might retreat who wished to retire from the world, and to lead simple
lives of holiness, benevolence, and poverty, serving God and benefiting
their fellows. For a time the inmates did all these things. As long as
they were poor they were a blessing to the countries where they lived.
They preached to the people, they taught in schools, tended the poor
and the sick, practised agriculture and many useful arts, such as the
construction of clocks, keeping alive such learning as there was, and
making beautiful manuscript copies of the Bible and of the works of
classical writers which otherwise would have been lost. But when they
grew rich they became idle, careless, and ignorant, and their lives too
often a scandal to the world. Henry VIII, as the result of a commission
which he sent round to enquire into their condition, decided to suppress
them. The houses were closed, their inmates were scattered, their
estates were sold for trifling sums or given to the king's favourites,
while part of their vast wealth was used in founding grammar-schools.
The richest monastic house in the county was the Cistercian Priory of
Plympton, of which little now remains beyond the refectory and the
kitchen. Of the Benedictine monastery of Tavistock, an establishment
second in wealth only to Plympton, the gateway, a porch, and two towers
alone are left. The remains of the Norbertine abbey of Torre consist
chiefly of the refectory, a gate-house, and the fine building known as
the Spanish Barn, from a tradition that Spanish prisoners of war were
confined in it.
The two Cistercian houses of Buckfast and Buckland are specially
interesting. The ruins of the former, which was a very ancient and very
rich establishment, whose last abbot attained his office as a reward for
having helped to capture Tyndale, were bought in 1882 by a community of
French monks, who have rebuilt much of the abbey in the original style.
Part of Buckland Abbey, which had been converted into a dwelling-house
in Henry VIII's time, was bought and rebuilt by Sir Francis Drake.
Several relics of Drake are preserved here, and the house, with its fine
cedars and stately tulip trees, is one of the most picturesque buildings
in Devon. Hartland Abbey, originally founded, like Buckfast, in Saxon
times, has also been converted into a dwelling-house, into which were
built the Early English cloisters. At Leigh, near Christow, are the
very picturesque remains--a fine gate-house, the refectory, and the
dormitory--of a small cell connected with Buckland Abbey.
[Illustration: Buckland Abbey]
Other monastic remains, mostly in a fragmentary condition, are those
at Polsloe (Benedictine nuns), Denbury (Benedictine cell connected
with Tavistock), Newenham and Dunkeswell (both Cistercian), Cornworthy
(Augustinian nuns), and Frithelstock (a house of Augustinian canons).
21. Architecture--(_b_) Military.
As has already been pointed out, there were in Devonshire a very great
number of primitive castles or fortresses, generally on the tops of
hills, and consisting simply of enclosures surrounded by ramparts of
earth or of loose stones. After the Norman Conquest castles of a very
different type, strongly built of stone, were erected in our county, as
in many other parts of England, partly by order of the king himself,
and partly by his knights and nobles, who found it necessary to defend
themselves against the Saxons, of whose lands they had taken possession.
By the end of the reign of King Stephen, after less than ninety years of
Norman rule, there were 1115 such strongholds in England.
The early Norman castle consisted, as a rule, of a single three-storied
tower with walls of great thickness. But at a later period, after
the experience gained in the Crusades, and in consequence of the
introduction of powerful engines capable of throwing great stones
against a besieged fortress, military architecture became much more
elaborate.
The castles of the Middle Ages, which sometimes occupied a space of
many acres, were usually built on high ground, or close to a river or
the sea-shore, and were almost always surrounded by a ditch or moat,
which, if possible, was filled with water. Inside the moat was a high
and very thick wall, generally with towers at intervals, especially
at the corners, with a parapet to shelter the men fighting on the top
of it, and with spaces called embrasures through which they could
shoot arrows at the enemy. The principal gate was strongly defended by
covering towers, and above it were holes through which melted lead, or
boiling water, or hot pitch or sand could be thrown on the besiegers.
The doorway was reached by a drawbridge, raised and lowered by chains,
and was closed by a heavy door, or a strong grating called a portcullis.
Smaller gates were the postern and the sally-port.
The space inside the outer wall was known as the outer bailey, inside
which was another wall, also with towers and a gate, within which were
dwellings and store-houses. This was the inner bailey; and within it
was the most important part of the fortress, the high tower called
the keep--a building of several floors, with walls 15 or even 20 feet
thick--the last place of retreat when the rest of the castle was taken.
On the ground floor, which had no windows, were the well, sometimes of
immense depth, the dungeon, and the store-rooms. On the next floor,
which was lighted by narrow loop-holes, were the soldiers' quarters. On
upper floors were the chapel and the apartments of the governor and his
family.
There were nearly twenty Norman and mediaeval castles in Devonshire,
few of them large or elaborate from the military point of view, and
some, perhaps even the majority of them, insignificant in size and
simple in style. Of some of these twenty strongholds no trace remains.
Almost all, of which anything survives, are ruinous and uninhabitable.
And although a few have been partially restored and are now occupied
as dwelling-houses, only one, that of Powderham, retains its ancient
dignity, after continuous occupation that has lasted for nearly six
centuries. Comparatively little is known of the history of these
castles; but many of them have been the scenes of fighting, especially
in Norman times, in the reign of Henry VIII and during the Civil War.
One of the most famous and at the same time one of the oldest of
Devonshire castles, is that of Exeter, called Rougemont from the colour
of the rock on which it stands, built in 1067 by William the Conqueror
on the site of an earlier fortress constructed by Athelstan, destroyed
by Sweyn, and restored by Cnut and Edward the Confessor. Its first
Norman governor was Baldwin de Brioniis, the Conqueror's nephew by
marriage. It, or the city round it, has sustained many sieges; by the
Saxons, by the sons of Harold, by King Stephen, by the Yorkists, by
rebel armies, by Royalists and Parliamentarians, but it was ruinous
even when Fairfax captured Exeter in 1646. A mere fragment, consisting
chiefly of the gateway tower, is all that now remains of it.
The picturesque ruins of Okehampton Castle, built, it is believed, in
the thirteenth century, partly of water-worn stones from the river
below, and dismantled by order of Henry VIII, stand in a strong position
above the West Okement, and include the remains of many rooms and of
a great banqueting hall. A French prisoner of war has left a Latin
inscription cut in one of the stones.
The remains of the ancient castle of Berry Pomeroy--founded, as
some think, in the reign of William I--the most picturesque ruin in
Devonshire, standing on a rocky eminence surrounded by dense woods
three miles north-east of Totnes, consist principally of two towers,
and of the gate-house and the chapel, whose fine masonry, much of which
is thirteenth century work, is overgrown with moss and ivy. Inside the
original building stands a very large but unfinished mansion, of great
magnificence, begun by Lord Seymour, to whom, when Sir Thomas Pomeroy
was deprived of his estates because of his share in the Commotion of
1549, the castle was given. The property still belongs to the Duke of
Somerset, and has thus been in the hands of only two families since the
Norman Conquest.
Compton Castle, about two miles west of Torquay, a very strongly
fortified manor-house of the early fifteenth century built on the site
of a castle of William I's time, is specially interesting from its
association with Sir Humphrey Gilbert. It is now occupied as a farm.
Nearness to the sea, and the consequent danger from the raids of
foreign invaders, led to the strength of its defences. The building,
which is large and picturesque, includes a number of ancient features,
especially the chapel and two gateways.
[Illustration: Compton Castle]
Lydford Castle, now little more than the shell of a square tower, stands
on an artificial mound, and is said to have been founded soon after
the Conquest. It was a place of great importance in the palmy days of
Devonshire tin-mining, when Lydford was one of the chief towns in the
county. Here, from a very early period until late in the eighteenth
century, was held the Stannary Court, proverbial for its arbitrary
methods of procedure; and within the walls was a notorious dungeon, used
as the Stannary prison.
Plympton Castle, built by Richard de Redvers, first Earl of Devon, and
the scene of fighting in the reigns of Stephen, John, and Charles I, is
now quite ruinous. Tiverton Castle, ascribed to the same founder, but
reconstructed in the fourteenth century and dismantled after the Civil
War, has been partly adapted as a modern house. It sustained a brief
siege, of only a few hours' duration, by Fairfax in 1645. A cannon-shot
cut the chain of the drawbridge, the bridge fell, and the besiegers,
pouring in, were quickly masters of the fortress. The chief ancient
features are the great gate, a tower, and the remains of the banqueting
hall and the chapel. The scanty remains of Hemyock Castle, two miles
east of Culmstock, and not far from the border of Somerset, at first
garrisoned for the Parliament, then taken by the Royalists, and finally
dismantled by Cromwell, consist of little more than the gateway and its
covering-towers, which are of flint. Totnes Castle, whose ivy-clad walls
of red sandstone look down upon the river Dart, was founded by Judhael,
soon after the Conquest, but it has been a ruin since the time of Henry
VIII. Of Dartmouth Castle, a very picturesque ruin at the end of a
promontory guarding the harbour, the chief remains are a square tower
of the time of Edward IV, and a round tower of the reign of Henry VII.
The place may still be seen where a chain was drawn across the river to
Gomerock Castle, a small fort on the opposite shore, to keep hostile
ships from sailing up the Dart. Kingswear Castle, a small thirteenth
century building on the same river, the scene of some fighting during
the Civil War, has been restored, and is now a private residence.
Salcombe or Clifton Castle, on the Kingsbridge estuary, one of Henry
VIII's coast defences against the long-expected attack of the Spanish
Armada, was the last place on the Devonshire mainland to hold out for
Charles I.
The square Morisco fortress on Lundy, whose plain walls now shelter
cottages that have been built inside it, is twelfth century work. The
scanty ruins of Colcombe Castle near Colyton, supposed to have been
destroyed by the Parliamentarians, and the square tower of Gidleigh, not
far from Chagford, date, it is believed, from the century following;
and the castle of Ilton, two miles north-west of Salcombe, on the
Kingsbridge estuary, now used as a farm, was built in the fourteenth
century. Of Torrington Castle a few fragments only are left. The castles
of Exmouth and Bampton have entirely disappeared; and of Barnstaple
Castle, built, it is said, by Athelstan, but ruinous as far back as the
reign of Henry VIII, nothing but the site remains.
Powderham Castle, the only one of all these fortresses which has been
continuously inhabited since its foundation, stands--from a military
point of view--on a poor site, on low ground close to the estuary of the
Exe. Its chief charm is in its setting, in its beautiful park and fine
timber, especially its magnificent oak-trees. Built in 1325 in the form
of a long parallelogram, with six towers, four of which remain intact,
while two have been restored, it has been altered and added to by many
hands, and is now a vast, irregular pile of buildings. Its present
owner is the lineal descendant of its original founder, the Sir Philip
Courtenay who, in 1367, was knighted by the Black Prince on the field
of Navarete. Successfully held for the King in December, 1645, against
Fairfax himself, it was taken by Colonel Hammond in the following
January after some sharp fighting, in which the Parliamentary troops, as
happened on not a few occasions during the war, seized and fortified the
village church.
22. Architecture--(_c_) Domestic.
Scattered up and down over Devonshire are many fine old manor-houses,
some of them, in parts at least, very ancient, some with picturesque and
striking features, many set in very beautiful surroundings, and others
of interest for the sake of their historic associations. Such houses
are so numerous that only a few of them can here be even lightly touched
upon.
[Illustration: An Old Devon Farmhouse Chimney Corner]
Not one of the famous houses of Devonshire is entirely, or even in great
part, as old as the thirteenth century, although there are several that
contain features of that period. Such, for example, is Bowringsleigh,
near Kingsbridge, a fine old building, which although mainly Tudor, and
containing details of later eras--beautiful Jacobean oak screens and
highly-decorated plaster ceilings of the time of William and Mary--has
some striking thirteenth century work in it.
At Little Hempstone, near Totnes, is a very interesting and
well-preserved pre-Reformation parsonage or priest's residence of the
fourteenth century; and Ayshford Court, near Burlescombe, a fine old
house now used like the Little Hempstone parsonage as a farm, contains
a fourteenth century chapel. Of the same period are the great hall, now
dismantled, and the old kitchen and other buildings connected with the
mansion of Dartington, which although as a whole a noble example of
Elizabethan architecture, was originally erected in the reign of Richard
II.
Manor-houses of the fifteenth century are much more numerous. The most
remarkable of them--indeed, the finest of all the many great houses in
the county, is Wear Gifford, on the Torridge, about 2-1/2 miles south of
Bideford, a perfect example of an old English manorial residence, built,
it is believed, during the reign of Henry VI. Greatly damaged during the
Civil War, the house, which stands in a commanding situation with fine
timber, especially oak-trees, about it, was for a long period occupied
as a farm, and having become much dilapidated, was restored about eighty
years ago. It contains many beautiful and interesting details, but the
most striking of the original features are the square embattled tower
with the fine entrance archway beneath it, and the magnificent hall,
rising to the whole height of the building, with richly-decorated oaken
panelling and a carved, open, hammer-beam roof which is one of the
very finest examples of Perpendicular woodwork in England. Other good
specimens of fifteenth century architecture are Wortham, at Lifton,
near the border of Cornwall, an almost perfect house of the period;
Bradley, near Newton Abbot, a very picturesque building with a fine hall
and chapel; and the main fabric of Exeter Guildhall, which was erected
in 1464 though the front is Elizabethan.
The noblest Tudor mansion in Devonshire is Holcombe Rogus, in the
village of that name, near Burlescombe, about three miles from the
border of Somerset. A good deal of the building is a modern restoration,
but many details of the time of its foundation, in the reign either
of Henry VIII or of Edward VI, still remain. As in the case of
Wear Gifford, the most striking features of the house are the very
picturesque tower and gate-house, and the great hall--a magnificent
room, more than forty feet long, lighted by two great six-light windows.
Some of the rooms are finely wainscoted with curiously carved oaken
panelling. Adjoining the building is the original "church-house,"
consisting of kitchen, refectory, and cellar, where parishioners could
cook their food and brew their beer, where the poor received their
doles, and where the needs of casual wayfarers were relieved.
Another very interesting Tudor mansion, only part of which, however, is
now habitable, and is used as a farm, is Cadhay, at Ottery St Mary. The
interior of the house has been a good deal altered, but the exterior
is much as it was in the days of Queen Elizabeth. Its most remarkable
feature is the inner court, round which the house is built, and in each
of whose four sides, over an arched Tudor doorway, is a highly-decorated
projecting canopied niche. In these niches are statues of Henry VIII,
Edward VI, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth.
Another very fine sixteenth century house, containing also some
earlier details, is Bradfield, near Uffculme, in which are a beautiful
music-room, a fine banqueting-hall with good panelling, a minstrels'
gallery, and a richly-carved roof. Altogether, this is one of the best
examples of domestic architecture in Devonshire.
[Illustration: Hayes Barton: Sir Walter Ralegh's House]
Other interesting and noteworthy houses of the period are Colleton
Barton at Chumleigh, Flete House at Holbeton, Hayes Barton at East
Budleigh, and Mol's Coffee House in Exeter. Flete has been rebuilt, but
it is a fine mansion, whose beauty is much enhanced by its surroundings
and its avenue of cedars. Hayes Barton, where Ralegh was born--it was
thus he always spelt his name--and where a table said to have belonged
to him is shown, is a rather modern-looking house, plainly built of
"cobb"; but its gables, its mullioned windows and its heavy door are
characteristic of the time. In Mol's Coffee House, which is one of the
sights of Exeter, is an oak-panelled room decorated with the arms of
Drake, Ralegh, Monk and others, in which the great Devonshire soldiers
and sailors of Armada days were accustomed to meet.
Two particularly interesting seventeenth century mansions are Sydenham
House, not far from Tavistock, and Forde House, near Newton Abbot. In
the former, which is a specially fine example of the work of the early
part of the century, containing also some fourteenth century details, is
some very good carved and decorated woodwork, especially in the form of
artistic panelling and stately staircases. There are also secret rooms
and passages, some of which have been contrived in the thickness of
the walls. The house was greatly damaged during the Civil War, when it
is said to have been stormed by the troops of the Parliament. At Forde
House, which was taken and retaken several times in the struggle between
the King and the Commons, the Prince of Orange slept on the first night
after his landing at Brixham. Charles I was there twice, in the first
year of his reign.
[Illustration: Mol's Coffee House, Exeter]
Some good examples of more modern houses are Kingsnympton, in the parish
of that name, about four miles from Chumleigh, surrounded by well-wooded
grounds, on a commanding eminence looking down on the Taw; Ugbrooke,
near Chudleigh, standing in a deer-park of rare beauty, finely timbered,
and most picturesquely varied by wood and hill and water, and where
Dryden's grove may still be seen; Rousdon, near Axmouth, built of flint
faced with Purbeck stone, and considered one of the most magnificent
modern mansions in Devon; Saltram House, three miles east-north-east of
Plymouth, a stately building in a large and beautiful park; and Bicton
House near Budleigh Salterton, whose trees, brought from all parts of
the world, and including a wonderful avenue of araucarias, form one of
the finest collections of the kind in Europe.
[Illustration: Sydenham House]
Other interesting houses are Ashe House near Axminster, the home of the
Drake family and the birth-place of the great Duke of Marlborough,
partly burnt down during the Civil War and repaired with stones from
the ruins of Newenham Abbey, and now a farmhouse; Great Fulford, in
the parish of Dunsford, about eight miles west of Exeter, owned by a
family who have held it since the time of Richard I, stormed by Fairfax
in 1645; and the residence in Exeter of the Abbots of Buckfast, a good
example of mediaeval architecture.
Some very picturesque old half-timbered houses are to be seen in Exeter,
especially in High Street, North Street, and South Street; and there
are so many in Dartmouth that the town has been called the Chester of
Devonshire. Nor should the fine old almshouses of Tiverton and Exeter be
forgotten.
Devonshire possesses a great variety of building stone; and the
materials employed have naturally varied, as a rule, according to the
geological formation of the district. Some of the best houses are of
Beer stone. Some, as has been shown, are of flint. Brick, which when
of good colour and quality is an excellent material, has been largely
employed. Many cottages, and even whole villages, such as Otterton and
East Budleigh, are built of "cobb," which is a mixture of clay and straw.
[Illustration: Dartmouth: Old Houses in the High Street]
Thatch, which is still used for roofing, although to a less extent than
formerly, has in the past been the cause of many disastrous fires. As
recently as 1866 more than 100 houses were burnt down in Ottery St
Mary. Nearly the whole of Chudleigh was thus destroyed in 1807. Fires
in Crediton, in the eighteenth century, destroyed hundreds of houses.
Perhaps the town that has suffered most severely in this way is
Tiverton, where there were very destructive fires in the eighteenth
century. One in 1612 consumed almost every house, and in another, in
1598, no fewer than 400 houses were burnt down.
[Illustration: Newton Village]
23. Communications: Past and Present.
In prehistoric times Devonshire was crossed by a network of trackways,
some of which are to-day broad and well-kept high roads. Others form
those proverbially narrow, awkward, and frequently muddy Devonshire
lanes which are so characteristic of the county, having become worn in
the lapse of ages so deep below the level of the adjacent country,
owing partly to the softness of the ground, and partly to the heavy
rainfall, that their high banks, although often very beautiful,
completely shut out the view. Others, again, that once served merely to
connect one hill-fort with another, have fallen out of use, and are now
hardly to be traced.
These roads, probably begun in the Neolithic Period as footpaths, may
have been made into tracks for packhorses in the Bronze Age, and more
or less adapted for wheeled traffic by the prehistoric users of iron.
Packhorses, however, usually or frequently in teams of six, were in
common use in the county until the middle of the eighteenth century; and
although good roads were made across Dartmoor in 1792 there were parts
of that wild district where, before the year 1831, wheeled vehicles
were unknown. At the present time the total length of all the roads in
Devonshire is only exceeded in the county of Yorkshire.
It is generally believed that no Devonshire road was wholly constructed
by the Romans, who probably reached the district by the already existing
British coast-road from Dorchester. There are some, however, who think
that the Fosse Way joined this road and passed through Exeter, going as
far as the river Teign. The Romans made no road beyond this point, at
any rate; and here, not far from Newton Abbot, they built over the river
a bridge of freestone, on whose foundations the modern structure--the
third since then--now rests.