
a Friend, and traded on the charity of the Quakers
by representing himself as one of those who had
been rescued from the sea.
He was elected King of the Beggars on the death
of Clause Patch, who had reigned previously over
the mendicants. At last he was arrested, tried at
the quarter sessions at Exeter, and transported to
Maryland, where he was sold to a planter, and as
he tried to escape an iron collar was riveted about
his neck. He again escaped ; this time succeeded
in getting among the Indians, who relieved him of
his collar. He stole a canoe from his benefactors,
and got on board a vessel sailing for England.
What became of him is not known, but he is thought
ii8 TIVERTON
to have died in obscurity in 1770, aged yj, but
where buried is unknown. The fellow was a worth-
less rogue, without a redeeming quality in him.
The Bampton Fair is an institution that should
not be passed by unsought by the visitor to North
Devon, if he be a lover of horseflesh or a student
of mankind. He will see there choice specimens
alike of Exmoor ponies and of North Devon
farmers, and will catch many a waft of the broadest
dialect of the borders of Somerset and Devon.
A writer in 5. P aid's Magazine^ December 12th,
1896, says : —
"As a dead-alive, archseologically interesting place, the
Devon Bampton on the Exe is a more or less desirable
centre for the angler and the hunting man, but ordinarily,
in the eyes of the unsporting, sane person, it is a useful
hole to strive to avoid.
"Bampton Fair, however, is a celebration once to be
seen by every woman or man who has eyes, ears, and nose
for novelty. Such lowing of oxen, bleating of sheep, and
assemblage of agrestics and congregation of ponies ! The
side shows are naught. Who cares for gingerbread, pasties,
cockles, fairings, tipsy yokels, trolloping hussies, and other
attributes of Boeotia let loose? The play's the thing —
that is, the pony exhibition. Nijni Novgorod is all very
well — quite unique in its way ; Rugby, Barnet, and Bramp-
ton Brian fairs are things apart. But Bampton Fair is
absolutely sui generis. Exmoor ponies throng the streets,
flood the pavements, overflow the houses, pervade the
place. Wild as hawks, active and lissom as goats, cajoled
from the moors and tactfully manoeuvred when penned,
these indigenous quadrupeds will leap or escalade lofty
barriers in a standing jump, or a cat-like scramble, whilst
HORSE STEALING 119
the very * suckers ' have to be cajoled with all the Daedalian
adroitness with which the Irish pig has to be induced to go
whither it would not."
The great sale of ponies formerly took place at
Simonsbath, but it was moved to Bampton in 1850,
and is held on the last Thursday in October.
" Seventy years ago," said a bailiff, " there were
only five men and a woman and a little girl on
Exmoor, and that little girl was my mother. She
drew beer at Simonsbath public-house. There were
a rough lot of customers then, I promise you."
The moor was the property of the Crown, and it
was leased in part to Sir Thomas Dyke Acland since
1 8 18, and was used for the rearing of ponies and the
summering of sheep.
There was a good deal of horse stealing in the
early days of this century. In spite of the severe
laws on this sort of theft, and of the Acland brand
of the anchor, a good many ponies were spirited
away by the shepherds and disposed of in Wiltshire.
The Acland breed is pure, and can only be obtained
from the Baronet. All the rest are the result of
crossing. Sir Thomas moved his stock away from
Exmoor to the Winsford Hills, and left only a dozen
mare ponies to preserve the line, when the father of
the late Sir Frederick Knight rented 1 0,000 acres of
the moor and added 6000 subsequently.
"An after-dinner conversation led Mr. Knight to con-
sider the great pony question in all its bearings. The party
met at Sir Joseph Banks's, the eminent naturalist. They
discussed the merits of the Dongola horse, which had been
I20 TIVERTON
described as an Arab of sixteen hands and peculiar to the
regions round Nubia. Sir Joseph proposed to the party to
get some of the breed, and accordingly Lords Headly,
Morton, and Dundas, and Mr. Knight then and there gave
him a joint ;£iooo cheque as a deposit for the expenses.
The English consul in Egypt was appUed to, and in due
course the horses and mares which he sent bore out Bruce's
description to the letter. In addition to their height, they
were rather Roman-nosed, with a very fine texture of skin,
well chiselled under the jowl, and as clean-winded as all
their race. About ten or twelve arrived, and Mr. Knight
was so pleased with them that he bought Lord Headly's
share. His two sires and three mares were then brought to
Simonsbath, where he had established a stud of seven or
eight thoroughbred mares and thirty half-breeds of the
coaching Cleveland sort.
"The first cross knocked out the Roman nose as com-
pletely as the Leicester destroys the Exmoor horn, but the
buffy stood true to its colour, and thus the type was never
quite lost. The half Dongolas did wonderfully well with
the West Somerset, which often came to Exmoor to draw
for a fox, and they managed to get down the difficult hills
so well, and crossed the brooks so close up with the
hounds, that the vocation of the white-clad guides on
chase days gradually fell into disuse."*
The average height is 12J hands, and bays and
buffy bays v^^ith mealy noses prevail ; in fact, are
in a majority of at least three to one.
The older ponies live all through the winter on the
hills, and seek out sheltered spots for themselves
during the continuance of wind and rain. These
favourite nooks are well known to the herdsmen,
* Condensed from "The Exmoor Ponies," by "Druid," in The
Sporting Magazine ^ October, i860.
EXMOOR PONIES 121
who build up stacks of hay and straw, which are
doled out to them in times of snow. "Still, like
honest, hard - working labourers, the ponies never
assemble at the wicket till they have exhausted
every means of self-support by scratching with their
fore-feet in the snow for the remnants of the summer
tufts, and drag wearily behind them an ever lengthen-
ing chain of snowballs."
A writer in All The Year Round for May, 1866,
says : —
''Throughout North Devon and Somersetshire and
wherever ponies are famed, the Exmoor breed have a
great reputation, not without reason, for they are not
only hardy and sure-footed, but from their earliest years
the foals follow their dams at a gallop down the crees of
loose stones on the steep moorland sides ; they are extra-
ordinarily active and courageous. The writer once saw an
Exmoor, only 44 inches high, jump out of a pound 5 feet
6 inches in height, just touching the top bar with his hind
feet."
Well, let a visitor go to Bampton Fair, and see the
pranks of these wild, beautiful creatures, and note as
well the skill with which they are managed by the
men experienced in dealing with them. Such a sight
will remain in his memory, and when he gets back
to town he will have something to talk about at
dinner, and if he has a bit of descriptive power in
him he will hold the ears of those who are near him
at table.
Note.— Harding (Lt.-Col.), The History of Tiverton. Tiverton,
1845.
I20 TIVERTON
described as an Arab of sixteen hands and peculiar to the
regions round Nubia. Sir Joseph proposed to the party to
get some of the breed, and accordingly Lords Headly,
Morton, and Dundas, and Mr. Knight then and there gave
him a joint ;^iooo cheque as a deposit for the expenses.
The English consul in Egypt was applied to, and in due
course the horses and mares which he sent bore out Bruce's
description to the letter. In addition to their height, they
were rather Roman-nosed, with a very fine texture of skin,
well chiselled under the jowl, and as clean-winded as all
their race. About ten or twelve arrived, and Mr. Knight
was so pleased with them that he bought Lord Headly's
share. His two sires and three mares were then brought to
Simonsbath, where he had established a stud of seven or
eight thoroughbred mares and thirty half-breeds of the
coaching Cleveland sort.
"The first cross knocked out the Roman nose as com-
pletely as the Leicester destroys the Exmoor horn, but the
buffy stood true to its colour, and thus the type was never
quite lost. The half Dongolas did wonderfully well with
the West Somerset, which often came to Exmoor to draw
for a fox, and they managed to get down the difficult hills
so well, and crossed the brooks so close up with the
hounds, that the vocation of the white-clad guides on
chase days gradually fell into disuse."**^
The average height is 12 J hands, and bays and
buffy bays with mealy noses prevail ; in fact, are
in a majority of at least three to one.
The older ponies live all through the v^inter on the
hills, and seek out sheltered spots for themselves
during the continuance of wind and rain. These
favourite nooks are well known to the herdsmen,
* Condensed from *'The Exmoor Ponies,'' by "Druid," in The
Sporting Magazine, October, i860.
EXMOOR PONIES 121
who build up stacks of hay and straw, which are
doled out to them in times of snow. "Still, like
honest, hard - working labourers, the ponies never
assemble at the wicket till they have exhausted
every means of self-support by scratching with their
fore-feet in the snow for the remnants of the summer
tufts, and drag wearily behind them an ever lengthen-
ing chain of snowballs."
A writer in All The Year Round for May, 1866,
says : —
"Throughout North Devon and Somersetshire and
wherever ponies are famed, the Exmoor breed have a
great reputation, not without reason, for they are not
only hardy and sure-footed, but from their earliest years
the foals follow their dams at a gallop down the crees of
loose stones on the steep moorland sides ; they are extra-
ordinarily active and courageous. The writer once saw an
Exmoor, only 44 inches high, jump out of a pound 5 feet
6 inches in height, just touching the top bar with his hind
feet."
Well, let a visitor go to Bampton Fair, and see the
pranks of these wild, beautiful creatures, and note as
well the skill with which they are managed by the
men experienced in dealing with them. Such a sight
will remain in his memory, and when he gets back
to town he will have something to talk about at
dinner, and if he has a bit of descriptive power in
him he will hold the ears of those who are near him
at table.
Note.— HardinCx (Lt.-CoL), The History of Tiverton. Tiverton,
1845.
CHAPTER VIII.
BARNSTAPLE
The stapol oi Branock's district — The Irish settlers — Branock badly
received in South Wales — Situation of Barnstaple — Huguenot
refugees — Samuel Pepys's wife — ^Jacques Fontaine — French names
altered — Barnstaple the starting-point for llfracombe and Lynton —
The coast road — Exmoor — Combe Martin — The Valley of Rocks
— The Wichehalses of Lee — Brendon — S. Brendan's voyages —
Churches near Barnstaple.
THIS town was the stapol^ port or mart, of the
district of Barum, Braun, or Brannock, an Irish
saint, confessor, and son-in-law to Brychan, King of
Brecknock, who settled at Braunton, formerly Llan-
Brynach, then Brannock-stow. The northern cheek
of Barnstaple Bay is formed by a peninsula, the
centre of which is this same Braunton, where Branock
had his monastic establishment. As intimately asso-
ciated with this district, a few words on him may
be allowed.
In the fifth century the whole of North Devon
and North-east Cornwall was invaded and occupied
by Irish and half-Irish hordes. Irish accounts relate
that these invasions began about 378, and continued
till the reign of Dathi, 428.
The Irish had made themselves masters of Breck-
nock, where their prince, Aulac or Amalghaid,
122
L.
:>.'-'-
BRANOCK 123
claimed the throne in virtue of his wife Marchell,
daughter and heiress of the native Welsh king.
Brychan, the son, succeeded him ; he had as tutor
to his children an Irishman named Brynach or
Branock, who was his confessor, and to whom he
gave one of his daughters in marriage. Branock did
not have a pleasant time of it in South Wales, and
he migrated to North Devon, where, by some means,
he obtained a grant of a considerable tract of country.
His legend was extant at the time of the Re-
formation, and Leland, Henry VHI.'s antiquary, who
travelled in Devon and Cornwall, saw it, and says
it was full of fables about Branock's cow, his staff,
his well, and his serving-man, Abell.
Unhappily, this has been lost, and all we know con-
cerning him is from a Latin life, composed in Wales,
that passes hurriedly over his life elsewhere and relates
mainly what took place when he returned to South
Wales. There he was very ill received, owing to the
hatred entertained towards the Irish. A woman —
the author of the life does not say as much, but
we may suspect it, his wife — instigated a man to
assassinate him. Brynach was wounded, but not
killed, and he had to shift his quarters. He probably
returned to Devon and died there.
Braunton Church contains some fine oak carving,
and deserves a visit.
Barnstaple lies stretched along the bank of the
Taw, and from the river has a prepossessing appear-
ance. There are, however, few objects of interest in
the town. The church of S. Peter, with a lead spire
that leans, is interesting internally from the many
124 BARNSTAPLE
monuments it contains of wealthy Barnstaple mer-
chants.
A tall, good tower to Holy Trinity helps greatly
to give dignity to an otherwise unattractive town,
made pre-eminently so by the unsightliness of the
ranges of suburban residences that line the roads
out of it.
But Barnstaple is important as having given shelter
to a number of refugees at the revocation of the Edict
of Nantes, and their descendants still live in the town,
though under names that have become much altered.
Among these refugees was the family of St. Michel,
and Samuel Pepys married one of the daughters.
The St. Michels were of good family, of Anjou, but
a son having taken up with Huguenot religious
notions, was disinherited, and came to England.
There he married the daughter of Sir Francis Kings-
mill, and had a son and daughter. He returned
to France, but was in very indigent circumstances,
and during an absence from home his children were
removed to an Ursuline convent. St. Michel, how-
ever, recovered them and fled with them and his wife
to England, and arrived at Barnstaple, but settled
near Bideford. How Samuel Pepys met Elizabeth
St. Michel we do not know. He was married to her
before the justice of peace on December ist, 1655,
but as he always observed October loth as his
wedding day it is probable that he, like many
another, had been secretly married by a priest of
the Church of England, and merely conformed to
the law afterwards on December ist. She was fifteen
only when Pepys married her, and the young couple
SAMUEL PEPYS 125
found an asylum in the family of Pepys's cousin, Sir
Edward Montagu, afterwards Earl of Sandwich. She
was a pretty, but a silly woman, and much inclined to
jealousy, but indeed Sam gave her good cause for that.
"1668-9, Jan. 12. This evening I observed my wife
mighty dull, and I myself was not mighty fond, because
of some hard words she did give me at noon, out of
a jealousy at my being abroad this morning, which, God
knows, it was upon the business of the Office unexpectedly;
but I to bed, not thinking but she would come after me.
But waking by and by, out of a slumber, which I usually
fall into presently after my coming into the bed, I found
she did not prepare to come to bed, but got fresh candles,
and more wood for her fire ; it being mighty cold, too. At
this being troubled, I after awhile prayed her to come to
bed ; so, after an hour or two, she silent, and I now and
then praying her to come to bed, she fell out into a fury,
that I was a rogue, and false to her. I did, as I might
truly, deny it, and mighty troubled, but all would not serve.
At last, about one o'clock, she came to my side of the bed,
and drew the curtains open, and with the tongs red hot at
the ends, made as if she did design to pinch me with them,
at which, in dismay, I rose up, and with a few words she
laid them down ; and did by little and little, very sillily, let
all discourse fall; and about two, but with much seeming
difficulty, came to bed, and there lay well all night, and lay
in bed talking together, with much pleasure, it being, I
knew, nothing but her doubt at my going out yesterday,
without telling her of my going, which did vex her, poor
wretch ! last night, and I cannot blame her jealousy, though
it do vex me to the heart."
One of the Huguenot refugees was a pastor, Jacques
Fontaine, who came over with Mile, de Boursaquotte,
to whom he was affianced.
126 BARNSTAPLE
They were taken in and hospitably received. He
kept a diary, which has been published. At first he
joined the communion of the Church, but later on,
when the Corporation placed S. Anne's Chapel at
the disposal of the French refugees, he became their
minister. The diary narrates his difficulties.
"God had not conducted us to a haven there [at
Barnstaple] to perish with hunger. The good people of
Barnstaple were full of compassion, they took us into their
houses, and treated us with the greatest kindness ; thus
God raised up for us fathers and mothers in a strange land.
I was taken into the house of a most kind and charitable
gentleman — a Mr. Downe. He was a bachelor, of some
forty years of age, and had an unmarried sister living with
him ; they were kindness itself, and I was completely
domesticated with them. My intended wife had been
received into the house of a Mr. and Mrs. Fraine."
Unfortunately, Miss Downe, a short, thin, sallow
old maid, marked with small-pox, fell in love with
the French refugee, and made advances to him
which were unmistakable. She plainly told him that
she thought that he and the Boursaquotte were a
pair of fools to think of being married, when they
had not a penny between them to bless themselves
with ; and finally, as M. Fontaine would take no
hints, she fairly threw herself at his head with an
offer of her person and fortune. The minister re-
tired in dismay, and sought his host.
" What is to be done ? " said he. " Your sister
has shown me the honour of offering herself to me,
but — but I am engaged to Mile, de Boursaquotte."
" Make yourself easy on that score," said Mr.
THE COAST 127
Downe. " I am enamoured of that lady, and I will
relieve you of her."
The result was a hasty marriage between M.
Fontaine and Mile. Boursaquotte ; they were united
by the vicar, in the parish church, on February 8th,
1686, and in the register are entered as "James
Fountain and Elizabeth Buzzacott." This latter
name is still common in the town.
Other Huguenot names continue equally altered.
L'Oiseau has been translated into Bird, and Roches
into Roach. I came across elsewhere in the parish
registers another Huguenot family, Blanchepied, which
has degenerated into Blampy.
Barnstaple is the starting-point for the grand and
almost unsurpassed coast line from Ilfracombe to
Porlock. Other coasts may have bolder cliffs, but
none such a combination of boldness and luxuriance
of vegetation. It has, moreover, a great advantage —
that a good road runs along it from Ilfracombe to
Combe Martin. But from this point the coast is
deserted, and the road climbs a thousand feet to the
Trentishoe Down, then dives into the Heddon valley
to the sweet and peaceful " Hunter's Inn," climbs
again over moor, and makes for Lynton. The road,
however, should be deserted, the Heddon stream
followed to the mouth, when a good path will be
found skirting the cliffs to Wooda Bay, a lovely
spot ; and thence through the grounds of Lee Abbey
to the Valley of Rocks, and Lynton.
Lynton, and the same may be said of Wooda
Bay, has the advantage which Ilfracombe has not,
of having had an architect to design mansions and
128 BARNSTAPLE
hotels for it that are no disfigurement to the place,
and are not a blot on the scenery.
From Lynton the road follows the coast to Coun-
tisbury, after which it deserts it.
For Exmoor Mr. Blackmore's Lorna Doone is
a good preparation, but the visitor who expects to
find the Doone valley and the slide of the waters
at all equal to the description given in that book
must expect disappointment.
To return on our traces. Combe Martin is one
long street of not interesting or ancient houses, save
'* The Pack of Cards," but it has a fine church, beauti-
fully situated, with a good tower and a well preserved
screen. Saints are painted on the panels. There are
fine canopied niches for SS. Peter and Paul. The
vaulting of the screen was removed in 1727. The
parvise over the porch is good, and there are eight
old carved bench-ends.
There is a curious double lock to the vestry ;
a small key has to be turned before the lock can
be made to act under the large key. An Early
English triplet is in the south aisle. Behind the
brass in the wall of William Hancock, Gent., 1587,
is his skull in a recess.
Watermouth Castle, that was passed on the way
to Combe Martin, is modern and unsuccessful.
A gateway into the gardens is made up of carved
armorial coats removed from Berrynarbor, and
dating from 1525. The Berrynarbor Church tower
is finer than that of Combe Martin. There is a
good deal to interest in the church. In the Valley
of Rocks are hut circles, but so mutilated and over-
^'DANES' COMBE" 129
grown with fern as not to be easily distinguishable.
Lynton Church has been well enlarged and is very
pleasing. It is fabled that a band of marauding
Danes succeeded in landing at Lynmouth, ascended
the cliffs, and were surrounded and massacred in the
Valley of Rocks, which bears the name of "The
Danes" or "Danes' Combe." But this is one of
those many legends invented to explain a name ;
the original signification has been lost. It was
called originally Dinas^ the castle or camp. Lee
Abbey never was an abbey. It was the seat of the
De Wichehalse family, refugees, it is pretended, from
the Low Countries in or about 1570. But, as a
matter of fact, the Wichehalse family first turns up
at Chudleigh nearly half a century before their
reputed flight from Flanders. They were cloth mer-
chants apparently, and one of the family, Nicholas
Wychalse, the third son of Nicholas of Chudleigh,
having married a wife from Pilton, settled at Barn-
staple and died there in 1570. As merchants in the
wool trade the Barnstaple branch did well, and married
into some of the best county families. All the rigma-
role about their being De Wichehalse, and being of
noble Flemish ancestry, and of their having fled from
Alva's persecution, may be dismissed as pure fable.
The story goes that in the reign of Charles II.
Sir Edward de Wichehalse was the head of the house
and lived in splendour at Lee Abbey. He had an
only child, a daughter, who was wooed and proved
over -fond towards a nobleman high in the favour
of James II. The lover proved faithless, and the
deserted damsel threw herself from the cliffs at
K
I30 BARNSTAPLE
Duty Point. The father in vain sought redress by
petitioning the king, and when the Duke of Mon-
mouth landed at Lyme, De Wichehalse raised levies
and hasted to his support. After the battle of Sedge-
moor Sir Edward returned to Lee, but emissaries of
the king were sent to apprehend him, and when De
Wichehalse learned that they were approaching, he
and his family embarked in Lee Bay on board a
small smack, intending to fly to Dutch William and
the land whence the ancestral noble had come. The
night, however, proved stormy, and the boat was lost
with all on board.
Lee " Abbey " came into the possession of the
"De" Wichalse family in 1620; there is a monu-
ment in Lynton Church to Hugh Wichalse, gent.,
in 1653. From the Wichalses it passed by sale to
the family of Short. I can find no Sir Edward in
the pedigree, as given by Colonel Vivian, so it may
be hoped that the story is altogether baseless, as the
fable of the noble origin of the wool merchant family.
At Lynton is the fine mansion of Sir George
Newnes, the publisher of Tit-Bits and many kindred
papers, who was created a baronet by Mr. Gladstone
for political services.
Exmoor in some respects is finer than Dartmoor,
in others less fine. It is finer in that it soars up out
of the sea to its full height, whereas the land rises
some eight hundred feet to the roots of Dartmoor.
But Exmoor is rounded and lumpy, and has no tors.
It served as the great barrier to the Dumnonii,
broken only by the portal at Dulverton. The Black
Down is its continuation. Indeed the county has
EXMOOR 131
a natural frontier. The height of Exmoor never
attains the altitude of Dartmoor, and is not loftier
than the Bodmin moors.
The long stretches of down without rocks and
without bad bogs render Exmoor a choice place
for stag-hunting.
The valleys to the south of Exmoor that are
watered by the Yeo, the Bray, the Mole, contain
scenery that is pleasing, but never rises to boldness.
Exmoor is interesting as harbouring a strong body
of the earlier dusky population that occupied the
country before the invasion of the Celts. But the
river names savour of the Irish settlers rather than
of the Britons. Such are the Bray (Ir. brag, running
water : there is a Bray in Wicklow) ; the Mole
(Ir. malda, gentle, slow); Barle {It, fuarlack^ barlach^
chilly).
But the finest Exmoor scenery is on the Somerset-
shire side, where the hills rise boldly above the sea,
and where rich vegetation clothes the shores of the
Bristol Channel. From Exmoor, moreover, a grand
view is obtained of the Welsh mountains across the
Severn sea. One can quite understand S. Branock
escaping from a population that looked on him with
an evil eye, to the blue hills that rose above the sea
not so far to the south, and easily reached in a
summer sail — and where, moreover, the land was
occupied by his countrymen — the Irish, as con-
querors.
The road to Countisbury passes remarkable earth-
works, the Oldburrough, of uncertain, but probably
prehistoric, date.
132 BARNSTAPLE
On the immediate outskirts of Exmoor is Brendon.
The church itself is of no particular interest, beyond
its dedication to S. Brendan, the Irish navigator, who
spent seven years exploring the western seas for
the Isles of the Blessed, and who may perhaps have
reached America in the sixth century. The nar-
rative of his voyage is, however, full of fable ; but
the fact of his having made two exploring expedi-
tions is fairly well authenticated. The cause of his
undertaking the voyage was this. One day he and
a couple of pupils, brothers, went together in a boat
to an islet off the west coast of Ireland. Brendan
left the younger lad with the boat, and ascended
into the island with the elder. Presently, as the
wind rose, the young man said to his master, " I do
not think my brother can manage the boat alone,
with this wind and the rising tide."
" Be silent," said Brendan. " Do you not suppose
I care for the boy as much as you do yourself? "
And they went further. But the young man be-
came more uneasy, and he again remonstrated.
Then Brendan lost his temper and swore at him.
" Begone — and be drowned to you ! "
So the young man returned to the beach and found
the boy struggling with the boat. He rushed into
the water — and was himself swept away by a wave
and perished.
Now when Brendan returned and found what had
happened, he was full of self-reproach, and hurried off
to S. Itha, his nurse, to ask her what was to be done.
"You will be in trouble," she said. "All his
relatives will take this up, and it will occasion a
CHURCHES 133
blood feud. Make yourself scarce. Besides, you
deserve punishment for your inconsiderate and pas-
sionate conduct. Go to sea."
And to sea he went in three wicker-work vessels,
each covered with three coats of tanned hides, and
each with a leather sail, and thirty men in each boat.
In the immediate neighbourhood of Barnstaple is
Pilton Church, that should be seen for its fine screen
and curious hour-glass ; Tawstock for its Bourcher
tombs ; Chittlehampton for its beautiful tower ; and
Atherington for its screen, a fragment, but that
fragment complete in every member, a superb speci-
men. Hall, on the Taw, is the fine mansion of the
Chichester family.
Swymbridge Church should on no account be
omitted. It possesses a magnificent screen, and an
ancient pulpit with figures in niches. The modern
reredos is bad.
The Chichester monuments are curious, notably
one of a youthful Chichester, whose portrait is given,
and whom the bird of Jove is represented as carrying
off to serve as Ganymede in heaven.
Littleham possesses an ancient fresco of S. Swithun,
and a rich screen and benches, that have been care-
fully and judiciously restored.
Note. — Books on Barnstaple are :—
Chanter (J. R.), Sketches of some Striking Incidents in the History
of Barnstaple. 1865.
Chanter (J. R.), Memorials of the Church of S. Peter ^ Barnstaple.
1887.
Chanter (R.), Sketches of the Literary History of Barnstaple^ with
the Diary of Philip Wyott. n,d.
CHAPTER IX.
BIDEFORD
Ugly modern buildings — ' * Westward Ho ! " — Roman roads — The Tor-
ridge — The story of King Edmund — The ravages of the sons of
Lodbrog — Hingvar and Hubba defeated at Appledore — Brictric the
Golden -haired — Bideford Bridge — The herriot — Sir William Coffin
— The Newfoundland Fisheries — Sir Richard Grenville — Colonisa-
tion of Wokohen — Captain White — The story of the life of Sir
Richard Grenville — The Revenge — The north coast to Wellcombe —
The Hobby Drive — Hartland — S. Nectan — The Promontory of
Hercules — Wellcombe — Mutilation of the Church — Wear GifFord.
BARNSTAPLE and Bideford are towns that the
jerry-builders have done their utmost to make
hideous with white brick villas banded with red. It
is a curious fact, but fact it is, that a builder without
a grain of taste, if ambitious to make one of his
domestic monstrosities attractive, will look into the
pattern -book of a maker of terra -cotta, and select
the most obtrusive ridge-tiles and, above all, hip-
knobs he can find, frizzle the spine of his roof with
the former, clap the latter on his gable, and think
that the product is stylish. The foliations of the
ridge -tiles get broken after a frost, and the roof
acquires a mangy look, but not till after the villa
has been let as a handsome suburban residence.
When one encounters this sort of thing, repeated
134
ALL NEW 135
again and again, the heart turns sick, and the visitor
is impatient to fly from towns thus vulgarised.
To Bideford he comes full of thoughts of " West-
ward Ho ! " and expects to find an Elizabethan
flavour about the place, only to be woefully dis-
appointed. Even the church is new ; only the
bridge remains, and that has been menaced with
destruction.
Bideford has memories, but modern Bideford has
made herself aesthetically unworthy of them.
To begin with, the old Roman, or pre-Roman,
road from North Cornwall passing through Stratton,
that takes its name from the street or road, ran to
the ford on the Torridge and passed on to Barnstaple.
At the beginning of the ninth century the estuary
of the Taw and Torridge [Dur^ water, and Dur-rhyd^
the water ford*) invited the entry into the land of
the Northmen.
A memorable incident in one of these incursions is
connected with a romantic story that shall be told in
full.
Roger of Wendover gives the tale, founding it on
old ballads.
" There was, not long ago, in the kingdom of the Danes,
a certain man named Lodbrog (Hairy-breeches), who was
sprung from the royal race of that nation, and had by his
wife two sons, Hingvar and Hubba. One day he took his
hawk and went unattended in a little boat to catch small
birds and wild-fowl on the seacoast and in the islands.
While thus engaged he was surprised by a sudden storm,
and carried out to sea, and after having been tossed about
* The ford gave its distinctive appellation to the river above it.
136 BIDEFORD
for several days and nights, was at last carried in sore
distress to the English coast, and landed at Redham, in
the province of Norfolk. The people of that country by
chance found him with his hawk, and presented him as
a sort of Jprodigy to Edmund, king of the East Angles,
who, for the sake of his comely person, gave him an
honourable reception. Lodbrog abode some time in the
court of the monarch, and as the Danish tongue is very
Hke English, he began to relate to the king by what chance
he had been driven to the coast of England. The accom-
plished manners of King Edmund pleased Lodbrog, as
well as his military discipline and the courtly manners of
his attendants. Emulous of the like attainments, Lodbrog
asked permission of the king to remain in his court, and
having obtained his request, he attached himself to the
king's huntsman, whose name was Bjorn, that he might
with him exercise the hunter's art. But such was the skill
of Lodbrog, that he was always successful in hunting or
hawking, and being deservedly a favourite with the king,
Bjorn became jealous of him, and giving way to deadly
hatred, one day, when they were hunting together, he
attacked him and slew him, and left his body in a thicket.
This done, the wicked huntsman called off his dogs with
his horn, and returned home. Now Lodbrog had reared
a certain greyhound in King Edmund's court, which was
very fond of him, and, as is natural, when the huntsman
returned with his own dogs, remained watchful by his
master's body.
"Next day, as King Edmund sat at table, he missed
Lodbrog from the company, and anxiously asked his attend-
ants what had befallen him, on which Bjorn, the huntsman,
answered that he had tarried behind in a wood, and he had
seen no more of him. But as he was speaking, Lodbrog's
dog came into the hall and began to wag his tail and fawn
on all, and especially on the king, who, on seeing him, said
THE NORSE STORY 137
to his attendants, * Here comes Lodbrog's dog ; his master
is not far behind.' He then began to feed the dog, hoping
soon to see his master. But he was disappointed, for when
the greyhound had satisfied his appetite, he returned to
keep his accustomed watch over his master's body. After
three days he was compelled by hunger to return to the
king's table, and Edmund, greatly wondering, gave orders
to follow the dog when he left the hall, and watch whither
he went. The king's servants fulfilled his commands, and
followed the dog till it led them to Lodbrog's lifeless body.
On being informed of this the king was greatly disturbed,
and directed that the body should be committed to a more
honourable sepulchre. King Edmund then caused diligent
inquisition to be made touching the death of Lodbrog; and
Bjorn, the huntsman, was convicted of the crime, and by
order of the king, the captains and wise men of his court
passed sentence on him. The judges unanimously agreed
that the huntsman should be put into the boat in which
Lodbrog had come to England, and should be exposed on
the sea without sail or oar, that it might be proved whether
God would deliver him."
Roger of Wendover goes on to tell how Bjorn was
wafted across to Denmark, and there was examined
by torture by Hubba and Hingvar, sons of Lodbrog,
who recognised their father's boat. Bjorn, under
torture, declared that Lodbrog had been put to death
by Edmund, king of the East Angles. The Danes
accordingly assembled an army and invaded East
Anglia to avenge on Edmund the murder of their
father.
The Norse story does not agree with this at all.
According to the Sagas, Ragnar Lodbrog was seized
by iElla, king of the Northumbrians, and was thrown
138 BIDEFORD
into a dungeon full of serpents, in which he sang his
dying song, the famous Krakumal. His sons, they
say, were called Eirekr, Agnarr, Ivar, Bjorn Ironside,
Hvitserkr, and Sigurd Worm-in-the-eye.
Edmund encamped at the royal vill of Haeles-
dune (Hoxne), when Hingvar and Hubba landed
at Berwick-on-Tweed, and ravaged the country
on their march through Northumbria. In 870
Hingvar entered East Anglia, and was attacked
by Edmund whilst his force was divided from that
of Hubba. Both sides suffered severely. Hubba
joined Hingvar at Thetford, and the united army
fought Edmund again. His force was far out-
numbered. He was routed, and he and Humbert,
bishop of Elmham, were taken in a church; Humbert
was despatched with the sword. Edmund was tied
to a tree, and the Danes shot at him with their
arrows, till they were tired of the sport, when he was
decapitated, and his head flung into a thicket of the
forest of Hoxne.
So far we have had nothing about Bideford. But
now we come to this parish.
Hingvar and Hubba (Agnarr and Ivar of the Norse
version) were provided by their sisters with an ensign
before starting, on which, with their needles, they
had wrought the figure of a raven, in symbol of the
carnage that their brothers were to cause in revenge
for the death of their father. Hingvar and Hubba
in S66 ravaged East Anglia and Mercia ; they
wintered in Essex, and in S6y crossed the Humber
and took York. In 868 they devastated as far as
Nottingham. In 870 Edmund fell. Every successive
HISTORY 139
year was marked by fire and slaughter. In 8y6 the
Danes were in Exeter, and again in Syy. In the
winter of 8yS Hubba came with twenty-three ships
into the estuary of the Taw and Torridge with the
raven standard, and landed at Appledore {Aweddwr,
W. running water). Here the men of Devon were
encamped at Kenwith,* now Henny Castle, north-
west of Bideford, where earthworks remain to this
day in the wood. The Danes attacked the camp,
and were repulsed, with the loss of twelve hundred
men and their raven banner. Hubba was also slain.
He was buried on the shore near his ships, and a
pile of stones was thrown up over him. The place
bears the name of Whiblestone, or Hubbastone, but
all traces of the cairn have disappeared, swept away
by the encroachment of the sea. So the men of
Devon avenged the blood of S. Edmund and of
the men of Mercia and East Anglia.
In the time of Edward the Confessor the manor
of Bideford belonged to Brictric the Golden-haired.
He was sent by the king to the court of Baldwin V.,
Count of Flanders, where Matilda, the Count's
daughter, cast on him an eye of affection. But
Brictric did not reciprocate, and Matilda felt all the
rage and resentment entertained by a flouted fair.
Her chance came at last. She was married to
William the Bastard, who conquered England. For
fourteen years she had waited, nursing her wrath.
Now, at last, the opportunity had arrived for revenge.
At her instigation Brictric was made to surrender
* Observe the Goidelic for Cen for the Brythonic Pen. Kenwith
is " The Head of the Wood."
I40 BIDEFORD
all his honours and lands, and was conveyed to
Winchester, where he died in prison, and was
hurriedly buried.
William the Conqueror gave Bideford to the son
of Hamo the Toothy, Richard de Grenville, and the
place has never since lost its association with the
Granville family.
Sir Theobald Granville in the fourteenth century
was a large benefactor to the town in assisting in
the building of the bridge, rendered advisable by
the great loss of life at the ford or in the ferry. It
was, however, said to have been set on foot at the
prompting of Richard Gurney, the parish priest,
who dreamed two nights running that there was a
rock below the ooze on which a pier might rest.
But one pier did not suffice, and how to sustain
others on mud was a puzzle. It was — so tradition
says — solved by sinking bags of wool and laying
the bases of the piers on these, a story not so im-
probable as appears on the face.
For a long time the vicars of Bideford had a
herriot, that is, a right to the second best horse or
cow of any parishioner who died. In 1529 this
led to a scene. Sir William Coffin was passing
one day by the churchyard, when, seeing a crowd
collected, he asked the occasion, and learned that
a corpse had been brought there to be interred,
but that the vicar refused to read the burial service
unless the dead man's cow were surrendered.
But as the deceased had left no other property
whatever, the heirs demurred. On hearing this
Sir William sent for the priest, and reasoned with
FISHERIES 141
him on the impropriety of his conduct ; however,
the vicar was obstinate and would not give way.
"Very well, then," said the knight, "stick me in
the grave, and cover me up instead of the corpse,
and you shall have my second best cow."
He was proceeding to get into the grave, when
the vicar thought prudent to yield. I suppose that
the matter became notorious by the complaint of
the parson, for Sir William was actually summoned
before Parliament on a charge of violating the
rights and privileges of the Church. But partly
through his favour at court, and partly by his
being able to represent the mischievous conse-
quences of the arbitrary demand for "mortuaries,"
Parliament passed an act which put a stop to them,
or, at all events, in favour of the poor, limited the
extent of these claims.
Bideford was not a place of much importance till
the reign of Queen Elizabeth ; it started into sig-
nificance through the Newfoundland cod-fisheries,
which were almost entirely in the hands of the
Barnstaple, Bideford, and Bristol men as far as
England was concerned.
As early as 1504 the Portuguese had begun to
catch fish on those coasts. In 1578 England had
fifty vessels, Portugal as many, and France and
Spain together, a hundred and fifty, occupied in
reaping the harvest of the sea in the North Atlantic.
From 1698 to 1700 Bideford had twenty-eight vessels
engaged in the fishery, whilst Barnstaple had only
seven or eight; London sent out seventy-one, and
Topsham thirty-four.
142 BIDEFORD
But the raising of Bideford into a port of import-
ance was due mainly to the enterprise of the famous
Elizabethan admiral, Sir Richard Grenville.
" Sir Richard was born most probably at Stowe, the
Cornish seat of the family, in the parish of Kilkhampton,
in the year 1546. His father, Roger, was a captain in the
navy, and met with a watery grave at Portsmouth, in a ship
called the Mary Rose^ a. vessel of 600 tons, and one of the
finest in the navy, commanded by Sir George Carew. She
sank with all on board, July 19th, 1545, from a similar
accident to that which happened to the Royal George near
the same place, June 28th, 1782. Being at anchor in calm
weather with all ports open, a sudden breeze caused the
ship to heel over, when the water entered through the lower
ports and sank her. Some guns recovered many years after
are preserved in Woolwich Arsenal. Richard Granville was
early distinguished among his companions for his enthusi-
astic love of active exercises, and at the age of sixteen he,
in company with several other chivalrous scions of our
nobility, obtained a licence from Queen Elizabeth to enter
into the service of the Emperor of Hungary against the
Turks."*
He was engaged in the battle of Lepanto, in
which Don Juan of Austria, with the combined
fleets of Christendom, destroyed the Turkish galleys.
One can but wish that a combined fleet would once
more try conclusions with the Turk.
Then Richard Granville in 1569 was made Sheriff
of Cork, but he remained in Ireland two years only.
By his interest with Queen Elizabeth he obtained for
Bideford a charter of incorporation, 1574. He was
High Sheriff of Cornwall in 1578, and was then
* Granville (R.), History of Bideford, n,d.
RICHARD GRANVILLE 143
knighted. But the bias of his mind was towards
adventure at sea, and he united with his relative, Sir
Walter Raleigh, in the exploration which led to the
discovery of Virginia and Carolina in 1584.
"Two ships belonging to Sir Walter's company, and in
the command of Captain Philip Amadas and Arthur
Barlow, brought home that important news. The mag-
nitude and eligibility of the territory acquired by the
Crown were on everyone's lips ; for the accounts of those
who had been eye-witnesses of the country, its productions
and inhabitants, hastened onwards Raleigh's preparations
for taking possession of his newly-found dominions. As
soon as the good news spread among the country people in
the west, hundreds of hardy adventurers offered themselves
as the pioneers of colonisation in that quarter. A fleet of
seven ships, of which Sir Richard took the command, was
got ready with all possible despatch, and when the anchor
was weighed at Plymouth on the 9th of April, 1585, there
were none amongst the thousands there assembled but
shared the belief that their relatives and friends were
departing for a land flowing with milk and honey. The
voyage was a pleasant one, being favoured with a pros-
perous wind, but the inveterate hostility of Sir Richard
towards our national enemies, the Spaniards, led him to
prolong its duration. He accordingly pursued his course
by the roundabout way of the West India islands, and was
rewarded by the capture of several valuable prizes during
his cruise there. They did not reach the island of
Wokohen, on the coast of Carolina, until the 26th of
June, thus consuming valuable time on their passage. We
are told they were in about 34 degrees North latitude,
when, just as they were on the point of entering the roads,
the admiral's ship, from some mischance or other, drove on
a reef of rocks and went to pieces. It was fortunate that
144 BIDEFORD
no loss of life heightened the gloom of this inauspicious
opening. After great exertions the men rescued the crew
of the doomed vessel, and proceeded for the island of
Roanoke, a little farther to the northwards. The admiral
went at once from that island to the continent, and, on his
landing, proceeded to see what sort of country the promised
land was. Whilst engaged in this survey, the natives, who
were unaccustomed to the sight of beings so different
from themselves in colour, costume, and bearing, crowded
around, plying them with questions by signs and gestures.
Sir Richard appeased their inquisitiveness with the few
trifling articles he had designed for them as presents ; but
their appetites being rather sharpened than appeased by
these acquisitions, one of the natives, instigated by the rest,
entered Sir Richard's tent, and, attracted by a massive silver
goblet belonging to that knight, without more ado walked
off with it. The despoiled owner happened at the time to
be employed in 'prospecting' the country, but on his return
instantly missed the favourite piece of plate. Enraged
at this mark of ingratitude when from his conciliatory
kindness he had expected good faith, he adopted severe
measures on the natives around. He soon after set sail to
Roanoke, which all accounts concur in representing as an
incommodious station, deficient in all the requisites for a
good harbour, and all but uninhabited. Here, having
founded a settlement, he left in it a company of i8o men.
Mr. Ralph Lane, a man of experienced judgment, was elected
governor of the infant colony, which ranked among its
members several names not unknown to fame. Men well
skilled in the different sciences were there, to instruct and
improve the growing intelligence of the colony. Of these,
Hariot, a mathematician of first-rate eminence in his day,
is especially mentioned. Sir Richard made for home with
the avowed intention of procuring a reinforcement suffi-
ciently powerful to subdue and colonise the continent of
SIR RICHARD GRANVILLE 145
Virginia and Carolina. His good fortune led him in his
homeward voyage to fall in with a Spanish register ship,
almost as richly laden as the treasure ship the Cacafuego^
which had enriched, by its capture, his relative Sir Francis
Drake and his crew. In this vessel, which Sir Richard
engaged and boarded, was stowed away a cargo worth more
than ;^5 0,000 sterling."*
When Sir Richard Granville had retired, the colon-
ists wasted their time in searching for gold in place
of cultivating the soil. Consequently they were in
a condition of starvation when Sir Francis Drake,
touching there on his way to England, rescued them
from their impending fate.
"Not long after. Sir Richard Granville with three ships
hove in sight. Ignorant of what had happened he landed
with the confident hope of adding vigour and strength to
the infant colony for whose welfare he had toiled and
sacrificed; but after making the most laborious searches
for the absentees, without obtaining any indications of their
fate, he set sail, leaving fifteen of his crew ashore for the
purpose of retaining possession. This handful of men
soon became involved in hostilities with the natives, and
were by them destroyed to the last man. However dis-
heartening this unlooked-for succession of disasters might
have proved to men of ordinary stamp, they only incited
the elastic dispositions of Raleigh and Granville to more
vigorous operations. Early, therefore, in the following year
(1587), they fitted out three more ships, which were en-
trusted to the command of Captain John White, a native
of Devonshire, a man well versed in all the difficulties and
trials attending enterprises of this nature. He brought
* Grenvilles of Stowe^ by " A Bidefordian."
146 BIDEFORD
together a more numerous and determined body of adven-
turers than had composed the former expedition under
Lane ; but upon their arrival the same disadvantages which
had daunted their predecessors in the colony appeared so
forcibly before their senses that, deeming the continuous
mass of forest and the endless savannahs of the country
only fit for the abode of savages, they with one accord
solicited their leader, White, to return to England and
bring a fresh supply of articles, that their uncomfortable
position might at least be made tolerable. He accordingly
retraced his footsteps, arriving in this country at a time
when the eyes of the entire nation were intent upon war-
fare, and, receiving no encouragement from their patrons,
the unfortunate colony in Roanoke obtained no assistance ;
and the painful fact must be repeated, that our first settlers
in Virginia were suffered to perish miserably by a famine or
to fall ignominiously from the savage hatred of the tribes
who surrounded them."
Kingsley is vi^rong in stating that Sir Richard was
at sea, and assisted in the destruction of the Armada ;
at the time he was acting under orders to remain in
Cornwall.
Three years after, in 1591, he was in command of
the Revenge, as Vice-Admiral of England, in which
he achieved the glorious action off the Azores in
which he met his death. His object was to intercept
the richly-laden fleet of the Spaniards, on its return
from the West Indies ; a service of the utmost im-
portance, as thereby England stopped the sources of
Philip's power.
Towards the end of August, the Admiral, Lord
Thomas Howard, with six of Her Majesty's ships
THE ''REVENGE" 147
and as many small vessels, was at anchor at Flores,
when news arrived of the near approach of the great
Spanish fleet. Many of the Englishmen were ill on
shore, and others were filling the ships with ballast.
Imperfectly manned and ballasted as they were, there
was nothing for it but to make an attempt to escape
out of the trap in which they were caught, and the
ships slipped their cables. Sir Richard, as Vice-
Admiral, was the last to start, delaying to do so till
the final moment, in order to collect those of his
sick crew who were on shore; and this delay was
fatal.
The two great Spanish squadrons hove in sight
and intercepted him. However, he resolved to
force his way through. The Spanish fleet consisted
of fifty - three vessels. Eleven out of the twelve
English ships had escaped. Sir Richard weighed,
uncertain at first what to do. The Spanish fleet
were on his weather bow, and he was advised to
cut his mainsail, cast about, and run before the
wind, trusting to the fleetness of his ship. But
Sir Richard utterly refused to turn his back on the
enemy, alleging that he would die rather than show
that to a Spaniard.
The wind was light. The San Philip, a huge
high-cargoed ship of 1500 tons, hove to windward,
took the wind out of the sails of the Revenge, and
attempted to board her. The Spanish vessels were
filled with soldiers: in some two hundred, in some
five hundred, in others eight hundred.
The San Philip had three tiers of ordnance, with
eleven pieces on every tier.
148 BIDEFORD
Then, as Tennyson tells the tale : —
" Sir Richard spoke and he laughed, and we roared a hurrah,
and so
The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe,
With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below,
For half of their fleet to the right, and half to the left were
seen,
And the little Revenge ran on thro' the long sea-lane between."
The fight began at three o'clock in the afternoon
and continued all that evening. The San Philip,
having received the lower tier of the Revenge, charged
with cross-bar shot, was to some extent disabled,
and shifted her quarters. Repeated attempts made
to board the English vessel were repulsed. All that
August night the fight continued, the stars shining
overhead, but eclipsed by the clouds of smoke from
the cannon. Ship after ship came in upon the
Revenge, so that she was continuously engaged with
two mighty galleons, one on each side, and with the
enemy boarding her on both. Before morning fifteen
men-of-war had been engaged with her, but all in
vain ; some had been sunk, the rest repulsed.
" And the rest, they came aboard us, and they fought us hand
to hand.
For a dozen times they came with their pikes and musqeteers.
And a dozen times we shook 'em off, as a dog that shakes
his ears,
When he leaps from the water to land."
All the powder at length in the Revenge was spent,
all her pikes were broken, forty out of her hundred
men were killed, and a great number of the rest
wounded.
THE BATTLE 149
Sir Richard, though badly hurt early in the
battle, never forsook the deck till an hour before
midnight, and was then shot through the body while
his wounds were being dressed, and again in the
head, and his surgeon was killed while attending
on him. The masts were lying over the side, the
rigging cut or broken, the upper work all shot in
pieces, and the ship herself, unable to move, was
settling slowly in the sea, the vast fleet of the
Spaniards lying round her in a ring, like dogs round
a dying lion and wary of approaching him in his
last dying agony. Sir Richard, seeing it was past
hope, having fought for fifteen hours, ordered the
master-gunner to sink the ship; but this was a heroic
sacrifice that the common seamen opposed. Two
Spanish ships had gone down, above fifteen hundred
men had been killed, and the Spanish admiral could
not induce any of the rest of the fleet to board the
Revenge again, as they feared lest Sir Richard should
blow himself and them up.
Sir Richard was lying disabled below, and too
weak and wounded to contest with those who
opposed the sinking of the vessel. The captain
now entered into parley with the Spanish admiral,
and succeeded in obtaining for conditions that all their
lives should be saved, the crew sent to England, and
the officers ransomed. Sir Richard was now removed
to the ship of Don Alfonso Barsano, the Spanish
admiral, and there died, saying in Spanish : —
" Here die I, Richard Granville, with a joyful and quiet
mind, for that I have ended my life as a true soldier ought
I50 BIDEFORD
to do that hath fought for his country, queen, religion, and
honour: whereby my soul most joyfully departeth out of
this body, and shall always leave behind it an everlasting
fame of a valiant and true soldier that hath done his duty
as he was bound to do."
Froude well says :-
*
" Such was the fight at Flores in that August, 1591, with-
out its equal in such of the annals of mankind as the thing
which we call history has preserved to us. At the time
England and all the world rang with it. It struck a deeper
terror, though it was but the action of a single ship, into
the hearts of the Spanish people, it dealt a more deadly
blow upon their fame and naval strength, than the de-
struction of the Armada itself, and in the direct results
which arose from it it was scarcely less disastrous to them.
Hardly, as it seems to us, if the most glorious actions
which are set like jewels in the history of mankind are
weighed one against the other in the balance, hardly will
those three hundred Spartans, who in the summer morning
sat combing their long hair for death in the passes of
Thermopylae, have earned a more lofty estimate for them-
selves than this one crew of modern Englishmen. After
the action there ensued a tempest so terrible as was never
seen or heard the like before. A fleet of merchantmen
joined the armada immediately after the battle, forming in
all one hundred and forty sail ; and of these one hundred
and forty, only thirty-two ever saw Spanish harbour; the
rest all foundered or were lost on the Azores. The men-
of-war had been so shattered by shot as to be unable to
carry sail; and the Revenge herself, disdaining to survive
her commander, or as if to complete his own last baffled
purpose, like Samson, buried herself and her two hundred
prize crew under the rocks of St. Michael's."
* Forgotten Worthies,
CLOVELLY 151
Bideford is the starting-point for the north coast
of Devon, from the mouth of the Torridge to the
Cornish border, and thence to Bude.
The beauty of this coast is almost unrivalled,
equalled only by that from Ilfracombe to Minehead.
Clovelly, with the Hobby Drive, is something to
be seen, and one's education is incomplete without it.
And one can combine archaeology with the quest
of beauty, if a visit to Clovelly be combined with
one to the " Dykes," sadly mutilated by roads cut
through the embankments. Nevertheless, sufficient
remains of Clovelly Dykes to make it a fair re-
presentative of a British king's Dun. Beyond
Clovelly, somewhat spoiled by being a place of
resort, but always maintaining much picturesqueness,
is Hartland, the settlement of S. Nectan, reputed
son, but probably grandson, of King Brychan of
Brecknock. He is represented in a niche on the
tower. His name is Irish ; Nectans were not un-
common in the Green Isle.
Very little is known of S. Nectan. He is said to
have been killed, his head cut off — not improbably
by the chief at Clovelly Dykes, who cannot have
relished having the country overrun and appropriated
by a horde of half Irish half Welsh adventurers.
And this took place precisely at the time when the
Irish grip on Britain was relaxing.
A stone was marked with his blood where he was
killed. He got up and carried his head to where
now stands the church. But "they all did it."
These Celtic saints had a remarkable faculty for not
only losing their heads, but finding them again.
152 BIDEFORD
There is a grand screen painted and gilt in the
church.
At Hartland Point, the promontory of Hercules of
the ancients, is a lighthouse. When the wind is from
the west the Atlantic thunders and foams on one
side of the headland, whilst on the other in the
bay the sea lies glassy, and reflects the purple-red
slaty cliffs. The point rises 300 feet out of the sea,
and was probably at one time occupied by a cliff-
castle. A visit to Hartland Quay reveals the most
extraordinary contortions in the slate rock. The
cliffs are sombre, the strata thrust up at right angles
to the sea, and over them foam streamlets that dis-
charge themselves into the ocean.
Hartland Abbey was founded by Gytha, the wife
of Earl Godwin, and mother of Harold, in honour
of S. Nectan, who, she believed, had come to the
assistance of her husband in a storm and saved him
from shipwreck — as if a true Celtic saint would put
out his little finger to help a Saxon ! But there was
unquestionably a monastery here long before — from
the sixth century, when S. Nectan settled on this
wild headland.
The large parish was at one time studded with
chapels, but these have all disappeared, or been con-
verted into barns. The church is two miles from the
village of Hartland.
A walk along the cliffs may be carried to Well-
combe, another foundation of S. Nectan, where is his
holy well, recently repaired. The church contains a
screen earlier in character than is usually found.
There were interesting bench-ends with very curious
EXCURSIONS 153
heads. At the " restoration " a few of the ends were
plastered against the screen, and their unique heads
sawn away so as to make them fit the place into
which they were thrust, but never designed to occupy.
Their places were taken by mean deal benches. I
suppose as the patron, S. Nectan, lost his head, these
chief ornaments of the church were doomed to the
same fate.
Wellcombe Mouth is worth a visit ; a narrow glen
descending to the sea, which here rages against pre-
cipitous cliffs.
Another excursion from Bideford should be made
to Wear Gifford, where is one of the finest oak-roofed
halls in England.
The mansion stands on a slope, rising gently from
the meadows near the Torridge, yet rears itself into
the semblance of a stronghold by a scarped terrace,
which extends along the south front.
Half concealed in luxuriant vegetation, on the
right is the embattled gateway tower, still one of
the entrances. In approaching the house we see
two projecting gables, and between them is the
entrance and the hall, the latter with its massive
chimney.
From the entrance the broad oak staircase, having
a handsome balustrade, is ascended. The walls are
hung with tapestry. On reaching the minstrels' gal-
lery an excellent view is obtained of the superb roof,
"one of the most ornate and tasteful specimens of
Perpendicular woodwork to be met with in England.
Every portion is carved with the spirit and stroke
of the true artist ; and the multiplied enrichments
154 BIDEFORD
seen in detail from our elevated position quite sur-
prise the spectator."*
Elaborately carved wainscot panelling surrounds
the walls, covering about ten feet in height. It is
adorned with heraldic shields, and opposite the fire-
place are the arms of Henry VII.
This small, perfect, and beautiful specimen of an
old English mansion was the cradle of one of the
best of Devonshire families, the Giffards, a branch
of which was at Brightley. The last of the Wear
Gifford stock conveyed the estate and mansion with
his daughter and heiress to the Fortescues. But the
Giffard race is by no means extinct, it is now well
represented by the Earl of Halsbury.
■* AsHWORTH : ' ' The Ancient Manor House of Wear Gifford," in
Trans, of the Exeter Diocesan Architect, Soc, vol. vi., 1852.
Note. — Book on Bideford : —
Granville (R.), History of Bideford, Bideford, 1883.
STAPLE TOR
CHAPTER X.
DARTMOOR AND ITS
ANTIQUITIES
Geological structure of Dartmoor — Granite — ''Glitters" — Building
with granite — The bogs — The rivers — Rock basins— Logan stones
— Kaoline deposits — Hut circles — Cooking - stones — Pottery —
Pounds — Grimspound — Position of women in early times — Ap-
proximate period to which the relics belong — The cromlech — The
kistvaen — The stone circle — The stone row — The menhir — Cairns
— Modes of interment among the pagan Irish — Stone crosses —
Tinners' burrows and stream works — Blowing-houses.
THE great irregular tableland of Dartmoor, an
upheaval of granite over a thousand feet above
the sea, and in places attaining to above two thou-
sand, occupies two hundred and twenty-five square
miles of country. Of that, however, less than one
half is the " Forest " and belongs to the Duchy of
Cornwall. Around the forest are the commons be-
longing to the parishes contiguous to the moor.
The moor is almost throughout of granite. At
the outskirts, indeed, gabbro and trap exist, that have
been forced up at the points where the granite has
burst through the slate, and these later uprushes of
molten matter have greatly altered the granite in
contact with them, and have produced an elvan.
The most extraordinary difference in kinds and
composition exists throughout the granitic area.
155
156 DARTMOOR
Some granite is very coarse, full of what are
locally called " horse - teeth," crystals of felspar,
other is finely grained. Some is black with schorl,
some, as that of Mill Tor, white as statuary marble.
Granite was not well stirred before it was protruded
to the surface. The constituents of granite are
quartz, felspar, and mica ; the latter sometimes
white, at others usually black and glistering. The
felspar may be recognised as being a dead white.
The black shining matter found near where are
veins of tin, is schorl.
It is the opinion of modern geologists that the
granite never saw daylight till cold and consolidated,
and that granite when in fusion and erupted to the
surface resolves itself into trap. The pressure of
superincumbent beds prevented perfect fusion. In
its altered condition when perfectly fused it may
be seen in Whit Tor, near Mary Tavy.
But, it may be asked, what has become of the
beds that overlay the granite? They have been
washed away. In Exmoor we do not meet with the
granite. It had heaved the slates, but not sufficiently
to so dislocate them as to enable the rains and floods
to carry them away and reveal the granite below.
If Dartmoor granite could but have retained its
covering matter, the region would have been indeed
mountainous. In Shavercombe, a lateral valley of
the upper Plym, may be seen traces of the original
coverlet of slate, much altered by heat.
The granite looks as though stratified, but this is
deceptive. It is so unequally mixed that some flakes
or layers are harder and more resistant to atmo-
GRANITE 157
spheric forces than are others, and where the granite
is soft it gives way, presenting a laminated appear-
ance. Moreover, the granite is full of joints. Where
these joints are vertical and numerous, there the
rocky masses break into fragments. Believer Tor is
a good instance. This imposing mass looks as
though, when rising out of the Flood, it had shaken
itself, like a poodle, to dry itself, and in so doing had
shaken itself to bits. Lustleigh Cleave is another
instance. Every tor is surrounded by a " clitter "
(Welsh clechir), and these clitters are due to the dis-
integration of the granite in horizontal beds, and then
on account of their joints horizontal and diagonal,
falling into confused heaps. Where the joints are
not numerous and not close together, there the rocks
cohere and form tors. In many, as Vixen Tor and
Mis Tor, the pseudo-bedding lines are very distinct.
Where the soft beds are infrequent, there the granite
forms great cake-like blocks as in Hey Tor. The
tors are, in fact, the more solid cores as yet not over-
thrown by natural agencies. Such a core is Bower-
man's Nose, and around it is the "clitter" of rock
that once encased it.
Granite is very pervious to water, as everyone
knows who lives in a house built of it by modern
architect and masons.
The ancients were not such fools as we take them
to have been. They did condescend to consider the
capabilities and the disadvantages of their building
material before employing it. The " old men," when
they constructed a wall of granite, always gave it
two faces, and filled in with rubble between. By this
158 DARTMOOR
means the rain did not drive through, although they
did not employ mortar; and the ancient tenement
houses on the moor are dry as snuff. But the
modern architect insists on having the walls built
throughout with lime, in courses, and the rain enters
by these as by aqueducts. Then, to remedy the
evil, the whole face of the house is tarred over or
cemented, with what result to the prospect may well
be conceived. The granite, though pervious, is so to
a very limited extent when compared with limestone,
and through a granite country there are no springs
that issue from subterranean reservoirs. All the
rain that falls on the surface runs off superficially,
but not all at once, for on the granite lie enormous
beds of peat, the growth and decomposition of moor
plants through vast ages. These beds of peat are
like sponges ; they absorb the rain, retain it, and
slowly give it up during the summer. In limestone
districts the making of a river goes on within the
bowels of the mountain, but in a granite district it
takes place on its outside. Remove the beds of
turf and peat, and there will be torrents after a
shower, and then dry torrent beds.
To north and south of the equator of the moor
lie vast tracts of bog in which the rivers are nursed,
and without which they could not be. No visitor
can realise what Dartmoor really is in the economy
of nature as the mother of the Devonshire rivers till
he has visited either Cranmere Pool, or the ridge
on the south, where are the meres from which
spring the Avon, the Erme, the Yealm, and the
Plym.
ROCK BASINS 159
The granite being of unequal hardness, its con-
stituent crystals become separated by the action
of the weather into an incoherent gravel, which in
Cornwall is called growan. The process may be
seen in full activity on any tor. Sometimes water
lodges on a slab, and finding a soft spot begins to
decompose it ; then, when this is the case, the wind
swirls the water about, and with it the grit is spun
round and round, and this continues the work of
disintegration, and finally a rock basin is produced.
Of these rock basins some fine samples exist :
that on Caistor Rock has had to be railed round,
to prevent sheep from falling in and being drowned.
Mis Tor has another, the Devil's Frying-pan. There
are plenty of them to be seen in all conditions, from
the rude beginning to the complete bowl.
At one time it was supposed that they were
Druidical vessels employed for lustration, and
archaeologists talked long and learnedly concerning
them. But what is quite certain is that they were
produced by Nature unassisted.
When a hard bed of granite lies on one that is
very soft, the latter becomes disintegrated and eaten
completely away. The hard bed is left either bal-
anced on one point or more, or else has its centre
of gravity so placed as to precipitate it from its
position. Plenty of rocks may be seen in all these
conditions. If it should chance that a rock remains
poised on one point, then possibly a little pressure
at one end of the slab will set it in motion. This,
then, is known as a logan, or rocking stone, which
antiquaries of old pronounced to have been employed
i6o DARTMOOR
by the Druids as oracles, or for purpose of divination.
All this was bred out of the phantasy of the anti-
quaries. There is absolutely not a particle of evidence
to show that they were supposed to be mysterious, or
were employed in any rites, and it is also absolutely
certain that they were formed by the hand of Nature
alone.
There are many logan rocks on Dartmoor. One
is on Black Tor, near Princetown. It is instructive,
as it not only shows the process of weathering which
made it what it is, but it has on top of it a rock
basin that decants by a lip over the edge of the
stone when the latter is made to vibrate.
The " Nutcracker " stone near Amicombe Hill
above the West Ockment rolls in a high wind like
a boat that is anchored. There were two very fine
logans on Staple Tor above Merivale Bridge, but
quarrymen wantonly destroyed the whole of one of
the steeples, together with the finest logan on Dart-
moor that was on it. The other remains. On Rippon
Tor is one, another in Lustleigh Cleave.
The felspar dissolved by the rain was carried away,
and has been deposited in many places, filling up
an ancient lake-bed and forming Bovey Heathfield,
coating plains and hills with a deposit white as
snow ; this is kaolin, and is worked as china clay
at Lee Moor and in Shaugh. The water flowing
from the works is like milk, and, curiously enough,
cows relish it.
Having got rid of the rock basins and logan stones
as pseudo-antiques, we will now address ourselves
to those which are genuine.
HUT CIRCLES i6i
Such are the menhir, the kistvaen, the so-called
"sacred" circle, the stone rows, the hut circles,
barrows, and cairns. All these abound on Dartmoor.
Nowhere else in England can be seen such an extent
of land undisturbed by cultivation, and carrying on
its surface so many hoary monuments of a pre-
historic population. It may be premised that all
kinds of theories have been floated as to their pur-
port and as to the period to which these relics belong,
and the loudest and most positive have always been
those who had no experience with spade and pick,
which can alone solve the problem of their object and
age. Systematic and persistent investigation into
these monumental remains has been carried on for
six years by a committee acting under the authority
of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement
of Science, Literature, and Art, and five reports of
their proceedings have been already published in the
Transactions of the Association.
It may be said that, at all events with regard to
the hut circles, their position in the order of civilisa-
tion has been made out almost to a certainty, for
something like a hundred and fifty of these have
been carefully examined. With these accordingly
we will begin.
They are strewn in thousands over the surface of
the moor, and such as remain are but the merest
fraction of those that must have existed formerly, for
incalculable numbers have been destroyed by those
who have made enclosures.
The hut circle is all that remains of the primitive
dwelling of a people that were pastoral, and were
clothed mainly, though not exclusively, in skins.
M
i62 DARTMOOR
The foundations of the circular dwelh'ngs are
formed of blocks of granite, sometimes set vertically
and sometimes placed in horizontal layers, enclosing
a space from eight to thirty feet in diameter. The
roof rested on the circular wall, which was never
over four feet high, and was doubtless of wood
covered with rushes, heather, or skins ; a low door-
way facing south or south-west gave access to the
interior ; and a hole in the apex of the roof served
as chimney. The thorough exploration of the floors
of these huts has resulted in the discovery of fire-
places, cooking-holes, and raised platforms of stones
forming seats by day and beds at night, not so un-
comfortable as it sounds, when covered with rushes
and dry fragrant heather.
That the inmates played games is probable, from
the number of small rounded quartz pebbles found
that may have served for a game. Cooking-pots
rudely made by hand of coarse earthenware, imper-
fectly baked, have been found, standing in the
cooking-holes made in the floor, with the "cooking-
stones" in and around them. These are river
pebbles of dense, hard granite, which were placed
in a fire and heated to such a pitch that dropped
into the pot containing water they brought it to the
boiling-point, and maintained it, by fresh additions,
until the cooking operation was complete. These
pots were fragile, and like modern crockery ware
got broken ; in one prehistoric cooking-vessel it took
the form of a fracture in the bottom — perhaps due
to the careless dropping in of the cooking-stones by
some inexperienced or impatient cook — but some-
COOKING-POTS 163
body was equal to the occasion, for the bottom was
neatly mended with china clay. These vessels, or
as much as stood in view above the floor of the hut,
were usually ornamented with patterns of the herring-
bone type, or merely with dots and lines conveying
no idea of consecutive pattern. Their interiors are
much blackened with cooking, and imprisoned in the
shreds there may yet be found, by the expert analyst,
oily globules, remains of prehistoric fat from beef and
mutton. Cooking was performed in holes in the
ground as well as in pots, just as modern savages
cook at the present time. Hot stones in a pit, green
grass, meat, more hot stones, and the whole turfed
in, and you have a result which an epicure would
relish. Some patience is necessary, perhaps twenty
hours for a whole pig.
There is a curious passage in the life of S. Lugid,
of Clonfert, who died at the beginning of the seventh
century. When a youth he served in the monastery,
and as his biographer says, at that time it was
customary to warm water by dropping into the
vessel a ball of iron that had previously been heated
in the fire. Lugid had to put such a ball into the
drinking-vessel of the abbot, S. Coemgall, and he
took it out of the fire with a pair of tongs, but
Coemgall for some reason drew his hand back, and
the ball fell on the table instead of into his cup,
and it was so hot that it burnt a hole through the
board.
Most of the cooking-pots found in the Dartmoor
hut circles have rounded bottoms, and are of too
poor a paste to resist the direct action of the fire.
i64 DARTMOOR
An example of one such, removed from the hole in
which it was, is preserved in the Plymouth Municipal
Museum.
One cooking-pot was found with a cross at the
bottom of thicker clay, the object being to strengthen
it, as experience showed that these pots always
yielded first at the bottom. Some of the largest hut
circles, those presumedly used in summer, had their
kitchens separate from them, smaller huts, where the
floors have been found thick with charcoal and
fragments of this wretched fragile pottery.
The larger huts had their roofs supported by a
central pole, and the socket-hole in which it stood
has been found in some of them. In many huts
also a flat, smooth stone bedded in the floor has been
noticed, presumedly employed as a block on which
to chop wood or fashion bone implements.
It is remarkable that one specimen only of a
spindle-whorl has been discovered. No metal objects
have so far been found in the Dartmoor hut circles.
Implements of flint, sandstone, and granite abound ;
they are mostly scrapers, borers, knives, and rubbing
or smoothing tools ; a few arrow-heads have turned
up, but these are mostly outside the huts, probably
shot away in hunting.
The examination of the graves discloses the same
kind of pottery, but with better finish and more
elaborate ornamentation. Implements of stone and
some bronze objects were yielded by the graves,
and the evidence of the exploration of the Dartmoor
remains has thus far connected them with the period
of culture known as the late Neolithic and Early
BROADUN POUNDS
^'POUNDS'* 165
Bronze Age, which means that the folk were still
using stone for their tools and weapons, but were
just beginning to employ bronze, an alloy of copper
and tin. It is not surprising that bronze has not
hitherto been found in the dwellings ; it was far too
valuable to be left about in such a manner as to be
lost, and no surprise need be expressed that it has
been discovered in sepulchral monuments appertain-
ing to the same people, for nothing was too good as
an offering for the use of the dead in the happy
hunting-grounds above.
That at least some of these huts belonged to
"medicine men" is probable, from the finding in them
of large, clear quartz crystals, such as are employed
by several savage races as mediums for conjuring
spirits.
Some of the hut circles are enclosed within
"pounds." Many examples exist. The most note-
worthy is Grimspound. The circumference of the
wall measures 15CX) feet, and it includes within it
twenty-four hut circles. The wall is double, with
small openings as doors into the space between, two
of which are perfect ; but for what purpose the inter-
space between the walls was left is most uncertain.
It can hardly have been filled in with earth or rubble,
as no traces of such filling remain. The entrance to
the pound is in a very perfect condition. There is
a hut circle outside the enclosing wall, just as in the
prehistoric forts of Ireland.
A curious passage may be quoted from the gloss to
the Law of Adamnan, which shows how women were
treated among the early races.
i66 DARTMOOR
In the hovels, very similar to our hut circles, a hole
was dug in the floor from the door to the hearth
about three feet deep. In this, in a condition of
stark nudity, the women spent the day, and the
object of the hole was partly decency and partly
to keep the women in their places, so that — without
joking — they were not on the same level as man.
They did all the cooking, turning the spits. They
made candles of fat, four hands'-breadth long. These
they were required to hold aloft whilst the men ate
and drank. At night the women were put to sleep
in bothies like dog-kennels, outside the enclosure, so
as to keep guard over their lords and masters, like
watch-dogs.
In Wales, Iltyd the knight sent his wife out stark
naked in a bitter wind to collect the horses and drive
them into pound, whilst he lay cuddled up in the
blankets.
Verily men had the upper hand then. Nous avons
change tout cela.
Near Post Bridge were numerous pounds contain-
ing hut circles ; most have been destroyed — one only
remains intact, at Broadun. Adjoining it was another,
much larger ; there the enclosing wall has been
destroyed, but not all the hut circles. At Archerton
a plantation of firs has been made within one of these
enclosures, of course to the destruction of the monu-
ments it contained.
What we learn from the hut circles on Dartmoor is
that they were built and occupied by a people who,
though they knew bronze, held it in high value,
as we do gold.
K
I
PLAN or KIST
SHE\A//NC FOSIT/O/^ OF Uf?A/
SOALE 2 rCET TO I INCH
COVER STONE
s ECT tora
ii^MSIlateff
PLAN OF ^^;=r^. __:^"^ BARROW
scale: b ft -to i ly
BARROW OX CHAGFORD COMMON
THE KISTVAEN 167
II. Of the characteristic dolmen, which we in
England call cromlech, we have but a single good
example, that at Drewsteignton. Cornwall possesses
numerous and fine specimens ; they abound in Wales
and in Ireland. But although we have one only
remaining, it can hardly be doubted that formerly
there were others, wherever the name of Shillstone
(Shelfstone) remains, as near Modbury, and in
Bridestowe.
The dolmen belonged to the period before bodies
were burnt ; it was the family or tribal ossuary. As
it became crowded with skeletons, the earliest were
unceremoniously thrust back to the rear, to make
room for the last - comers. The allee couverte in
France, and the chambered barrows of Denmark,
North Germany, Scotland, Ireland, and England, are
but extensions of the dolmen to hold a larger number
of the dead. The dolmens usually have a hole at
one end, or a footstone that is removable at will,
to allow for food to be passed in to the dead, and for
the introduction of fresh applicants for house-room
in the mansion of the departed.
Some of these holed dolmens have the stone plugs
for closing the holes still extant. On Dartmoor in
the kistvaens a small stone at foot or side was placed,
to be removed at pleasure.
III. The kistvaen, or stone chest, is a modification
of the dolmen, and is usually of a later date ; when
incineration was become customary, the need for such
enormous mortuary chapels, or tombs, as the dolmens
and allees couvertes ceased. The dead could be
packed into a much smaller space when reduced to
i68 DARTMOOR
a handful of ash. Nevertheless, it is probable that
some kistvaens belong to the period of carnal inter-
ment, and were erected for the reception of single
bodies, which for some reason or other could not
be conveyed to the family mausoleum. In Derby-
shire carnal interment is found in cists, which are
miniature dolmens, or kistvaens, sometimes standing
alone, sometimes congregated together like cells of
a honeycomb, each containing its crouched skeleton.
On Dartmoor we have hundreds of kistvaens. Most
have been rifled, but such as have been explored
show that they belonged to the same people and
period as those who occupied the hut circles.
In the fine kistvaen at Merivale Bridge, plundered
and mutilated though it had been, a flint knife and
a polishing stone were found ; and flint flakes have
been picked out of the ploughed soil round the
Drewsteignton cromlech. At King's Oven is a
ruined circle surrounding a demolished kistvaen, of
which, however, some of the stones remain. A flint
scraper was found wedged between two of the en-
circling stones. Some fine specimens are to be seen
near Post Bridge.
IV. The stone circle is called by the French a
cromlech. The purport of this is conjectural. Un-
doubtedly interments have been found within them,
but none, so far, in those on Dartmoor. In the great
circle on Penmaen-mawr there were interments at the
foot of several of the monoliths, and, indeed, one
of these served as the backstone of a kistvaen.
Stone uprights surround many cairns, in the midst
of which is a kistvaen ; but such circles as the Grey
THE STONE ROW 169
Wethers, Scaur Hill, and that on Langstone Moor,
never enclosed cairns or kistvaens, and must have
had some other purpose. Among semi-barbarous
tribes it is customary that the tribe and the clan
shall have their places of assembly and consultation,
and these are marked round by either stones or posts
set up in the ground. Among some of these tribes,
if one of the constituent clans fails to send its
representative, the stone set up where he should sit
is thrown down. It is possible that the circles of
upright stones on Dartmoor, not connected with
cairns, may have served such a purpose. They are
usually placed on the neck of land between two
rivers. There are on Dartmoor about a dozen.
V. The stone row is almost invariably associated
with cairns and kistvaens, and clearly had some
relation to funeral rites. The stone settings are
often single, sometimes double, or are as many as
eight. They do not always run parallel ; they start
from a cairn and end with a blocking-stone set across
the line. In Scotland they are confined to Caithness.
The finest known are at Carnac in Brittany. It is
probable that just as a Bedouin now erects a stone
near a fakir's tomb as a token of respect, so each
of these rude blocks was set up by a member of a
tribe, or a household, in honour of the chief buried
in the cairn at the head of the row. It is remarkable
how greatly the set stones vary in size ; some are
quite insignificant, and could be planted by a boy,
while others require the united efforts of three or
four men, with modern appliances of three legs and
block to lift and place them. Usually the largest
170 DARTMOOR
stones are planted near the cairn, and they dwindle
to the blocking-stone, which is of respectable size.
There is no known district so rich as Dartmoor in
stone rows. The number of these still remaining
in a more or less dilapidated condition is surpris-
ing. Some five-and-twenty have been counted, and
quantities must have been destroyed, and these the
very finest examples, as the big upright stones lent
themselves readily to be converted into gate-posts.
Indeed of those that have been allowed to remain
many have lost their largest stones.
The most important stone row is that on Stall
Moor, a single range, that can be discerned even from
Cornwood Station, and looks like a number of
cricketers in flannels stalking over the brow of the
hill. A fine one is on Down Tor ; here the largest
stones had been thrown down for the sake of re-
moving them for gate-posts, and the marks of the
levers were visible. Happily the Dartmoor Preserva-
tion Society interfered and re-erected the stones
which had been cast down. At Drizzlecombe are
three sets of stone rows leading from tall menhirs.
The stone avenue that led from the Longstone, near
Caistor Rock for over a mile, was wantonly destroyed
by a farmer a few years ago, when building a new-
take wall hard by. A good example is on the brow
of the hill opposite Grimspound, but the stones are
not large. The Merivale Bridge remains consist of
two sets of double rows, the stones very small, but
the rows fairly intact. But the most remarkable row
of all is that near the Erme Valley, which, starting
from a great circle of upright stones, extends for two
THE MENHIR 171
miles and a quarter, descending a dip and crossing
a stream to mount the opposite hill.
VI. The menhir, or tall stone, is a rude, un-
wrought obelisk. In some cases it is nothing other
than the blocking-stone of a row which has been
destroyed. But such is not always the case. There
were no rows in connection with the menhir at
Devil's Tor and the Whitmoor Stone.
That the upright stone is a memorial to the dead
can hardly be doubted ; it was continued to be
erected, with an inscription, in Brito- Roman days,
and its modern representative is in every church-
yard. The menhirs, locally termed longstones, or
langstones, must at one time have been numerous.
Those round the moor have been carried away to
serve as window-sills, door -jambs, even church
pillars. Several places and moors, by their names,
assure us that at one time these monuments were
there.
Menhirs are still erected by the dolmen builders
on the Brama-pootra, the Khassias, and always in
commemoration of the dead. The Chinese hold
that the spirits of the deceased inhabit the memorials
set up in their honour ; and the carved monoliths
in Abyssinia, erected by the same race when it
passed from Arabia to Africa, have carved in their
faces little doors for the ingress and egress of
the spirits. Holed menhirs are found in many
places.
There are several menhirs on Dartmoor, as the
Beardown Man {Maen, stone), near Devil Tor, in
a wild and desolate spot far from the haunts
172 DARTMOOR
of man ; the highest is at Drizzlecombe, height
eighteen feet, and weighing six tons.
It may well be doubted whether in any part of
England such a complete series of remains of a
vanished population exists as on Dartmoor, where
we have their houses and their tombs. But the
monuments are not of great size.
VII. Cairns on Dartmoor are numerous, but all
the large ones have been opened and robbed at
some unknown period. They would not have been
dug into at the cost of time and labour unless they
had rendered results of value. One ruined cairn
with a kistvaen in it is still called "The Crock of
Gold," but probably bronze was the metal chiefly
found. A cairn opened on Hameldon yielded a
bronze knife with an amber handle with pins of
gold. A cairn at Fernworthy gave up an urn with
a button of Kimmeridge coal, and a small bronze
knife, together with another of flint. But the cairns
were not always raised over the bodies of the dead.
Sometimes, perhaps, only over the head, which has
long since disappeared ; sometimes over the place
where the body was burnt, and sometimes as mere
memorials.
What makes ancient Irish usage so valuable is
that there we have traditional pagan customs re-
corded, and after Christianity was adopted the
ancient usages were but slightly modified. I will
quote a passage from Professor Sulivan that explains
the various methods of interment. And it must be
borne in mind that in Ireland the Celt was super-
posed on the Ivernian just as in Devon and Cornwall,
URN FROM KISTVAEN
MONUMENTS 173
and that in both the dominant race largely adopted
the religious views and customs of the subjugated
people.
" From the ancient laws and other sources we have
direct evidence that the ritual of the dead varied with the
rank, sex, and occupation of the deceased, and that it was
more splendid and elaborate in the case of great men." *
The various kinds of monument were the Derc,
the Fert, the Leacht, the Durna^ the CnoCy and the
Cam.
The Derc was a hollow, a pit, or hole, dug in the
ground ; in fact, a simple grave.
The Fert was a rectangular chamber, composed
of stones set upright, and covered horizontally with
flags ; in a word, a kistvaen.
The Leacht seems to have been a larger -sized
kistvaen, a cromlech or dolmen, but a single upright
stone was also called a leacht. When a number of
persons were buried in a single mound, then a stone
was set up in commemoration of each round the
tumulus or cairn. A good specimen may be seen
beside the road to Widecombe from Post Bridge.
The cairn has been almost levelled, but the ring
of stones remains.
The Cnoc was a rounded, sugar-loaf mound of
earth, and the Duma was a similar mound raised
over a kistvaen.
The Cairn or Cam was a mere pile of stones,
generally made over a grave, but sometimes having
no immediate connection with one. Here is a curious
* Introduction to O'Curry, Ma7iners and Customs of the Ancient
Irish, 1873, i., p. cccxxix.
174 DARTMOOR
passage which will explain why some cairns contain
no interments : —
" The plunderers started from the coast, and each man
took with him a stone to make a earn, for such was the
custom of the Fians when going to plunder or war. It
was a pillar-stone they planted when going to give a general
battle ; and it was a cairn they made this time, because it
was a plundering expedition. . . . Every man who survived
used to remove his stone from the cairn, and the stones
of those who were slain remained in place, and thus they
were able to ascertain their losses." — The Book of the
Dun Cow.
Sometimes, after a battle, when it was not possible
to carry away a body, the head of the man who
had fallen was buried by his friends under a cairn,
because the ancient Irish were wont to carry off
heads as trophies ; but to violate a cairn, even when
raised by a foe, was regarded as sacrilege.
On Dartmoor, in addition to prehistoric antiquities,
numerous rude stone crosses remain ; some of these,
if not all, indicate ways, and were employed as
landmarks. Only one bears an inscription, "Crux
Siwardi."
The whole of the moor, in the stream bottoms,
is seamed with streamers' " burrows " and deep work-
ings. It is not possible to fix their date. Through-
out the Middle Ages stream tin was extracted from
Dartmoor. Fresh activity was shown in the reign of
Elizabeth. Beside the mounds may be seen the
ruins of the old " blow-house," where the tin was
smelted, and very probably among the ruins will be
found the moulds into which the tin was run. I post-
BOOKS ON DARTMOOR 175
pone what I have to say on the tin -working to
a chapter on that topic in the ensuing portion of my
book, on Cornwall.
Books on Dartmoor : —
ROWE (S.), Perambulation of Dartmoor (new ed.). Exeter, 1896.
A caution must be given that the original work was written in 1848,
when archosology was a matter of theorising, and when Druids and
Phoenicians cut great figures. In reading Rowe's book the reader must
pass over all this.
Crossing (W.), Amid Devonians Alps. London and Plymouth,
1888. A pleasantly written little book, and free from the arrant
nonsense of pseudo-antiquarians of fifty years ago, cooked up afresh.
Page (J. L. W.), An Exploration of Dartmoor. London, 1889.
All the archgeologic lore in this book must be rejected. Otherwise it is
good.
Cresswell (B. F.), Dartmoor and its Surroundings. London,
1898. A handy 6d. guide, very useful, and commendably free from
false theorising on antiquarian topics.
Spencer (E.), Dartmoor. Plymouth, 1894. Afresh and pleasant
book, trustworthy as to the geology, but wildly erroneous as to the
antiquities.
For the Archaeology : —
Reports of the Dartmoor Exploration Committee of the Devonshire
Association, 1894-9.
For the History of the moor : —
Reports and publications of the Dartmoor Preservation Society.
For the Crosses : —
Crossing (W.), The Ancient Crosses of Darttnoor. Exeter, 1887.
Crossing (W.), The Old Stone Crosses of the Dartmoor Border.
Exeter, 1892.
For the Churches on the borders of Dartmoor : —
Chapter xix. of Rowe's Perambtilation, new edition.
For the Flora and Fauna of the moor : —
Chapters xiv.-xvii. of the same.
For the Geology of Dartmoor : —
Ussher (W. a. G.), **The Granite of Dartmoor," in Transactions
of the Devonshire Association^ 1888,
CHAPTER XI.
DARTMOOR: ITS TENANTS
Forest rights exercised by the Duchy — Rights of the parishes of Devon
to Dartmoor — Encroachments — Venville — Newtakes — Importance
of the moor as common land — The four quarters — Drifts— A moor-
man's house — Vipers in the walls — Crockern Tor and Mr. Fowler —
The "Wish Hounds" — The pixies — How an Ordnance surveyor was
pixy-led — The moor in fog — Story of a pixy birth — ^Joe Leaman
and the pixies — Notice on church gate — The boys and the plaster
figures — The witch of Endor — Those born on the moor do not like
to leave it — Freshets on Dartmoor rivers — The Dart — Ancient
tenements — The Prisons — Story of an attempted escape — A success-
ful escape — Cost to the country of the criminal class — Some effort
should be made to prevent crime — Believer Day — Trout-fishing — -
Dartmoor in winter — The song of the moor,
DARTMOOR consists of moorland running up
to heights of over 2000 feet, a great deal of the
area being enclosed, forming rough grazing farms,
but much of it remains to-day what it was thousands
of years ago, boulder-strewn ravines, through which
rush impetuous streams, rocky heights crowned with
huge blocks of granite, so weather-worn and piled
up as to suggest to the stranger that some Titans
had so placed them to serve as castles or to add
a romantic touch to already wild scenery. Great
sweeps of heather and furze-clad downs run up to
these elevations, and on many of these the rude
stone monuments lie scattered about in all directions.
176
THE FOREST 177
The forest of Dartmoor became the property of
the Princes of Wales only so far that forest rights
were granted to the Black Prince and to the Princes
of Wales for ever, without prejudice to such rights as
had belonged from time immemorial to all Devon-
shire parishes with the exception of Barnstaple and
Totnes. And the rights of Devonshire parishes were
to take off the moor whatever was wanted save
venison and vert, that is to say, not to cut down green
trees. As of trees there are none, or hardly any,
this exception could not be very greatly felt as a
grievance, and as now there are no deer, one might
have supposed that Devonshire people could exercise
an unlimited right over Dartmoor. Such, however,
is not the case. The Duchy of Cornwall, vested in
the Princes of Wales, has claimed and exercised the
power to cut away and reject the rights of every
parish except such as are immediately contiguous to
the moor, and to enclose and to shut out the good
people of Devon from large tracts, one of which is
made over to the convicts, another to the artillery, to
fire across at long range. The tors also are given up
to be hacked and quarried ; and ponies and bullocks
that have found their way on to the moors and do
not belong to "Venville" parishes (that is to say,
such as are contiguous to the forest) are pounded,
and their owners fined for trespass. Thus the grant
of forest rights, ?>., rights to hunt the red deer, have
been converted to very exclusive rights to everything,
and the Devonians, whose right was recognised to
everything save venison and vert, has been reduced
to nothing at all. But just as the Duchy encroached
N
178 DARTMOOR
on the rights of all the good people of Devon, so
was it also encroached upon. Before that the grant
of forest rights was made to the Black Prince there
were certain ancient tenements on the moor ; those
occupying them held under the king, and were abso-
lutely independent otherwise. But these tenants had
certain traditional rights, which they could put in
force once only in their lives — on the death of the
last holder the incomer might enclose ten acres of
moor land, and hold it at a nominal rent. Thus these
ancient tenements gradually expanded. But besides
this the holders made larger enclosures, locally termed
"new-takes," when the fancy came to them to do so,
and they settled matters easily with the Duchy agents,
to the advantage of both. Large landed proprietors
managed to get slices by a little greasing of palms,
and some very odd transactions took place whereby
great tracts of land, and even farms, were transferred
from the Duchy to other hands without the Princes
of Wales being in any way benefited, or being aware
that they were being robbed. But then — as the
Duchy had taken from the people — had not such
of the people as could contrive it a right to take
back what they could ?
All this is now so far a matter of the past that
the Duchy is no longer robbed, it robs instead —
curtailing on all sides the rights of those living in
the low steamy lands to the pure air and wide wastes
of that great well-head of health and life — the ancient
Forest of Dartmoor.
During the abnormally dry summers of 1893 and
1897 Dartmoor proved of incalculable advantage not
MOORMEN 179
to the County of Devon only, but far further afield.
When grass was burnt up everywhere, and water
failed, then the moor was green, and was twinkling
with dancing streams. From every quarter the starv-
ing cattle were driven there in thousands and tens of
thousands. Drovers came from so far east as Kent,
there to obtain food and drink unobtainable else-
where.
Thousands and tens of thousands more might
have been sustained there but for the enclosures
that have been suffered to be made — nay, have been
encouraged.
Dartmoor is divided into four regions, and over
each region a moorman is placed. In every quarter
of the moor a special earmark is required for the
ponies that are turned out, a round hole punched
in the ear, through which is passed a piece of dis-
tinguishing tape, red or blue, white or black. The
ponies are much given to rambling ; they pass from
one quarter to another in search of pasture ; but
the moorman of each quarter can recognise those
turned out on his region by the earmark. Sheep
also and bullocks are turned out on the moor ; but
they have to be cared for at home in the winter,
whereas the ponies brave the storms and snow.
The flocks and herds are not driven on to the moor
till summer, and are driven off at the approach of
winter.
Although every farmer round has a right to turn
out his beasts, yet the moorman expects a fee for
each horse, bullock, or sheep sent out on the downs.
Cattle, horses, and sheep sent upon the common
i8o DARTMOOR
lands that adjoin the forest are h'able to stray on
to the broader expanse, and in order to detect these
and exact a fine for them certain drivings are
ordered, locally called "drifts." The day when a
drift is to take place is kept a profound secret till
it is proclaimed early in the morning. Then a
messenger on a fleet horse is sent round very early
to announce it. On certain tors are holed stones,
and through these horns were formerly passed and
blown on such occasions. There are drifts for
ponies, and drifts for bullocks. A drift is an
animated and striking scene. Horsemen and dogs
are out, the farmers identifying their cattle, the
drivers and dogs sending the frightened beasts
plunging, galloping in one direction towards the
place of gathering. When all the beasts have been
driven together, an officer of the Duchy mounts a
stone and reads a formal document that is supposed
to authorise the moormen to make their claim for
fees. Then the Venville tenants carry off their
cattle without objection. All others are pounded,
or else their owners pay fines before being allowed
to reclaim them.
Now and then the Duchy endeavours to extend
its right over the commons belonging to contiguous
parishes. Nothing is lost by asserting a right, and
something may be gained. But when a drift is
carried over such commons the farmers of the
parishes rise up and repel the moormen, and battles
with clubs and horsewhips ensue. Blows are given
and returned ; it is felt, and felt rightly, that en-
croachment must be resisted at all cost, lest it should
MOORMAN'S HOUSE i8i
serve as a stepping-stone for deprivation of further
rights.
An old moorman's house was a picturesque object :
built up centuries ago of granite blocks unshaped,
set in earth, with no lime or cement to fix them,
low-browed, with the roof thatched with rushes, the
windows small, looking into a small court-yard, and
this court-yard entered through a door in a high
blank wall. On one side the turf stacked up, the
saddles, the harness ; on the other, a cow-house and
stable, the well-house accessible from the kitchen
without going from under cover, the v/ell being
nothing other than a limpid moor stream diverted
and made to flow into a basin of scooped-out granite.
The door into the house gives admission into an
outer chamber, where is every description of odds
and ends ; where are potatoes, old barrels, infirm cart-
wheels, and the poultry hopping over everything.
On one side a door gives admission to the kitchen,
hall, parlour, all in one, lighted by a small window
looking into the court-yard. Or, again, on the one
hand is the cattle-shed, on the other the kitchen, all
under one roof, and beyond the kitchen the common
sleeping-chamber. Rarely is there an upper storey.
The object of making these ancient houses so totally
enclosed was to protect the dwelling from the furious
storms. They were castles, but walled up against
no other enemy than the wild weather. Nowadays
these ancient houses are rapidly disappearing, and
new, vulgar, staring edifices are taking their places —
edifices that let in wind and water at every joint and
loophole.
iS2 DARTMOOR
The dry walls of these old tenements were snug
places for vipers to shelter through the winter, and
I have heard many an old moorman relate how,
when the peat fire was glowing and the room was
warm, he has seen the heads and glittering eyes of
the "long cripples" shoot out from the crevices in
the wall and sway, enjoying the warmth, but too
sluggish to do more.
One told me that his dog was bitten by a viper,
and its head was swollen shockingly. He at once
got elder flowers, and put them in a caldron to boil,
and held the dog's head over the steam. It cured
the poor beast.
Many years ago a Manchester man with plenty of
money came down to Dartmoor, and declared that
it was a shame so much land should lie waste; he
would show what could be done with it. So he
soon came to terms with the Duchy, which allowed
him to enclose thousands of acres — which means
exclude the public — and to set up machine-houses
for steam-engines to thrash, and for steam-ploughs
to turn the soil, and so on. The whole not very
far from Crockern Tor, the umbel, the centre of the
moor, the seat of the ancient stannary court, sub
DiOy under the open vault of heaven, on unhewn
granite seats.
One day an old moorman met this new-fangled
farmer, and said to him : " How do 'y^ Muster Vowler ?
I had a dream about yii last night."
" Did you, indeed ? I am flattered."
" Hear what it is afore yii say that."
" Well, tell me."
LOWER TARR
SUPERSTITION i8t
v)
" Well, Muster Vowler, I failed asleep, and then
I saw the gurt old sperit of the moors, old Crockern
himself, grey as granite, and his eyebrows hanging
down over his glimmering eyes like sedge, and his
eyes deep as peat water pools. Sez he to me, ' Do
'y know Muster Vowler ? ' ' Well, sir,' sez I, ' I thinks
I have that honour.' ' Then,' sez he in turn, ' Bear
him a message from me. Tell Muster Vowler if he
scratches my back, I '11 tear out his pocket.' "
And sure enough old Crockern did it. After a
few years Dartmoor beat the scientific farmer. He
had tried to drain its bogs, it had drained his purse.
He had scratched its back, and it had torn out his
pocket.
There existed formerly a belief on Dartmoor that
it was hunted over at night in storm by a black
sportsman, with black fire-breathing hounds, called
the " Wish Hounds." They could be heard in full
cry, and occasionally the blast of the hunter's horn
on stormy nights.
One night a moorman was riding home from
Widecombe. There had been a fair there ; he had
made money, and had taken something to keep out
the cold, for the night promised to be one of
tempest. He started on his homeward way. The
moon shone out occasionally between the whirling
masses of thick vapour. The horse knew the way
better perhaps than his master. The rider had
traversed the great ridge of Hameldon, and was
mounting a moor on which stands a circle of up-
right stones — reputedly a Druid circle, and said to
dance on Christmas Eve — when he heard a sound
][§4 DARTMOOR
that startled him — a horn, and then past him swept
without sound of footfall a pack of black dogs.
The moorman was not frightened — he had taken
in too much Dutch courage for that — and when a
minute after the black hunter came up, he shouted
to him, " Hey ! huntsman, what sport ? Give us
some of your game."
"Take that," answered the hunter, and flung him
something which the man caught and held in his
arm. Then the mysterious rider passed on. An
hour elapsed before the moorman reached his home.
As he had jogged on he had wondered what sort
of game he had been given. It was too large for
a hare, too small for a deer. Provokingly, not once
since the encounter had the moon flashed forth.
Now that he was at his door he swung himself
from his horse, and still carrying the game, shouted
for a lantern.
The light was brought. With one hand the fellow
took it, then raised it to throw a ray on that which
he held in his arm — the game hunted and won by
the Black Rider. It was his own baby, dead and
cold. This story was told by the blacksmith at
Moreton Hampstead to G. P. Bidder, the calculating
boy, who as a lad was fond of playing about the old
man's forge. From one of Mr. Bidder's daughters
I had the tale.
It would be unjustifiable to pass over the Pixies,
or Pysgies as they are generally termed, who are
the little spirits supposed specially to haunt Dart-
moor, although indeed they leave their traces, and
perform their pranks elsewhere. To be "pysgie-
PIXY-LED 185
led" is to go astray and become so bewildered as
not to be able to find the way at all. How entirely
one may go wrong even with the best appliances, the
following experience will show.
One morning, my friend Mr. R. Burnard, with
one of the officers of the Ordnance Survey, another
gentleman and myself, started from the Duchy Hotel,
Princetown, with the object of visiting an unregis-
tered stone row on Conies Down Tor, which at our
request the Survey was about to include in their
map. We started at 9.30 a.m., of course pro-
vided with compasses and surveying apparatus.
There was a bit of fog as we left the hotel door,
but as we heard the larks singing aloft we expected
it to clear. Mr. Burnard and the officer got ahead
of us, and disappeared in the mist before we had
gone a hundred yards — and we saw them no more
that day.
Beyond the Prisons there is a short cut across the
enclosures made by the convicts, into the main
Tavistock and Moreton road ; we took that, and on
reaching the road struck by Fitz's Well due north,
or nearly so, for Black Dunghill (Blackadun-hill).
Then I knew that by going due north we must strike
the Lych Way, the track by which corpses were
formerly carried from the centre and east side of
the moor for interment at Lydford. This Lych Way
is fairly well marked.
The mist became thicker ; we walked on, hoping
on reaching Conies Down Tor to find our friends
there. But after a bit I got completely lost ; we
came on a dip or pan in which were sheep, but no
i86 DARTMOOR
stream ; that I could in no way account for, so we
set our faces to the wind, which I knew when we
started blew from the south, and about one o'clock
we reached Princetown again, drenched to the skin.
But the Ordnance Survey officer and Mr. Burnard
had taken another route, had arrived at Mis Tor, and
then by a swerve to the right along Mis Tor pan — one
ghastly, boggy tract to be avoided — essayed to strike
the Lych Way and reach Conies Down Tor. But
in the mist they went so absolutely astray, notwith-
standing their scientific appliances, that when about
one o'clock they reached a stream flowing north they
supposed that they had hit on the Ockment and
would come out at Okehampton. Nor was it till
a brawling stream came foaming down on the right,
and the river took a twist south-west, that it dawned
on them that they were on the Tavy. About five
o'clock they reached, sopped as sponges and utterly
fagged, a little tavern at Mary Tavy, where, in their
prostration, they asked for a bottle of champagne.
The hostess stared. " Plaize, surs, be he sum'ut to
ate ? Us hav'n't got nort but eggs and a rasher."
That was a case of Pixy-leading out of pure mis-
chief, to show how superior they were to all the last
appliances of science.
Now, when the way is lost, there is one thing to be
done, if possible — aim at running water and follow
the stream. It may lead you out thirty miles from
the spot you want to reach, but it will eventually lead
to a roof, and " wittles and drink," and better still —
dry clothes.
But there is another way—to make two marks and
THE PYSGIES 187
pace between them till the fog rises. This is how an
old farmer's wife did, living at Sheberton. She had
been to Princetown to get some groceries. On her
way back in the afternoon fog enveloped her, and she
lost all sense of her direction. Well, she set down
her basket with the groceries on the turf, and planted
her gingham umbrella at ten strides from it, and
spent the night walking from one to the other,
addressing each now and then, so as to keep up
her spirits.
To the groceries : " Be yu lyin' comf'able there, my
dears ? Keep dry what iver yu dii, my biities."
To the gingham: "Now old neighbour, tesn't folded
yu like to be in this sort o' weather. But us can't
alwez have what us likes i' this wurld, and mebbe
t'aint glide us should."
To the groceries : " Now my purties, yu '11 be better
bym-by. Won't ee, shuggar, whan you 'm put into
a nice warm cup o' tay ? That '11 be different from
this drashy, dirty vog, I reckon."
To the gingham: "Never mind. It's for rain
you 'm spread. It would be demeanin' of yourself
to stretch out all your boans agin' drizzlin' mist,
for sure."
By morning the vapour rose, and the old lady took
her direction, came cheerily home, and comforted
herself with a sugared cup of tea, and spread the
umbrella in the kitchen to " dry hisself "
But to return to the Pysgies themselves.
What I am now about to mention is a story I
have received from Mr. T. W. Whiteway, brother
of Sir William Whiteway ; he was brought up on
i88 DARTMOOR
the confines of the moor. The story is of the Fairies'
ointment, as Nurse Warren told it.
" You have many times asked me to tell you about
the Fairies' ointment. Now I don't suppose you
will believe me, but I have heard Granny say that
a very long time ago there were Pixies scattered
all over the country. The Pixies were good and
kind to some people, but to others they would play
all sorts of tricks. You must never spy on a Pixy,
for they would be sure to pay you out if you did.
Now the story I am going to tell you was told to
me by my grandmother, who died in her eighty-
seventh year, and she heard it from her mother.
So this all happened before there was any King
George. Granny used to say that she believed it
was when there was a King Henry, who had a
number of wives.
"There was a wonderfully clever midwife, called
Morada, who lived a little way out of Holne village,
close to Dartmoor. You know in those days doctors
were not so plentiful as they be now, nor so clever ;
so the people all around used to send for Nurse
Morada. Now she was a widow woman and a
foreigner. Folks did say she was a witch, and a
sight of money she got, for folks was afraid to
offend her.
" One night just before harvest Nurse had gone to
bed early, for it was a dark, dismal evening, likely
for a thunderstorm, and Nurse was much afraid of
lightning.
"She had not been long asleep when she was
awakened by such a clatter at the door as if it was
A PIXY BIRTH 189
being broken down, and it was thundering and
lightning frightful. Nurse was greatly frightened,
but lay still, hoping the knocking would cease, but
it only got worse and worse. At last she rose
and opened the window, when she saw by the
lightning flashing, which almost blinded her, a little
man sitting on a big horse, hammering at the
door.
" ' Come down, woman,' he said ; ' my wife is ill,
and wants you.'
" ' Do you think I 'm mad ? ' she called out. ' I
would not go out for the queen herself such a night
as this,' and was going to shut the window.
" ' Stop ! ' he cried out ; ' will you come with me
for ten golden guineas ? '
" Now this was a sight of money in those days,
and Nurse was very greedy for money ; so she
told the man to wait, and she would be dressed as
soon as possible.
" The man jumped down from his horse, and
pointing to a shed said two words in a foreign
language, whereupon the horse cleverly walked in
out of the rain. The man entered the house, and
when Nurse saw him she was that frightened she
almost fainted away. He was not old at all, but
a very handsome young man. He was small, to
be sure, but he looked a real little gentleman, with
such beautiful fine clothes, and eyes that fairly
looked through you. He laughed to see how
frightened the woman was.
" ' Now listen to me,' he said in a voice as sweet as
a thrush's, ' and be sure that if you do what I tell you.
I90 DARTMOOR
and never speak of what you may see or hear, no
harm will happen to you, and I will give you ten
guineas now and ten more when you return home.
If you keep your promise all will be well, but if you
do not I will punish you very severely. Now to
show you what power I have, I tell you that although
you say that you are a widow and call yourself
Morada, that is not your name, for you never were
married. Shall I tell you some more of your past life?'
" ' No, sir, no ! ' she called out. ' I will do all that
you tell me.'
" ' That 's right and sensible. Now the first thing
I do is to blindfold you, and you must not try to
take off the bandage from your eyes. Take these
ten guineas and put them away.'
"This the woman did, and hid them behind the
mantelpiece. They both left the house, the woman
locking the door. He took the woman behind him
on the horse, and tied her with a strap round her
waist. Away went the horse like the wind across
the moor ; Nurse thought from the time they took
they must have gone pretty near as far as Lydford.
When he got off from the horse he made sure that
she had not moved the handkerchief. Unlocking
a door, he led her up through a long passage, and,
unlocking another door, pulled her inside.
" * Now take off your handkerchief,' said he, and
she found herself in a queer-looking place all lighted
up with beautiful lamps. A little squint-eyed man
came and said something the Nurse could not under-
stand. The little gentleman then hurried off Nurse
into a^nother room, where, lying on a beautiful velvet
A PIXY BIRTH 191
bed, was the prettiest little lady anybody ever did
see.
" Well, before many hours there was a sweet little
dot of a boy born. Then the gentleman brought the
Nurse a box of ointment and told her to rub some
over the baby's eyelids. When nurse had done so
she put the box in her pocket and forgot all about it.
This got her into great trouble, as I '11 tell you about
presently. Nurse stayed some days with the little
lady, and got to love her very much, she was that
kind and good. The little lady liked Nurse, and told
her that she herself was a princess ; that her husband
was a prince ; that they lived in a beautiful country
where there was no frost or snow, and that they were
fairies, not Pixies. Her father was the king of all the
fairies, and he was very angry because she ran away
and married the prince, who was not of so high
a rank as she was, although he was her cousin, and
that to punish them he sent 'em both to Dartmoor
for a year. That time was now up, and they were all
going home in a few days.
" The fairy prince took Nurse to her home blind-
folded on the big horse, in the same way as he
brought her there, and on parting gave her the other
ten guineas as he had promised. The next morning
Nurse was in a great quandary when she found the
box of ointment in her pocket. ' Well,' she thought,
'he will be sure to come for this ointment, as they will
all be going away to-morrow or the next day.'
" Nurse stayed up all that night, but the prince did
not come, and the next day and night passed without
seeing him. Then Nurse felt certain that they werQ
192 DARTMOOR
all gone, and had forgotten the ointment, and she
could scarcely eat, drink, or sleep for thinking what
virtue there might be in it.
" When the fourth night had passed without his
coming Nurse could wait no longer, but opened the
box and rubbed in a little of the ointment on her
left eye; but she only felt the eye prick and sting
a bit, so the woman thought the ointment must be
only good for fairy babies, and she went to bed quite
satisfied.
" The next morning she thought she must have died
and awakened up in another world. Everything
about her looked as if it had grown ever so much.
The cat, which always slept in her room, looked as
large as a great dog. Then remembering the ointment,
she covered her left eye, and all was as it used to
be. The woman now got very frightened, and started
off after breakfast to go to Ashburton to consult
a friend of hers, a Mr. Stranger, who was very clever
about herbs.
"As she walked along she would now and again
cover up her right eye, and then everything would
look so grand and beautiful ; and looking up, she
saw stars, although the sun was shining brightly, she
could see that wonderfully far off. Now, she had not
gone very far when suddenly the fairy prince, sitting
on his horse, appeared before her.
" * Good morning, sir,' she said, dropping a curtsy.
" * Ah ! ' he cried, ' the ointment ! Which eye do
you see me with ? '
" • The left, sir.'
" Instantly she felt something like a blow on that
THE PYSGIES 193
eye. The fairy prince vanished, and appeared again
as the little man she had first seen.
" ' Nurse,' said he, ' you are blinded in your left eye
as a punishment for having used the ointment. I am
sorry, for you were kind to my wife. Here is a
present she has sent you.'
" He then gave her ten guineas, and she returned
him the box. He then vanished. This is all the
story that Granny told me about the fairy ointment."
A farmer on the west side of Dartmoor, having
had sickness among his cattle in 1879, sacrificed a
sheep and burnt it on the moor above his farm as
an offering to the Pysgies. The cattle at once
began to recover, and did well after, nor were there
any fresh cases of sickness among them. He spoke
of the matter as by no means anything to be
ashamed of, or that was likely to cause surprise.
There can be little doubt that many of the Pixy
stories, as well as those of ghosts, have their origin
in practical jokes.
Old Joe Leaman, of Dartmeet, recently dead, had
an experience with Pysgies, as he supposed.
One day, having need of fuel, he went up the
Dart to cut faggots of wood in the Brimpts planta-
tion. Whether he had leave to do so, or took it,
is not recorded.
He went among the trees, cut a faggot, bound
it, and carried it to a place where he purposed
making a pile, which he would carry home at his
leisure. But he was observed by some young
fellows, and after he had deposited his faggot and
had disappeared in the plantation, they went to
O
194 DARTMOOR
the spot, removed and concealed the faggot, and
hid themselves.
Presently Joe came from out of the wood with a
second faggot on his back. On reaching the place
where the first had been placed, he set down the
second, looked about, rubbed his eyes, shook his
head, and taking his staff drove it through the
faggot, and pinned it firmly to the ground. Then
he went again to the wood.
No sooner was he gone than the young fellows
crept from their hiding-place and removed the
second bundle, but planted his staff where he had
set it.
Back came Joe Leaman bowed under a third
faggot, but when he saw that the second had
vanished like the first, and his stick remained, this
was too much for him ; down went number three,
and he took to his heels, and did not halt till he
reached his cottage.
Some hours later the mischievous youths came
in, and saw the old fellow crouched over his peat
fire.
"Well, Joe, how bee'st a?"
"A b'aint well."
"What's the matter?"
'' Umph ! b'aint well."
Nothing more could be got out of him.
During the night the lads brought all three
faggots and his stick, and pegged them down at
his door. Joe came out in the morning.
" Ah ! " said he, " them Pysgies ! They 'm vriends
wi' me again. Now I 'm all right. It ud niver do,
ANECDOTES 195
us on the moor not to be on glide tarms wi' they.
I'm right as a trivet now."
The schools have pretty well banished superstition
from Dartmoor ; none now remains, and I doubt
whether the old stories are any longer to be picked
up there.
Education, however, is not in an advanced con-
dition. The other day I took down for preservation
the following notice I saw affixed to the church gate
at Post Bridge. It was written on vermilion -red
paper : —
" Mary maze hencot as been and kellad
John Webb Jack daw.
and he got to pay 5^ for kellad a Jack daw."
The sense is not clear. As may be noticed, Mary
is a he, just as a cow is a he.
Here is a bit of conversation overheard between
two Dartmoor boys : —
" I zay, Bill, 'ow many cows hev your vaither ? "
" Mine — oh ! dree and an oss. How many 'as
yourn ? "
" Mine ! oh ! my vaither — e 's in heaven."
" Get out ! mine ha' been there scores o' times."
This is a sceptical age. The very foundations of
faith in verities and trust in authorities are shaken.
How far may be instanced by this anecdote : —
Two choir boys had been to a Christmas treat.
There was a cake with little plaster figures on it,
and two of these were presented to the aforesaid
boys, Jack and Tom, by their pastor and spiritual
father, with strict injunctions not to eat them, as
196 DARTMOOR
they would be most injurious, might kill them.
They took the images home, and showed them to
their mother, who at once perceived that they were
of plaster of Paris and not edible.
"Byes!" said she, "doant ey niver go for to ate
of thickey drashey things. They '11 kill yu for zure-
cartain, right off on end."
Here, pray note it, was the same thing inculcated
by the material as well as the spiritual parent.
Some hours later the mother with a shock perceived
that one of the plaster figures was gone from the
mantelshelf on which she had placed it.
" Tom ! Tom ! " she cried to the only son who was
then in the house, " where be the plaister man to ? "
"Plaise, mother, Jack hev aiten 'n — and if Jack
be alive this arternoon, I be goin' to ate the other
wan."
When such a condition of mind exists among the
young, can one expect to find a belief in Pixies still
present ?
The only very modern case of spectres or their
congeners on the moor I have heard of is that of
a moor farmer, who is wont to return from market at
Moreton in a hilarious condition.
"T'other day," said he, "just as I comed to a little
dip in the ground t' other side o' Merripit, who shu'd
I meet but the witch o' Endor. ' Muster,' sez she,
* Yu' ve been drinkin' and got liquor o' board.' Now
how cu'd a woman a' knawed that onless her 'd been
a sperrit herself or a witch I 'd like to knaw."
Some of those who have been brought up on the
moor cannot endure to leave it. One man named
X
COTTAGES 197
John Hamlyn, who died aged eighty years, had never
in all his life been off it. Another, Jacob Gorman,
aged seventy-five, had been from it only two months
in all his life. At a little cot near Birch Tor, it was
said that the fire had not gone out for a hundred
years, as the women had never for a night left the
house.
Some of the old cottages on the moor were
wonderful abodes, like Irish cabins. They are
gradually disappearing, but a few still remain. The
influx of visitors to Dartmoor, and the money
brought there, tend to their effacement. A cot that
could be run up between sunrise and sunset and
a fire lighted by nightfall, has been held to consti-
tute a right for ever to the place. Some of the
hovels still standing have been so erected.
The rivers on the moor are liable to freshets. In
the notable storm of 1890, Merivale Bridge on the
Walla, and the old bridge leading from Tavistock to
Peter Tavy over the Tavy river, were swept away.
But the Dart is notorious for its sudden swelling.
It was due to this that the old couplet ran —
" River of Dart, O river of Dart,
Every year thou claimest a heart."
The river " cries " when there is to be a change of
wind. " Us shall have bad weather, maister ; I hear
the Broadstones a crying." The Broadstones are
boulders of granite lying in the bed of the river.
The cry, however, hardly comes from them, but from
a piping of the wind in the twists of the glen through
which the turbulent river writhes.
198 DARTMOOR
In Dartington churchyard there is a tombstone to
the memory of John Edmonds, who was drowned
in the river on August 17th, 1840. He and his
intended were coming from Staverton Church, where
they had been married, when a wave of water rolled
down on them, and cart, horse, and bride and bride-
groom were swept away. Her body was found
caught in a tree a few hundred yards below, but
the body of the man was not recovered for nearly
three weeks afterwards ; the horse and cart were
carried over the weir near Totnes bridge.
About a hundred and fifty years ago there was no
stone bridge at Hexworthy, only a clapper (wooden
bridge). Two men were coming down the road
when they heard the roar of a freshet. " Here
Cometh old Dart — let's run," said one. They ran,
but old Dart was too quick for them ; he caught
them on the clapper and carried both off and
drowned them; so that year he had two hearts.
A few years ago the Meavy suddenly rose and
caught a man and his horse as they were crossing
a ford below the village. The man was not drowned,
but died of the consequences.
Up to 1702 there were on Dartmoor but thirty-five
tenements in fifteen localities, some two or three
being grouped together in certain places. These
ancient farms are situated in the best and most
favoured portions of the Forest of Dartmoor, and
have been occupied from prehistoric times, as is
evidenced by the quantity of flint tools that are
turned up at these spots.
There is an account of the tenants of Dartmoor
THE PRISONS 199
as early as 1344-5, from which it appears that they
were then forty-four in number. In 1346 the forty-
four tenants depastured no less than 4700 oxen and
thirty-seven steers, a very respectable total, and one
showing that the favoured spots in the forest some
five and a half centuries ago carried considerable
herds of cattle.
The names of the ancient tenements are : Hart-
land, Merripit, Runnage, and Warner ; Dury, Pizwell,
Believer, Reddon, and Babenay ; Princehall, Dunna-
bridge, Brounberry, Sherberton, Hexworthy, Huccaby,
and Brimpts.
Formerly all these tenements were held as cus-
tomary freeholds or copyholds, but many of them
have been purchased by the Duchy.*
Where the miners lived in the old times, when tin
mining was in vigour on the moor, is not very clear,
as very few ruins of quadrangular buildings remain
that could have served as houses, and it is quite
certain that they did not inhabit the hut circles, as
they have not left their traces therein. They, in all
likelihood, lodged in the farmhouses and their out-
buildings during the week, and returned to their
homes for the Sundays.
In 1806 the vast range of prisons was erected at
Princetown, on the bleakest and one of the loftiest
sites on Dartmoor, for the accommodation of French
prisoners of war. From 1816, when peace was pro-
claimed, the buildings stood empty till 1850, when
they were converted into a convict establishment,
* For a full account of them see Burnard (R.), Dartmoor Pictorial
Records, Plymouth, 1S93.
200 DARTMOOR
and since then the prisoners have been employed
in enclosing and reclaiming the moor.
As may well be imagined, many attempts at
escape have been made. I remember one, espe-
cially daring, which was nearly successful, some
forty years ago. A prisoner succeeded in creeping
along one of the beams sustaining the roof of the
hall in which were the warders eating their supper,
without attracting their attention. He got thence
over the wall, and next broke into the doctor's
house. There he possessed himself of a suit of
clothes, and left his convict suit behind. Next he
entered the doctor's stable, and took his horse out.
But he was unable to enter the harness-room, owing
to the strength of the lock, and so was obliged
to escape, riding the horse, indeed, but without
saddle, and directing it not with a bridle, but with
a halter.
He rode along at a swinging pace till he reached
Two Bridges, where there is an ascent rather steep
for a quarter of a mile, and then he necessarily
slackened his pace. To his great annoyance, as he
passed the Saracen's Head (the inn which constitutes
the settlement of Two Bridges) a man emerged from
the public-house and jumped on his horse. This
was a moorman. The morrow was appointed for
a drift, and he was going to make preparations to
drive his quarter of the moor. He leaped on his
horse and trotted after the convict, little knowing
who he was.
That night was one of moonlight. The moorman
saw a gentleman in black riding a good horse before
ESCAPED CONVICT 201
him, and he pushed on to be abreast with him and
have a little talk.
"Whom have I the honour of riding with at
night?" asked the moorman.
"I'm the new curate," said the convict, "going
round on my pastoral duties."
" Oh, indeed, without saddle and bridle ? "
"I was called up to a dying person. My groom
was away. For souls one must do much."
" Indeed, and your clothes don't seem to fit you,"
observed the moorman.
Now the doctor was a fat man, and the man who
wore his clothes was lean.
" My duties are wearing to the carnal man," said
the rider.
"And the horse. By ginger! it's the doctor's,"
exclaimed the moorman.
The convict kicked the flanks of his steed, and
away he bounded. The hill had been surmounted.
The moorman gave chase.
Then he recollected that the doctor's horse was
an old charger, and he thundered out, " Halt !
Right about face!"
Instantly the old charger stopped — instantly —
stopped dead, and away over his head like a rocket
shot the soi-disant curate.
In another moment the moorman was on him, had
him fast, and said grimly, "You're a five -pounder
to me, my reverend party."
Five pounds is the reward for the apprehension of
an escaped convict.
The moorman got his five pounds, and the con-
202 DARTMOOR
vict got something he didn't like. He forfeited all
the years of his imprisonment past, and got seven
in addition for the theft of the horse and clothes.
Some years ago a convict escaped and concealed
himself in a mine. Impelled by hunger, he showed
himself to the men there engaged. He told them
that he was, like them, a toiler underground. They
agreed to shelter him, and he was kept concealed in
the mine till the search for him was past. Then they
gave him old clothes, and each subscribed a sum
of money to help him to leave the country. He got
away, and some year or two after he sent back all
the money he had been given, to be repaid to the
men who had subscribed to get him off, and a good
present into the bargain.
A very different case was this.
A man got out, escaped from the moor, and
made his way to his wife's cottage. She gave him
up and claimed the five pounds reward for her
treachery.
A friend was spending some months at Beardown.
One evening he returned late from Tavistock, and
to give notice that he was arriving fired off a pistol
as he crossed the little bridge over the river below.
Little did he then imagine, what he learned later, that
a couple of convicts who had escaped were hiding
under the bridge ; they would have sprung out on
him and despoiled him of his clothes and money,
possibly have murdered him, but were deterred by
his chance firing of the pistol. They were captured
a day or two later, and this was their confession.
It is not by any means easy for a convict to escape.
THE CONVICT 203
When they are at work there are two rings of warders
about them armed with rifles, and there is moreover
a signal-station that commands where they are at
work, from which watch is kept upon them.
Our criminal class costs the nation a prodigious
sum. The prison population for England and Scot-
land is about 30,000, and the prison expenditure last
year (1898) was £6o\,6<^6, so that the cost annually
to the country of each convict is about ;^20.
But there are indirect costs. If we put down : —
Law courts at . . ;£^3)757)96o.
Police at . ... 5,000,000.
Loss of property by depreda-
tion of criminals not less
than ... . 1,000,000.
Total ;^9, 76 1,960.
and add to this the cost of the prisons, we reach the
frightful expenditure of over ten millions. Surely
the nation is penny wise and pound foolish. If
instead of spending so much to get men into prison,
and keep them there, it would but concern itself with
keeping them out^ there would be a great reduction
in cost.
The convict is not such an utter black sheep as we
might be disposed to think him. That which forms
the class is the sending back among their fellows men
who have been in prison. They cannot get out of
the association, and consequently they return again
and again to their cells.
There is indeed a society for helping prisoners on
leaving to get into situations, but this is a duty that
204 DARTMOOR
should be undertaken by the nation ; and very often
the only way to really give a poor fellow a chance
is to move him entirely away from this country. It
is a difficult problem, and we could not, of course,
send them to our colonies ; but all social problems
are difficult, yet should be faced, and there is a
solution to be found somewhere.
All that the convict really requires is a certain
amount of discipline, a strong hand, and a clear
head in a leader or master, and he may yet be
made a man of, useful to his fellows.
" You don't think I 'm such a fool as to like it, do
you ? " said a convicted burglar to the chaplain. " I
do it because I can't help myself. When I leave
prison I have nowhere else to go but to my old
pals and the old diggings."
If it could be contrived to give these fellows, after
a first conviction, a start in a new country, nine out
of ten might be reclaimed. They are like children,
not wilfully given to evil, but incapable of self-
restraint, and cowards among their fellows, whose
opinions and persuasion they dare not oppose.
There is one institution connected with Dartmoor
that must not be passed over — Believer Day.
When hare-hunting is over in the low country,
then, some week or two after Easter, the packs that
surround Dartmoor assemble on it, and a week is
given up to hare-hunting. On the last day, Friday,
there is a grand gathering on Believer Tor. All
the towns and villages neighbouring on Dartmoor
send out carriages, traps, carts, riders ; the roads are
full of men and women, ay, and children hurrying
TROUT-FISHING 205
to Believer. Little girls with their baskets stuffed
with saffron cake for lunch desert school and trudge
to the tor. Ladies go out with champagne luncheons
ready. Whether a hare be found and coursed that
day matters little. It is given up to merriment in
the fresh air and sparkling sun. And the roads that
lead from Believer in the afternoon are careered over
by riders, whose horses are so exhilarated that they
race, and the riders have a difficulty in keeping their
seats. Their faces are red, not those of the horses, but
their riders — from the sun and air — and they are so
averse to leave the moor, that they sometimes desert
their saddles to roll on the soft and springy turf.
Trout-fishing on Dartmoor is to be had, and on
very easy terms, but the rivers are far less stocked
than they were a few years ago, as they are so
persistently whipped. The trout are small and dark,
but delicious eating.
There would be more birds but for the mischievous
practice of "swaling" or burning the heather and
gorse, which is persisted in till well into the summer,
and, walking over a fresh-burned patch of moor, one
may tread on roasted eggs or the burned young of
some unhappy birds that fondly deemed there was
protection for them in England.
The "swaling" is carried on upon the commons
round the forest as well as on the forest itself, so
that the blame is not wholly due to the represen-
tatives of the Duchy.
One is disposed to think that the moor must be
a desolate and altogether uninhabitable region in
the winter. It is not so— at no time do the mosses
2o6 DARTMOOR
show in such variety of colour, and when the sun
shines the sense of exhilaration is beyond restraint.
To all lovers of Dartmoor I dedicate the song with
which I conclude this chapter.
THE SONG OF THE MOOR.
'T is merry in the spring time,
'T is blithe on Dartimoor,
Where every man is equal,
For every man is poor.
I do what I 'm a minded,
And none will say me nay,
I go where I 'm inclined.
On all sides — right of way.
O the merry Dartimoor,
O the bonny Dartimoor,
I would not be where I 'm not free
As I am upon the moor.
'T is merry in the summer,
When furze be flowering sweet ;
The bees about it humming,
In honey bathe their feet.
The plover and the peewit.
How cheerily they pipe.
And underfoot the whortle
Is turning blue and ripe.
O the merry Dartimoor, etc.
'T is merry in the autumn.
When snipe and cock appear.
And never see a keeper
To say. No shooting here !
We stack the peat for fuel,
We ask no better fire,
And never pay a farden
For all that we require.
O the merry Dartimoor, etc.
BOOKS ON DARTMOOR 207
'T is merry in the winter,
The wind is on the moor,
For twenty miles to leeward
The people hear it roar.
'T is merry in the ingle.
Beside a moorland lass.
As watching turves a-glowing.
The brimming bumpers pass.
O the merry Dartimoor,
O the bonny Dartimoor,
I would not be where I 'm not free
As I am upon the moor.
Note. — Articles to be consulted : —
Collier (W. F.), "Dartmoor," in Transactions of the Devonshire
Association for 1876.
, Collier (W. F.), " Venville Rights on Dartmoor," ibid., 1887.
„ "Dartmoor for Devonshire," ibid.^ 1894.
„ "Sport on Dartmoor," ibid.^ 1895.
CHAPTER XII.
OKEHAMPTON
Origin of Okehampton obscure — The Ockments — Moor seekers —
Okehampton Castle — French prisoners — Church — Belstone and
Taw Marsh — Cranmere Pool — Tavy Cleave — South Zeal —
Prehistoric monuments — An evening at the "Oxenham Arms'*
— The Oxenham white bird — Mining misadventures — ** Old
vayther " — Ecclesiological excursions — Early Christian monuments.
WHAT brought Okehampton into existence?
It is not fathered by the castle, nor mothered
by the church. Both have withdrawn to a distance
and repudiated responsibility in the stunted bantling.
It " growed not of itself," like Topsy, for it did not
grow at all ; it stuck.
Sourton Down on the west, Whiddon Down on
the east — where the devil, it is reported, caught cold
— Dartmoor on the south, shut Okehampton in. It
was open only to the wintry north, where population
is sparse.
Formerly, once in the day, once only did the mail
coach traverse the one long street, ever on the yawn,
and this was the one throb of life that ran through it.
No passenger descended from the coach, no meals
were taken, no lodging for the night was sought. The
mails were dropped and the coach passed away.
There were, in Okehampton, no manufacture, no
208
FULL OF BEAUTY 209
business, no pleasure even, for it had no assembly balls,
no neighbourhood. Okehampton was among towns
what the earth-worm is in the order of animated
nature, a digestive tube, but with digestive faculty
undeveloped. Now all is changed. The War Office
has established a summer barrack on the heights
above it, and life — in some particulars in undesirable
excess — has manifested itself Trade has sprung up :
a lesson in life — never to despair of any place, any
more than of any man. It has an office to fill, a
function to perform, if only patience be exercised and
time allowed. But if Okehampton in itself con-
sidered as a town be ugly and uninteresting, the
neighbourhood abounds in objects of interest, and
the situation is full of beauty.
Two brawling rivers, the East and the West Ock-
ments, dance down from the moors and unite at the
town ; and if each be followed upwards scenes of
rare wildness and picturesque beauty will be found.
It is towered over by Yes Tor and Cosdon, two
of the highest points on Dartmoor, and some of the
moor scenery, with its tumbled ranges of rocky
height, is as fine as anything in the county of
Devon.
The Ockment {tiisg-^naenic)^ or stony water, gives
its name to the place; the Saxon planted his tun
at the junction of the streams, whereas the earlier
dun of the Briton was on the height above the East
* The Ock {uisg^ water) occurs elsewhere. The Oke-brook flows
into the West Dart below Huckaby Bridge; and Huckaby is Ock-a-boe.
The earlier name of the Blackabrook must have been Ock, for the
bridge over it is Okery.
P
2IO OKEHAMPTON
Ockment. Baldwin the Sheriff was given a manor
there, and he set to work to build a castle, in the
days of the Conqueror. Some of his work may be
seen in the foundations of the keep. He took rolled
granite blocks out of the river bed and built with
them. But later, when the neck of slate rock was
cut through on which the castle stands, so as to
isolate it from the hill to which it was once connected,
then the stone thus excavated was employed to
complete the castle keep. Baldwin de Moels, or
Moules, was the sheriff, and his descendants bore
mules on their coat armour. The castle and manor
remained in the hands of the de Moels and Avenells
till the reign of Henry H., when they were given to
Matilda d'Avranches, whose daughter brought it into
the Courtenay family.
The castle stands half a mile from the town.
'* Okehampton Castle," says Mr. Worth, " differs from
the other ancient castles of Devon in several note-
worthy features. Most of the Norman fortalices,
whether in this county or in Cornwall, have round
shell keeps, as at Plympton and Totnes, Restormel
and Launceston, may be seen to this day. The
typical Norman castles, with the true square keeps,
were fewer in number, but, as a rule, of greater com-
parative importance. Among them, that of Oke-
hampton occupies what may be regarded as a middle
position. More important than Lydford in its
adjuncts, it must have been much inferior to Exeter
— Rougemont ; nor in its later phases can it ever have
compared with the other Courtenay hold at Tiverton,
as a residence, with their present seat at Powderham,
OKEHAMPTON CASTLE 211
or in extent and defensive power with the stronghold
of the Pomeroys at Berry. Nevertheless, in the early
Middle Ages it must have been regarded as a place
of no little strength and dignity, when the Courtenays
had completed what the Redverses began."
The keep is planted on a mound that has been
artificially formed by paring away of a natural spur
of hill ; it is approached by a gradual slope from the
east, along which, connected with the mound by
curtain walls, are the remains of two ranges of
buildings, north and south. On the north is the hall,
and adjoining it the cellar ; on the south guard-rooms
and chapel, and above the former were the lord's
rooms. A barbican remains at the foot of the hill.
The whole is small and somewhat wanting in dignity
and picturesqueness. All the buildings except the
keep were erected at the end of the thirteenth
century.
In the chapel may be seen, cut in the Hatherleigh
freestone, " Hie V .... t fuit captivus belli, 1809."
In the churchyard are graves of other French
prisoners. Many were buried, or supposed to have
been buried, at Princetown, where the prisons were
erected for their accommodation. Recently, in
making alterations and enlarging the churchyard
there, several of their graves have been opened,
and the coffins were discovered to be empty.
Either the escape of the prisoners of war was
connived at, and they were reported as dead and
buried, or else their bodies were given, privately,
for dissection.
Okehampton Church was burnt down in 1842, with
212 OKEHAMPTON
the exception of the fine tower. It was rebuilt
immediately after, and, considering the period when
this was done, it is better than might have been
expected. The chapel of S. James in the town
was "restored" in a barbarous manner some thirty
years later.
Finely situated, with its back against rich woods,
is Oaklands House, built by a timber merchant
named Atkyns, who made his fortune in the Euro-
pean war, and who changed his name to Saville.
It is now the property of Colonel Holley. On the
ridge above the station is a camp. The East Ock-
ment should be followed up to Cullever Steps. On
the slope of the Belstone Common is a circle called
the Nine Maidens, but there are a good many more
than nine stones. These are said to dance on Mid-
summer night, and to be petrified damsels who
insisted on dancing on a Sunday when they ought
to have been at church. The circle is no true
"sacred circle," but the remains of a hut circle
consisting of double facing of upright slabs, formerly
filled in with smaller stone between.
One of the most interesting excursions that can
be made from Okehampton is to Belstone and the
Taw Marsh. This was once a fine lake, but has
been filled up with rubble brought down from the
tors. At the head of the marsh stands Steeperton
Tor, 1739 feet, rising boldly above the marsh, with
the Taw brawling down a slide of rock and rubble
on the right. This is one way by which Cranmere
Pool may be reached. Cranmere is popularly sup-
posed to derive its name from the cranes that it is
CRANMERE POOL 213
conjectured may have resorted to it, but as no such
birds have been seen there, or would be Hkely to go
where there is neither fish nor spawn, the derivation
must be abandoned.
It is more probably derived from even, Cornish
" round," or from crenne, to quake, as the pool is in
the heart of bogs. It lies at the height of over
1750 feet, in the midst of utter desolation, where
the peat is chapped and seamed and is of apparently
great depth. But the pool itself is nothing. Gradu-
ally the peat has encroached upon it, till almost
nothing but a puddle remains.
In this vast boggy district rise the Tavy, the two
Ockments, the Taw, the North Teign, and the two
Darts. The nearest elevation is Cut Hill, that reaches
1981 feet, and Whitehorse Hill, 1974. Across this
desolate waste there is but one track from Two
Bridges to Lydford, narrow, and only to be taken
by one, if on horseback, who knows the way. On
each hand is unfathomed bog. Cut Hill takes its
name from a cleft cut through the walls of peat to
admit a passage to Fur Tor.
Even in this wilderness there are cairns covering
the dead. One is led to suppose that they cover
peculiarly restless beings, who were taken as far as
possible from the habitations of men. I remember
seeing a cairn in Iceland in a howling waste that
in historic times was raised over one Glamr who
would not lie quiet in his grave, but walked about
and broke the backs of the living, or frightened
them to death. He was dug up and transported
as far as could be into the wilderness, his head cut
214 OKEHAMPTON
off and placed as a cushion for his trunk to sit on,
and then reburied.
Cranmere Pool, though but a puddle, deserves
a visit. The intense desolation of the spot is im-
pressive. On such solitary stretches, where not a
sound of life, not the cry of a curlew, nor the hum
of an insect is heard, I have known a horse stand
still and tremble and sweat with fear. Here a
few plants becoming rare elsewhere may still be
found.
There is a story told in Okehampton of a certain
Benjamin Gayer, who was mayor there in 1673
and 1678, and died in 1701, that he is condemned
nightly to go from Okehampton to Cranmere to
bale out the pond with a thimble that has a hole
in it.
Tavy Cleave may be visited from Okehampton or
from Tavistock. There is but one way in which
it ought to be visited to see it in its glory. Take
the train to Bridestowe and walk thence to the
" Dartmoor Inn." Strike thence due east, cross the
brawling Lyd by steps to Doe Tor Farm, and thence
aim for Hare Tor : keep to the right of the head
of the tor and strike for some prongs of rock that
appear south-east, and when you reach these you have
beneath you 1000 feet, the ravine of the Tavy as it
comes brawling down from the moor and plunges
over a bar of red granite into a dark pool below.
Far away to the north comes the Rattle Brook,
dancing down trout-laden from Amicombe Hill and
Lynx Tor, and to the east in like desolation rises
Fur Tor, set in almost impassable bogs.
SOUTH ZEAL 215
Between the Cleave rocks and Ger Tor is a settle-
ment with hut circles well preserved, but one in a far
better condition lies beyond the Tavy on Standon.
Tavy Cleave is fine from below, but incomparably
finer when seen from above.
In June it is a veritable pixy fruit garden for
luxuriance and abundance of purple whortleberries.
All the veins of water forming depressions have
been at some remote period laboriously streamed.
Another interesting excursion may be made to
South Zeal. The old coach-road ran through this
quaint place, but the new road leaves it on one side.
A few years ago it was more interesting than it is
now, as some of the old houses have recently been
removed. It, however, repays a visit. Situated at
the opening of the Taw Cleave, under Cosdon
Beacon, it is a little world to itself. The well-to-do
community have extensive rights of common, and
of late have been ruthlessly enclosing. None can
oppose them, as all are agreed to grab and appro-
priate what they can. This has led to much de-
struction of prehistoric remains. There was at one
time a circle of standing stones from eight to nine
feet high. This has gone ; so has an avenue of up-
right stones on the common leading to West Week.
But another of stones, that are, however, small, start-
ing from a cairn that contains two small kistvaens,
is beside and indeed crosses the moor-track leading
towards Rayborough Pool ; and on Whitmoor is a
circle still fairly intact, though three or four of the
largest uprights have been broken and removed to
serve as gate-posts. Near this is the Whitmoor
2i6 OKEHAMPTON
Stone, a menhir, spared as it constitutes a parish
boundary.
In South Zeal is a little granite chapel, and before
it is a very stately cross. The inn, the " Oxenham
Arms," was formerly the mansion of the Burgoynes.
I spent there an amusing evening a few winters ago.
I had gone there with my friend Mr., now Dr., Bussell
collecting folk-songs, for I remembered hearing many
sung there when I was a boy some forty years before.
I had worked the place for two or three days
previously, visiting and "yarning" with some of the
old singers, till shyness was broken down and good-
fellowship established. Then I invited them to meet
me at the " Oxenham Arms " in the evening.
But when the evening arrived the inn was crowded
with men. The women — wives and daughters — were
dense in the passage, and outside boys stood on each
other's shoulders flattening their noses, so that they
looked like dabs of putty, against the window-panes.
Evidently a grand concert was expected, and the old
men rose to the occasion, and stood up in order and
sang — but only modern songs — to suit the audience.
However, the ice was broken, and during the next
few days we had them in separately to sup with us,
and after supper and a glass, over a roaring fire, they
sang lustily some of the old songs drawn up from the
bottom-most depths of their memory. There were
" Lucky " Fewins, and old Charles Arscott, and lame
Radmore, James Glanville, and Samuel Westaway,
the cobbler. I remember one of them was stubborn ;
he would not allow me to take down the words of
a song of his — not a very ancient one either — but
OXENHAM FAMILY 217
did not object to the " pricking " of the tune. It was
not till two years after that he gave way and sur-
rendered the words.
The old house of the Oxenham family is in the
neighbourhood, but has passed away into other
hands. To this family belonged, there can be little
doubt, the John Oxenham who was such an
adventurous seaman and explorer in the Elizabethan
days. He was one of those who accompanied
Francis Drake in the expedition to Nombre de
Dios in 1572, and afterwards, in an adventure on
his own account, was the first Englishman who
launched a keel on the Pacific Ocean, or South Sea,
as it was then called. He fell into the hands of
the Spaniards, and was carried to Lima, where he
was executed as a pirate. His story has been
worked into Kingsley's Westward Ho ! The omen
of the appearance of a white bird before death,
supposed to belong to the family, is there effectively
introduced.
The house of Oxenham is of the last century,
and was built about the year 17 14, the date which
is sculptured on one of the granite pillars of the
entrance gates. The family does not seem to have
been qualified to bear arms in 1620, the last Herald's
visitation, but the coat borne by the family is
ar. a fess embattled between j oxen sa. The story is
told that once upon a time a certain Margaret
Oxenham was about to be married to the man of
her choice. In the midst of the preparations on
the wedding morn, when all was going merrily, the
white bird appeared and hovered over the bride-elect.
2i8 OKEHAMPTON
The ceremony, however, proceeded, and at the altar
of South Tawton the hapless bride was stabbed to
death by a rejected lover.
There is a remarkably circumstantial printed
account of some appearances of the family omen
in the year 1635 in a very rare tract, entitled, A
True Relation of an Apparition in the likenesse of a
Bird with a white brest^ that appeared hovering over
the Death-Beds of some of the children of Mr. fames
Oxenhaniy of Sale Monachorum, Devon^ Gent. Pre-
fixed to the tract is a quaint engraved frontispiece.
It is in four compartments ; in each of the first
three is a representation of a person lying in
a bed of the four-post type, and in the fourth is
a child in a wicker cradle. Over each individual is
a bird on the wing, hovering. At the foot of these
pictorial compartments are the names of those above
whom the bird appears: John Oxenham, aged 21;
Thomasine, wife of James Oxenham the younger,
aged 22; Rebecca Oxenham, aged 8, and Thomasine,
a babe.
This tract may have been provoked by a letter
of James Howell to "Mr. E. D.," dated 3rd July, 1632,
and written from Westminster : —
" I can tell you of a strange thing I saw lately here, and
I believe 'tis true. As I pass'd by St. Dunstans in Fleet-
street the last Saturday, I stepp'd into a Lapidary, or
stone-cutter's shop, to treat with the Master for a stone
to be put upon my Father's Tomb; and casting my eyes
up and down, I might spie a huge Marble with a large
inscription upon 't, which was thus to my best remem-
brance : —
OXENHAM FAMILY 219
" ' Here lies John Oxenham, a goodly young man^ in
whose chamber^ as he was struggling with the Pangs of
Deaths a Bird with a white brest was seen fluttering about
his Bed^ and so vanished.
" * Here lies Mary Oxenham, the sister of the said John,
who died the next day, and the same Apparition was seen
in the Room.^
" Then another sister is spoke of. Then : —
" ' Here lies hard by James Oxenham, the son of the said
John, who dyed a Child in his Cradel a little after, and such
a Bird was seen fluttering about his head, a little before he
expir'd, which vanished afterwards.^
" At the bottome of the Stone ther is : —
" * Here lies EHzabeth Oxenham, the Mother of the said
John, who died sixteen years si?ice, wheJi such a Bird with
a white Brest ivas seen about her bed before her death.^
" To all these ther be divers Witnesses, both Squires and
Ladies, whose names are engraven upon the Stone. This
Stone is to be sent to a Town hard by Exeter, wher it
happen 'it."*
There are several suspicious points about the story.
No such a monument exists or has existed in South
Tav^ton Church, nor is one such know^n to have been
set up in any other in the county. The stone was
of marble, and therefore not for the graveyard, but
for the interior of the church.
According to the registers there was a John
Oxenham, senior, died, and was buried May 2nd,
1630, but not one of the others mentioned. There
were two John Oxenhams in the parish : John, son of
James and Elizabeth, born in 161 3; and John, son
of William and Mary, born in 16 14. Mary was
* Epistolce. Ho-EliancB, 5th edition, p. 232. London, 1678.
220 OKEHAMPTON
the sister of the latter, and their father was the
village doctor. But it was Elizabeth, according to
Howell, who was the mother. No James, son of
John, was baptised at the time at South Tawton.
Elizabeth, the mother, according to Howell, died
about 1616. No such a person was buried at South
Tawton at any date near that.
The persons named in the tract of 1635 — three
years after Howell's letter — are also four, but they
are of Zeal Monachorum. But the name of Oxen-
ham does not occur at all in the registers of that
parish, and in the tract, apparently, South Zeal has
been mistaken for Zeal Monachorum.* In the first
edition of Howell's epistles there is no date to the
letter; that was supplied later, probably by the
publisher. Now it is curious that in 1635 the name
John Oxenham does occur as having been buried
at South Tawton on July 31st, aged twenty-one.
He was baptised July loth, 16 14. But there are
no entries of Thomasine, wife of James, nor of
Rebecca, aged eight, either baptised or buried ; nor
of Thomasine the babe.
In the tract we are informed that the white-
breasted bird appeared when Grace, the grandmother
of John Oxenham, died, in 161 8.
And in fact we do find in the South Tawton
registers for that date, September 2nd, 161 8, Grace,
the wife of John Oxenham, was buried.
* The author of the tract could not find any parish of Zeal in
Devonshire except Zeal Monachorum, where, as he did not know, there
were no Oxenhams, and so he converted the hamlet of Zeal in South
Tawton, where the Oxenhams were at home, into the Zeal where they
were not.
THE WHITE BIRD 221
That Howell's quotation from memory refers to
the same four as are named in the tract is, I think,
probable. He had not seen the tract, or he would
have quoted the names correctly. The letter was
not written at the date added to it at a later period,
but in the same year as the tract appeared, when
he was a prisoner in the Fleet for debt. Whether
he ever saw the monument may be doubted, and
he may have merely written for publication with
mention of the story which he had from hearsay.
As to the tract, it was one of those pious frauds by
no means uncommon among the "goody-goody"
writers of that and other days, and the incident
of the white -breasted bird was an invention em-
ployed to " catch " the attention of readers, and lead
on to the moral and pious sentiments that stuff
the remainder of the tract. The trick of giving a
list of witnesses was one resorted to by the ballad
and tract mongers of the period, and it is notice-
able that those whose names are appended as
witnesses never existed at South Zeal, in South
Tawton parish.
When once this pious fraud had been launched,
it rolled on by its own weight, and it became a
point of honour in the family to uphold it; and
plenty of after-apparitions were feigned or fancied
to have been seen.
The whole story of the alleged appearances of
the white bird has been gone into with thorough-
ness by Mr. Cotton, of Exeter, who to some extent
credits it ; that is to say, he thinks that some real
instances of birds fluttering at the window may
222 OKEHAMPTON
have given rise to the story. But the basis is
rotten, and the superstructure accordingly will not
stand. *
A mine had been worked formerly above South
Zeal. It had been under a "captain," of practical
experience but no scientific knowledge. It yielded
a small but steady profit. Then the directors and
shareholders became impatient. They discharged
the old captain, and sent down a fellow who had
passed through the mining college, had scientific
geology and mineralogy at his fingers' ends. He
scouted the machinery that had been hitherto in
use, sneered at the old-fashioned methods that had
been pursued, boasted of what he was going to do,
revolutionised the mine, reorganised the plant, had
all the old machinery cast aside, or sold for old
iron ; had down new and costly apparatus — then
came heavy calls on the shareholders — renewed calls
— and there was an end of profits, and as finis a
general collapse.
Some years ago a great fraud was committed in
the neighbourhood. It was rumoured that gold was
to be found in the gozen — the refuse from the
mines. All who had old mines on their land sent
up specimens to London, and received reports that
there was a specified amount of gold in what was
forwarded. Some, to be sure that there was no decep-
tion, went up with their specimens and saw them
ground, washed, and analysed, and the gold extracted.
So large orders were sent up for gozen -crushing
* Cotton (R. W.), ''The Oxenham Omen," in Transactions of the
Devonshire Association^ 1882.
LOCAL SONG 223
machines. These came down, were set to work, and
no gold was then found. The makers of the
machines had introduced gold-dust into the water
that was used in the washing of the crushed stone. I
made use of this incident in my novel John Herring.
But to return to the singers. Here is a song of
local origin, which, however, I did not obtain from
these South Zeal singers. I must premise that the
local pronunciation of Okehampton is Ockington.
At Ockington, in Devonshire,
Old vayther lived vor many a year.
And I along wi' he did dwell
Nigh Dartimoor 'tes knawed vull well.
D iddle-diddle-dee.
It happ'nd on a zartain day,
Vour score o' sheep — they rinned astray.
Zeth vayther. Jack go arter'n, yu.
Zez I — Be darned if ee'r I du.
Diddle-diddle-dee.
Purvok^d at my saacy tongue,
A dish o' braath at me he flung.
Then fu' o' wrath, as poppy red
I knacked old vayther on the head.
D iddle-diddle-dee.
Then drayed wor I to Ex't'r jail,
There to be tried — allowed no bail.
And at next Easter 'zizes I
Condemned was therefor to die.
Diddle-diddle-dee.
Young men and maydens all, I pray
Take warnin' by my tragedy.
Rin arter sheep when they are strayed.
And don't knack vaythers on the 'ead.
D iddle-diddle-dee.
224 OKEHAMPTON
South Tawton Church is fine. The restorer has
taken the monumental slabs, sawn them in half, and
employed them for lining the drain round the church,
thus destroying the historical records of the parish.
This is the more to be regretted, as a fire that
occurred in the parsonage has seriously damaged
the old registers. There is a fine Wyke monument
in the church.
But by far the most interesting church within an
excursion of Okehampton is Bratton Clovelly, which,
although not large, has a stately grandeur internally
that is very impressive. Much money has been spent
in "restoring" this church. The glass is good, but the
new work in wood and alabaster is barely passable.
North Lew Church contains very fine old oak, beside
modern woodwork of poverty-stricken design.
There are some early Christian monuments near
Okehampton, a well at Sticklepath with an inscribed
stone by it, and another inscribed stone by the road-
side from Okehampton to Exeter.
Note. — Books that may be consulted : —
Bridges (M. B.), Some Account of the Barony and Town of OkC'
hampton. New edition, Tiverton, 1889.
Worth (R. N.), "Okehampton Castle," in Transactions of the
Devonshire Association, 1895.
CHAPTER XIII.
MORETON HAMPSTEAD
Moreton Church — The almshouse — The dancing tree — Other dancing
trees — The vintner's bush — The calculating boy — Life of Mr.
Bidder — The ravens of Brennan — Grimspound — The Great
Central Trackway — Stone rows — The Lych Way — Churches —
Bowerman's Nose — Ashton — The Duchess of Kingston — Hennock
— The Loveys family — Parson Harris — ^John Cann's Rocks — Lust-
leigh Cleave — Hound Tor and Hey Tor Rocks — Widecombe — The
Ballad of Tom Pearse.
MORETON, with its whitewashed cottages and
thatched roofs, has a primitive appearance,
and withal a look of cleanliness. It is now the
fashion to go to Chagford, which has been much
puffed, but Moreton makes quite as good a head-
quarters for Dartmoor excursions.
It has a fine church of the usual type, that was
gutted at its so-called restoration, and a remarkably
fine carved oak screen was turned out, but happily
secured by the late Earl of Devon, who gave it to
Whitchurch, near Tavistock. A few years ago the
fine screen of South Brent was thrown out when
the church was made naked under the pretence of
restoration, and allowed to rot in an outhouse.
Moreton undoubtedly at one time was a town in
the moors, and the bold ridge that runs from Hell
Q 225
226 MORETON HAMPSTEAD
Tor to Hennock to the east was till comparatively
recently furze-and-heather-clad moor.
An object of singular picturesqueness in Moreton
is the almshouse, with the date of 1637, with a
charming arcade of granite stunted pillars. Opposite
another almshouse has been erected in modern times,
to show how badly we can do things now when our
forefathers did things well.
In the same street is the base of the old village
cross and the head of the same broken off. In the
place of the cross the " Dancing Tree " has sprung
up, that has been made use of by Mr. Blackmore in
his novel of ChristoweL The tree in question is un-
happily now in a condition to be danced round,
not any longer to be danced upon.
The tree is an elm, and it grows out of the base-
ment of the old village cross, the lower steps of
which engirdle the trunk ; and a fragment of the
head of the cross lies just below. The tree must
have sprung up after the destruction of the cross, or,
possibly enough, it was itself the cause of destruc-
tion, much in the same way as trees have destroyed
and rent in sunder the tomb of Lady Anne Grim-
stone, in Tewin churchyard.
Of this latter the story goes that Lady Anne on
her deathbed declared that she could not and would
not believe in the resurrection of the body. Rather,
she was reported to have said, will I hold that nine
trees shall spring out of my dead body.
Now in process of time the great stone sepulchral
mass placed over her grave split asunder, and through
the rents issued the shoots of nine trees, six ash and
THE CROSS TREE 227
three sycamores, together with great trunks and coils
of ivy, that among them have tossed up and hold in
suspense the fragments of Lady Anne's tomb. The
story is of course made to account for the phenomenon.
But to return to the Cross Tree, Moreton Hamp-
stead. The elm, grown to a considerable size, was
pollarded and had its branches curiously trained, so
that the upper portion was given the shape of a
table. On this tree-top it was customary on certain
occasions to lay a platform, railed round, access to
which was obtained by a ladder, and on this tree-top
dancing took place.
The following extracts taken from a journal kept
by an old gentleman, a native and inhabitant of
Moreton Hampstead at the beginning of this century,
are interesting as giving us some actual dates upon
which festivities took place on the tree.
"June 4th, 1800. — His Majesty's birthday. Every mark
of loyalty was shown. In the afternoon a concert of instru-
mental music was held on the Cross Tree.
"August 28th, 1801. — The Cross Tree floored and seated
round, with a platform, railed on each side, from the top of
an adjoining garden wall to the tree, and a flight of steps in
the garden for the company to ascend. After passing the
platform they enter under a grand arch formed of boughs.
There is sufficient room for thirty persons to sit around,
and six couples to dance, besides the orchestra. From the
novelty of this rural apartment it is expected much company
will resort there during the summer.
"August 19th, 1807. — This night the French officers*
assembled on the Cross Tree with their band of music.
They performed several airs with great taste."
* Prisoners of war staying on parole at Moreton Hampstead.
228 MORETON HAMPSTEAD
Unfortunately, and to the great regret of the in-
habitants of Moreton, the tree was wrecked by a
gale on October ist, 1891, when the force of the
wind was so great that the ancient elm could not
withstand it, and at about a quarter past two o'clock
in the afternoon most of the upper part was blown
down, carrying with it a large piece of the trunk,
which is quite hollow. This latter has been replaced
and securely fastened.
A recent visit to the Cross Tree shows that the
old elm is not prepared to die yet ; it has thrown
forth vigorous spray and has tufted its crown with
green leaves.
Moreton tree is not the only dancing tree in the
West of England. On the high road from Exeter
to Okehampton, near Dunsford, is a similar tree, but
an oak, and this was woven and extended and
fashioned into a flat surface.
The story in the neighbourhood used to be that
the Fulfords, of Great Fulford, held their lands on
the singular tenure that they should dine once a year
on the top of the tree, and give a dance there to
their tenants. But this usage has long been dis-
continued. The Fulfords are at Great Fulford still,
notwithstanding.
Again another dancing tree is at Trebursaye, near
Launceston. This also is an oak, but is now in a
neglected condition and has lost most of its original
form, looking merely as a peculiarly crabbed and tor-
tured old tree. Here anciently a ghost was wont to
be seen, that of a woman who had fallen from it
during a dance and broken her neck, and many
THE MEAVY OAK 229
stories were afloat relative to horses taking fright
at night and running away with the riders, or of
passers-by on foot who were so scared as to be
unable to pursue their journey, through seeing the
dead woman dancing on the tree. At length matters
became so serious that Parson Ruddle, vicar of Laun-
ceston, a notable man in his way, and famous as a
ghost-layer, was induced to go to the tree at nightfall
and exorcise the unquiet spirit. The ghost had so
effectually frightened people that the dances on the
top of the tree had been discontinued. They were
never resumed.
According to tradition there was again another
dancing tree on the road from Okehampton to
Launceston, near the village of Lifton. This tree
was held to be the earliest to put forth leaves in
all the country round. Entertainments were given
on it, but it has disappeared, and the only reminis-
cence of it remained till recently in "The Royal
Oak " Inn, hard by which the old dancing tree stood.
There is yet another, the Meavy Oak, sometimes
called the Gospel Oak, for it is supposed that preach-
ing was made from the steps of the village cross that
stands before it. The oak, however, is of vast age.
It is referred to in deeds almost to the Conquest, and
that it was a sacred tree to which a certain amount
of reverence was given is probable enough. The
cross was set up under its shadow to consecrate it,
and probably to put an end to superstitious rites
done there. Anyhow this tree till within this century
was, on the village festival, surrounded with poles,
a platform was erected above the tree, the top of
230 MORETON HAMPSTEAD
which was kept clipped flat like a table, and a set of
stairs erected, by means of which the platform could
be reached.
On the top a table and chairs were set, and
feasting took place. Whether dancing I cannot say,
but in all probability in former generations there
was dancing there as well as feeding and drinking.
These trees where dancing took place are precisely
the May-pole in a more primitive form. The May-
pole is a makeshift for an actual tree ; a pole was
brought and set up and adorned with flowers and
green boughs, and then danced round. There was in
Cornwall, and indeed elsewhere, a grand exodus from
the towns and villages to the greenwood on May
Day, when the lads and lasses at a very early
hour went in quest of May bushes, green boughs
and flowers wherewith to decorate the improvised
May tree. This was then decorated profusely, and
the merry-makers danced about it; ate, drank,
and rose up to play, precisely as of old did the
Israelites about the Golden Calf in the wilderness
of Sinai.
And most assuredly in early times, before Christi-
anity had been established, those dances and revels
about a sacred tree, whether naturally grown or
whether manufactured as a May-pole, were an act
of religious worship addressed to the spirit of
vegetation manifesting itself in full vigour in spring.
When S. Boniface strove to bring the Saxons to
the knowledge of the truth, he cast down the great
oak of Fritzlar which had received divine honours.
In this lived the spirit of fertility, and till it fell
SUPERSTITION 2-,i
O
beneath his axe, Boniface was well aware that he
could not triumph over the popular superstition.
S. Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, who visited
Britain to expose the Pelagian heresy, was himself
guilty before his ordination of paying superstitious
reverence to a pear tree. He had been a hunter,
and it was customary for those who returned from
the chase to suspend in the tree the heads and antlers
of the game killed, as an act of homage to the spirit
that inhabited it. The Bishop Amator remon-
strated, but in vain. Then one day, when Germanus
was out hunting, Amator cut the tree down.
That some lingering notion of veneration due to
trees hung on, and was regarded as savouring of
something not orthodox, is perhaps shown by the
following incident, which is perfectly true. It was
told me by the person concerned. A new parson
had been appointed to a remote parish in one of the
north-western dales of Yorkshire under the Fells.
Not being a native of Yorkshire, but a southerner,
he was eyed with suspicion, and his movements were
watched. Now in the parsonage garden was a large
tree, and about the roots was a bed of violets. The
suspicious villagers observed the pastor as he walked
round the tree and every now and then bowed to
pick a violet. This proceeding took place daily.
Why he bowed they could not understand, unless
it were in homage to the tree, and they actually drew
up a memorial to the Archbishop of York complain-
ing of their parson as guilty of idolatrous tree-
worship.
The bush hung out of a wine-shop signified that
232 MORETON HAMPSTEAD
within were drinking and dancing. The bush is but
the sacred tree reduced to its smallest dimensions,
and the drinking and dancing that in former times
took place around the tree are now relegated to
within the house, but the bush is retained to sym-
bolise roystering and mirth. I remember the case of
a gentleman who "went off his head ; " his family were
reluctant to allow it to transpire. But one day a
climax was put to his eccentricities by his thrusting
the stable broom out at an upper window, and pro-
claiming, "This bush is to give notice, that within
I have got two marriageable daughters on sale.
Sherry stood all round. Going to the highest bidder.
Going — going " His wife caught him by the
shoulders, twisted him about, and said : " Gone com-
pletely — and off to the asylum you shall pack at
once."
Moreton Hampstead was the birthplace of that
remarkable genius George Parker Bidder. He was
born in very humble circumstances, his father having
been a stonemason ; and at the age of seven, when
his talent first became apparent, he did not know the
meaning of the word " multiplication," nor could he
read the common numerical symbols.
An elder brother had taught him to count to one
hundred. His great haunt was the forge of the village
blacksmith, a kindly old man, about whom more pre-
sently. In his workshop neighbours would gather to
prove the boy with hard questions involving figures, as
it soon became known that he had an extraordinary
faculty for calculation. The earliest public notice
of this that has been met with is in a letter dated
THE CALCULATING BOY
THE CALCULATING BOY 233
January 19th, 18 14, and signed "I. Isaac," printed in
the Monthly Magazine (xxxvii. 104).
"Sir, — Having heard that George Parker Bidder, seven
years of age," (he was really seven months over the seven
years, as he was born June 14th, 1806) "has a peculiar
talent for combining numbers, I sent for him, desired him
to read a few verses of the New Testament, and found he
could scarcely do it even by spelling many words ; and
knew not the numbers of the letters from one to ten."
(Mr. Isaac then asked him several questions in the first four
rules of arithmetic, to each of which he replied correctly
and readily. He then proceeds to say) : " I then asked
him how many days are in two years. But here he was at
a stand, did not know what a year is, or how many hours
are in a day, but having the terms explained, he soon made
out the hours in a week, in a month, in twelve months.
When asked how many inches are in a square foot, he soon
signified that he knew neither of the terms, nor how many
inches a foot contains, but with the aid of explanation he
soon made out the number 1728; and when desired to
multiply this by twelve, he complained the number was
too large, but having time, about two minutes, he made out
the number 20,738."
His father now took him over the country to
exhibit his wonderful powers. In 181 5 he was pre-
sented to Queen Charlotte. He is said to have been
a singularly bright and prepossessing boy. In a
memoir in the P7'oceedings of the Institute of Civil
Efzgineers (Ivii. pp. 294) we read : —
"Travelling about the country, for the purpose of ex-
hibiting his son's powers, proved so agreeable and profitable
to his father, that the boy's education was entirely neglected.
234 MORETON HAMPSTEAD
Fortunately, however, amongst those who witnessed his
public performances were some gentlemen who thought
they discerned qualities worthy of a better career than that
of a mere arithmetical prodigy. The Rev. Thomas
Jephson and the late Sir John Herschel visited Moreton
in the autumn of 1817, to see the 'Calculating Boy,' and
they were so much impressed by his talent and general
intelligence that before the vacation was over Mr. Jephson
and his Cambridge friends agreed to defray the expenses of
his education, and he was placed with the master of the
grammar school at Camberwell. There he remained for
about a twelvemonth, when his father insisted on removing
him, for the purpose of resuming the exhibition of his
talents. Among other places, he was taken to Edinburgh,
where he attracted the notice of Sir Henry Jardine, who,
with the assistance of some friends, became responsible for
his education. Bidder was then placed with a private
tutor, and afterwards, in 18 19, he attended the classes at
the University of Edinburgh."
He quitted Edinburgh in 1824, and was given a
post in the Ordnance Survey. In April, 1825, he
quitted the Ordnance Survey and was engaged as
assistant to Mr. H. R. Palmer, a civil engineer.
It is deserving of remembrance that George Bidder's
first care when starting in the world was to provide
for the education of his two younger brothers, and
for that purpose this lad of eighteen stinted and
saved, denying himself all but the barest necessities.
In 1833 he superintended the construction of the
Blackwall Wharf, and in 1834 joined George and
Robert Stephenson, whom he had known in Edin-
burgh.
Experience showed him the importance of electric
MR. BIDDER 235
communication between stations ; he introduced it
on the Blackwall and Yarmouth railways, and became
one of the principal founders of the Electric Tele-
graph Company.
In hydraulic engineering his chief works were the
construction of Lowestoft Harbour and the Victoria
Docks at North Woolwich.
"Mr. Bidder took a distinguished part in the great
parliamentary contests which attended the establishment
of railways. His wonderful memory, his power of in-
stantaneous calculation, his quick perception and readiness
at repartee, caused him to be dreaded by hostile lawyers,
one of whom made a fruitless application before a committee
in the House of Lords that Mr. Bidder should not be
allowed to remain in the room, because * Nature,' he said,
' had endowed him with qualities that did not place his
opponents on a fair footing.'
" A remarkable instance of Mr. Bidder's wonderful
readiness and power of mental numeration occurred in
connexion with the passing of the Act for the North
Staffordshire Railway.
"There were several competing lines, and the object of
Mr. Bidder's party was to get rid of as many as possible on
Standing Orders. They had challenged the accuracy of
the levels of one of the rival lines, but upon the examina-
tion before the Committee on Standing Orders their
opponents' witnesses were as positive as those of the
North Staffordshire, and apparently were likely to com-
mand greater credence.
"Fortunately Mr. Bidder was present, and when the
surveyors of the opposing lines were called to prove the
levels at various points he asked to see their field-books,
which he looked at apparently in the most cursory manner,
and quietly put down without making a note or any
236 MORETON HAMPSTEAD
observation, and as though he had seen nothing worthy
of notice. When the surveyors had completed their proofs
Mr. Bidder, who had carried on in his own mind a calcula-
tion of the heights noted in all the books, not merely of
the salient points upon which the witnesses had been
examined, but also of the intermediate rises and falls
noted in the several books, suddenly exclaimed that he
would demonstrate to the Committee that the section was
wrong. He then went rapidly through a calculation which
took all by surprise, and clearly proved that if the levels
were as represented at one point they could not possibly
be as represented at another and distant point. The
result was that the errors in the levels were reported, and
the Bill was not allowed to proceed."*
Some of his extraordinary achievements have been
reported, but they are somewhat doubtful. It vv^ill
be best to quote only one that is well authenticated
from the Proceedings of the Institute of Civil
Engineers (Ivii. 309).
"On 26 September, 1878, being in his 73rd year, he
was conversing with a mathematical friend on the subject
of Light, when, it having been remarked that * 36,9 18
pulses or waves of light, which only occupy i inch in
length, are requisite to give the impression of red,' the
friend 'suggested the query that, taking the velocity of
light at 190,000 miles per second, how many of its waves
must strike the eye and be registered in one second to give
the colour red, and, producing a pencil, he was about
to calculate the result, when Mr. Bidder said, 'You
need not work it; the number of vibrations will be
444.433)651.200,000.'"
* Obituary Notice in Transactions of the Devonshire Association^
1879. See also that for iS86, pp. 309-15.
BRENNAN 237
Mr. Bidder died suddenly from disease of the
heart on September 20th, 1878, aged seventy- two
years.
Mr. Bidder remembered many of the old stories
of the moor told him by the blacksmith in whose
forge he spent so many hours.
I have given one in my chapter on Dartmoor and
its tenants. Here is another, as recorded by Miss
Bidder, the daughter of Mr. George P. Bidder.
There was a woman, and she lived at Brennan *
on the moor. And she had a baby. And one day
she left her baby on the moor to play and pick
"urts" (whortleberries), and she hasted to Moreton
town. Now as she went she saw three ravens
flying over her head from Blackiston. And she said,
" Where be you a goin' to, Ravens cruel ? " They
answered, " Up to Brennan ! up to Brennan ! " She
had not gone far before she saw three more flying
in the same direction. And again she asked, " Where
be you a goin' to, Ravens cruel ? " And these three
likewise answered her, " Up to Brennan ! up to
Brennan ! " Now when she had gone somewhat
further, and was drawing nigh to Moreton, again
she saw three ravens fly over her head, and for
the third time she put the same question and
received the same answer. When in the evening
she returned to Brennan Moor, there no little baby's
voice welcomed her, for all that remained of her
child was a heap of well-picked white bones.
Brennan is what is marked on the Ordnance
Survey as Brinning, a lonely spot south of Moreton
* Bran, pi. dryny, Cornish, a crow.
238 MORETON HAMPSTEAD
Hampstead, and between it and North Bovey. It
seems to me that the story needs but a touch, and
it resolves itself into a ballad.
BRENNAN MOOR.
Three ravens, they flew over Blackistone,
Down-a-down, hey and hey !
And loudly they laughed over Moreton town,
Over Moreton town.
Saying, Where and O where shall we dine to-day ?
On the moor, for sure, where runneth no way.
As I sat a-swaying all in a tree,
Down-a-down, hey and hey !
I saw a sweet mother and her babie.
And her babie.
Saying, Sleep, O sleep. I 'm to Moreton fair.
For Babie and me to buy trinkets rare.
As I was a-flying o'er Brennan Down,
Down-a-down, hey and hey !
I saw her a-wending her way to town.
Away to town.
Our dinners are ready, our feasting free,
Away to Brennan, black brothers, with me.
The babe upon Brennan, so cold and bare,
Down-a-down, hey and hey !
The mother a-gadding to Moreton fair.
To Moreton fair.
We '11 laugh and we '11 quaff the red blood free.
There is plenty for all of us, brothers three.
Three ravens flew over Blackistone,
Down-a-down, hey and hey !
And loudly they laughed over Moreton town,
Over Moreton town.
With an armful of toys, came mother, to none
Save a little white huddle of well-picked bone.
G R IMSPOUND
SCALE 120 FEET TO AN INCH
GRIMSPOUND 239
From Moreton an expedition may be made to
Grimspound.
This is an enclosure, prehistoric, on the slope
between Hookner Tor and Hameldon.
The circumference wall measures over 1500 feet,
and was not for defence against human foes, but
served as a protection against wolves. Grimslake,
a small stream that dries up only in very hot
summers, flows through the enclosure at its northern
extremity. It passes under the wall, percolates
through it for some way, and then emerges three-
quarters of the way down.
The pound was constructed where it is for two
reasons : one, to take advantage of the outcrop of
granite that divides the waterways, and which was
largely exploited for the construction of the en-
closure wall and of the huts within ; and the other,
so as to have the advantage of the stream flowing
through the pound.
The entrance is to the south-south-east, and is
paved in steps. There are twenty-one huts within
the pound ; most of these have been explored, and
have revealed cooking-holes, beds of stone, and in
some a flat stone in the centre, apparently for
the support of the central pole sustaining the roof.
Flints and rare potsherds have been recovered.
The most perfect of the huts has been railed
round, and not filled in after clearing, that visitors
may obtain some idea of these structures in their
original condition. This one has a sort of vestibule
walled against the prevailing wind. On the hill-top
above Grimspound, a little distance from the source
240 MORETON HAMPSTEAD
of Grimslake, is a cairn surrounded by a ring of
stones; it contains a kistvaen in the centre. On
the hill opposite, the col between Birch Tor and
Challacombe Common is a collection of stone rows
leading to a menhir.
By ascending Hameldon, and walking along the
ridge due south, the Great Central Trackway is
crossed, in very good condition, and a cross stands
beyond it.
On the left-hand side of the road under Shapley
Tor, above a little hollow and stream, before reaching
the main road from Tavistock to Moreton, may be
seen a remarkably fine hut circle composed of very
large slabs of stone. On Watern Hill, at the back
of the "Warren Inn," or to be more exact, on that
portion called Chagford Common, are two double
rows of upright stones leading from a cairn and
small menhir. The stones are small, but the rows
are very perfect.
The Central Trackway to which I have alluded
is a paved causeway, the continuation of the Fosse-
way. It runs across Dartmoor. It can be traced
from Wray Barton, in Moreton Hampstead, where
it crosses the railway and the Moreton and Newton
road. Thence a lane runs on it to a cross-road ;
this it traverses, and is continued as a practicable
road by Langstone — where, as the name implies,
there was once a menhir — by Ford to Heytree,
where is a cluster of hut circles. Then it ascends
Hameldon by Berry Pound, and becomes quite
distinct. From the cross on Hameldon it descends
into the valley, mounts Challacombe, and aims
STREAM WORKS 241
across the upper waters of the Webburn for Merri-
pit; on the marshy ground above the little field
planted round with beech at Post Bridge it can be
seen. Road-menders have broken up a portion of
it, thus exposing a section. It traverses the East
Dart, and can be distinctly traced above Archerton,
whence it aims for Lower White Tor. It has been
thought to be distinguished on Mis Tor, and striking
for Cox Tor, but I mistrust this portion, and am
inclined to think that the old Lych Way is its
continuation from Lidaford Tor, where it disappears.
The Lych Way, or Corpse Road, is that by which
the dead were borne to burial at Lydford, till licence
was granted by Bishop Bronescombe in 1260 to
such people on the moor as were distant from their
parish church, to recur to Widecombe for their
baptisms and interments. The Lych Way is still
much used for bringing in turf, and for the driving
out and back of cattle. The paved causeway is
fine, but in parts it has been resolved by centuries
of use to a deep-cut furrow. It was said formerly
that of a night ghostly trains of mourners might
be seen flitting along it.
There are extensive, and in some cases very
ancient, stream works at the head of the two Web-
burns. Chaw Gully is an early effort in mining.
The rocks were not blasted, but cut by driving
wedges or cutting grooves into the stone, then filling
the holes with lime and pouring water over the
quicklime, when the expansion split the rock.
Great quantities of tin have been extracted from
these rude works; how early and how late these are
R
242 MORETON HAMPSTEAD
none can say. The same heaps have been turned
and turned again.
There are good screens in the churches of Brid-
ford, Manaton, Lustleigh — where is also an inscribed
stone — Bovey Tracey, and North Bovey ; and
beautiful scenery in Lustleigh Cleave and about
Manaton.
Bowerman's Nose is a singular core of hard
granite, left standing on a hillside in the midst of
a "clitter." The way in which it was fashioned
has been already described.
The valley of the Teign is beautiful throughout ;
it deserves a visit both above and below Dunsford
Bridge. Fingle has been spoken of in the chapter
devoted to Exeter. Below Dunsford the river should
be left to ascend a picturesque combe to Bridford,
in order to visit the very fine screen and pulpit.
Christow Church is good, and there is in the
porch a stone, on which is inscribed, " Nathaniel
Busell, aet. 48 yeers, dark heere, dyed 19th Feb.,
1 63 1." Tradition asserts that he was shot where
he lies buried by the soldiers of the Parliament,
who desired to enter and deface the church ; but
Busell refused to deliver up the keys. In the
churchyard are some stately yews.
Ashton possesses a screen with paintings on it in
admirable preservation. Here was the seat of the
family of that name from which came Sir George, who,
after the battle of Stratton, passed over from the side
of the Parliament to that of the king. Hence also
sprang the notorious Duchess of Kingston, the lovely
Miss Chudleigh, who was tried for bigamy in West'
HENNOCK 243
minster Hall by the peers in 1776, and who was the
original from whom Thackeray drew his detailed por-
trait of Beatrice Esmond, both as young Trix and as
the old Baroness Bernstein. She has had hard measure
dealt out to her, and cruellest of all was that John
Dunning, a native of her own part of Devon, should
have acted in the prosecution against her and in-
sulted her before the peers, so as to wring tears
from her eyes. There can be no question but that
when she married the Duke of Kingston she believed
that her former clandestine marriage was invalid.*
Further down the Teign, in a beautiful situation, is
Canonteign, an old mansion of the Davie family,
well preserved. Hence Hennock may be visited,
lying high on the ridge between the Bovey and
the Teign. Of this place Murray in his Handbook
told the following story : — " It is said that when
a vicar of Hennock, one Anthony Lovitt, died, his
son, of the same name, took his place, although not
in orders. The parishioners made no objections, and
it was not until some years afterwards, when he tried
to raise their tithes, that they denounced him, think-
ing that, * if they were to pay all that money they
might as well have a real parson.' " The story, how-
ever, is not true. There was a vicar, Anthony Loveys,
and he had a son of the same name whom he
appointed parish clerk, and the second Anthony re-
mained on as clerk after his father's death and the
appointment of a new vicar. The name continues in
the place, and has become that of a yeoman family.
• I have told her story in my Historic Oddities and Strange Events.
Methuen, 1889.
244 MORETON HAMPSTEAD
There was a very locally-famous parson of Hennock,
named Harris, not yet forgotten. He was a wizard.
Those who had lost goods went to him, and he
recovered them for the true owners. One day
Farmer Loveys went to him. " Pass'n," said he,
" last night my fine gander was stolen. How can y
help me ? "
So Parson Harris went to his books, drew a circle,
muttered some words, then opened his window, and
in through the casement came the gander, plucked,
trussed, and on the spit, and fell at his feet.
On another occasion someone else came to him
with a similar complaint, only on this occasion several
geese had been carried off.
" You be aisy," said the vicar. " The man as has
a done this shall be put to open shame." So next
Sunday, when he got up in the pulpit, he pro-
claimed : — " I give you all to know that Farmer
Tuckett has had three geese stolen. Now I Ve
read my books and drawn my figures, and I have
so conjured that three feathers of thickey geese shall
now — this instant — stick to the nose of the thief."
Up went the hand of one in the congregation
to his nose. At once Parson Harris saw the move-
ment, pointed to him, and thundered forth, "There
is the man as stole the geese."
His maid, Polly, had a lover, as the manner of
maids is. The young man took service in Exeter.
Polly was inconsolable. He left on Saturday, and
the girl did nothing but sob all day. " You be easy,
Polly," said her master ; " I '11 conjure him home to
you."
LUSTLEIGH CLEAVE 245
So he began his abracadabra, but Sunday came
and Sunday passed, and no John appeared. Polly
went to bed much shaken in her belief in the powers
of the master.
However, about the first glimmer of dawn there
came a clatter of feet and a rapping at the door, and
lo ! outside was John, in his best suit, except the
coat, bathed in perspiration and out of breath. The
spell had not taken effect on him all day because he
had worn his best coat with the Prayer Book in the
pocket. But so soon as ever at night he took off his
coat, then it operated, and he had run all the way
from Exeter to Hennock.
At Hennock are Bottor Rocks and also those of
John Cann. A path at the side is called "John
Cann's path." John Cann is said to have been a
staunch Royalist, who was hunted by the Round-
heads. He took refuge among these rocks, to which
provisions were secretly conveyed for his use, and
there he secreted his treasure. The " path " was worn
by his pacing at night. He was finally tracked to
his hiding-place by bloodhounds, taken and hanged,
but his treasure, the secret of which he would not
reveal, lies concealed among the rocks, and a little
blue flame is thought to dance along the track and
hover over the place where lies the gold.
Lustleigh Cleave is a fine rocky valley, so strewn
with rocks that the river for a considerable distance
worms its way beneath, unseen. From hence an
ascent may be made to Becky Falls, a dribble except
in very wet weather, and higher still to Manaton and
to Hey Tor Rocks, bold masses of hard granite. More
246 MORETON HAMPSTEAD
picturesque, though not so massive, are Hound Tor
Rocks, that take their name from the extraordinary
shapes, as of dogs' heads formed by the granite
spires and projections.
Widecombe is a valley shut in by moor; where
the people are much of a law to themselves, having
no resident manorial lords over them, and having no
neighbours. A sturdy and headstrong race has grown
up there, doing what is right in their own eyes, and
somewhat indifferent to the opinions and feelings
of the outer world. In winter they are as much
closed in as was Noah in the ark.
This was the scene of a terrible thunderstorm, a
record of which is preserved in the church. Mr. Black-
more has worked it into his novel of Christowel. The
tower is very fine, but the church does not come
up to one's expectations. Widecombe is walled up
to heaven on the west by Hameldon, and the morn-
ing sun is excluded by a bold chain of tors on the east.
It was for the purpose of going to Widecombe Fair
that Tom Pearse was induced to lend his old mare,
which is the topic of the most popular of Devonshire
songs.
" Tom Pearse, Tom Pearse, lend me your grey mare,
All along, down along, out along, lee.
For I want for to go to Widecombe Fair,
Wi' Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney, Peter
Davy, Dan'l Whiddon,
Harry Hawk, old Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all."
Chorus. — Old Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all.
" And when shall I see again my grey mare ? "
All along, etc.
" By Friday soon, or Saturday noon,
Wi' Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer," etc.
POPULAR SONG 247
Then Friday came, and Saturday noon,
All along, etc.
But Tom Pearse's old mare hath not trotted home,
Wi' Bill Brewer, etc
So Tom Pearse he got up to the top o' the hill,
All along, etc.
And he seed his old mare down a making her will
Wi' Bill Brewer, etc.
So Tom Pearse's old mare, her took sick and died.
All along, etc.
And Tom he sat down on a stone, and he cried
Wi' Bill Brewer, etc.
But this isn't the end o' this shocking affair,
All along, etc.
Nor, though they be dead, of the horrid career
Of Bill Brewer, etc.
When the wind whistles cold on the moor of a night,
All along, etc.
Tom Pearse's old mare doth appear, gashly white,
Wi' Bill Brewer, etc.
And all the long night be heard skirling and groans,
All along, etc.
From Tom Pearse's old mare in her rattling bones.
And from Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney,
Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon,
Harry Hawk, old Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all.
Chorus. — Old Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all.
CHAPTER XIV.
ASHBURTON
Ashburton manors — The Ashburn — The cloth-workers — The tuck-
ing-mills — County families sprung from the woollen trade — Intro-
duction of machinery — ^John Dunning — Created Baron Ashburton
— Wood .carving in Ashburton — The Oldham owl — Screen de-
stroyed — Ilsington — The Pomeroys — Holne — Dean Prior and
Herrick — Abbey of Buckfast — A foundation of S. Petrock —
Staverton Church — Screens in Devon — Dr. Blackall's Drive —
Holne Chase — Bovey Tracey — William de Tracy — Chudleigh.
A PLEASANT, sleepy, country town, hardly able
to maintain its old-world dignity against the
ruffling, modern, manufacturing Buckfastleigh. A
pleasant centre, whence delightful excursions may be
made, and with an old-world aroma about it, as
though preserved in pot-pourri.
It has a beautiful church. Ashburton consisted of
a royal and an episcopal manor, each with its several
municipal officers. A stream divided the manors.
Ashburton is the tun on the Ashburn. Ash is but
another form of Exe, from usk, water. It owed its
growth and prosperity to the wool trade. The
proximity to Dartmoor, an unrivalled run for sheep,
and the water of the stream to turn the mills, gave
to Ashburton a great significance as a centre of cloth
manufacture. Added to which it was a stannary
town.
248
TUCKING.MILLS 249
The old chapel of S. Laurence in the town, now
converted into a grammar school, belonged to the
guild of the cloth-workers, and their seal became the
arms of the borough : On a mount vert, a chapel
with spire, in dexter chief the sun in splendour, in
sinister a crescent moon, in dexter base a teasel, in
sinister a saltire. The teasel and sun and moon were
emblematical of the chief staples of the place ; the
woollen trade and the mining interests.
The old fulling-mills were locally termed tucking-
mills, and the extent to which cloth-working was
carried on in South Devon is shown by the prevalence
of the surname Tucker *
The process of manufacture given by Westcote, in
1630, is as follows : —
" First, the gentleman farmer, or husbandman, sends his
wool to the market, which is bought either by the comber or
spinster, and they, the next week, bring it hither again in yarn,
which the weaver buys, and the market following brings that
hither again in cloth, when it is sold, either to the clothier,
who sends it to London, or to the merchant, who, after it hath
passed the fuller's mill, and sometimes the dyer's vat, trans-
ports it. The large quantities whereof cannot be well
guessed, but best known to the custom-book, whereunto
it yields no small commodity, and this is continued all the
year through."
The clothier was a man of some means, that
bought the yarn or abb in the Tuesday's market
from Cornish and Tavistock spinners, who kept this
* For what follows on the woollen trade I am greatly indebted to a
paper by Mr. P. F. S. Amery in the Transactions of the Devonshire
Association, 1879.
250 ASHBURTON
branch of the trade pretty much to themselves.
The worsted was spun into " tops " — and the name
Toop is common now in the neighbourhood. Tops,
the combed wool so called by poor cottagers, was made
by them into chains to form the warp or framework
of the fabric.
One day a week the serge-maker assumed a long
apron and met his weavers, the poor folk of the
neighbourhood, who frequently hired their looms
from him, paying him a shilling quarterly. He
served out to them the proper proportions of abb
and worsted, with a certain quantity of glue to size
the chain before tying it to the loom. This they
took home with them, and wove at leisure, returning
it the following week and receiving the price of their
labour.
These serges were then fulled at the borough tuck-
ing-mill. This was supplied with a water-wheel that
gave motion to the tree or spindle, whose teeth com-
municated it to the stampers, which were made to
rise and fall. The stampers or pestles worked in
troughs in which was laid the stuff that was intended
to be fulled. The cloth had already been saturated
in various unsavoury liquids to prepare it for the
stampers. For raising the nap after dying the
dipsacus, or common teasel, was extensively grown.
The heads were fixed round the circumference of
a large, broad wheel which was made to revolve, and
the cloth was held against it.
The cloths were then ready.
It is evident that no large capital was needed in
this mode of doing business ; the clothier had no
CLOTH-WORKERS 251
operatives to look after, and only a small portion of
his time was occupied in his business. A day set
apart to "tend" his weavers, and an hour in the
yarn market on Tuesdays was about all that was
regularly required of him. Yet the business done
was large, and he expended his capital in purchasing
land, in enclosing commons, and in starting tanneries,
above all in acting as banker to the neighbourhood.
It is really surprising to see how many of the
notable heraldic families of Devon rose from being
clothiers. But then the serges of the West were in
request not in England only, but also abroad. West-
cote says : —
" The stuff of serges or perpetuanos is now in great use
and request with us, wherewith the market at Exeter is
abundantly furnished of all sorts and prices; the number
will hardly be credited. Tiverton hath also such a store
in kersies as will not be believed. Crediton yields many
of the finest sorts of kersies. Totnes and some places
near it hath had besides these a sort of coarse cloth,
which they call narrow-pin-whites ^ not elsewhere made.
Barnstaple and Torrington furnish us with bays, single
and double frizados. At Tavistock there is a good market.
Ottery St. Mary hath mixed kersies ; Cullompton, kersey
stockings."
The introduction of worsted spinning-frames in
the North of England early in the present century
revolutionised the trade, and in 18 17 Mr. Gaunter
started the first worsted spinning-frames in Ash-
burton, charging lod. a pound for spinning. For
a while he held the monopoly. But the Dart was
now called into requisition at Buckfast, and on the
252 ASHBURTON
site and out of the materials of the abbey a spinning
factory was established.
"The next great change," says Mr. Amery, "was brought
about by the fact that all the weaving was carried on in the
houses of the poor. Perhaps in a social point of view
it was a good thing, as the mother was always occupied
at home, and had her eye on the family; but to the
manufacturer it was bad, as the materials entrusted by him
to the weaver were open to great peculations, for weavers
could always supply themselves with yarn or abb sufficient
to provide their families with stockings, and joiners could
purchase the best glue at half price in the little shops,
where it had been bartered for small goods. So great was
the loss of yarn, worsted, and glue, and so various were
the means taken to make up the short weight by the use
of oil, water, etc., that a remedy was sought and found in
the expedient of erecting large factories, fitted with the
newest spring looms ; here the weavers came and worked,
and nothing was allowed to be carried off the premises."
More wool is now worked up by the aid of the
power-looms and combing machines at Ashburton
and Buckfastleigh than in the old prosperous times.
Ashburton's most distinguished son was John
Dunning, first Baron Ashburton. He belonged to
a respectable family, originally seated in Walk-
hampton parish, which, though not bearing an
armorial coat, was yet above the class of yeomen.
His father, John Dunning, settled as an attorney
at Ashburton, where the future Lord Ashburton was
born in 173 1.* John Dunning the elder had as
one of his clients Sir Thomas Clarke, Master of
* For a memoir of John Dunning, see that by Mr. R. Dymond,
in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 1876.
J. DUNNING, FIRST LORD ASHBURTON
JOHN DUNNING 253
the Rolls, who owned a good deal of property
about Ashburton. A legal instrument drawn up by
the young Dunning when only nineteen, and sent
to Sir Thomas, struck the Master of the Rolls as
being so well done that he undertook the charge of
fitting him for a career at the bar ; and under this
patron's auspices young Dunning, in the twenty-
first year of his age, entered the Middle Temple in
1752,
It was whilst keeping his terms that Dunning
made acquaintance with Home Tooke, who ad-
dressed to him in 1778 his Letter on the English
Particle, which was later expanded into The Diver-
sions of Purley. After four years of study Dunning
was called to the bar, and for five weary years after
that his prospects remained in a most unpromising
condition. He was a very ugly man, stunted in
growth, his limbs misshapen, and his features mean.
Home Tooke used to tell a story illustrative of
his personal appearance. On one occasion Thurlow
wished to see him privately, and going to the coffee-
house he frequented, asked the waiter if Mr. Dunning
were there. The waiter, who was new to the place,
said he did not know him. " Not know him ! " ex-
claimed Thurlow with his usual volley of oaths.
" Go into the room upstairs, and if you see a gentle-
man like the knave of clubs, call him down." The
waiter departed, and returned with Dunning.
On one occasion he was retained in an assault
case, and his object was to disprove the identity of
the person named by an old woman as the aggres-
sor. Abandoning his usual overbearing demeanour
254 ASHBURTON
towards v/itnesses, he commenced his cross-examina-
tion thus, mildly : —
" Pray, my good woman, what sized man was he ? "
" Short and stumpy, sir ; almost as small as your
honour."
" Humph ! What sort of a nose had he ? "
" Well now, what I should ca' a snubby nose, like
your own, sir, only not quite so cocked up like."
" Humph ! His eyes ? "
" He 'd gotten a bit o' a cast in 'em, sir, like your
honour's squint."
" Go down, woman. That will do."
Presently affairs took a turn. Dunning worked
his way into notice by adopting violent radical or
democratical views, and became the friend of the
notorious Wilkes, who also had a squint, and he
acted as junior counsel in the famous prosecution
of the publishers of No. 45 of the North Briton^
which contained strictures on the speech from the
throne, at the close of the session of 1763. It
was in this case that Dunning firmly established
his reputation as a close and subtle reasoner, and
he could ever calculate on being employed by his
party. From this date no member of the bar
obtained a larger number of briefs. I have already
told, in my Old Country Life, a story illustrative of
the way in which he managed the defence of a man
on trial for murder. In 1766 he won the recorder-
ship of Bristol, he was appointed Solicitor-General
in 1767, and in the general election of 1768 he was
elected member for Calne.
"Among the new accessions to the House of
JOHN DUNNING 255
Commons at this juncture," writes Lord Mahon,
" by far the most eminent in ability was John
Dunning. . . . He was a man both of quick parts
and strong passions ; in his politics a zealous Whig.
As an orator, none ever laboured under greater
disadvantages of voice and manner ; but these dis-
advantages were most successfully retrieved by his
wondrous powers of reasoning, his keen invective,
and his ready wit. At the trial of the Duchess of
Kingston for bigamy, when he appeared as counsel
against her Grace, Hannah More, who was present,
thus describes him : * His manner is insufferably bad,
coughing and spitting at every word, but his sense
and expression pointed to the last degree. He
made her Grace shed bitter tears.'" The mode in
which he used his hands was absurd as it was
peculiar. He drew them whilst speaking up close
together to the height of his breast, where he
rested his wrists, and kept up a continual paddling
with his outspread palms, moving them with a
rapidity corresponding to the motion of his tongue.
It was said that he looked on such occasions like
a flat fish hung up in a fishmonger's shop, the body
rigid, but the fins in front vibrating up and down
unceasingly.
In 1769 Dunning bought the manors of Spitch-
wick and Widecombe. " Manors in Devonshire ! "
exclaimed Jack Lee. "A pity, Dunning, you should
have them there, and should bring no manners with
you to Westminster."
In 1770 he resigned his position as Solicitor-
General, and resumed, his old position outside the
256 ASHBURTON
bar, but with a professional income estimated at
the then unprecedented sum of ;^ 10,000 per annum.
He was now on the Opposition benches in the
House. In the hot debates on the American War,
Dunning steadfastly advocated a policy of con-
ciliation. An instance of Dunning's sharpness of
repartee was afforded when Chatham moved an
address to the Crown in favour of this policy.
The motion was upheld by Lords Shelburne,
Camden, and Rockingham, and they were supported
by the vote of the Duke of Cumberland. His Royal
Highness was one day complimenting Dr. Price
on a pamphlet he had written in favour of the
Americans. " I sat up reading it last night," said
he, "till it had almost blinded me." "On the rest
of the nation, your Royal Highness," said Dunning,
who stood by, " the pamphlet has had the opposite
effect. It has opened their eyes."
John Dunning was nearly fifty years old when
he married. His choice was Elizabeth Baring,
daughter of John Baring, of Larkbeare, one of the
many woollen merchants then flourishing in Exeter,
and sister of the founders of the great house of
Baring Brothers. He was married to her in 1780.
His honeymoon must have been short, for exactly
one week after his marriage Dunning brought forward
in Committee of the House of Commons his famous
motion, " That it is the opinion of this Committee
that the influence of the Crown has increased, is
increasing, and ought to be diminished." After a
fierce debate he succeeded in carrying his motion
by a majority of eighteen.
WOOD-CARVING 257
On the 15th March, 1782, a motion of want of
confidence, though negatived by a majority of
nine, proved fatal to the Administration, and the
Premier resigned. Then, after twelve years passed
in " the cold shade of opposition," the Whigs were
again in power ; and one of the first steps taken
by the Marquess of Rockingham, who now became
Prime Minister, was to reward John Dunning with
a coronet. His patent of nobility bore date April
8th, 1782, and thus the misshapen but clever son
of the little Ashburton attorney became the first
Baron Ashburton. None when in opposition had
denounced more vigorously, and with greater display
of righteous indignation, the bestowal of pensions on
a large scale ; but no sooner had he passed out of
the Opposition into place than he exacted for him-
self the enormous pension of ;^4000 per annum, a
sum to him quite unnecessary, as he had amassed
a huge fortune.
By this time, however, his health had begun to fail,
and he died on August i8th, 1783, of paralysis,
leaving a son, Richard Barre Dunning, to succeed
him in the title, and to inherit a fortune of ^180,000.
The second Lord Ashburton married a daughter
of William Cunninghame, of Lambshaw, and
through her became allied with the Cranstoun
family, to whom a large portion of his ample
possessions passed at his death without issue in
1823.
Ashburton, in the Tudor period, seems to have
possessed a school of wood -carving. The Church-
wardens' Book shows that much work was done in
s
258 ASHBURTON
the church between 15 15 and 1525. An Exeter
man named John Mayne was then employed in
wood-carving, but there were Ashburton workmen
as well. There was then erected a very fine screen.
The rood-loft was removed in 1539, but not the
screen itself till last century, when portions of it
became the property of private persons, and others
were laid as foundations to the galleries.
The side chapels seem also to have been screened
in ; and there was one Thomas Prideaux who was
a liberal contributor to the beautification of the
church. In one of the side chapels was a rich,
canopied altar-piece with wings. When the chan-
tries and chapels were destroyed, this was carried
away by the son, Robert Prideaux, and employed
for the decoration of his room. The central piece
of the triptych has been lost, but the wings and
the canopy remain. Some of the wood-carving of
Henry the Seventh's reign in and about Ashburton
is of the very finest quality, quite unsurpassed in
its style. Work by apparently the same hand may
be seen at Fulford in the hall.
In Ashburton stands a quaint slated house-front
with the pips on cards cut in slate ornamenting the
front. The old ring to which the bull was attached
for baiting still remains where was the ancient bull-
ring of the town. Ashburton was, as already said,
originally composed of two manors — one royal, the
other episcopal — and each had its portreeve. The
King's Bridge united them, and the river divided one
from the other. This was a relic of pre-Saxon times,
when the chief of the land and the ecclesiastical
THE CHURCH 259
chief had their separate establishments. At a later
period Ashburton passed wholly into the hands of
the Bishop of Exeter. Bishop Oldham, 1504-15 19,
was a benefactor to the church, and gave it a lectern
with an owl, his symbol, supporting the desk. This
owl was sold to Bigbury, along with the handsome
pulpit. Holne pulpit is very similar to that formerly
in Ashburton.
The church of Ashburton has been renovated, and
is now very stately and beautiful. It is to be re-
gretted that the architect, the late Mr. Street, was
superior to restoring the screen from the fragments
that remained, and instead evolved one out of his
inner consciousness, quite out of character with the
church, and entirely different in feeling from the
work common throughout the neighbourhood, which
is exquisite in beauty of design and in detail. But
such is the way with architects. The Arlers of
Gmiind designed Milan Cathedral, but were not
allowed to complete it ; it was given to sixteen
different Italian architects to meddle with and to
muddle it ; the result is that the exterior is a bit
of miserable frippery in marble. Happily the
original design for the interior was not interfered
with.
But something incomparably worse may be seen
near Ashburton, in the interior of Bickington.
Ilsington Church retains a few poppy-head benches
of rich work, unique in the county.
In Ilsington is Ingsdon, once the seat of the
Pomeroy family, but no relics of the ancient house
remain. According to tradition, the Pomeroy ances-
26o ASHBURTON
tor was jester to Robert the Magnificent, father of
William the Conqueror. He was a dwarf, full of
comical movements as well as of quips and quirks.
As he came in with the dessert he was called
Pomme-roy, the Apple King. His son became a
faithful servant of William, and was rewarded by
him with large manors in Devon and Somersetshire.
A junior branch was settled at Ingsdon. The
tradition is of course groundless, as the family
derived from a place Pomeraye in Normandy, near
Bayeux. It probably originated with a family tend-
ency to jest, and to a certain grotesqueness of appear-
ance. It is told by Miss Strickland in her History
of the Queens of England. But the odd circumstance
about it is that there are Pomeroys now in and
about Ashburton of humble degree — the children,
the plague of the schoolmaster and mistresses, as
they are born humourists, and withal have such a
droll appearance and expression as to inevitably
provoke mirth.
Holne Church has a good painted screen, and the
parsonage is the house in which Charles Kingsley
was born. The view of the winding of the Dart
from the parsonage garden is beautiful.
Dean Prior was long the place to which poor
Robert Herrick was banished. He did not love it,
nor did he relish the rude ways of his parishioners.
It is to be feared he did not labour very hard to
better them. He was buried here in the churchyard
in 1674. Here also was laid his servant "Prue,"
recorded in his poems. Her burial is entered in
the register as that of "Prudence Balden, an olde
ABBEY OF BUCKFAST 261
maid," and Herrick's trust that the violet might
blossom on her grave is perhaps not unfulfilled,
although her grassy mound is not now known.
The Abbey of Buckfast is within an easy walk, and
should on all accounts be visited. It is the earliest
foundation in Devon, going back to long before the
Conquest, in fact no documents exist to show when
it was founded. " Mr. Brooking Rowe has suggested
that Buckfast Abbey probably existed before the
coming of the Northmen ; that would be before
A.D. 'jZj. It may be so, but, at least, it must be
grouped with Bodmin and Glastonbury Abbey as
one of a trio of monastic churches which had
property in Devon before King Edgar's time, and
is probably, with the exception of Exeter, the only
monastery before that time existing in the county.
Its extreme antiquity may be inferred from the fact
that Buckfast itself was never assessed." That is, at
the taking of Domesday.
Now I have an idea concerning it. Two of its
churches were Harford and South Brent, and both are
dedicated to S. Petrock. We find S. Petrock again,
further down the Dart, at its mouth. Where we find
a Celtic dedication, there we may be pretty certain
that either the saint founded the church, or that it
was given to him, not necessarily in his lifetime.
In Celtic monasteries, when a grant was made, it
was not made to the community, but to the saint
personally, who was supposed never to die, and all
the lands and churches granted became his personal
property. Now, as we find two of the churches
belonging to this venerable abbey bearing S. Petrock's
262 ASHBURTON
name, I think it quite possible that the original abbey
may have been, like that of Padstow, a foundation
of S. Petrock. When, however, the abbey was re-
endowed and recast, and occupied by monks belong-
ing to the Latin orders, S. Petrock would be ignored
at Buckfast, and the only indication left of his having
once owned the whole territory of Buckfast would
be the lingering on of his name in some of the
churches that belonged to that same territory.
I am not sure that we have not hard by traces
of other Celtic saints, S. Wulvella in Gulwell, a Holy-
well at Ashburton, and her brother S. Paul of Leon
at Staverton, though now supplanted by Paul the
Apostle.
Buckfast Abbey, after having been given over to the
wreckers, has been purchased by French Benedictines,
expelled from France in 1882, and they are carefully
rebuilding the abbey on its old lines, following all
the details as turned up among the ruins. The
foundations of the church have been uncovered, and
show that it was of great size. It was pulled down in
1806, and the materials employed in the construction
of a factory.
Staverton Church is deserving a visit because of its
superb screen, that has been most carefully restored.
It exhibits a screen complete in all its parts, a thing
very rare. Most of these lack what was their crowning
glory, the upper member. Indeed there is but one
completely intact in the county — Atherington, if we
except the stone screen at Exeter.
There are other screens in the neighbourhood ; that
of Buckland has on it some unexplained paintings.
EXCURSIONS 263
The Celt was never a builder. His churches were
rude to the last degree of rudeness. But what he
delighted in was wattle-work, interlacing osiers into
the most intricate and beautiful and varied designs.
We may conjecture that our Celtic forefathers did
not concern themselves much about the stonework of
their churches, and concentrated all their efforts on a
screen dividing chancel from nave, which with platting
and interweaving they made into a miracle of love-
liness. And this direction given to decoration hung
on in Devon and Cornwall, and resulted in the
glorious screens. For them, to contain them, the
shells were built. Everything was sacrificed to them,
and when they are swept away what remains is
nakedness, disproportion, and desolation.
Of the excursions in the neighbourhood of Ash-
burton to scenes of loveliness I will say but little.
Yet let me recommend one of singular beauty — it
is called Dr. Blackall's Drive. The Tavistock road
is taken till the Dart is passed at New Bridge, then
after a steep ascent the highway is abandoned before
Pound Gate is reached, and a turf drive runs above
the Dart commanding its gorge, the Holne coppice,
and Benjie Tor, and the high road is rejoined be-
tween Bell Tor and Sharp Tor. This excursion may
be combined with a drive through Holne Chase, if
taken on a day when the latter is open to the
public.
Holne Chase, however, should be seen from both
sides of the Dart, as the aspects are very different
on the two sides.
Hembury and Holne Chase camps are both fine,
264 ASHBURTON
and deserve investigation. They commanded and
defended the entrance to the moor from this side.
Widecombe has been spoken of under the head of
Moreton.
Bovey should be visited, with its fine church and
screen and painted and gilt stone pulpit, and with
the Bovey Heathfield potteries.
Bovey was one of the manors of the De Tracy
who was a principal hand in the murder of Thomas
a Becket, and it is to this ambitious and turbulent
prelate that the church is dedicated. The story
goes that William de Tracy built the church at
Bovey as penance for his part in the murder; but
the church constructed by him was burnt about
1300, and was rebuilt in the Perpendicular style.
The story was diligently propagated that De Tracy
died on his way to the Holy Land, in a frenzy,
tearing his flesh off his bones with his teeth and
nails, and shrieking, " Mercy, Thomas, mercy ! " But,
as a matter of fact, no judgment of God fell on the
murderers. Within four years after the murder,
De Tracy was justiciary of Normandy. The pre-
sent Lord Wemyss and Lord Sudeley are his lineal
descendants. The pedigree, contrary to all received
opinions on the subject of " judgments " on sac-
rilege, exhibits the very singular instance of an
estate descending for upwards of seven hundred
years in the male line of the same family. Fitzurse,
another of the murderers, went to Ireland, and
became the ancestor of the McMahon family.
There are some curious pictures on the Bovey
screen which are supposed to have reference to the
story of Becket and his quarrels with the king.
CHUDLEIGH 265
Chudleigh is at some distance, but it is worth a
visit, partly because of the good screen in the church,
but mainly because of the very pretty ravine through
which the Kate {Cad^ fall) tumbles. The rock here
is of limestone, a fine and beautiful marble, and in
its face is a cavern supposed to be haunted by the
Pixies, with a stalagmite floor that was broken up
by Dr. Buckland in 1825, and the soil beneath it
examined in the slip -shod, happy-go-lucky style
usual with explorers of that period. It deserves to
be reinvestigated systematically.
Note. — Books and articles on Ashburton : —
Worthy (C), Ashburton and its Neighbotcrhood. Ashburton, 1875.
Amery (P. F. S.), Articles already noticed in the Transactions of the
Devonshire Association, 1876 and 1896.
CHAPTER XV.
TAVISTOCK
Origin of Tavistock — Foundation of the Abbey — S. Rumon — Edgar
and Elfrida — Abbot Aylmer — Aldred — The Parish Church — Glan-
ville — The Story of Mrs. Page — ^John Fitz — The Story of Sir John
Fitz — The Story of Lady Howard — Sir Richard Grenville — Early
inscribed stones — Statue of Sir Francis Drake — Buckland Abbey —
Morwell — Lydford, its castle, lavine, and waterfall — Brent Tor —
Endsleigh — Mary and Peter Tavy — Whit Tor.
CERTAIN towns tell you at a glance what was
their raison d'etre; Tavistock has clustered
about its abbey, that lay low near its fish-ponds,
whereas Launceston clings about its castle, that
stood high to command the country round.
Very possibly the original Saxon stockade was
where still some earthworks remain, above the South
Western Railway, but the centre of life moved thence
on account of the fancy coming into the head of
Ordulf, Earl of Devon, to found an abbey by the
waterside in the valley beneath him. The legend,
as told in a cartulary summarised in Dugdale's
Monasticon, is that, in the reign of Edgar, Ordulf
was one night praying in the open air, when he saw
a pillar of fire brighter than the sun at noon hovering
where now anyone, on any day, may see a lowering
cloud of smoke. That same night an angel bade
266
THE ABBEY 267
him go forth at dawn and explore the spot where
he had seen the fire, and then build an oratory to
the four evangelists. I think I can explain the vision.
The farmer was " swaling." At a certain period a
good many pillars of fire may be seen about
Tavistock, when either the furze is being burnt, or
the farmers are consuming the " stroil " — the weeds
from their fields. So I do not reject the story
as altogether fabulous, but as "improved." What
Ordulf had a mind to do was to establish a monas-
tery for the comfort of his soul, having, I doubt not,
bullied and maltreated the poor Britons without com-
punction. His father had had a mind the same way,
but had died without performing what was his intent.
Next day Ordulf went to the spot where he had
seen the fire, and there beheld four stakes, marking
out the ground, and this fact confirms me in my
opinion. For it was the custom of the natives thus to
indicate the bounds of their fields. The stakes were
called termons. In like manner miners indicated their
setts by cutting four turves annually at the limits
of their grounds.
Ordulf now set to work and erected an oratory
with buildings for an abbot and brethren, and he
gave them of his inheritance Tavistock, Milton,
Hatherleigh, Burrington, Rumonsleigh, Linkinhorne,
Dunethem, and Chuvelin, which I cannot identify.
He also bestowed on the monastery his wife's dower.
When the monastic church was built he moved
to it the bones of his father, mother, and brother,
and after his death was there laid himself
However, before he graced it with his own relics,
268 TAVISTOCK
he transferred to it the remains of S. Rumon or
Ruan (960), who, if we may judge from some place-
names, had been there at a considerably earlier
period as a missionary; for there is near Meavy a
Roman's cross, and between Tavistock and Bere
Ferrers is Romansleigh, and on the Tamar Rumleigh.
The saint reposed in the church of Ruan Lani-
home (Llan-ruan) in Cornwall, but Ordulf did not
scruple to rob a mere West Welsh church to give
honour and glory to one of his own founding.
Rumon was by no means a saint with a name and
not a story. He had been a convert of S. Patrick,
a Scot of Ireland. As I shall say something con-
cerning him when we come to his field of labours
in the Lizard district, I will say no more about
them here.
Ordgar, Earl of Devon, was father of the beautiful
Elfrida, who accordingly was sister of Ordulf. Her
story, though tolerably well known, must not be
passed over here.
King Edgar was a little man, but thought a good
deal of himself — a merciful dispensation of Provi-
dence accorded to little men to make up for their lack
of inches. He was of a warm complexion. He once
carried off a nun from her convent, and was repri-
manded for it by S. Dunstan, who forbade him for
this disreputable act to wear his crown for seven
years. His first wife was Ethelfleda, called the Duck
— Duckie, doubtless, by her husband — and after her
death he looked out for another, as is an infirm way
that widowers have.
Edgar, hearing that Elfrida, daughter of Ordgar,
^♦DOING" THE KING 269
was the loveliest woman in England, with a true
Devonshire complexion of cream and heather-bloom,
sent Ethelwald, Earl of the East Angles, to interview
her before he committed himself Ethelwald no
sooner saw her than he was a " gone coon," and
he asked the hand of Elfrida from her brother.
Having received his consent, he hurried back to the
king and told him that the lady was much over-
rated, that her chief beauty lay in her wealth ; as her
only brother Ordulf was childless, she had expecta-
tions of coming in for his fortune when it should
please Providence, and so on.
So, as though looking only to her expectations,
Ethelwald asked the king to give him the lady.
Edgar yielded his consent, and Ethelwald married
Elfrida, and became by her the father of a boy whom
he persuaded the king to take as his god-child, and
to whom he gave the name of Edgar. Then Ethel-
wald was glad, for he knew that according to the
laws of the Church, they had contracted a spiritual
relationship which would prevent the king from ever
marrying Elfrida and removing himself, the obstacle
which stood in the way should he contemplate an
union.
Now the report reached the king that he had been
" done," done out of the loveliest woman in Christen-
dom, and the little man ruffled up and became fiery
red, and vowed he would a-hunting go, and hunt in
the royal chase of Dartmoor. So he sent word to
Ethelwald that he purposed visiting him at his Castle
of Harewood, and solicited a bed and breakfast.
Harewood is situated on a tongue of land about
270 TAVISTOCK
which the Tamar makes a great loop — at one time
assuredly a very strong camp ; then it became a
gentleman's place, now it is a ruin.
Ethelwald felt uneasy. He told his wife the story
of the deception he had practised, which shows how
soft and incapable of dealing with women he was.
Then he went on to ask of her the impossible — to dis-
guise her beauty. As if any woman would do that !
But when Elfrida knew the story she also ruffled
up, not a little, and made a point of dressing herself
in her most costly array, braiding her lovely hair
with jewels, and washing her pretty face in milk and
eau de — elder-flowers. Edgar became madly enam-
oured, and to boot furious with the man who had
deceived him.
As they were together one day hunting, and were
alone, the king smote Ethelwald with a javelin so
that he died, and he took Elfrida to be his wife ; and
to expiate his peccadillo, erected a convent in the
Harewood forest.
Edgar died in 975, and he was but thirty-two years
old when he died.
Now, is there any truth in this story }
The tale comes to us from Geoffrey Gaimar and
from William of Malmesbury, and their accounts do
not quite tally, for Gaimar makes the king send
off the obnoxious husband to the wars, to fall by
the hand of the rebels in Yorkshire, and this looks
like a cooking-up of the story of David and Uriah.
On the other hand, William of Malmesbury's tale
smells somewhat of an English version of the story
in the Nibelungenlied of Sigurd and Kriemhild.
THE ABBEY 271
Both historians certainly drew from ballads, but
these ballads were the vehicle through which history
in early times was preserved. It has been supposed
that the Harewood in question was Harewood near
Leeds, in Yorkshire, but surely Elfrida would be
on her inheritance in the West. Another difficulty
is that there was no convent of nuns near the place.
But this may have been thrown in as a sort of
moral to the tale — if kings or other men do naughty
things, they will have to pay for it.
Tavistock Abbey had some men of rare ability
to rule over it. One was Aylmer, chosen in 981,
who lived in difficult times, when the Vikings came
and harried the coasts, ran up the rivers, and
plundered and burned wherever they went. When
the Danes were spoiling, the land, driving off the
cattle and burning the farms, he gave out of the
revenues of the abbey a double danegeld or con-
tribution for the relief of those in distress. But
presently his own abbey was surrounded, pillaged,
and burnt. This was in 997, by a horde that had
first landed at Watchet, and then returned round
the Land's End, and had run up the Tamar. They
went as far as Lydford, and burnt and slew every-
thing and every person they could lay hands on.
But a far abler man was Lyfing, afterwards Bishop
of Worcester, and at the same time of Devon and
Cornwall.
Another admirable man was Aldred, who suc-
ceeded Lyfing in the see of Worcester in 1046,
after having been Abbot of Tavistock fourteen years ;
and he was made Archbishop of York in 1060, and
272 TAVISTOCK
died in 1069, broken-hearted at the misery that
came in the wake of the Conquest. The lives of
both these men, showing how to steer a difficult
course in a troubled sea among many rocks, are
worth a study, and for that I refer the reader to Mr.
Alford's Abbots of Tavistock. (Plymouth, 1891.)
The Abbey Church of Tavistock was second only
to Exeter for size and dignity in the West. It has
completely disappeared, and the road in front of
the Bedford Hotel now runs over what was the
nave of the great church.
Where now stands the hotel was in ancient days
the Saxon school; it was pulled down in 1736,
when the inn, then the house of the Dukes of
Bedford, was erected on its site and out of its
materials.
The parish church is large, in the Perpendicular
style, and somewhat uninteresting. But it must be
remembered that the Devon and Cornish churches
were built with intent to have their chancels and
side chapels cut off by a very rich screen. Such
a screen did once exist at Tavistock, and were
it in place and complete, the church would at
once appear well proportioned. It looks now un-
furnished, like a railway station. It was repaired
in 184s, and for the period the work was really
marvellously well done. The carved oak benches
were faithful copies of those in Bere Ferrers Church,
and there was no scamping in the material. The
new glass in the windows ranges from very good
to execrably bad. Some objects of interest con-
nected with the history of the church, among these
STORY OF MRS. PAGE 273
the reputed thigh-bones of Ordgar and Ordulf, are
preserved.
There is a fine monument to John Fitz, who died
in 1590. Opposite it is one of Judge Glanville, Ser-
jeant-at-Law in 1589 and Justice of Common Pleas
in 1598. He died July 27th, 1600. He had by his
wife a fair family. Now here comes in a question of
some interest.
The current tradition is that one of Glanville's
daughters, Eulalia by name, was married to a John
Page, whom she murdered, and for the crime she was
sentenced to be burned alive ; which sentence was
carried into effect in 1 590 at Barnstaple.
I will give the story as contained in a letter by
Mr. Daniel Lysons, author of the Magna Britannia,
in 1827 : —
" The Judge's daughter was attached to George Stanwich,
a young man of Tavistock, lieutenant of a man-of-war, whose
letters, the father disapproving of the attachment, were
intercepted. An old miser of Plymouth, of the name of
Page, wishing to have an heir to disappoint his relatives,
who perhaps were too confident in calculating upon sharing
his wealth, availed himself of this apparent neglect of the
young sailor, and settling on her a good jointure, obtained
her hand. She took with her a maidservant from Tavistock,
but her husband was so penurious that he dismissed all the
other servants, and caused his wife and her maid to do all
the work themselves. On an interview subsequently taking
place between her and Stanwich, she accused him of
neglecting to write to her, and then discovered that his
letters had been intercepted. The maid advised them to
get rid of the old gentleman, and Stanwich at length, with
great reluctance, consented to their putting an end to him.
T
274 TAVISTOCK
Page lived in what was afterwards the Mayoralty House (at
Plymouth), and a woman who lived opposite hearing at
night some sand thrown against a window, thinking it was
her own, arose, and looking out, saw a young gentleman
near Page's window, and heard him say, 'For God's sake
stay your hand ! ' A female replied, ' 'T is too late ; the
deed is done.' On the following morning it was given out
that Page had died suddenly in the night, and as soon as
possible he was buried. On the testimony, however, of his
neighbour, the body was taken up again, and it appearing
that he had been strangled, his wife, Stanwich, and the
maid were tried and executed. It is current among the
common people here that Judge Glanville, her own father,
pronounced the sentence."
That sentence v^ould be one for petty treason,
burning alive. It vi^as not till 1790 that the law
requiring women to be burnt alive for putting to
death their husbands or their masters was repealed.
A woman was so burnt in 1789. A poor girl of
fifteen was burnt at Heavitree, near Exeter, on July
29th, 1782, for poisoning her master. Eulalia Page
and her servant were actually executed at Barnstaple
and George Stanwich was hanged. All that is certain.
But the question about which a difficulty arises is —
Was Eulalia a daughter of Judge Glanville ?
There is a contemporary tract that contains an
account of the transaction, which was reprinted by
Payne Collier.* PVom this we learn that Mrs. Page
having failed in an attempt to poison her husband,
prevailed on one of her servants, named Robert
Priddis (Prideaux), to assist her, and on the other
* Bibliographical Catalogtie of Early English Literature, 1865, ii.
pp. 83-6.
THE GLANVILLES 275
side Strangwich (Standwich) hired one Tom Stone
to assist in the murder.
The deed was accomplished about ten o'clock on
the night of February nth, 1591, and all four were
tried at Barnstaple, whither the assizes had been
moved from Exeter because the plague was raging
in the latter city, and were executed on March 20th
following. Philip Wyot, town clerk of Barnstaple,
kept a diary at the time, extracts from which have
been printed. He gives some particulars : — " The
gibbet was sat up on the Castle Green and xviij
prisoners hanged, whereof iiij of Plimouth for a
murder." These four were the murderers of Page.
How it was that Ulalia was hanged instead of being
burnt, in contravention of the law, does not appear,
and we may doubt the statement. Three of those
hanged were buried in the churchyard at Barnstaple,
but Ulalia Page was laid in that of Bishops Tawton.
Now as to the statement that Judge Glanville sen-
tenced his own daughter.
In the first place, was she his daughter? It
appears not ; for from the tract already referred to,
" in the town of Testock (Tavistock) . . . there
dwelled one Mr. Glandfield (Glanville), a man of
good wealth and account as any occupier in that
cuntrie," whose daughter Eulalia was ; and she set
her affections on George Strangwich, who was in
her father's employ. Mr. Glanville, of Tavistock,
almost certainly was a near relative of the judge.
The Glanvilles were tanners of Whitchurch, in trade,
but the family was respectable. They have been
given a fanciful pedigree from a Norman Lord of
276 TAVISTOCK
Glanville near Caen, but it is deficient in proof.
What is clear is that the family occupied a re-
spectable position near Tavistock in the reign of
Elizabeth; they had their tan pits, and they went
into trade without scruple. In fact, John Glanville,
father of the judge, was himself a merchant, i.e.,
shopkeeper in Tavistock. That Eulalia was a sister
of the judge is possible enough. That her name
was not inserted in the pedigree as recorded in the
Herald's Visitation may easily be understood.*
The next point is — Did Judge Glanville preside
at the trial?
Now we are informed by E. Foss {Biographia
Juridica, 1870, p. 303) that Glanville "was promoted
to the bench as a Justice of the Common Pleas on
June 30th, 1598." Consequently he was not a judge
at the time that Eulalia Page was tried. The judge
who tried the case, as we learn from Wyot's diary,
was Lord Anderson. Nevertheless, Glanville was
present at Barnstaple at the assizes, for Wyot men-
tions him as Serjeant Glandye, who was one of the
principal lawyers present, and he had been "called
to the degree of the coif," Ford records, two years
before. So, as far as we can discover : —
1. Eulalia was very probably sister of Judge
Glanville, she being daughter of a merchant Glan-
ville, of Tavistock, as he was son of one.
2. That she really was executed for the murder
of her husband, Page, along with her lover, George
Strangwich, and two assistants.
* Glandfeelde is the same as Glanville ; so in the Tavistock register,
Grenville is entered as Greenfeelde.
JOHN FITZ 277
3. That Strangwich had not been in the Navy, but
was a shop assistant of Mr. Glanville.
4. That John Glanville, Serjeant - at - Law, pre-
sumably her brother, was present at the trial, but
was not judge at the time.
The tragic story was not only turned into ballads,
but also was dramatised by Ben Jonson and Decker.
In Halliwell's Dictionary of Old English Plays (i860)
is this entry : —
"Page, of Plymouth. A play by Ben Johnson and
Decker, written in 1599, upon the story of the murder of
one Page at Plymouth."*
A little way out of the town on the Plymouth
road, by the Drake statue, is the gateway of old
Fitzford House. About this a good deal of both
history and legend hangs.
The house was that of old John Fitz, whose splen-
did monument is in Tavistock Church. Late in life
he had a son of the name also of John, an only child,
whose story is tragical. The heir was fourteen only
when he lost his father. John Fitz, who was " a very
comely person," was married before he had attained
his majority to a daughter of Sir William Courtenay.
Of this marriage one child, Mary, was born in 1596,
when her father was just twenty-one years old.t The
young gentleman being now of age, and finding
* Dr. Brushfield has sifted the whole story in the pages of The
Western Antiquary, ix., p. 35.
t The story of John Fitz and of Lady Howard has been worked
out very carefully by Mrs. George Radford, to whose paper in the
Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 1890, I am much indebted
for what follows.
278 TAVISTOCK
himself free from all restraint, began to live a very-
rackety life for three years, when an incident
happened that ought to have sobered him. What
follows is quoted, condensed, from The Bloudie
Booke : or The Tragical End of Sir John Fitz,
London, 1605.
"Meeting (June 4th, 1599) at Tavistocke a dinner wyth
manie of his neighbors and friends, with great varietie of
merriments and discourse they outstript the noontide.
Amongst other their table-talk Sir John (he was not knighted
at the time) was vanting his free Tenure in holding his
lande, boasting that he helde not a foote of any but the
Queene in England ; to whoome Mayster Slanninge
replyed, that although of ceurtesie it were neglected, yet
of dewe hee was to paye him so muche by the yeere for
some small lande helde of him; uppon which wordes Sir
John told him with a great oath he lyed, and withall gave
fuell to his rage, offering to stab him. But Maister
Slanning with a great knife warded the hazard."
Friends intervened and the quarrel was patched
up, so that presently Slanning left and departed for
his home at Bickleigh. He had not gone very far
before, dismounting, he bade his man take the horses
along the road, whilst he walked by a short cut across
the fields.
At that moment he heard the tramp of horses, and
saw John Fitz and four more galloping after him.
So as not to seem to be running away Slanning
remained on the spot, and on John Fitz coming
up asked what he wanted. Fitz drew his sword and
raved that he would revenge the insult offered him,
and Slanning was forced to defend himself. He was
JOHN FITZ 279
wounded, and someone struck Slanning from behind,
whereupon he staggered forwards and Fitz ran him
through the body. Local tradition, and Prince in his
Worthies, will have it that the affray took place at
Fitzford Gate.
Nicolas Slanning was buried in Bickleigh Church,
which, when " restored " and made desperately un-
interesting, lost the great feature of Slanning's
monument, which was fine, though of plaster. Now
the inscription alone remains :
" Great was the lamentation that the country side made
for the death of so beloved a Gentleman as Maister Slanning
was."
John Fitz, then aged twenty-four, fled to France,
where he remained until, by his wife's exertions, a
pardon was procured for him, December i6th, 1599.
He returned home, and for a year or two led
a blameless life — at least he did not murder any
more of his friends — and at the coronation of King
James I. was knighted.
Whether the honour conferred on him was too
much for him, or whether there was a mad strain
in his blood, cannot be said, but on his return from
London he broke out into wild ways again. Finding
the presence of his wife and only child a restraint on
him, he turned them out of the house, and surrounded
himself with dissolute companions, chief among
whom was " Lusty Jacke, one whose deedes were
indeed meane, whose good qualities altogether none."
In the summer of 1605 he received a summons to
London to appear before the courts, in answer to
28o TAVISTOCK
a claim of compensation for their father's death made
by the children of Nicolas Slanning. He set out
attended by a single servant. He was a prey to
terrors, particularly afraid of his father-in-law, Sir
William Courtenay, who he knew was very incensed
with him because of his behaviour to his wife, the
daughter of Sir William. He had moreover been
squandering money which had been settled on her
by deed. Every day his fancies got more disordered,
till he put up at Kingston-on-Thames, his last rest-
ing-place before reaching London ; but there, a prey
to alarms and fancies, he would not lie, and rode
on to Twickenham, where he stopped at " The
Anchor," a small hostelry kept by one Daniel
Alley, whom he roused out of his bed about 2 a.m.
The host, to accommodate him, was forced to sur-
render to him his own bed, and send his wife to sleep
with the children. But the knight could not rest
after he had lain down, and was heard crying out
that he was pursued by enemies.
Very early, the host rose that he might go out and
mow a field, but his wife entreated him not to leave
the house. He laughed at her alarms, but she per-
sisted, and a neighbour who was going to help in the
mowing came in. Sir John Fitz started out of sleep
on hearing voices, and persuaded that his fears were
verified, rushed from his room in his nightgown, with
his sword, and ran Alley through the body. He then
wounded the unhappy wife, and finding the error into
which he had fallen, finally mortally wounded himself.
A doctor was sent for, but he tore off the bandages,
and so died, lamented of none save Lusty Jack.
MARY FITZ 281
No sooner was he dead than the Earl of North-
umberland hastened to buy the wardship of the little
heiress, Mary Fitz, then nine years and one week old.
At the time the Crown became the guardian of
orphans whose lands were held in capite or direct
from the Crown, and was wont to sell the wardships
to the highest bidders. The guardian had complete
control, to the exclusion of the mother, over the
ward, and he could marry the ward as he liked, this
also being generally an affair of money. As soon as
Mary Fitz was twelve, the Earl, as she was a desir-
able heiress, disposed of her to his brother, Sir Allan
Percy, aged thirty-one ; she did not, however, live
with her husband, but was placed under the charge
of Lady Hatton. Sir Allan died in November, 161 1,
three years after, and then it was said : — " Sir Allan
Percy is gone the way of all flesh, dying, his lady the
way of all quicke flesh, having stolen out of my Lady
Eliz. Hatton's house in London, in the edge of an
evening, and coupled herself in marriage with Mr.
Darcy, my lord Darcye's eldest son." This was
on December i8th, 161 1, just about a month after
the death of husband number one. He was of her
own age, and no doubt she found him to her liking ;
however, he lived only a few months after his
marriage, and Lady Mary was again a widow, and
was imposed (161 2), hardly by her own choice, on
Sir Charles Howard, fourth son of Thomas, Earl
of Suffolk. So she had number three when scarcely
sixteen. Sir Charles died in 1622 ; consequently they
were together for ten years. She had two daughters
by Sir Charles Howard, and a son, George Howard,
282 TAVISTOCK
is mentioned, but there is some doubt as to his
parentage. In 1628 she took a fourth, Sir Richard
Grenville, the younger brother of the gallant Sir
Bevil. He was a very disreputable, bad-tempered,
altogether ill-conditioned fellow. Lady Howard took
good care, before accepting number four, to have her
property well tied up to herself, so that he could not
touch it. When he discovered this he was furious,
and treated her with insolence and violence. By him
she had two daughters, Elizabeth, who died early,
and Mary.
The condition of family broil became at last so
intolerable that she was forced to appeal to the
justices of peace against him, and finally to
endeavour to obtain a divorce, 163 1-2. The re-
velations then made on both sides are not pleasant
reading. If he was abusive, she did not keep her
tongue shut behind her teeth.
The story of her further troubles during the Civil
War, of Sir Richard's playing fast and loose with
one party and then the other, of his masterful seizure
of her house at Fitzford and her estates in Devon,
need not here be told at length. She lived in London,
and was put to desperate shifts for money. At last
Sir Richard was thrown into prison, but escaped to
France, 1646. Lady Grenville, or as she now called
herself — for she held herself to be divorced — Lady
Howard, at once returned to Fitzford, found it gutted
and in a wretched condition, and set to work to
cleanse, repair, and refurnish. Her son, George
Howard, managed her business for her till his death
in September, 1671, without issue. His mother, at
LADY HOWARD'S PENANCE 28
o
this date very old, was probably bedridden ; the
shock of her son's death was too much for her, and
she died a month later. Knowing her to be ill, her
first cousin, Sir William Courtenay, hastened to her
bedside, and, probably with the connivance of a
trusted maid, Thomasine Wills, persuaded the old
lady to make over to him all her landed estates, to
the exclusion of her two daughters, who were alive
and married. It was an infamous piece of roguery,
and it brought no luck on the Courtenays.
Popular feeling was outraged and has revenged
itself on her, who really was not so much to blame
as Sir William Courtenay, in painting her in the
blackest colours. She is popularly represented as
having murdered her first three husbands, as conceiv-
ing a deadly hatred against her daughter Elizabeth,
who apparently died early, but cannot be traced, and
as not exactly walking but riding after death. When
the clock strikes twelve every night she is supposed
to start in a coach made of bones from the gateway
of Fitzford House, drawn by headless horses ; before
the carriage runs a sable hound with one eye in the
middle of his forehead. The spectral coach makes
its way to Okehampton, where the hound plucks
a blade of grass from the castle mound, and then
the cortege returns to Fitzford, where the blade is
laid on the threshold of the gate. This is Lady
Howard's penance, and it will last till every blade
of grass on the mound of Okehampton Castle hill
has been plucked, which will not be till the crack
of doom, as the grass grows faster than the hound
can carry it off.
284 TAVISTOCK
I frequently heard of the coach going from Oke-
hampton to Tavistock when I was a boy; and there
was a ballad about it, of which I was able to recall
a few fragments, which I completed and published
along with the original air in my Songs of the West.
As a child I remember the deadly fear that I felt lest
I should be on the road at night, and my nurse was
wont to comfort me by saying there was no fear
of the " Lady's Coach," except after midnight.
In the vicarage garden are some very early in-
scribed stones collected from the neighbourhood.
There is no token on them that they are Christian.
Their inscriptions are : —
1. Neprani fili Condevi
2. Sabini fili Maccodecheti
3. Dobunii Fabri fili Enabarri.
This latter has on it also in oghans Enabarr. The
second has the test word Mac for Map or Mab, indica-
tive of Irish occupation. Moreover Dechet was a
name, probably of a sept or tribe in Kerry, where
several stones inscribed with the same name are
found.*
The third is interesting, for Dobun was a faber
or smith. In Celtic organisation every tuatha or
tribe had its chief smith, and every fine or clan
had its smith and forge as well, all whose rights and
dues were determined by law ; moreover, the head
smith of the tribe was a man of very considerable
consequence, social and political.
* A member of the same clan or tribe was buried at Penrhos
Llygwyin, Anglesea — "ZT/V jacet Maccudicheli"
DRAKE STATUE 285
Dobuni, in the third, is the Latin for the genitive
Douvinias, also a Kerry name. A stone at Ballin-
taggart bears an inscription to a son of Dobunus,
MUCCOIDOVVINIAS. Another stone of another son
is at Burnham, also in Kerry, in Lord Ventry's
collection. Here, then, we have written and en-
graven in stone for our learning the record of an
Irish settlement from Kerry in the neighbourhood
of Tavistock. If S. Rumon preached there he could
preach in Gaelic and be understood.
Of the abbey of Tavistock there are but poor
remains. Betsy Grimbal's tower in the vicarage
garden was a gate-house, and takes its name from
a woman who was murdered there by a soldier. A
porch into the refectory or abbot's hall is the dairy
of the "Bedford Inn." Some fragments of the
monastic buildings are united and converted into
library and municipal buildings, but they are
dominated and oppressed by an architectural mon-
strosity — an absurd Town Hall in nondescript style.
The Drake statue is of bronze, and fine, in front
of the Fitzford gate, and possesses the bas-reliefs
on the base, in which the replica on Plymouth Hoe is
deficient. Sir Francis Drake was born at Crowndale,
the first farm down the Tavy valley. The old house
has been destroyed. The Drakes were of yeoman
origin in Whitchurch, nothing more. They laboured
to prove a kinship to the ancient family of Drake
of Ash, but failed, and Sir Francis Drake was granted
an entirely new coat of arms.
The story is told that Sir Francis and Sir Bernard,
— the latter the head of the Ash family — had a heated
286 TAVISTOCK
quarrel over the matter in the presence of Queen
Elizabeth, Sir Bernard objecting to the navigator
assuming the wyvern gules.
" Well," said Bess, " I will give Sir Francis a new
coat, a ship in full sail, with the wyvern turned head
over heels at the poop."
But Sir Bernard was too important a man to be
offended ; she thought better of it, and gave Sir
Francis the noble coat of a fess wavy between two
pole stars.
The story is pronounced to be apocryphal.
Sir Francis became possessor by purchase of Buck-
land Abbey (1581), which is not only beautifully
situated, but is interesting. It is, in fact, the cruci-
form abbey church converted into an Elizabethan
mansion. The nave has been floored, and the draw-
ing-room upstairs is in it ; the hall below is also
in part therein. There is here some splendid plaster-
work. The choir was pulled down and a kitchen
wing built at right angles. In the grounds are
some remarkably fine tulip trees.
Buckland Monachorum Church is large, Perpen-
dicular, but cold, and has a naked, unfurnished look
internally from being without its screen.
There are two points on no account to be missed
by a visitor to Tavistock, and both can be combined
in one drive or walk — the Raven Rock above the
Virtuous Lady Mine, opposite the point where the
Walla falls into the Tavy ; the other the better
known Morwell Rocks. The former, hardly inferior
to the other, but less known, is reached from the
Bere Alston road.
LYDFORD 287
At Morwell is the hunting - lodge of Abbot
Courtenay, cousin of Bishop Grandisson, and ap-
pointed by him to Tavistock Abbey. It was a very
unsatisfactory appointment. He alienated the pro-
perty of the abbey, and allowed its buildings and
discipline to fall into decay, and got the monastery
into a debt equivalent to twenty thousand pounds
of our money. All he cared for was sport, like the
jolly monk in Chaucer's Prologue,
The quadrangle, which was in a singularly un-
touched condition, with hall and butteries and
kitchens, was somewhat wantonly mutilated some
fifty years ago and turned into farmhouse and
cottages.
From Tavistock Lydford can be visited with ease.
This was a very strong place at one time, a sort
of inland cliff-castle, situated in a fork between
ravines, with mounds and trenches drawn across the
neck. The castle, an uninteresting ruin, occupies a
natural mound artificially shaped ; it was long the
Stannary prison. The waterfall is graceful rather
than fine, a steep slide of seventy feet in height in
the midst of woods. From this the river Lyd should
be ascended for three miles by a path through a
ravine that grows in grandeur till it is spanned by
a bridge. The ascent may well be continued to Kits
Steps, another fall of a totally different character,
much spoiled by refuse -heaps from an abandoned
mine. From Lydford a visitor should take a walk
across the shoulder of Hare Tor to the rocks of
Tavy Cleave, perhaps the grandest scene on Dart-
moor.
288 TAVISTOCK
Another excursion is to be made to Brent Tor, a
subaqueous volcanic cone, crowned by a little church.
The base of the hill has been fortified. The banks
are most perfect on the east. The view from the
top of the tor is remarkably extensive and fine.
Endsleigh, the country seat of the Duke of Bedford,
is almost unsurpassed in England for beauty of
scenery. Mary Tavy Church has a good new screen,
and Peter Tavy a scrap of an old one and remains
of a magnificent early Tudor pew, wantonly de-
molished.
From either Whit Tor may be ascended, a tor of
gabbro, or volcanic traplike formation. The summit
has been fortified. On Peter Tavy Moor is a fine
circle of upright stones, and a menhir. Peter Tavy
Combe should on no account be passed over unseen.
Note. — Books on Tavistock : —
Alford (Rev. D.), The Abbots of Tavistock. Plymouth, 1891.
Bray (Mrs.), The Borders of the Tamar and the Tavy, 2 vols, new
edition. London: Kent and Co., 1879. A valuable book for old
stories and superstitions. Mr. Bray was also the first to explore
Dartmoor for its antiquities. But all the rubbish about Druids must
be put aside. When written in 1832 antiquaries knew no better;
they talked and wrote nonsense on such subjects.
Evans (R.), Home Scenes; or, Tavistock and its Vicinity, Tavistock,
1846 ; now not easily procured.
CHAPTER XVI.
TORQUAY
As a health resort — The Palk family — Myths concerning the family —
Its real history — The Gary family — Landing at Brixham of William
of Orange — Kent's Cavern — Order of deposits therein — Churches in
the neighbourhood — Haccombe — The Teign-head combes — Wol-
. borough — The Three Wells — Aller pottery — Its story — Red mud.
THIS pleasant winter residence is now stretched
from Paignton on one side to Marychurch on
the other, with different climates in its several parts.
Torquay is backed by a high ridge against the east,
and consequently is sheltered from cutting winds
from that quarter. S. Marychurch is on the top of
the cliffs, and catches every wind. Paignton looks
across the bay due east, and is therefore exposed
to the most bracing of all winds. In Frying Pan
Row, Torquay, one may be grilled the same day
that at Paignton one may have one's nose and fingers
turned blue.
A century ago Torquay was a little fishing village,
numbering but a few poor cottages.
Torquay has benefited largely from the Palk family,
but then the Palks also have benefited largely by
Torquay.
A cloud of dust has been stirred up to disguise
U 289
290 TORQUAY
the humble, but respectable, origin of the family;
and even Foster in his Peerage (1882), who is always
accurate when he had facts placed before him, com-
mences with "Sir Robert Palk, descended from Henry
Palk, of Ambrook, Devon (Henry VH., 1493-4)."
But Ambrook, which is in Staverton, never did belong
to the Palks ; it was the property first of the Shap-
cotes, and then of the Nayles. Sir Bernard Burke, in
addition to the Ambrook myth, states that Walter,
seventh in descent, married Miss Abraham, and had
Robert, Walter (who was member for Ashburton),
and Grace. The late Sir Bernard Burke was not
remarkable for accuracy, and here he has floundered
into a succession of blunders. The descent from
Henry Palk, of Ambrook, is apocryphal ; and Walter
Palk never was member for Ashburton, or for any-
where else. Another false assertion made has been
that the family are descended from a Rev. Thomas
Palk, of Staverton, a " celebrated " Nonconformist
divine, who died in 1693. Wills proved in the
Court of the Dean and Chapter of Exeter disprove
this.
The real facts are these.
Walter Palk, of Ashburton, married Grace Ryder,
and by her means came in for a petty farm called
Lower Headborough, close to Ashburton. He died
in 1707, when his personal estate was valued at
£\6o \Qs. ^\d. His son Walter married Frances,
daughter of Robert Abraham, a farmer in Woodland,
and his pack-horses carried serge from Ashburton
over Haldon to Exeter. This is probably the origin
of the story commonly told that the first Palk was
ROBERT PALK 291
a carrier between Exeter and Ashburton. He had
two sons : Walter, whose son, the Rev. Jonathan Palk,
vicar of Ilsington, described his father as a " little
farmer with a large family." The second son, Robert,
born in 1717, was sent as a sizar to Oxford, by the
assistance of his uncle Abraham. He was ordained
deacon, and became a poor curate in Cornwall. On
Christmastide he walked to Ashburton to see his
father, and as he was returning on his way home,
he stood on Dart Bridge, looking down on the river,
when a gentleman riding by recognised him, drew
up, and said, " Is that you, Palk ? " He had been
a fellow-student at Oxford. Palk had a sad story to
tell of privation and vexation. The other suggested
to him to seek his fortune under John Company in
India, and volunteered an introduction. He went
out, acting as chaplain to the Stirling Castle, and
during the time he was in India, attracted the atten-
tion of General Lawrence, who in 1752 obtained for
him an appointment as paymaster to the army, of
which he had then assumed the command. But
already by clever speculation Mr. Palk had done
well ; the new position enabled him to vastly enlarge
his profits.
He next embarked in trade, and this also proved
remunerative. He came back to England for the
first time in 1759. Subsequently a difficulty arose in
India. The Company were debating it at the old
East India House in Leadenhall Street. What
capable man could they find to do the difficult
work before them ? At last one of them exclaimed,
"Gentlemen, you forget that we have Mr. Palk at
292 TORQUAY
home." " The very man ! " He was sent out as
Governor of Madras in 1763. In 1775 General
Lawrence died, and left ;^8o,ooo to his old proteg^.
The acquisition of the property about Torquay, at
the time when it was a place of no consideration, was
a shrewd stroke of business. Mr. Palk was created
a baronet, and elected to represent Devon in Parlia-
ment. Subsequently, when the Rev. John Home
Tooke, a Jacobin, as it was the fashion to call
Radicals of that day, was returned to Parliament,
the House settled that it would not allow of clerical
members being admitted, and this would have ex-
cluded Sir Robert Palk as well as Home Tooke, but
that Palk was only in deacon's orders.
Sir Robert did much for Torquay. Sir Lawrence
continued to promote the material welfare of the
place in every way available.
He constructed the outer harbour and new pier,
which were completed in 1870, at an outlay of
;£"70,ooo. Further attractions were afforded to
visitors by the provision of recreation grounds and
public walks. He also gave sites for new churches,
and the modern town of Torquay has risen into
a place full of beauty and attraction.
"Robert Palk's touch seemed to turn everything into
gold. He realised it for himself, for his children, for his
relatives, for his friends, and for his surroundings. He was
an ancestor to look back upon, a forefather of whom any
family might reasonably be proud."*
* Worthy, Devonshire Parishes^ 1889, vol. ii., p. 335. Mr. Worthy
has worked out the Palk pedigree from extant wills and registers.
TORBAY 295
The other family attached to Torquay to which it
must look is that of Gary, as ancient and noble as
that of Palk is modern and humble. The nest of the
family is Gary, on the river of the same name in
S. Giles-in-the- Heath, Devon, but on the borders of
Gornwall. It can be traced back like those of most
men to an Adam — but an Adam Gary in 1240.
Torbay is noted as the place where Dutch William
arrived in 1688. He landed at Brixham on Novem-
ber 4th, and, as the tide was out, he called for some-
one to carry him ashore, whereupon a little man
named Varwell volunteered.
The local story is that the good folk of Brixham
presented their illustrious visitor with the following
address : —
" An' please your Majesty, King William,
You're welcome to Brixham Quay,
To eat buckhorn and drink Bohea
Along wi' we,
An' please your Majesty, King William."
But the story is of course apocryphal, as the prince
was not a king, and tea was at a fabulous price.
The subsequent history of the "little man" who
carried the king ashore is rather singular. Having
a short ambling pony, he rode bare-headed before the
prince to Newton and afterwards to Exeter, and so
pleased him with his zeal that the prince bade him
come to court, when he should be seated on the throne,
and that then he would reward Varwell. The prince
also gave him a line under his hand, which was to
serve as a passport to the royal presence. In due time
accordingly the little man took his course to London,
294 TORQUAY
promising his townsmen that he would come back
among them a lord at least. When, however, he
arrived there, some sharpers, who learned his errand
at the tavern where he put up, made Varwell glori-
ously drunk, and kept him in this condition for
several successive weeks. During this time one of
the party, having obtained the passport, went to
court, with the " little man's " tale in his mouth, and
received a handsome present from the king. Our
adventurer, recovering himself afterwards, went to
the palace without his card of admission and was
repulsed as an impostor, and returned to Brixham
never to hold up his head again.
It is fair to say that the Varwell family entirely
repudiate the latter part of the tale, and say that
the " little man " did see the king and got a hundred
pounds out of him.
The troops with the prince were obliged to encamp
in the open air, but William got a lodging in one
of the cottages.
Whitter, who was one of the attendants on the
Dutch adventurer, has left a graphic account of the
landing and subsequent march : —
" It was a cold, frosty night, and the stars twinkl'd
exceedingly ; besides, the ground was very wet after so
much rain and ill weather; the soldiers were to stand to
their arms the whole night ; and therefore sundry soldiers
went to fetch some old hedges and cut down green wood
to burn therewith and make some fire. Those who had
provision in their gnap-sacks did broil it at the fire, and
others went into the villages thereabouts to buy some fresh
provisions for their officers, but, alas ! there was little to
WILLIAM OF ORANGE 295
be gotten. There was a little ale-house among the fisher-
men's houses, which was so extremely thronged that a
man could not thrust in his head, nor get bread or ale
for money. It was a 'happy time for the landlord, who
strutted about as if indeed he had been a lord himself."
The little ale-house is probably that now entitled
the " Buller Arms." It was there William is said
to have slept, and to have left behind him a ring that
remained in the possession of the taverner's family
till it came to one Mary Churchward, who died
about i860. It was stolen from her one night by
a thief who entered her room whilst she slept, and
it was never recovered.
On the morrow William and his Dutchmen with a
few Scots and English marched to Paignton, and
many people, mostly Nonconformists, welcomed
him.
A gentleman, very advanced in age, in 1880
says : —
" There are few now left who can say as I can, that they
have heard their fathers and their wives' fathers talking
together of the men who saw the landing of William the
Third at Torbay. I have heard Captain Clements say
he, as a boy, heard as many as seven or eight old men
each giving the particulars of what he saw ; then one said
a shipload of horses hawled to the Quay, and the horses
walked out all harnessed, and the quickness with which
each man knew his horse and mounted it surprised them.
Another old man said, ' I helped to get on shore the horses
that were thrown overboard, and swam on shore, guided
by only a single rope running from the ship to the shore.'
My father remembered one Gaffer Will Webber, of
Staverton, who lived to a great age, say that he went
296 TORQUAY
from Staverton as a boy with his father, who took a cart-
load of apples from Staverton to the highroad from
Brixham to Exeter, that the soldiers might help themselves
to them, and to wish them ' God-speed.'
" I merely mention this to show how easily tradition can
be handed down, requiring only three or four individuals
for two centuries." ^
What was done by the country folk v^^as to roll
apples down the slopes from the orchards to the
troops as they passed.
The prince spent the second night at Paignton
in a house near the " Crown and Anchor Inn," where
his room is still shown.
Next day he with his troops marched to Newton,
and he took up his quarters in Ford House, belong-
ing to Sir William Courtenay, who prudently de-
camped so as not to compromise himself. A
room there is called the Orange Room, and is now
always papered and hung with that colour. At
Newton the prince's proclamation was read on the
steps of the old market cross, not by the Rev. John
Reynell, rector of Wolborough, as is stated on a
stone erected on the spot, but by a chaplain, no
doubt the fussy and pushing Burnet. Reynell had
also made himself scarce. From Newton the prince
marched to Exeter.
One can tell pretty well what were the political
leanings of squires and parsons at the period of
the Jacobite troubles, for where there was zeal for
the House of Stuart, there Scotch pines were planted ;
* WiNDEATT (T. W.), "The Landing of the Prince of Orange," in
Transactions of the Devonshire Association ^ 1880.
KENT'S CAVERN 297
where, however, the Dutchman was in favour, there
Hme trees were set in avenues.
In Torquay Museum is an interesting collection
of relics from Kent's Cavern. This is a cave in
the limestone rocks that was first explored in 1824,
when Mr. Northmore, of Cleve, near Exeter, visited
it with the double object, as he stated, " of discover-
ing organic remains, and of ascertaining the existence
of a temple of Mithras," and he declared himself
happy to say that he was "successful in both objects."
An amusing example this of the egregious nonsense
that was regarded as antiquarianism at the beginning
of this century. He was followed by Mr. (afterwards
Sir) W. C. Trevelyan, who was the first to have
obtained any results of scientific value.
The Rev. J. MacEnery, a Roman Catholic priest,
whose name must be for ever associated with the
Cavern, visited it in the summer of 1825. The visit
was a memorable one, for, devoting himself to what
he conjectured to be a favourable spot, he found
several teeth and bones ; and he thus sums up his
feelings on the occasion : —
" They were the first fossil teeth I had ever seen,
and as I laid my hands on them, relics of extinct
races and witnesses of an order of things which
passed away with them, I shrank back involuntarily.
Though not insensible to the excitement attending
new discoveries, I am not ashamed to own that in
the presence of these remains I felt more of awe
than joy."
He communicated his discovery to Dr. Buckland,
and from time to time dug into the deposits. At
298 TORQUAY
that and a long subsequent period the proper
method of studying deposits of this kind was not
understood, and the several layers were not
distinguished. Trenches were cut that went through
beds separated in age by many centuries, perhaps
thousands of years, and no distinction was made
between what lay near the surface and what was
found in the lowermost strata. A proper exam-
ination began in March, 1866, and was continued
without intermission through the summer of 1880
under the able direction of Mr. W. Pengelly, at a
cost of nearly two thousand pounds.
Kent's Cavern gives evidence of a double occupa-
tion by man at a remote distance of time the one
from the other. The upper beds are of cave-earth.
Below that is the breccia, and in the upper alone are
traces of the hyena found. In the lowest strata of
crystalline breccia are rude flint and chert implements
of the same type as that found elsewhere in the river-
drift. In association with these were the remains of
the cave-bear, and a tool was found manufactured
out of an already fossilised tooth of this animal. The
chert and flint employed were from the gravels that
lie between Newton Abbot and Torquay.
Above the breccia is the cave-earth, in which
flint implements are by far more numerous,
and are of a higher form, some being carefully
chipped all round. The earlier tool was fashioned
by heavy blows dealt against the core of flint,
detaching large flakes. But the tools of the second
period are neatly trimmed. The flakes were de-
tached, very often by pressure and a jerk, and then
CAVES 299
the edges were delicately worked with a small tool.
A bone needle was also met with, and bone awls, and
two harpoons of reindeer antler, the one barbed on
one side and the other on both.
Rude, coarse pottery has also been found, but only
quite near the surface, and this belongs to a later
period.
There are other caves in the same formation, at
Anstis and at Brixham, that have rendered good
results when explored.
The two deposits are separated from each other
by a sheet of crystalline stalagmite, in some places
nearly twelve feet thick, formed after the breccia was
deposited, and before the cave-earth was introduced.
After the stalagmite had been formed, it was broken
up by some unknown natural agency, and much of
it, along with some of the breccia, was carried out by
water from the cave, before the deposition of the
cave-earth began.
"From these observations it is evident that the River-
drift men inhabited the caves of Devonshire, Derbyshire,
and Nottinghamshire in an early stage of the history of
caverns, and that after an interval, to be measured in Kent's
Hole by the above-mentioned physical changes, the Cave-
men (those of the Second Period) found shelter in the
same places. The former also followed the chase in the
valley of the Elwy and the vale of Clwydd in North
Wales, and the latter found ample food in the numerous
reindeer, horses, and bisons then wandering over the plains
extending from the Mendip Hills to the Quantocks, and
the low, fertile tract now covered by the estuary of the
Severn and the Irish Sea. When all these facts are taken
into consideration, it is difficult to escape Mr. Pengelly's
300 TORQUAY
conclusion that the two sets of implements represent two
distinct social atates, of which the ruder is by far the most
ancient." *
We have, in the caves of France, evidence of the
successive layers of civilisation, one superposed on
the other, down to the reindeer hunter, who ate
horses, represented by the cave-earth man of Kent's
Hole; and in this latter we have this same man
superposed on the traces of the still earlier man of
the river-drift. To make all plainer, I will add here
a summary of the deposits.
' Modern, Roman, etc. "*
Iron Age, Celtic, bronze orna-
Neolithic <
ments.
Bronze weapons, Ivernian, flint
tools.
, Flint and pottery. >
^ Fauna, as
at present.
r Flint and bone tools, cave- '
Hyena,
Palaeo-
men.
cave-bear,
lithic ■
Rudest flint tools, river-drift
reindeer,
men.
mammoth.
There are remains of a cliff castle at Long Quarry
Point ; from its name one may conjecture that a
church stood in Celtic times on Kilmarie. Almost
certainly this was a cliff castle, but the traces have
disappeared.
The old church of Tor Mohun is dedicated to
S. Petrock, as is shown by a Bartlett will in Somerset
House, in 1517. Tor Abbey has been crowded into
a narrow space by encroaching buildings. Cocking-
* Boyd Dawk ins, Early Man in Britain^ ibSo, p. 197.
HACCOMBE 301
ton House and church deserve a visit, as forming
a charming group. Paignton Church contains a very
fine but mutilated tomb with rich canopy and screen-
work, showing that there must have been in the
fifteenth century a native school of good figure
sculptors. Marldon Church is also interesting, and
in that parish is the curious Compton Castle, of
which history has little to say. Haccombe, the seat
of the Carews, has a church crowded with fine monu-
mental effigies. The mansion is about the most
hideous that could be conceived. It is said that a
Carew pulled down his fine Elizabethan mansion and
went to Italy, leaving instructions to an architect
to build him a handsome house in the Georgian
style.
When he returned and saw what had been erected :
" Well," said he, " I believe that now I may take to
myself the credit of possessing the very ugliest
house in the county." The situation is of exquisite
beauty. How lovely must have been the scene with
a grave old Elizabethan manor-house, mottled with
white and yellow lichen, embowered in trees, above
which rose the hills, the evening sun glittering in
its many muUioned windows, while the rooks wheeled
and cawed about it.
The little combes that dip into the estuary of the
Teign, rich with vegetation growing rank out of
the red soil, are very lovely. Stoke-in-Teignhead
not only has a good screen, but it is a parish that
has never had a squire, but has been occupied
from the sixteenth century by substantial yeomen,
who have maintained themselves there against en-
302 TORQUAY
croaching men of many acres. Combe-in-Teignhead
has a very fine screen and equally good old benches.
Wolborough has a good church occupying a site
that was once a camp, and contains an excellent
screen, well restored and glittering with gold and
colour. East Ogwell has also a screen, and the old
manor mill is a picturesque object for the pencil.
Denbury is a strong camp.
Torbrian, situated in a lovely spot, has fine screen-
work and monuments of the Petres. The three
Wells, Coffinswell, Kingskerswell, and Abbots-
kerswell, lie together. At Kingskerswell are some
old monumental effigies of the Prowse family. At
Abbotskerswell are a screen, and a large statue of the
Blessed Virgin in a niche of the window splay. This
latter had been plastered over into one great bulk ;
when the plaster was removed the statue was revealed.
The very fine Jacobean altar-rails were removed at
the " restoration," to make place for something utterly
uninteresting. Here there is an early and interesting
church-house. The church-house was the building
in which the parishioners from a distance spent
a rainy time between morning service and vespers.
The house was divided by a floor into two storeys,
that above for women, that below for the men.
Here were also held the church ales, that is to say,
the ale brewed by the wardens and sold to defray
church expenses. The ale was also supplied on
Sundays by the clerk to those who tarried for even-
song, and so, little by little, most of these old church-
houses degenerated into taverns.
Abbotskerswell is the seat of the Aller pottery
WELL-PARISHES 303
art manufacture, started by the late Mr. John
Phillips, with the object of providing the village
young men with remunerative work at their own
homes. But about this presently. The story of the
inception of the work is interesting.
Coffinswell still possesses its holy well, that is
called the " Lady Well," used by young girls for
fortune-telling.
At some little distance from this spring lies a
nameless grave in unconsecrated ground, where is
buried a lady banished holy ground for her sins.
Every New Year's morn, after the stroke of mid-
night, she rises and takes "one cock's stride" towards
the churchyard, which, when she reaches, she will
find rest, and her hope is to be found therein — at
the crack of doom.
The three well-parishes lie about the stream of
the Aller (W. allwy^ to pour forth, to stream), that
flows into the Teign below Newton Abbot. But it
was not always so. At some remote period, when
the great Dartmoor peaks "stood up and took the
morning," far higher than they do now, the moun-
tain torrents that swept the detritus of quartz from
Hey Tor and Rippon Tor not only filled the lake of
Bovey with pure white china clay, till they had
converted a basin into a plain, but they also poured
between red sandstone and limestone cliffs into the
sea at Torbay. Then came a convulsion of nature ;
these latter formations rose as a wall across the bed
of the torrent, and the spill of the granite upland
passed down the Teign valley. Then the little
Aller was formed of the drainage of the combes of
304 TORQUAY
the upraised barrier, and, blushing at its insignifi-
cance, it stole through the ancient bottom, cutting
its modest way through the beds of quartz clay
left by the former occupant of the valley, and, of
course, flowing in a direction precisely the reverse
of the former flood. The deposits of the earlier
stream remain in all the laps of the hills and folds
of the valley. They consist of quartz clay, some-
what coloured by admixture of the later rocks that
have been fretted by lateral streams.
The first to discover these beds were the gipsies.
They were our early potters. These wandering
people were wont to camp wherever there was clay,
and wood suitable for baking the clay. They set
their rude wheels to work, and erected their equally
primitive kilns, and spent one half the year in making
pots, and the other half in vending them from place
to place. When the wood supply was exhausted, then
the Bohemians set up their potteries on another spot
that commended itself to them, to be again deserted
when the wood supplies failed once more.
The reason why the potteries at Burslem and
elsewhere in Staffordshire have become permanent
is, that there the coal is ready at hand, and that
there the native population has taken the trade out
of the desultory hands of the gipsies, and has
worked at it persistently, instead of intermittently.
The old stations, the rude kilns, the heaps of broken
and imperfectly baked crocks of the ancient potters,
are often come upon in the woods of Aller vale,
and among the heather and gorse brakes of Bovey
Heathfield.
ART SCHOOL 305
The Aller vale opens into the Teign, as already
said, below Newton Abbot, and extends about four
miles south to the village of Kingskerswell, that
stands on the crest of the red rocky barrier which
diverted the course of the flood from Dartmoor. A
branch of the valley to the west terminates at a
distance of two miles at the picturesque village of
Abbotskerswell, and another branch to the east
leads up to the village of Cofflnswell. The deepest
deposit of clay is at the point where the three
parishes converge.
Just nineteen years ago the idea of an art school
was mooted in the district. It was enthusiastically
taken up by the village doctor at Kingskerswell,
in association with an institute for the labourers
and young men of the parish, and after a little
difficulty he succeeded in getting hold of some
premises for the purpose. This earnest-hearted and
energetic man, Dr. Symons, did not live to see more
than the initiation of his scheme. By many the
idea of an art school among village bumpkins was
viewed with mistrust, even with disfavour. It was
argued, and with truth, that art schools had been
started in country towns, and had failed to reach a
class below the middle order. Sons and daughters
of artisans and labourers would have none of it.
Such had been the experience in Newton, such in
Torquay. If the intelligent artisan of the town
turned his back on the art school, was it likely that
Hodge would favour it? When people have satis-
fied their minds that a certain venture is doomed
to failure, they are very careful not to lend their
3o6 TORQUAY
names to it, nor to put out their finger-tips to help
it in any way. It was so in this case.
The managers of the Board School, when asked
to lend the room for the purpose, refused it. The
promoters, failing in every other direction, turned to
a poor widow left with two sons, struggling hard to
keep soul and body together in a modest " cob "
(clay-walled) cottage with thatched roof She was
asked the loan of her kitchen, a room measuring
21 feet by 1 8 feet, lighted by two small latticed
windows, with low open-boarded and raftered ceiling
of unhewn timber. Glad to earn a few pence, she
consented, and the art classes were started on a
career of unexpected success.
The school of art began with a few pupils. A
Sunday-school teacher persuaded his class to go
to the art school, and perhaps to humour him,
rather than with any anticipation of profit, the boys
accepted the invitation. The widow's kitchen was
whitewashed and clean. On the hearth a log fire
blazed. A few simple pictures hung on the walls,
and a scarlet geranium glowed in a pot in the
window. A couple of trestles supported a plank
for a table, and a pair of forms served to seat the
pupils. The ploughboy, with his stiff fingers, was
set to draw straight lines, and wonderful were his
productions. The lines danced, trembled, wriggled,
halted, then rushed off the page. They were
crackers in their gyrations at first, and then rockets.
By degrees the lines became less random, more sub-
dued and purposeful, and finally a crow of delight
proclaimed to the whole class that the curly-headed
ART SCHOOL 307
ploughboy had succeeded in producing a musical
bar of five fairly parallel lines. Then, with both
hands plunged into his pockets, young Hodge
leaned back and went off into a roar of laughter.
It had dawned on his mind that he could draw a
line with a pencil on paper as true as he could with
a ploughshare in a field. He had come to the
school for a lark, and had found that the self-
satisfaction acquired by the discovery of his powers
was a lark better than he had expected. The ques-
tion presented itself from the outset — How was the
art school to be maintained ? The fires must be
kept in full glow, the lamps must be supplied with
oil, the widow must be paid to clean her floor after
the boys had brought over it the red mud from the
lanes. As so much mistrust as to the advantage
and prospect of success of the classes was enter-
tained, it was from the first resolved by the
promoters not to solicit subscriptions. The whole
thing was to be self-supporting. This was repre-
sented to the pupils, and they readily accepted the
situation. They undertook to organise and keep
going through the winter a series of fortnightly
entertainments ; they would invite some outsiders,
but for the most part they would do their best
themselves to entertain. The evenings would be
made lively with recitations, readings, and songs.
Doubtful whether such performance would deserve
a fixed charge for admission, the young fellows on
putting their heads together determined to make
none, but to hold a cap at the door when the
"pleasant evening" was over, and let those who
3o8 TORQUAY
had been entertained show their appreciation as
they chose.
These fortnightly cottage entertainments became
a recognised institution and a source of profit, besides
serving as a means of interesting and occupying the
pupils. A thing that begins in a small way on right
principles, a thing that "hath the seed in itself," is
bound to succeed.
Adjoining the widow's cottage was another un-
tenanted, like it consisting of a single apartment on
the ground floor. It became necessary to rent this,
knock a door through the wall, and combine the
cottages. The second room was turned into a
workshop, with a carpenter's bench and a chest of
tools.
Out of the first art school in the one well -parish
grew two others, one in each of the other well-
parishes. Coffinswell has but a population of a
hundred souls, nevertheless its art school has been
frequented by as many as twelve pupils. Sixty is
the highest number reached by the three together,
which are now combined to maintain an efficient
art instructor.
It fell out that a stoneware pottery in the Aller
vale was burnt down in 1881, and when reconstructed
the proprietor, who had cordially promoted the art
classes, resolved on converting what had been a
factory of drain and ridge tiles into a terra-cotta
manufactory, in which some of the more promising
pupils might find employ, and in which the know-
ledge and dexterity acquired in the class might be
turned to practical uses. A single experienced potter
RED SOIL 309
was engaged, a gipsy, to start the affair, as there was
no local tradition as to the manufacture of crocks
upon which to go.
The classes were from the outset for boys and girls
together, and though recently there has been a change
in this arrangement, the young women coming in the
afternoon, and the young men in the evening, this
alteration has been made owing to increase of num-
bers, not in consequence of any rudeness or im-
propriety, for such there had not been in the ten
years of the career of the school. In this case the
experience has been precisely the same as that of the
mixed schools and colleges of the United States.
There is one thing that a visitor to Torquay is
certain to carry away with him if he has made
excursions on foot about it — some of its red soil.
The roads, in spite of the County Council, are bad,
for the material of which they are made is soft. But
what a soil it is for flowers and for fruit ! Anything
and everything will grow there and run wild. Stick
a twig into the earth, and it is bound to grow. As
for roses and violets, they run riot there. And, taken
on the whole, the visitor who has been to Torquay is
almost sure to carry away with him something beside
the red mud, something quite as adhesive — pleasant
memories of the place and its balmy air.
CHAPTER XVIl.
TOTNES
The legend of Brutus — Derivation of the name — Castle — The charter
— Old houses — Piazzas — The church — The screen — Dartington Hall
— Little Hempston Rectory — Old gate — Priory — Berry Pomeroy.
WHAT a pity it is that the dear old legends
that lie at the root of history have been
dissipated ! That we can no longer believe in
Romulus and Remus and the she-wolf — no, not
even when the Lupercale remains on the side of
the Palatine Hill, after the palaces of Augustus,
of Tiberius, of Caligula, of Septimius Severus, have
been levelled with the dust.
How cruel, too, that the delightful story of Alfred
and the cakes, that also of Edwin and Elgiva, are
relegated to the region of fables ; that we are told
there never was such a person as King Arthur, and
that S. George for Merry England never was a
gallant knight, and certainly slew no dragon, nor
delivered fair maid !
Dust we are, but is it absolutely necessary that all
human history, and the history of nature, should
spring out of dust? that the events of the child-
hood of our race should have been all orderly and un-
romantic, as if every nationality had been bred in trim-
ness as a Board School scholar? Now, what if we could
310
w^.|;—.
LEGEND OF BRUTUS 311
believe that old gossiping — I am afraid I must add
lying — historian, Geoffrey of Monmouth ! Why, the
transformation scene at a pantomime would be nothing
to the blaze of wonders and romance in the midst of
which the England of history steps on to the stage.
Ah ! if we could but believe old Geoffrey, or the
British book which he saw and translated, why, then,
Totnes would be the most revered spot in England,
as that where the first man set his foot when he
landed in an uncultivated, unpeopled island. Is there
not on the Palatine the Lupercale, the very den in
which the she-wolf suckled Romulus and Remus, to
prove the tale ? Are there not Arthur's Seats enough
in Cornwall, Wales, Cumberland, Scotland, to show
that there must have been an Arthur to sit in them ?
And is there not the stone in the high street of
Totnes on which Brut, when he landed, set his foot
to establish against all doubters the existence of
Brut and the fact of his landing there ?
The story is this.
As it fell upon a day there was a certain king
called Sylvius in Italy, and when he was about to
become a father he consulted a magician, who by the
stars could tell all that was to be. Now this magician
read that the child that was to be born to Sylvius
would be the death of his father and mother.
In course of time the child was born, and at his
birth his mother died. " He 's a Brute," said King
Sylvius, and so that was his name.
But King Sylvius did not have his child exposed
to wild beasts ; he gave it to be nursed by a good
woman, who reared the " Brute " till he was fifteen.
315 TOTNES
Now it fell out that one day King Sylvius went
a-hunting in the merry greenwood with horn and
hounds, and the little " Brute," hearing the winding
of the horn and the music of the hounds, picked up
the bow he himself had made, and with the arrows
he himself also had winged, forth he went to the
chase. Alas ! it so fell out that the first arrow he
shot pierced his father's heart.
On this account Brute had to fly the country.
" And away he fared to the Grecian land,
With a hey ! with a ho ! and a nonny O !
And there he gathered a stahvart band.
And the ships they sail on the blue sea O ! "
Now the mother of Brute had been a Trojan, so all
the refugees, after the destruction of Troy, gathered
about the young prince, and formed a large body
of men. Brute took to wife Ignogne, daughter of
Pandrasos, King of the Greeks, and resolved to sail
away in quest of a new country. So the king, his
father-in-law, gave him ships and lading, and he
started. A fair wind swelled his sails, and he sailed
over the deep blue sea till he reached a certain island
called Loegria, which was all solitary, for it had been
wasted by pirates. But Brute went on shore, and
found an old deserted and ruinous temple, and there
he lit three fires, and he sacrificed a white hart, and
poured the blood mingled with wine on the broken
altar, and he sang : —
" Sweet goddess above, in the light of love.
That high through the blue doth sail,
O tell me who rove in the woodland grove,
O tell me, and do not fail.
Where I shall rest — and thine altar dressed,
Shall finish this wandering tale."
LEGEND OF BRUTUS 313
These words he repeated nine times, after which
he took four turns round the altar, and laid himself
down on the skin of the white hart and fell asleep.
About the third hour of the night he saw a beautiful
form appear with the new moon in her hair, and
a sceptre with the morning star shining on its point,
and she said to him : —
" Far, far away in the ocean blue,
There lieth an island fair.
Which giants possessed, but of them are few
That linger to haunt it there.
O there shalt thou reign, in a pleasant plain
Shalt found thee a city rare.
From thee shall a line of heroes divine
Carry triumph everywhere."
When Brute woke he was much encouraged by
the vision, and he returned to his ship, hoisted the
mainsail, and away, away, before the wind the ship
flew, throwing up foam from her bows, and leaving
a track as milk in the sea behind. He passed through
the Straits of Gibraltar and coasted up Aquitaine,
and rounded the Cape of Finisterre, and at length,
with a fair wind, crossed the sea, and came to the
marble cliffs of Dunan Dyffnaint, the land of deep
vales, and in the cliffs opened a great rift, down
which flowed a beautiful river, and he sailed up it.
And lo ! on either side were green pastures spangled
with buttercups, and forests of mighty oaks and
beech, and over his head the white gulls screamed,
and in the water the broad-winged herons dipped ;
and so he sailed, and before him rose a red cliff; and
now the tide began to fall. So he ran his ship
up against the cliff and leapt ashore, and where he
314 TOTNES
leaped there his foot made its impress on the red
rock, which remains even unto this day. Then, when
Brute had landed, he sat himself down and said : —
" Here I sit, and here I rest,
And this town shall be called Totnes."
Which shows that Brute had not much idea of rhyme,
nor of measure in his rhyme.
It must be told that the very spot where Brute
sprang ashore is half-way up the hill from the river
Dart, up which he sailed ; but then the river was
much fuller in those days, or men's legs were longer.
Totnes, in fact, occupies a promontory of red
sandstone rock, round which the river not only winds,
but anciently swept up a creek that ran for two
miles. In fact there was a labyrinth of creeks there ;
one between Totnes and the sea, another between
Totnes and the mainland, so that the town was acces-
sible on one side only, and that side was strongly
fortified by castle and earthworks. The creek to the
south still fills with water ; its mouth is below Sharp-
ham, and the tide now rises only as far as Bow
Bridge. Formerly it ran quite a mile further up.
The town of Totnes, in fact, occupies one point alone
in a ness or promontory that was formerly, when the
tide rose, flushed with water on the three sides. It
has, however, been supposed that the term Totnes
applies to the whole of that portion of South Devon
to the coast; some even assert to the whole peninsula
of Devon and Cornwall. The creeks have silted up
with the rich red mud, and with the washings from
the tin mines on Dartmoor, to such an extent that
THE CASTLE 315
the true ness character of the little district of Totnes
and the villages of Ashprington and Harberton has
not been recognised. It is a hilly district, and the
clefts which formerly filled with water are natural
dykes fortifying it.
The Ikenild Street, which was a British trackway,
passed through Totnes, which is the old Durium of
the Itineraries. The river Dart is the Dour, that
comes out as Durium in Latin, and is simply the
Celtic word for water. We have it again in Doro-
vernia, Dover, and in Dorchester, the castle or camp
on the water.
The name Totnes is probably Saxon, from tot,
toten, " to project," as in Tothill, Tottenham ; and
we have it again in a promontory on the coast, as
Dodman's Nose, which is peculiar, for this is a com-
bination of three languages. Dod is the Saxon, man
is the Celtic maen, stone or rock, and ness is the
Scandinavian nose or headland.
The railway station and line to Plymouth now
occupy the old creek, up which barges, and un-
doubtedly smuggled spirits, went to Dartington.
Anyone standing on the Dartington side and look-
ing across at Totnes will see at once what was the
old character of this headland. The town occupies a
long ridge, which reached to the river by one street
that ran its entire length. The magnificent church
of red sandstone, with its grand tower and pinnacles,
occupies the centre, and on the land side, the only
side assailable, towered up the castle on a mound
that was thrown up in prehistoric times.
The castle is now ruined ; the circular " mote " re-
3i6 TOTNES
mains, and a few crumbling walls and great elm trees
full of rooks' nests rise in the place of towers and
battlements. The grounds about the ruins have been
nicely laid out, and what remains of the castle is
saved from further disintegration. The character was
very much that of other castles in the West, as Rouge-
mont, Plympton, and Launceston. There was no
square keep, but a circular drum, and a large yard
surrounded by walls that stood on earlier earthworks.
A picturesque gate gives access to the town near the
castle. The town itself is quaint and full of interest-
ing relics. A great number of the houses date
from Elizabethan times, and belonged to the wealthy
merchants of Totnes, which was a great place for
the manufacture of woollen cloth. Indeed in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries it was already
famous.
Totnes is one of the oldest boroughs in the
country. Its earliest charter dates from 1205,
and I believe I am right in saying that at a dinner
at the Mansion' House given by a Lord Mayor of
London within the last few years to the mayors of
England, precedence was given to the representative
of the borough of Totnes over all others.
The houses of the merchants of Totnes have been
sadly tampered with. The requirements of modern
trade exact large shop-fronts, and to satisfy the
demand of the public to see at a glance what is
to be sold within, the venerable houses have been
transformed externally, at all events on the ground-
floor. But let anyone interested in such things go
within and ask to be shown the panelled rooms and
PIAZZAS 317
plaster ceilings, and he will see much to interest and
delight. A peculiarly fine piece of plaster -work is
in the parlour of the local bookseller, and if the
visitor desires to have his hair cut he can have it
done in a chamber of the local barber, where the
woodwork is of the sixteenth century.
Totnes preserves its old piazzas, or covered ways
in High Street, very much like those of Berne or an
Italian city, or, indeed, of the bastides or free cities
built by our Edward I. in his duchy of Guyenne,
of which Montpazier, Beaumont, St. Foye are notable
examples, and seem to show that piazzas were a
common feature of English towns and of towns
built under English influence in the thirteenth century.
The same sort of thing is found at Chester, but not,
that I am aware, in any other English towns. If in
Italy these covered ways are an advantage, in that
it allows those who walk along the streets to look in
at the shop windows with comfort when the sun is
shining, in Totnes it allows them the same advantage
when the rain is falling ;
*' And the rain it raineth every day."
One unpardonable outrage has been committed at
Totnes. There existed in front of the churchyard
and in continuation of the piazza, a butter market,
which consisted of an enlarged piazza, supported on
granite pillars of the beginning of the seventeenth
century. The vulgar craving to show off the parish
church when so many pounds, shillings, and pence
had been spent on its restoration ; the fear lest
visitors should fail to see that the shopkeepers of
3i8 TOTNES
Totnes had put their hands into their pockets to
do up their church, made them destroy this pic-
turesque and unique feature.
The church itself is a very fine building. It was
originally a Norman structure of the eleventh cen-
tury, but was rebuilt in the thirteenth, and is, as
it now stands, a structure of Perpendicular work
of the fifteenth century. It is of red sandstone,
of a warm and pleasant colour. In the tower are
niches containing figures of saints of lighter colour.
The church has gone through a restoration more
or less satisfactory, or unsatisfactory, at the hands
of the late Sir G. Gilbert Scott, who had no feeling
for Perpendicular work. It is a stately church ; its
chief glory is a superb rood-screen of carved stone,
erected in 1460, and richly coloured and gilt. This
supported a wide gallery that extended over half the
chancel, and access to this gallery was obtained by a
splendid carved and gilt newel staircase in the
chancel. The top of the screen is delicately spread
into fan -work, intended to sustain the beam of the
gallery. In the so-called restoration of the church
the entire gallery was removed, consequently the
stair leads to vacancy and the screen supports
nothing. Moreover, one of the most striking effects
of the church was destroyed. A broad belt of
shadow was designed to cross the chancel, behind
the screen, throwing up, on one side, the gilded
tracery of the screen, and on the other, the flood
of light that bathed the sanctuary and altar. All
this is gone, and the effect is now absolutely
commonplace. There are screens, near Totnes of
REGISTERS 319
extraordinary richness — at Great Hempston, Ipplepen,
Harberton, and Berry Pomeroy — covered with gold
and adorned with paintings. But none are perfect.
A screen consisted of three parts. The lower was
the sustaining arcade, then came the fan-groining
to support the gallery, above that, the most splendid
feature of all, the gallery back, which consisted of
a series of canopied compartments containing paint-
ings representing the gospel story. This still exists
in Exeter Cathedral ; the uppermost member is also
to be seen at Atherington, as has been already stated,
but everywhere else it has disappeared.
Formerly there stood a reredos at the east end of
the chancel of Grecian design, singularly out of
character with the building, but hardly worse than
the contemptible concern that has been erected in
its place.
At the east end of the church, on the outside, the
apprentices of Totnes were wont to sharpen their
knives, and the stones are curiously rubbed away in
the process.
The registers of Totnes are very early and of great
interest, as containing much information concerning
the old merchant families and the landed gentry of
the neighbourhood with whom they married.
The nearest great manorial house is that of Dart-
ington, which was a mansion of the Hollands, Dukes
of Exeter, and now belongs to the Champernownes.
It possesses ruins of the splendid hall, of the date
of Richard II., whose device, a white hart chained,
appears repeated several times. On the opposite
side of the river is the most interesting and unique
320 TOTNES
parsonage of Little Hempston, a perfectly untouched
building of the fourteenth century, exactly the priest's
house of the time of Chaucer. The house consists
of a structure occupying four sides of a tiny quad-
rangle. It has a hall, buttery, kitchen, and solar.
Every window, except that of the hall, looks into the
little court, which is just twenty feet square, and the
rooms accordingly are gloomy. The late John Keble,
who was often a visitor at Dartington Parsonage,
would, when missing, be found there, dreaming over
the life of the parish priest in the Middle Ages.
A very singular circumstance is connected with
the old Champernownes of Dartington. Gawaine
Champernowne was married to the Lady Roberta,
daughter of the Count de Montgomeri, leader of the
Huguenots. On account of her misconduct she was
divorced in 1582, by Act of Parliament passed for
the purpose. However, oddly to relate, no sooner
were they divorced than they patched up their quarrel
and continued to live together as husband and wife,
and had a large family. Happily the eldest son and
heir was born before the Act was passed, or in all
certainty he would have been illegitimate in the eye
of the law. But the two younger sons and three
daughters were the issue after the divorce.
The old south gate of Totnes still remains, and at
one time the chamber over it was a public-house.
It has since been converted into a reading-room, and
contains some good wood-carving of the Tudor age
and a fine plaster cornice.
On the north side of the church are the remains of
the old priory of S. Mary, founded by Judael, Earl.
CHURCHES 321
of Totnes, at the Conquest. These have been trans-
formed into guildhall, prisons, and sexton's houses.
The priory must have been a modest building. It
stood just within the old town walls, which may be
traced in fairly good preservation thence to the south
gate. The church of Totnes is a vicarial church, as
Judael granted it to the Benedictine Abbey of Saints
Sergius and Bacchus at Angers.
The priors had the right of presentation to the
parish church up to the time of the dissolution of the
religious houses, except during the wars with France,
when the Crown appointed, this being an alien priory.
In 1414 there was a quarrel in the church between
the prior and one John Southam, what about we do
not know. They seem to have punched each other's
nose, so as to bring blood ; whereupon the church
was closed till the bishop could hold investigation
whether the sacred edifice had been desecrated there-
by. Bishop Stafford did hold inquiry, and in ecclesi-
astical language, and with proper gravity, pronounced
that the case was " fudge," that the matter had been
made a great deal more of than there was occasion,
and that the vicar was to recommence services in the
church.
Torbrian Church, picturesquely situated in a glen,
has been already alluded to. This parish is the
cradle of Lord Petre's family.
The splendid ruins of Berry Pomeroy Castle are
within a walk or drive, and will repay a visit, not
only from the interest of the remains, but also from
the beauty of the situation on the brow of rock over-
hanging the water.
Y
322 TOTNES
Below the town of Totnes is the quay, at which
the steamboat may be entered for the beautiful
descent of the Dart to Dartmouth.
On all sides, peeping out of woods, above smooth
lawns, backed by orchards, appear numerous smiling
villas. It would seem that many well-to-do people
have come to the same conclusion as did Brute, and
have made Totnes their seat, saying : —
" Here I sit — and here I rest."
And the visitor will think that old Brute was no fool
when he said that, and will wish that he could do the
same.
Note. — Books on Totnes : —
Cotton (W. ), Graphic and Historical Sketch of the Antiquities of
Totnes. London : Longman, 1850.
WiNDEATT (E.), "An Historical Sketch of Totnes," in the Trans-
actions of the Devonshire Association^ 1880.
Dymond (R.), "Ancient Documents relating to the Civil History of
Totnes," in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 1880.
CHAPTER XVIII.
DARTMOUTH
A first visit to Dartmouth — Descent of the Dart — The Church of S.
Saviour — ^John Hawley — The Butter Row — Slate - covered houses
—The Ship Inn— Walk to the sea— Warfleet— S. Petrock's— The
Castle — Attacks on Dartmouth — The Golden Strand — Kingswear
— Burying under foundations — Newcomen — Sir Walter Raleigh
and his pipe — Slapton Lea — Dame Juliana Hawkins — Visits to be
made — What not to be done.
I WILL tell you how I first saw Dartmouth
before I proceed to say anything about it, and
then the reader will perhaps understand the peculiar
affection with which I write about it.
It happened early one June that I had made every
arrangement to go with a friend a walking tour
among the Dolomite Alps. We were to meet in
town and cross the Channel together to Antwerp.
At the last moment some particularly vexatious
business cropped up which detained me, and I had
to wire to my friend that I could not be with him
on the day fixed, but would, if possible, meet him
in Cologne. In two days I saw it was all up with
my Continental excursion, and I was obliged to
telegraph to Cologne that my friend must go on
his way by himself.
Now when a man has been slaving at his desk
323
324 DARTMOUTH
all winter, and has been planning out every stage
of his tour, and has thought, talked, written, dreamed
of it for months — then to see his hope blasted is
enough to make him cross. Cross accordingly I
was ; so cross, that the best and most long-suffering
of wives advised me to go somewhere. " Some-
where," thought I ; " why, I have never been down
the Dart, have never seen Dartmouth." So I took
the advice given me and started.
What a day that was when I spun along the
Great Western Railway from Plymouth to Totnes
The day was resplendent with sun, and yet not too
hot. The orchards everywhere were a mass of
flowers, from white to pink. I had hit precisely
on the time and train whereby a number of English
officers, just landed from the Soudan at Plymouth,
were dispersing to their homes. In the same carriage
with me was a young officer who had bought a
number of Funny Folks and was immersed in it.
A brother officer came to the carriage-window, after
we had reached a second station, and addressing my
fellow-traveller through the window exclaimed, " I
say, did you ever see the like of this, old chap?
We are going through waves of colour, a sea of
flowers. I never saw anything to equal it — and
after the sands of Egypt, old boy ! " The bell
rang and he had to run back to his carriage.
" Yes ; all right," was the response of the man in
my compartment, and down went his head and
thoughts among Funny Folks.
At the next station the second officer was again
at our window, and again addressing the reader of
SCENERY 325
the periodical, " I say, Jones;! talk of Araby the
Blessed, it isn't worth mention in the same day
with ten thousand times more lovely, blessed, dear
old England. By George ! old chap, I want to look
out of both windows at once. I can't see enough
of it. I feel as if I could cry, it is so beautiful ! "
"Ah! indeed," responded the reader, and down
went his head into his paper, and did not look
off it again. "Truly," I thought, "what a blessing
to publishers that all men have not the sense of
beauty ; and what a blessing it is to men like
myself that we are not addicted to the grotesque."
The descent of the Dart should be made as I
made it then, on an early summer evening when
the sun is in decline, and the lawns are yellow
with buttercups, when the mighty oaks and beeches
are casting long shadows, and the reaches of the
river are alternately sheets of quivering gold and
of purple ink.
As I went down the river, all dissatisfaction at
my lot passed away, and by the time Dartmouth
came in view I could no longer refrain myself, but
threw my cap into the air, and barely caught it
from falling overboard as I shouted, " Hurrah for
merry England ! Verily it has scenes that are un-
rivalled in the whole world."
Indeed now, in gravity, as I write this, I cannot
think that I have ever seen any sight lovelier than
Dartmouth on an evening in early summer, with
Kingswear opposite, the one bathed in soft sweet
shadow, and the other glittering and golden in the
sun's declining rays.
326 DARTMOUTH
The sea is not visible from Dartmouth, which is
hemmed in by hills that rise to a great height on
every side, shutting in the basin of water that is
the port of Dartmouth, and shutting out all winds.
The town itself is full of picturesque bits. The
church, dedicated to S. Saviour, is really a chapelry
in the parish of Townstal, the church of which,
set as a beacon on a hill, is two miles distant, and
reached by a scramble. The church of Dartmouth
was built at the end of the fourteenth century, and
has happily escaped the reckless restoration which
has befallen Totnes. What has been done has been
reparative, and all in the best taste. The church
contains a magnificent painted and gilt wood screen,
and a pulpit of the same character, with the royal
badges of later date on its sides. A gallery runs
round three sides of the church, over the aisles ;
that is of Elizabethan date, and the panels in front
are emblazoned with the arms of the merchant
princes of the town at the time of its prosperity.
A curious door, covered with iron - work of very
rich description, representing lions impaled on an
oak tree, bears the date 1631, but this merely
represents the restoration of the woodwork of the
door. In the floor of the church is the brass of
John Hawley, merchant, who died in 1408, and
his two wives, Joan, who died in 1394, and Alice,
who died in 1403 ; there can be little doubt as to
which of the wives he loved best, for he is repre-
sented holding the hand of the first This is the
Hawley, merchant of Dartmouth, mentioned by
old Stow in his Annals, who, in 1390, "waged the
OLD HOUSES 327
navie of shippes of the ports of his own charges,
and took 34 shippes laden with wyne to the sum
of fifteen hundred tunnes." The visitor may com-
pare the costume worn by the ladies on the brass
with the description given by Stow of the fashion
that then set in : " This time was used exceeding
pride in garments, gownes with deepe and broad
sleeves, commonly called peake sleeves, whereof
some hung downe to their feete, and at least to
the knees, ful of cuts and jagges."
Among the old houses in the town, unhappily
fast disappearing, must be noted those in Butter
Row, a short piazza like that at Totnes, and in one
of these is a very fine carved oak chimney-piece,
that merits examination.
Other old houses are in Fosse Street and the
Shambles. A peculiarity of the old Dartmouth
houses is that they are covered with small slates,
cut into various devices, and forming elegant pat-
terns, that cover them as a coat of mail against the
rain. Forty years ago there were many of these
picturesque old houses, they are now woefully re-
duced in numbers.
The "Ship Inn" is an old-fashioned hostel, very
comfortable, and though modernised externally, yet
has much that is characteristic of an old inn in the
inside. I was dining there one evening when the
train from town had arrived, and launched its pas-
sengers into Dartmouth. Among these happened
to be a German, who was on his way by the Donald
Currie boat to the Cape. He came into the dining-
room of the " Ship," seated himself at a table at a
328 DARTMOUTH
little distance from me, and signed that he wanted
something to eat.
The courteous, elderly v/aiter bowed and said,
"What will you have, sir, soup?"
"Yesh! yesh!"
" There is vermicelli."
"Yesh! yesh!"
"And Julienne."
"Yesh! yesh!"
"And ox-tail."
"Yesh! yesh!"
"And mulligatawny."
"Yesh! yesh!"
"And fish, sir. Would you like some?"
"Oh, yesh! yesh!"
" There is some turbot."
"Yesh! yesh!"
"And a nice pair of soles."
"Yesh! yesh!"
"And some brill."
"Oh, yesh! yesh!"
"And perhaps you would like, sir, a mayonnaise of
lobster ? "
"Oh, yesh! yesh!"
It was time for me to interfere. I jumped up
and hastened to the assistance of the poor German,
and said in his own tongue : " I beg your pardon
for my interference, sir, but are you ordering dinner
for yourself or for the entire crew? You will, I
know, excuse me, but I thought it advisable to
speak before it came to the wine list."
"Ach, du lieber Herr!" gasped the German. "I
THE CHURCH 329
know but one English word, and that is Yesh. Will
you be so merciful as to order dinner for me ? "
I at once entered into consultation with the waiter,
and settled all matters agreeably.
A charming walk may — no, must, be taken from
Dartmouth to the sea ; the street, very narrow, runs
between houses for a long way, giving glimpses of
the water, of old bastions and towers, of gardens
hanging on the steep slopes, of fuchsias and pelar-
goniums running riot in the warm, damp air, of red
rock and green foliage, jumbled together in the
wildest picturesqueness, of the blue, still water below,
with gulls, living foam - flakes swaying, chattering
over the surface. Then the road has to bend round
Warfleet, a lovely bay bowered in woods, with an
old mill and a limekiln, and barges lying by, waiting
for lime or for flour. When this has been passed,
and, alas ! a very ugly modern house that disfigures
one of the loveliest scenes in South Devon, a head-
land is reached by a walk under trees, and all at
once a corner is turned, and a venerable church and
a castle are revealed, occupying the rocky points
that command the entrance of Dartmouth Harbour.
The church undoubtedly served as chapel to the
castle, but is far older in dedication than any portion
of the castle, for it is dedicated to the purely British
Saint Petrock, who lived in the sixth century.
The church is small, much mutilated, and contains
a number of old monuments, and some brasses to
the Roope and Plumleigh families. On the opposite
side of the estuary is another castle.
The castle that adjoins is supposed to date from
330 DARTMOUTH
the reign of Henry VII., but one existed in the
same spot at an earlier date. Edward IV., in 1481,
covenanted with the men of Dartmouth to pay them
annually ;^30 from the customs of Exeter and Dart-
mouth, on condition of their building a "stronge
and myghtye and defensyve new tower," and of their
protecting the harbour with a chain. Certainly, the
men of Dartmouth earned their money cheaply, for
"the myghtye tower" is a very small affair.
For their own interest one would have supposed
they would have erected a greater fortress, as Dart-
mouth suffered severely at times from pirates and
French fleets. In 1377 it was plundered by the
French, who in the same year swept our shores from
Rye to Plymouth. In 1403 it returned the visit of
the French ; in 1404 a French fleet succeeded in
putting into Black Pool, a little to the right of the
entrance to the Dart, but the Dartmouth men armed
and came down the steep sides of the bay upon the
French, killed their leader, and forced them to regain
their vessels and put off to sea. The French lost
four hundred men and two hundred prisoners in the
engagement.
On the attempted invasion by the Spanish Armada,
in 1588, two vessels, the Crescent and the Haste, were
fitted out, and the former is said to have been
engaged with one of the Spanish vessels. In 1592,
the Madre de Dios, one of the great Indian
"carracks" or plate ships, was taken on her way
to Spain, and was brought into Dartmouth. She
was a floating castle of seven decks, and was laden
with silver, spices, rare woods, and tapestries. The
KINGSWEAR 331
neighbouring gentry and townsmen of Dartmouth
began to clear the pixze for the adornment of their
own houses, and commissioners were sent from
London to recover as much of the spoil as was
possible.
There is a bay near Black Pool which goes by the
name of the Golden Strand, because a vessel was
wrecked there laden with treasure, and to this day
gold coins are occasionally picked up on the beach.
In the basement of the tower of Dartmouth Castle
are still the traces of where the iron chain or boom
was fastened that could be stretched across the
entrance to the harbour in time of war.
That smuggling was carried on to a very large
extent on this coast in former times cannot be
doubted. Indeed, the caves artificially constructed
for the purpose of holding " run " goods still exist
in several places; and many capital stories are told
of the good old smuggling days, and the way in
which the revenue officers were cheated.
Immediately opposite Dartmouth is Kingswear,
situated on the steep slope of rock that runs pre-
cipitously to the sea. There is a curious circumstance
connected with the church. In 1845, the church was
pulled down, when under the foundation was dis-
covered a cavity cut in the rock filled with infant
bones and quicklime. There is but too much reason
to believe that we have here one of the many
instances that remain of the old heathen belief that
no building would stand unless a man or child were
buried under the foundation. A few years ago, when
the parish church of Wickersley, Lincolnshire, was
332 DARTMOUTH
rebuilt by Sir G. Gilbert Scott, on raising the founda-
tions the complete skeleton of a man was found la*d
lengthwise under the masonry. At Holsworthy, North
Devon, in the same way, a skeleton was discovered
with much lime about it in the wall, as if to hasten
decomposition. The custom still exists in the East.
In i860, the King of Burmah (father of Theebaw)
rebuilt Mandalay. On that occasion fifty-three
individuals were buried alive, three under each of
the twelve gates, one under each of the palace gates,
and four under the throne itself In 1880 the virtue
was supposed to have evaporated, and Theebaw
proposed to repeat the ceremony with one hundred
victims, but I believe the actual number sacrificed
was about twenty-five. The Burmans believe that the
nals or spirits of the persons buried guard the gates
and attack persons approaching with hostile inten-
tions. Precisely similar convictions were common
all over Europe.
In S. Saviour's, Dartmouth, in the chancel, is
buried the skull of Sir Charles McCarthy, who was
for a while Governor of Sierra Leone, and was
killed at Accra, in an encounter with the Ashantees,
January 21st, 1824; the skull was greatly prized by
the Ashantees, who had possessed themselves of it,
and with it they decorated the war-drum of the king.
The skull was happily recovered in 1829, and was
brought to Dartmouth, where it was buried with
some ceremony.
Dartmouth was the birthplace of Newcomen, who
introduced a notable improvement in steam engines.
According to the first form of his discovery, the
SIR WALTER RALEIGH 333
steam was condensed by sending a current of cold
water on the outside of the cylinder, an arrangement
that required a boy to be always at hand with a
bucket of water. Watt's improvement of employing
steam to drive down the piston was invented whilst
he was repairing one of Newcomen's engines. New-
comen was baptised at Dartmouth in 1663 ; he died
in 1729. His house was removed in 1864, but some
of the old carved oak has been utilised in Newcomen
Cottage, Townstal, as well as the " clovel " or
wooden lintel over the fireplace at which Newcomen
sat watching the steam puffing from his mother's
kettle, and first conceived the idea of employing
steam as a force for propelling engines. A chimney-
piece of plaster, representing Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego before Nebuchadnezzar, is at Brook-
hill House, on the Kingswear side of the river.
This same handsome chimney-piece, of oak, came
from Greenway, up the Dart, where lived Sir
Walter Raleigh, and it is said that it was before the
fire kindled under this chimney-piece that the great
navigator indulged in the first pipe of tobacco he
ever smoked in England. There is a story told of
Sir Walter being called in with his pipe for a very
novel purpose at Littleham. There lived there a
gentleman of Dutch or German extraction, named
Creveldt, who had been at deadly feud with a neigh-
bour, Sir Roger de Wheelingham, and the latter died
without any reconciliation. Thenceforth, Creveldt
was tormented from sunset to sunrise by the ghost
of his enemy. He could not rest ; he could not eat,
and, worst of all, he could not drink. The days for
334 DARTMOUTH
exorcising ghosts were over. He called in the parson,
but the parson could do nothing. Matters were in
this condition when an Exeter trading vessel, com-
manded by Captain Izaaks, anchored near Exmouth.
The captain heard of Creveldt's trouble ; he was
under some obligation to him, and he at once visited
him. He heard his piteous tale, and said : " In
ancient times I have been told that incense was
used against stubborn ghosts. I have heard that now
Sir Walter Raleigh has introduced a novel sort of
incense much more efficacious. Let us send for him."
Accordingly, Sir Walter was invited. He in-
structed Creveldt how to smoke tobacco ; and the
fumes of the pipe proved too much for the ghost.
The spirit departed, coughing and sneezing, to the
tobaccoless world.
No visitor should fail to visit Slapton Lea — a bar
of pebble and sand tossed up by the sea, over which
runs the coach-road to Kingsbridge — an excursion
well meriting being made. The streams descending
from the land are held back from entering the sea
by this ridge, and form a lake that not only abounds
in fish, and attracts water birds, but also contains
water plants.
At Slapton lived Sir Richard and Dame Juliana
Hawkins, in a house called Pool.
Dame Juliana was a haughty woman, and the
story is told that she would not go to church except
on a carpet Accordingly, when she went to Slapton
Church to pay her devotions, a couple of negro
servants proceeded before her unrolling a carpet of
red velvet.
THE DART 335
On the river is Dittisham, and how the salmon
do congregate in the pool there ! It is a great place
for figs and plums, and should be seen when the
plum trees are in flower. The view from the par-
sonage garden, commanding two reaches of the
river, is exquisite. But for loveliness of situation.
Stoke Gabriel in a lap or creek, facing the sun, shut
away from every wind, is the most perfect.
A good picturesque modern house has been erected
at a point commanding Dartmouth, on the opposite
side at Maypool (F. C. Simpson, Esq.), that is a real
feature of beauty in the landscape.
At Stoke Fleming is a fine brass.
The time when Dartmouth may be seen to advan-
tage — I am not speaking now of the river — is at the
autumn regatta. Then the quaint old place is en
fete. The little square that opens on to the quay
is devoted to dancing. Lights flare, flags wave,
music peals forth, and the Mayor opens the ball in
the open air. It is a sight not to be seen elsewhere
in England — when viewed from the river it is like
a scene on the stage.
There is one thing you must do at Dartmouth,
because you cannot help doing so — enjoy yourself.
But there is one thing you must on no account do
— offend a single, though the most insignificant,
member of the town. If you do, the whole popu-
lation is out on you like a hive of angry bees — for
in a place so shut in by hills and water everyone
is related.
Sir Charles McCarthy, as already related, has left
his head at Dartmouth. As the visitor leaves by
336 DARTMOUTH
the little steamer to remount the Dart, and looks
at the lovely estuary, the hills embowered in trees,
the picturesque old town — he feels, perhaps, like
myself, as if he had left his heart there.
Note. — Works on Dartmouth : —
Karkeek (P. Q.), "Notes on the Early History of Dartmouth," in
the Transactions of the Devonshire Association^ 1880.
Karkeek (P. Q.), "The Shipping and Commerce of Dartmouth in
the Reign of Richard II.," ibid., 1881.
Newman (Dr.), "On the Antiquity of Dartmouth," ibid.^ 1869.
CHAPTER XIX.
KINGSBRIDGE
Kingsbridge a misnomer — The estuary — The church — "Farewell to
Kingsbridge" — Numerous screens in the neighbourhood — Portle-
mouth — S. Onolaus — Master John Schorn — Old houses — The
Fortescues — Defence of Salcombe Castle — Lea Priory — Stokenham
— Slapton — Bolt Head — The Avon — Oldaport on the Erme — Mod-
bury — The Champernownes — Bigbury — The Owl — S. Anne's Well —
Parson Lane — Aveton Gifford — Bishop Stapledon — His murder —
• Fishing.
KINGSBRIDGE is a curious town, having a
name that is a misnomer, for it possesses no
bridge, there being no river. The estuary that runs
some five to six miles in, at the head of which
Kingsbridge stands, is a creek into which no river
discharges, only brooks. It has several lateral
branches — to Gerston, Frogmore, and South Pool,
and at the mouth is Salcombe, a flourishing place,
much in resort on account of the mildness of the
climate, surpassing Torquay in this respect, and
nearly as warm as Falmouth. The drawback to
Salcombe is its distance from a railway.
In Kingsbridge itself there is not much to be seen.
The church is interesting, with a central tower and
spire, and is curious as having been enlarged at
various times, making the interior very inconvenient
for the hearing of the preacher.
Z 337
338 KINGSBRIDGE
Kingsbridge is actually in Churchstow. The town
has drifted down from the high ground where was
the fortified "stoke" to the quay, the "brig." The
church in the town is a chapelry, and the erection
took place in 1310. It is dedicated to S. Edmund
the king and martyr, but why in the world they
should have gone to the East Saxons for a patron
I am at a loss to know. Churchstow belonged to the
Abbey of Buckfast.
One half of Kingsbridge is in the parish of Dod-
brooke, where there is a good church with a fine
old screen.
There is a local ballad preserved relative to the
departure of some troops for America quartered in
the place in 1778-80, and there are old men in
Kingsbridge who can recall the time when a detach-
ment of military was there. The ballad runs : —
" On the ninth day of November, at the dawning in the sky,
Ere we sailed away to New York, we at anchor here did lie.
O'er the meadows fair of Kingsbridge, there the mist was lying
grey ;
We were bound against the rebels, in the North America.
" O so mournful was the parting of the soldiers and their wives,
For that none could say for certain, they 'd return home with
their lives.
Then the women they were weeping, and they curs'd the cruel
day
That we sailed against the rebels in the North America.
" O the little babes were stretching out their arms with saddest
cries.
And the bitter tears were falling from their pretty, simple eyes,
That their scarlet-coated daddies must be hurrying away,
For to fight against the rebels in the North America.
FALLAPIT 339
" Now God preserve our Monarch, I will finish up my strain ;
Be his subjects ever loyal, and his honour all maintain.
May the Lord our voyage prosper, and our arms across the sea,
And put down the wicked rebels in the North America."
There are a good many objects of interest in the
neighbourhood. Combe Royal is an old house much
modernised, where lemons and oranges are golden in
the open air, and the blue hydrangeas lie in masses
under the trees.
Fallapit has been entirely rebuilt. It was the seat
of the Fortescues, and their monuments crowd the
parish church of East Allington. During the civil
wars, the castle at Salcombe was held for the king by
Sir Edmund Fortescue. After having sustained two
sieges, probably of short duration, it was summoned
by General Fairfax on January 23rd, 1645, and after
a long siege of nearly four months, surrendered on
honourable terms to Colonel Weldon, the governor of
Plymouth. Sir Edmund was allowed to march out
with the garrison, bearing their arms, to Fallapit,
and take with him the key of the castle he had so
gallantly defended.
When Fallapit was sold, among other things put
up by the auctioneer was this very key, and it was
knocked down for half a crown.
A charming excursion may be made to the cell of
Lee Priory, an almost perfect monastic building.
The chapel has been destroyed, but the gateway and
refectory and the dormitories remain intact. It is
situated in a peaceful, umbrageous dell away from
the world among green lawns and pleasant woods,
an idyllic spot.
340 KINGSBRIDGE
At South Milton in the church is an interesting
rood-screen, with paintings of saints on the panels.
Screens are, indeed, numerous in this district, some
very fine. Crass stupidity has occasioned the des-
truction of those of Malborough and West Alvington.
The clergy should be the guardians, not the ravagers,
of their churches, but quis custodiet custodes?
A delightful row down the estuary will take to
Salcombe, a modern place. Opposite, up a tre-
mendous scramble, is Portlemouth, a settlement of
S. Winwaloe, the great Brittany saint. He is locally
called Onolaus or Onslow. Winwaloe was the son
of Gwen of the Three Breasts, and her husband,
Fragan or Brechan, cousin of Cado, Duke of Corn-
wall. Although Gwen is represented on monuments
in Brittany as a woman with three breasts, yet in
Celtic the epithet means no more than that she was
twice married, and had children by both husbands.
Winwaloe was educated by S. Budoc, and founded
Landevenec in Finisterre. At one time, fired with
enthusiasm at what he had heard of the achievements
of S. Patrick in Ireland, he desired to go there, but
was advised to remain and devote himself to the
education of his own people. He accordingly gave
up his life to ministering to the spiritual necessities
of the Britons who came to Armorica, either as a
place for expansion, finding Britain too strait for
them, or driven there by dynastic revolutions.
Whether Winwaloe ever came into Devon and
Cornwall we are not told in his Life, but it is not
improbable, as he was closely related to the reigning
princes.
MASTER JOHN SCHORNE 341
His biographer gives us a somewhat minute
account of his personal appearance and habits. He
was of a moderate height, with a bright, smiling
countenance ; he was very patient with the perverse,
and gentle in his dealings with all men. He was
usually clothed in a goat's skin. He never seated
himself in church, but always stood or knelt.
He died about 532. In Portlemouth Church, which
has been barbarously " restored," he is represented on
the screen holding the church in his hand. He is the
third figure from the north. The first is partly effaced ;
the second is probably his sister, Creirwy ; the sixth
is Sir John Schorne, a Buckinghamshire rector, who
died in 1308, and was supposed to have conjured the
devil into a boot. He was venerated greatly as a
patron against ague and the gout. There is a jingle
relative to him : —
" To Maister John Schorne, that blessed man born,
For the ague to him we apply,
Which judgeth with a bote ; I beshrew his heart's rote
That will trust him, and it be I."
His shrine was at North Marston in Bucks, and
was a great resort up to the time of the Reformation.
At one time the monks of Windsor contrived to get
his body removed to their church, but though they
advertised him well he did not " take on " in that
quarter, and they returned the body to North
Marston. There are representations of him on the
screens of Wolborough and Alphington, and one
or two in Norfolk. The screen at Portlemouth is
of a richer and better design than is general in the
county. In the " restoration " of the church the
342 KINGSBRIDGE
level of the chancel has been raised to an excessive
height, so as to give a ludicrous appearance to those
occupying the stalls. But altogether the restoration
has been a piece of wanton barbarity. The carving
of the screen is of a high quality. At South Huish
was another beautiful little screen. This has been
saved from the hand of desecration by being removed
to the Chapel of Bowringslea, a grand old Tudor
mansion that has been carefully and conscientiously
restored by Mr. Ilbert, the proprietor.
At South Pool is a screen with arabesques on it,
well restored ; also an Easter sepulchre.
Stokenham Church stands up boldly above a spring
that gushes forth and forms a pool below the church-
yard wall. This, there can be little doubt, must have
at one time been regarded as a holy well. The
church within is stately, and contains a good screen
with paintings of saints on it, and a stone pulpit
absurdly painted with Freemason symbols. What
stained glass there is, is mediocre. Sherford, attached
as a benefice to Stokenham, has another good screen,
with apostles painted on it. Slapton has a very
fine screen, but without paintings. The church was
originally attached to a college founded in 1350 by
Sir Guy de Brian, standard-bearer to Edward III.;
the gate tower alone remains.
Some fine rocky headlands and pleasant coves
are to be visited, notably Bolt Head and Bolt Tail,
and Prawle Point, with the sweet nooks where the
brooks descend to the sea, or the cliffs give way
to form a sunny, sleepy lap, lined with sand. At
Bolt Tail is a prehistoric cliff castle. At Portle-
OLDAPORT 343
mouth may be traced the entrenchments cast up
by the Parliamentarians in the siege of Salcombe
Castle.
The river Avon, that runs down from Dartmoor, is
followed by the branch line of the Great Western
Railway to Kingsbridge. A station is at Gara
Bridge {Garw, Celtic for rough). The river passes
under Loddiswell (Lady's Well), and then, unable
to reach the Kingsbridge estuary on account of an
intervening hill 370 feet high, turns sulkily to
the right and enters Bigbury Bay far away to the
west. Clearly Kingsbridge Harbour was made to
receive it, but the river, like the life of many a
man, has taken a twist and gone astray. But
where the river went not, there goes the train by
a tunnel.
The Avon enters the sea under Thirlstone, a
parish that takes its name from a rock that has
been " thirled " or drilled by the waves, on the beach.
The church contains a few fragments of the screen
worked up to form an altar.
An interesting expedition may be made from
Kingsbridge to the mouth of the Erme. Above
where the river debouches into the sea is Oldaport,
the remains, supposed to be Roman, of a harbour
commanded by two towers. One of the latter has
of late years been destroyed.
The ancient port occupying two creeks remains
silted up. There is absolutely no record of its
having been used in mediaeval times, and this leads
to the supposition that it is considerably earlier. It
is a very interesting relic ; but the two towers have
344 kiNGSBRIDGE
been destroyed, and all that remains is a wall that
cut off the spit of land, and a deep moat.
Modbury, a little market town, was a great seat
of the Champernowne family. It has always been
a musical centre. In the reign of Henry VIII. Sir
Philip Champernowne, of Modbury, went up to
Windsor, taking with him his company of musicians
on rote and tabor and psaltery and dulcimer, and
all kinds of music, and they performed before King
Henry, to that huge monarch's huge content. So
pleased was he with their "consort of fine musicke,"
that he bade Sir Philip remain with his company
at Windsor, to play to him whenever the evil spirit
was on him ; but forgot to say that this was to be
at royal charges. The entertaining of his band of
musicians at court by Sir Philip during many
months proved so great an expense that when he re-
turned to Modbury he was a wiser and a much
poorer man, and had to sell a manor or two to
meet his liabilities.
In 1558 good Queen Bess mounted her father's
throne ; and one day bethought her of the Modbury
orchestra. So with her royal hand she wrote down
to Henry Champernowne, grandson of Sir Philip, to
bid him bring up to court his ''consort of fine
musicke," for that she desired greatly to hear it.
Henry was tactless, and he replied that the visit
to Windsor previously had cost his grandfather two
of his best manors, and that he really could not
afford it. Queen Bess was highly incensed, and
found occasion against Henry Champernowne to
mulct him of four or five fine manors, as a lesson
BIGBURY 345
to him not to return such an answer to a royal
mistress again. This marked the beginning of the
decline of the Champernowne family at Modbury.
The manor passed from them in 1700. But al-
though the Champernownes are gone, the band is
still there. It has never ceased to renew itself, and
Modbury prides itself as of old on its "consort of
fine musicke."
Bigbury takes its name from some great camp or
bury that has disappeared under the plough. In
the church is a very fine carved oak pulpit, like
that of Holne, given by Bishop Oldham to Ash-
burton Church in or about 15 10. At the same time
he presented an owl as lectern to Ashburton Church,
the owl being his badge. In 1777 the wiseacres of
Ashburton sold pulpit and owl to Bigbury for eleven
guineas. When the Bigbury folk saw that they had
got an owl instead of an eagle, they were disgusted,
sawed off the head and sent it to Plymouth, with
an order for an eagle's head of the same dimensions.
Accordingly, now the lessons are read in the church
from a lectern that has an owl's body with an eagle's
head. But really — as in the puzzle pictures — one is
disposed to ask, " Where is the owl ? " and to look
for it first among the Ashburton folk who sold their
bird, and secondly among the Bigbury folk who
objected because he was an owl. There are some
brasses in the church to the Burton family, into
which married the De Bigburys.
At S. Anne's there are an old chapel and a holy
well. S. Anne did not come into fashion as a saint
till the fifteenth century, and there are no early
346 KINGSBRIDGE
representations of her, or dedications to her. But
Anne was the mother of the gods among the Celts,
and the name was given to several notable women,
as the mother of S. Samson, and the daughter of
Vortimer, king of the Britons, mother of S. Wenn,
who married Solomon, king of the Dumnonii ; and
a suppressed cult of the old goddess went on under
the plea of being directed to these historic women,
till the great explosion of devotion to Anne, mother
of the Blessed Virgin — known to us only through
the apocryphal gospels.
Ane or Anne was the mythical mother of the Tuatha
de Danan, the race found in our peninsula, in Scotland
from the Clyde to the Firth of Forth, and throughout
Ireland, called by the classic writers Dumnonii.
They were subdued in Ireland by the Gaels or Scots.
Undoubtedly throughout Devon and Cornwall there
must have been a cult of the great ancestress. She
has given her name to the Paps of Ane in Kerry
and to S. Anne's (Agnes') Head in Cornwall, and
as surely the holy wells now attributed to S. Anne
were formerly regarded as sacred fountains of the
great mother of the race, whose first fathers were
gods.
There is a rock at sea, reached at low tide, called
Borough Island, on which is a little inn. It was
formerly, judging by the name, a cliff fortress.
Ringmore, the adjoining parish to Bigbury, has
a church and village nestling into a pleasant, wooded
combe. The church has a small spire, and the base-
ment serves as a porch. Anent this tower is a tale.
During the civil wars, a Mr. Lane was rector,
AVETON GIFFORD 347
as also incumbent of the adjoining parish of Aveton
Gifford. He mustered the able-bodied men of his
parish, drilled them, obtained some cannon, and
formed a battery manned by his fellows, to com-
mand the bridge below Loddiswell, by which Parlia-
mentary troops were marching to the siege of Sal-
combe Castle, and caused them such annoyance that
during the siege of Plymouth by the Parliamentary
forces, several boats full of armed men were de-
spatched from Plymouth to capture and shoot the
sturdy rector. Forewarned, Mr. Lane took refuge
in a small chamber, provided with a fireplace,
in the tower of the church, and there he remained
in concealment for three months, secretly nourished
by his parishioners. His most painful experi-
ence at the time was on the Sundays, when the
minister intruded by the Parliament harangued from
the pulpit in terms audible in his secret chamber.
Then Mr. Lane could hardly contain himself from
bursting forth to refute his heresies and denounce
his disloyalty.
The soldiers are said to have landed at Ayrmer
Cove and proceeded to the rectory, which they
thoroughly ransacked, but although they searched
the neighbourhood, they were unable to find the man
they were sent to capture.
The old historic parsonage has been demolished,
and its site is marked by a walled garden, but the
secret chamber in the tower remains.
At Aveton Gifford is a fine screen, carefully re-
stored. Walter de Stapledon was rector of this parish,
and was raised thence to be Bishop of Exeter in
348 KINGSBRIDGE
1307, and in 13 14 he was the founder of Exeter
College, Oxford. He was for several years High
Treasurer to Edward II. His story is really worth
giving in short. On the vacancy of the see, the king
sent down con^^e d'elire on October 6th, 1307. The
chapter sat. Of twenty-three canons fifteen chose
Stapledon, three selected the Dean, three the Arch-
deacon of Totnes, and two voted for the Dean of
Wells. When the result of the counting was an-
nounced, then another voting was proceeded with,
and Stapledon was elected unanimously.
The result was announced to the king and he gave
his assent on December 6th. But meanwhile a
troublesome fellow, Richard Plymstoke, Rector of
Exminster, had sent an appeal to the Pope against
nine of the canons, whom he pronounced to be dis-
qualified for election, and one of these was Stapledon.
Here was an unpleasant intervention, only too sure
to be eagerly seized on by the Roman curia for the
sake of extorting money. To make matters worse,
the Pope had suspended the Archbishop of Canter-
bury, and he had gone to France, to Poitiers, to
meet the Pope and solicit, and buy, his relief. On
January i8th the Archbishop, who had been restored
and empowered to investigate the complaint of
Plymstoke, issued his commission ; and on March
loth poor Stapledon wrote a bitter letter to the
Cardinal, Thomas Joce, to complain of the condition
of poverty into which he had been reduced. " It
is hard on me ; at the present moment I am destitute
even to nakedness."
To make matters worse, the queen, Isabella, wrote
THE DESPENSERS 349
to him requiring him to find a prebendal stall and a
revenue for her chaplain — a foreigner with an out-
landish name — Jargono. He replied that he could
not give a canonry to this stranger, and as to finding
him an income, he said that he was overwhelmed
with debt, on account of the intolerable burden of
costs incurred by the appeal to Rome, and in pre-
paring for his consecration.
And it was not till October 13th, 1308, nearly a
year after his election, that he was consecrated. His
registers, carefully preserved at Exeter, prove him
to have been a hard-working, high-principled, and
altogether estimable prelate. He it was who erected
that masterpiece of woodwork, the bishop's throne,
in Exeter Cathedral.
Stapledon was one of the foremost statesmen of
his day, and he was the trusted friend and adviser of
King Edward II. Hence his frequent and prolonged
sojourns in the Metropolis, and his occasional absences
from England on missions of importance.
In 1323 the troubles with the Despensers, the
king's favourites, began.
Charles IV., king of France, seized the Agenois
and threatened Guienne. Edward sent his queen,
Isabella, to Paris to negotiate with her brother.
The treaty which she made was so humiliating for
England that the king's council refused to discuss
it. Another suggestion was then made from the
French court, that if Edward would bestow Guienne
on his eldest son, the king himself would not be
required to do homage to the Crown of France.
The Despensers urged Edward to accept this. The
350 KINGSBRIDGE
queen now refused to return to England ; she had
made a favourite and paramour of Lord Mortimer,
and, out of spite against the king, favoured the
Lancastrian party. Charles IV. was at last obliged
to send her out of his dominions. She retired to
the court of Hainault, where, under the direction
of Mortimer, she prepared for the invasion of
England. At the close of 1326 Isabella landed at
Orwell in Suffolk, with a small but well-appointed
army of Hainaulters and exiles. The Lancastrians
immediately hastened to her standard. It was
generally supposed that her object was simply the
removal of the Despensers. After a vain attempt
to rouse the Londoners in his cause, Edward fled
with the two Despensers to the Welsh marches.
The king's flight and the successful advance of
the queen's forces towards London encouraged the
citizens to break out into open rebellion against
the Government. Before leaving, Edward had made
Stapledon guardian of the city. Walsingham, in
his History, says : —
"Continuing their rage, the citizens made a rush for
the house of the Bishop of Exeter, and, setting fire to the
gates, quickly forced an entrance. Not finding the bishop
they carried off his jewels, plate, and furniture. It
happened, however, that in an evil hour the bishop re-
turned from the country, who, although he had been
forewarned, felt no manner of dread of the citizens. So
he rode on with all boldness, till he reached the north
door of St. Paul's, where he was forthwith seized by the
raging people, who struck at and wounded him, and
finally, having dragged him from his horse, hurried him
away to the place of execution. Now the bishop wore a
FISHING 351
kind of armour, which we commonly calle aketone ; and
having stripped him of that, and of all his other garments,
they cut off his head. Two others, members of his house-
hold, suffered the same fate. Having perpetrated this
sacrilegious deed, they fixed the bishop's head on a
stake. As to the corpse, they flung it into a small pit
in a disused cemetery."
Another chronicler says : —
" The naked body, with only a rag given by charity of a
woman, was laid on a spot called le lawks chirche^ and,
without any grave, lay there, with those of his two
esquires."
"Those," says Dr. Oliver, "who attend to the springs
and principles of actions must award the tribute of praise
and admiration to this high-minded bishop and minister ;
they will appreciate his zeal and energy to sustain the
declining fortunes of his royal master, and venerate him
for his disregard of self, and for his incorruptible honour
and loyalty under every discouragement."
His body was finally brought to Exeter, where
it lies in the Cathedral under a beautiful canopied
tomb in the north-east bay of the choir, close to
the high altar.
And now, one word to the angler.
What streams these are that flow through the
South Hams ! What pools under deep banks, in
which the trout lurk ! To him who can obtain
permission to fish the Erme, the Avon, can be
assured days to be never forgotten, of excellent
sport in lovely scenery.
CHAPTER XX.
PLYMOUTH
Plymouth Sound — The river Plym — Its real name — Sutton — Plympton
— A cradle of naval adventure — The Hawkins family — Sir John
Hawkins — Sir Francis Drake — " Singeing the King of Spain's
beard " — The invincible Armada — Song of — Statue of Drake — The
Eddystone — Its lighthouses — The neighbourhood of Plymouth —
Hamoaze — The Lynher — S. Germans — Cawsand Bay — Smuggling
— Lady's Rock — Millbrook — Landrake — S. Indract — Sir Joshua
Reynolds — Dewerstone — Peacock Bridge — Childe the Hunter.
W
HEN a sailor heard the song sung, to which
this is the refrain : —
" O dear Plymouth town ! and O blue Plymouth Sound,
O where is your equal on earth to be found ? "
he said, "Them's my opinions, to the turn of a
hair."
About Plymouth town I am not so confident, but
as to the Sound it is not easily surpassed. The Bay
of Naples has Vesuvius, and above an Italian sky,
but lacks the wealth of verdure of Mount Edgcumbe,
and has none of those wondrous inlets that make of
Plymouth Sound a figure of a watery hand displayed,
and of the Three Towns a problem in topography
which it requires long experience to solve.
The name of the place is a misnomer.
Plym is not the name of the river which has its
352
RIVER PLYM 353
mouth where the town squats. Plym is the contrac-
tion for Pen-lynn, the head of the lake, and was given
originally to Plympton, where are the remains of a
castle, and where are still to be seen the iron rings to
which vessels were moored. But just as the Taw-ford
{ridcT) has contributed a name to the river Torridge,
above the ford, so has Pen-lynn sent its name down
the stream and given it to Plymouth. Pelynt in
Cornwall is likewise a Pen-lynn.
What the original name of the river was is doubt-
ful. Higher up, where it comes rioting down from
the moor, above the Dewerstone is Cadover Bridge,
not the bridge over the Cad, but Cadworthy Bridge.
Perhaps the river was the Cad, so called from caedy
contracted, shut within banks, very suitable to a river
emerging from a ravine. A witty friend referring
to " the brawling Cad," the epithet applied to it by
the poet Carrington, said that it was not till the
institution of chars-a-bancs and early-closing days in
Plymouth that he ever saw "the brawling cad" upon
Dartmoor ; since then he has seen a great deal too
much of the article.
Plymouth as a town is comparatively modern.
When Domesday was compiled nothing was known
of it, but there was a Sutton — South Town — near
the pool, which eventually became the port of old
Plymouth.
It first acquired some consequence when the
Valletorts had a house near where is now the
church of S. Andrew.
There was, however, a lis or enclosed residence
of a chief, if we may accept the Domesday manor
2 A
354 PLYMOUTH
of Lisistone * as thence derived. And there have
been early reHcs turned up occasionally. But no
real consequence accrued to the place till the
Valletorts set up house there in the reign of
Henry I.
The old couplet, applied with variations to so
many places in the kingdom, and locally running :
" Plympton was a borough town
When Plymouth was a vuzzy down,"
was true enough. Plympton at the time of the
Conquest was head of the district, and there were
then canons there in the monastery, which dates
back at least to the reign of Edgar, probably to
a much earlier period. The priors of Plympton got
a grant of land in Sutton, which they held as lords
of the manor till 1439. ^^ ^^^ not till the end of
the thirteenth century that the name of Plymouth
came to knowledge and the place began to acquire
consequence. But it was not till the days of good
Queen Bess that the place became one of prime
importance.
*' In the latter half of the sixteenth century," says Mr.
Worth, " Devonshire was the foremost county in England,
and Plymouth its foremost town. Elizabeth called the men
of Devonshire her right hand, and so far carried her liking
for matters Devonian, that one of the earliest passports of
Raleigh to her favour was the fact that he talked the
broadest dialect of the shire, and never abandoned it for
the affected speech current at court." t
* Now Lipson.
t Worth (R. N.), History of Plymouth, 1890, p. 39. I shall quote
much from this admirable work, not only full of information, but
written in a charming style.
GRAMMAU SCHOOL
IN ?LY.MlMO.N
HAWKINS 355
The importance of Plymouth as a starting-point
for discovery, and as the cradle of our maritime
power, must never be forgotten.
Old Carew says : —
" Here have the troops of adventurers made their rendez-
vous for attempting new discoveries or inhabitances, as
Thomas Stukeleigh for Florida, Sir Humfrey Gilbert
for Newfoundland, Sir Richard Grenville for Virginia, Sir
Martin Frobisher and Master Davies for the North-West
Passage, Sir Walter Raleigh for Guiana."
It is indeed no exaggeration to say that in the
reign of Elizabeth Plymouth had become the fore-
most port in England.
" If any person desired to see her English worthies,
Plymouth was the likeliest place to seek them. All were
in some fashion associated with the old town. These were
days when men were indifferent whether they fought upon
land or water, when the fact that a man was a good general
was considered the best of all reasons why he should be
a good admiral likewise. ' Per mare per terrain ' was the
motto of Elizabeth's true-born Englishmen, and familiar
and dear to them was Plymouth, with its narrow streets,
its dwarfish quays, its broad waters, and its glorious Hoe."
The roll of Plymouth's naval heroes begins with
the Hawkins family, and one looks in vain in modern
Plymouth for some statue to commemorate the most
illustrious of her sons.
These Hawkinses were a remarkable race. "Gentle-
men," as Prince says, "of worshipful extraction for
several descents," they were made more worshipful
by their deeds.
356 PLYMOUTH
" For three generations in succession they were the
master-spirits of Plymouth in its most illustrious days ;
its leading merchants, its bravest sailors, serving oft and
well in the civic chair and the Commons House of Parlia-
ment. For three generations they were in the van of
English seamanship, founders of England's commerce in
South, West, and East, stout in fight, of quenchless spirit
in adventure — a family of merchant statesmen and heroes
to whom our country affords no parallel."*
The early voyages of Sir John Hawkins were
to the Canary Isles. In 1562 he made his first
expedition in search of negroes to sell in Hispa-
niola, so that he was not squeamish in the matter
of the trade in human flesh. But in 1567 he \
made an expedition ever memorable, for his were
the first English keels to furrow that hitherto un-
known sea, the Bay of Mexico. He had with him
a fleet of six ships, two of which were royal vessels,
the rest were his own, and one of these, the Judith,
was commanded by his kinsman, Francis Drake.
Whilst in the port of S. Juan de Ulloa Hawkins
was treacherously assailed, and lost all the vessels,
with the exception of two, of which one was the
Judith. When his brother William heard of the
disaster he begged Elizabeth to allow him to make
reprisals on his own account ; and on the return
of John " it may fairly be said that Plymouth de-
clared war against Spain. Hawkins and Drake
thereafter never missed a chance of making good
their losses. The treachery of San Juan de Ulloa
was the moving cause of the series of harassments
* Worth,
HAWKINS 357
which culminated in the destruction of the Armada.
For every EngHsh Hfe then lost, for every pound
of English treasure then taken, Spain paid a hundred
and a thousand fold."
In the following year, at Rio de la Flacho, whilst
getting in supplies, he was attacked by Michael de
Castiliano with a thousand men. Hawkins had but
two hundred under his command ; however, he
drove the Spaniards back, entered the town, and
carried off the ensign, for which, on his return, he
was granted an addition to his arms — on a canton,
gold, an escalop between two palmers' staves, sable.
In 1573 Hawkins was chosen by the queen "as
the fittest person in her dominions to manage her
naval affairs," and for twenty-one years served as
Controller of the Navy. It was through his wise
provision, by his resolution, in spite of the niggard-
liness wherewith Elizabeth doled out money, that
" when the moment of trial came," says Froude, '' he
sent her ships to sea in such condition — hull, rigging,
spars, and running rope — that they had no match in
the world."
About the Armada presently.
In 1595 Hawkins and Drake were together sent
to the West Indies in command of an expedition.
But they could not agree. Hawkins wanted at
once to sail for America, Drake to hover about
the Canaries to intercept Spanish galleons. The
disagreement greatly irritated old Sir John, un-
accustomed to have his will opposed. Then he
learned that one of his vessels, named the Francis,
had been taken by the Spaniards. Grief at this,
358 PLYMOUTH
and annoyance caused by the double command,
brought on a fever, and he died at sea, November
15th, 1595.
Old Prince says, in drawing a parallel between
him and Drake, " In their deaths they were not
divided, either in respect of the cause thereof, for
they died both heart-broken ; the one, for that being
in joint commission with the other, his advice and
counsel was neglected ; the other, for the ill success
with which his last voyage was attended. Alike
they were also in their deaths ; as to the place, for
they both died on the sea ; as to the time, they
both expired in the same voyage, the one a little
before the other, about the interspace of a few
months ; and lastly, as to their funerals, for they
were both buried in the ocean, over which they had
both so often rid in triumph."
The elder brother of Sir John, William, the
patriarch of the port, was Mayor of Plymouth in
the Armada year. William's son, Sir Richard
Hawkins, sailed in 1593 from Plymouth with five
vessels to the South Seas, and was taken by the
Spaniards. From various causes the fleet was re-
duced to the single vessel the Dainty, which he
himself commanded. Manned by seventy-five men
only, she was assailed by eight Spanish vessels
with crews of 1300. Nevertheless, like Sir Richard
Grenville, of the Revenge, he showed lusty fight,
which was kept up for three days, and he did not
surrender till he had himself been wounded six
times, and then only when he had secured honourable
terms, which the false scoundrels broke, by sending
DRAKE 359
their prisoners to Spain, instead of allowing them,
as was undertaken, to return to England.
He is one of those to whom the ballad is supposed
to relate : —
" Would you hear of a Spanish lady,
How she wooed an English man ?"
But it is also told of a member of the Popham
family, by whom the lady's picture, and her chain
and bracelets, mentioned in the ballad, were pre-
served.
Next to the Hawkins heroes we have Drake, a
Plymothian by adoption, the son of a yeoman near
Tavistock. Camden calls him, "without dispute
the greatest captain of the age."
Many strange stories are told of him, as that he
brought water to Plymouth by pronouncing an in-
cantation over a spring on Dartmoor, and then
riding direct to the seaport, whereupon the water
followed him, docile as a dog. When he was build-
ing Buckland Abbey, every night the devils carried
away the stones. Drake got up into a tree and
watched. When he saw the devils at work he
crowed like a cock. " Dawn coming ? " exclaimed
a devil. " And there comes the sun ! " cried out
another, for Drake had lit his pipe ; and away they
scampered.
Another story is, that he left his wife at Lynton, and
was away for so long that she believed him dead,
and was about to be married again, when Sir
Francis, who was in the Bristol Channel, fired a
cannon-ball, that flew in at the church window and
fell between her and her intended " second." " None
36o PLYMOUTH
could have done that but Sir Francis," said the lady
with a sigh, and so the cerenaony was abruptly
broken off.
Drake was brought up at sea under Hawkins,
and accompanied him on the voyage of 1567, which
ended so disastrously. His first independent expedi-
tion was in 1572, when he made his memorable
expedition to Nombre de Dios.
Four years later Drake started on his voyage of
circumnavigation, with five vessels. Disaster and
disaffection broke up the little fleet, but he perse-
vered, and on September 26th, 1580, brought the
Pelican safely back to Plymouth again ; the first
English captain who had sailed round the world.
Plymouth turned out to welcome him, headed by
the Mayor, and S. Andrew's bells rang a merry peal.
The Pelican was crammed with treasure. Drake
went to the Thames in her, and was received
graciously by the queen. " His ship," says Camden,
"she caused to be drawn up in a little creek near
Deptford, as a monument of his so lucky sailing
round the world. And having, as it were, con-
secrated it as a memorial with great ceremony, she
was banqueted in it, and conferred on Drake the
honour of knighthood."
Singularly enough the Spanish Ambassador com-
plained, on the part of his Government, of Drake
having ventured into the Pacific ; but the queen
spiritedly replied that she did not acknowledge
grants of strange lands, much less of foreign seas
made by the Pope, and that, sail where they might,
her good mariners should enjoy her countenance,
DRAKE 361
In 1585 Drake, with a fleet of twenty-five sail,
made another expedition to the West Indies ; and
his next exploit, performed in 1587, was what he
called "singeing the King of Spain's beard." With
his fleet he ravaged the coast of Spain, and delayed
the sailing of the Armada for a year. The Invin-
cible Armada, as the Spaniards designated it in
their pride, set sail from the Tagus on May 29th.
It consisted of 130 vessels of all sizes, mounting
2431 guns, and carrying, in addition to the mariners,
nearly 20,000 land troops, among whom were 2000
volunteers of the noblest families in Spain. But
the fleet was overtaken by a storm off Corufia, and
four large ships foundered at sea ; on hearing which,
that stingy old cat, Elizabeth, at once ordered the
admiral. Lord Howard of Effingham, to lay up four
of his largest vessels, and discharge their crews.
The admiral had the spirit to disobey, saying that
rather than do that he would maintain the crews at
his own cost. On July 19th, one named Fleming,
a Scottish privateer, sailed into Plymouth, with in-
telligence that he had seen the Spanish fleet off the
Lizard. At the moment most of the captains and
officers were on shore playing bowls on the Hoe.
There was instant bustle, and a call to man the
boats. "There is time enough," said Drake, "to
play the game out first, and thrash the Spaniards
afterwards."
Unfortunately the wind was from the south, but
the captains contrived to warp out their ships. On
the following day, being Saturday, the 20th of July,
they got a full sight of the Armada standing
2 A 2
362 PLYMOUTH
majestically on, the vessels drawn up in the form of
a crescent, which, from horn to horn, measured some
seven miles.
Their great height and bulk, though imposing
to the unskilled, gave confidence to the English
seamen, who reckoned at once upon having the
advantage in tacking and manoeuvring their lighter
craft. The miserable parsimony of Elizabeth, who
did not allow a sufficiency of ammunition to the
fleet, interfered sadly with the proceedings of the
defenders of the English shores. But the story of
the Armada belongs to general English history, and
need not be detailed here. It is a story, read it often
as we may, that makes the blood dance in one's
veins.
It has served as the topic of many lines. I will
give some not usually quoted, by John O'Keefe,
which were set to music by Dr. Arnold : —
" In May fifteen hundred and eighty-eight,
Cries PhiHp, ' The EngHsh I '11 humble ;
I Ve taken it into my Majesty's pate,
And the lion, Oh ! down he shall tumble.
The lords of the sea ! ' Then his sceptre he shook ;
' I '11 prove it all arrant bravado.
By Neptune ! I '11 sweep 'em all into a nook,
With th' Invincible Spanish Armado.'
" This fleet started out, and the winds they did blow ;
Their guns made a terrible clatter.
Our noble Queen Bess, 'cos her wanted to know,
Quill'd her ruff, and cried, 'Pray what's the matter?'
' They say, my good Queen,' replies Howard so stout,
' The Spaniard has drawn his toledo.
Odds bobbins ! he '11 thump us, and kick us about,
With th' Invincible Spanish Armado.'
THE HOE 363
" The Lord Mayor of London, a very wise man,
What to do in the case vastly wondered.
Says the Queen, * Send in fifty good ships, if you can,'
Says the Lord Mayor, ' I '11 send you a hundred ! '
Our fire ships soon struck every cannon all dumb,
For the Dons ran to Ave and Credo ;
Don Medina roars out, ' Sure the foul fiend is come.
For th' Invincible Spanish Armado.'
" On Effingham's squadron, tho' all in abreast.
Like open-mouth'd curs they came bowling ;
His sugar-plums finding they could not digest,
Away they ran yelping and howling.
When Britain's foe shall, all with envy agog,
In our Channel make such a tornado,
Huzza ! my brave boys ! we 're still lusty to flog
An Invincible .... Armado."
And here the dotted line will allow of Gallic,
Russian, or German to be inserted. Of Spanish
there need be no fear. Spain is played out.
A fine bronze statue of Sir Francis by Boehm is
on the Hoe, the traditional site of the bowling match,
but it is only a replica of that at Tavistock, and lacks
the fine bas-reliefs representing incidents in the life
of Drake ; among others, the game of bowls, and his
burial at sea. On the Hoe is also a ridiculous ter-
centenary monument commemorative of the Armada,
and the upper portion of Smeaton's Eddystone light-
house.
This dangerous reef had occasioned so many
wrecks and such loss of life, that Mr. Henry Win-
stanley, a gentleman of property in Essex, a self-
taught mechanician, resolved to devote his attention
and his money to the erection of a lighthouse upon the
reef, called Eddystone probably because of the swirl of
364 PLYMOUTH
water about it. He commenced the erection in 1696,
and completed it in four years. The structure was
eminently picturesque, so much so that a local artist
at Launceston thought he could not do better than
make a painting of it to decorate a house there then
in construction (Dockacre), and set it up as a portion
of the chimney-piece. The edifice certainly was not
calculated to withstand such seas as roll in the
Channel, but Winstanley knew only that second-
hand wash which flows over miles of mud on the
Essex coast, which it submerges, but above which
it cannot heap itself into billows.
Winstanley had implicit confidence in his work,
and frequently expressed the wish that he might be
in his lighthouse when tested by a severe storm from
the west. He had his desire. One morning in
November, 1703, he left the Barbican to superintend
repairs. An old seaman standing there warned him
that dirty weather was coming on. Nevertheless,
strong in his confidence, he went. That night, whilst
he remained at the lighthouse, a hurricane sprang up,
and when morning broke no lighthouse was visible ;
the erection and its occupants had been swept away.
Three years elapsed before another attempt was
made to rear a beacon. At length a silk mercer
of London, named Rudyard, undertook the work.
He determined to imitate as closely as might be the
trunk of a Scotch pine, and to give to wind and wave
as little surface as possible on which to take effect.
Winstanley's edifice had been polygonal ; Rudyard's
was to be circular. Commenced in 1706 and com-
pleted in 1709, entirely of timber, the shaft weathered
EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE 365
the storms of nearly fifty years in safety, and might
have defied them longer but that it was built of
combustible materials. It caught fire on the 2nd
December, 1755. The three keepers in it did their
utmost to extinguish the flames, but their efforts were
ineffectual. The lead wherewith it was roofed ran
off in molten streams, and the men had to take
refuge in a hole of the rock. When they were
rescued one of the men went raving mad, broke
away, and was never seen again. Another solemnly
averred that some of the molten lead, as he stood
looking up agape at the fire, had run down his throat
as it spouted from the roof. He died within twelve
days, and actually lodged within his stomach was
found a mass of lead weighing nearly eight ounces.
How he had lived so long was a marvel.
Twelve months were not suffered to pass before
a third lighthouse was commenced — that of Smeaton.
This was of stone, dovetailed together. It was com-
menced in June, 1757, and completed by October,
1759. This lighthouse might have lasted to the
present, had it not been that the rocky foundation
began to yield under the incessant beat of the
waves.
This necessitated a fourth, from the designs of Mr.
(now Sir J.) Douglass, which was begun in 1879 and
completed in 1882. The total height is 148 feet.
The Breakwater was begun in 1812, but was not
completed till 1841.
The neighbourhood of Plymouth abounds in
objects of interest and scenes of great beauty. The
Hamoaze, the estuary of the Tamar and Tavy com-
o
66 PLYMOUTH
bined, is a noble sheet of water. The name {am-uisge\
Round about the water, describes it as an almost land-
locked tract of glittering tide and effluent rivers,
with woods and hills sloping down to the surface.
Mount Edgcumbe, with its sub-tropical shrubs and
trees, shows how warm the air is even in winter,
in spots where not exposed to the sea breeze.
Up the creek of the Lynher {Lyn-hir, the long
creek) boats pass to S. Germans, where is a noble
church, on the site of a pre-Saxon monastery founded
by S. Germanus of Auxerre. The little disfranchised
borough contains many objects to engage the artist's
pencil, notably the eminently picturesque alms-
houses.
The noble church has been very badly " restored."
The Norman work is fine.
Cawsand, with its bay, makes a pleasant excursion.
This was at one time a great nest for smugglers.
An old woman named Borlase had a cottage with
a window looking towards Plymouth, and she kept
her eye on the water. When a preventive boat was
visible she went down the street giving information.
There was another old woman, only lately deceased,
who went by the name of Granny Grylls. When a
young woman she was wont to walk to the beach
and back carrying a baby that was never heard to
wail.
One day a customs officer said to her, " Well, Mrs.
Grylls, that baby of yours is very quiet."
" Quiet her may be," answered she, " but I reckon
her's got a deal o' sperit in her."
And so she had, for the baby was no other than
EXCURSIONS 367
a jar of brandy. She was wont by this means to
remove " run " liquor from its cache in the sand. A
man named Trist had been a notorious smuggler.
At last he was caught and given over to the press-
gang to be sent on board a man-of-war. Trist bore
his capture quietly enough, but as the vessel lay off
Cawsand he suddenly slipped overboard and made for
a boat that was at anchor, shipped that, and hoisted
sail. His Majesty's vessel at once lowered a boat
and made in pursuit. After a hard row the sailing
smack was come up with and found to be empty.
Trist had gone overboard again and swum to a Caw-
sand fishing-smack, where he lay hid for some days.
As there was quite a fleet of these boats on the
water, the men in His Majesty's service did not
know which to search. So Trist got off and was
never secured again.
Near Cawsand is a rock with a white sparry forma-
tion on it, like the figure of a woman. This is called
Lady's Rock, and the fishermen on returning always
cast an offering of a few mackerels or herrings to the
ledge before the figure.
A curious custom on May Day exists at Millbrook,
once a rotten borough, of the boatmen carrying a
dressed ship about the streets with music.
An excursion up the Tamar may be made by
steamer to the Weir Head. The river scenery is
very fine, especially at the Morwell Rocks. On the
way Cothele is passed, the ancient and unaltered
mansion of the Edgcumbes, rich in carved wood,
tapestry, and ancient furniture. It is the most per-
fect and characteristic mansion of the fifteenth
368 PLYMOUTH
century in Cornwall. Lower down the river is S.
Dominic.
Early in the eighth century Indract, with his sister
Dominica, Irish pilgrims, and attendants arrived
there, and settled on the Tamar. A little headland,
Halton, marks a spot where Indract had a chapel
and a holy well. The latter is in good condition ;
the former is represented by an ivy-covered wall.
However, the church of Landrake (Llan-Indract) was
his main settlement, and his sister Dominica founded
that now bearing her name. In the river Indract
made a salmon weir and trapped fish for his party.
But one of these was a thief and greedy, and carried
off fish for his own consumption, regardless of his
comrades. There were "ructions," and Indract packed
his portmanteau and* started for Rome. Whether
Dominica accompanied him is not stated, but it is
probable that she would not care to be left alone in
a strange land, though I am certain she would have
met with nothing but kindly courtesy from Cornish-
men. The party — all but the thief and those who
were in the intrigue with him — reached Rome, and
returning through Britain came as far as Skapwith,
near Glastonbury, where a Saxon hanger-on upon
King Ina's court, hearing that a party of travellers
was at hand, basely went to their lodgings and
murdered them at night in the hopes of getting
loot. Ina, his master, who was then at Glastonbury,
came to hear of what had been done, and he had the
bodies moved to the abbey. Whether he scolded the
man who murdered them, or even proceeded to
punish him, we are not told.
AWNS AND DENDLES 369
Bere Ferrers has a fine church, with some old glass
in it and a very singular font, that looks almost as
if it had been constructed out of a still earlier capital.
Bere Alston was once a borough, returning two
members.
On the east side of Plymouth is the interesting
Plympton S. Mary, with a noble church ; Plympton
S. Maurice, with a fine modern screen, and the
remains of a castle. Here is the old grammar school
where Sir Joshua Reynolds received his instruction,
and here also is the house in which he was born.
He gave his own portrait to the town hall of the little
place — for it also was a borough, and, to the lasting
disgrace of Plympton be it recorded, the municipality
sold it. The old house of Boringdon has a fine
hall. The house has twice been altered, and the last
alterations are incongruous. One half of the house
has been pulled down. Above it is a well-preserved
camp. Ermington Church deserves a visit; it has been
well restored. It has a bold post-Reformation screen.
Holbeton has also been restored in excellent taste.
On Revelstoke a vast amount of money has been
lavished unsatisfactorily. Near Cornwood station is
Fardell, an old mansion of Sir Walter Raleigh, with
a chapel.
The same station serves for the Awns and
Dendles cascade, and for a visit to the Stall Moor
with its long stone row, also the more than two-mile-
long row, leading from the Staldon circle, and the
old blowing -houses on the Yealm at Yealm Steps.
There the old moulds for the tin lie among the ruins
of two of these houses, one above the steps, the other
^7o PLYMOUTH
J
below. A further excursion may be made into the
Erme valley, with its numerous prehistoric remains,
and to the blowing - house at the junction of the
Hook Lake. This is comparatively late, as there is
a wheel-pit.
North of Plymouth interesting excursions may
be made to the Dewerstone, perhaps the finest bit
of rock scenery on Dartmoor, or rather at its edge,
where the so-called Plym bursts forth from its
moorland cradle. The summit of the Dewerstone
has been fortified by a double line of walls. A
walk thence up the river will take a visitor into
some wild country. He will pass Legis Tor with
its hut circles in very fair preservation, Ditsworthy
Warren, and at Drizzlecombe, coming in from the
north, he will see avenues of stones and menhirs and
the Giant's Grave, a large cairn, and a well-preserved
kistvaen. By the stream bed below is a blowing-
house with its tin moulds. Shavercombe stream
comes down on the right, and there may be found
traces of the slate that overlay the granite, much
altered by heat. From Trowlesworthy Warren a
wall, fallen, extends, in connection with numerous
hut circles, as far as the Yealm. For what purpose
it was erected, unless it were a tribal boundary, it
is impossible to discover.
A visitor to the Dewerstone should not fail to
descend through the wood to the Meavy river, and
follow it down to Shaugh Bridge.
An interesting house is Old Newnham, the ancient
seat of the Strode family.
Hard by is Peacock Bridge. Here a fight took
EXCURSIONS 371
place, according to tradition, between a Parker and
a Strode, with their retainers, relative to a peacock,
and Strode had his thumb cut off in the fray.
Buckland Monachorum also is within reach, the
church converted into a mansion.
Meavy Church contains early and rude carving.
Sheepstor stands above an artificial lake, the reservoir
that supplies Plymouth with water. This occupies
the site of an ancient lake, that had been filled
with rubble brought down by the torrents from
the moor.
A delightful walk may be taken by branching
from the Princetown road to Nosworthy Bridge,
passing under Leather Tor and following Dean-
combe, then ascending Combshead Tor to an
interesting group of prehistoric remains, a cairn
surrounded by a circle of stones, and a stone row
leading to a chambered cairn. By continuing the
line north-east Nun's or Siward's Cross will be
reached in the midst of utter desolation. Far
away east Is Childe's Tomb, a kistvaen.
The story is that Childe, a hunter, lost himself
on the moor. Snow came on, and he cut open his
horse, and crept within the carcass to keep himself
warm. But even this did not avail.
So with his finger dipp'd in blood,
He scrabbled on the stones :
" This is my will, God it fulfil,
And buried be my bones.
Whoe'er he be that findeth me,
And brings me to a grave,
The lands that now to me belong
In Plymstock he shall have."
372 PLYMOUTH
The story goes on to say that while the men
of Plymstock were preparing to transport the body
thither, the monks of Tavistock whipped it off,
threw a bridge of planks, since called Guile Bridge,
over the Tavy, and interred the hunter in their
cemetery, thereby obtaining possession of his lands.
END OF VOL I.
PLYMOUTH
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SOK
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