because they have been superseded by more convenient ways. Such, for
example, are the lane from Crockam Bridge over the Teign to Trusham,
and the Lichway (i.e. the way of the corpse) along which, before 1260,
the dead were carried for burial into Lydford, crossing the river over
Willsworthy Steps, a series of eighteen stepping-stones. One of the
most remarkable of these old roads was the great central trackway on
Dartmoor, leading from Chagford to Tavistock, 10 feet wide, 2-1/2 feet
deep, and made of rough stones with smaller stones above. Although much
of it has been destroyed for the sake of its materials, about 18 miles
of it still remain. It was during the seventeenth century that the
"Moor-stones"--upright monoliths of granite--were set up to serve as
guide-posts for wayfarers during the mists that so often cover the moor.
One of the most important highways in Devonshire is the great trunk road
from London, which enters the county with the Great Western Railway
and accompanies it to Exeter, thence making straight for Plymouth, and
passing on into Cornwall.
In common with other English counties Devonshire possesses a number of
hamlets whose names end in "ford," a syllable which, in words of Saxon
origin, means that an old road there passed through the shallows of a
stream or river. Such, to give a few familiar instances, are Chagford,
Lydford, and Bideford.
Devonshire canals are short and unimportant. The hilly country is
not adapted for them; and such traffic as some of them once enjoyed
has been absorbed by the railways. There is, however, a good deal of
traffic on the Exeter Canal--constructed in 1566, and therefore one
of the oldest ship canals in England and the first lock-canal in the
kingdom--but it is worked at a loss. Most of the Bude Canal has been
abandoned, and only two miles of it are now in use. The Grand Western
Canal, running ten-and-a-half miles eastward from Tiverton, nearly to
the Somerset border--all that was ever made of a waterway intended to
reach Taunton--the Stover Canal, two miles in length, and the Hackney
Canal, only half-a-mile long, both connected with the river Teign,
are all under the control of the Great Western Railway. No Devonshire
river is now of much value as a waterway. There is some traffic on some
of the estuaries, especially the Teign; and the Tamar is navigable to
Gunnislake, a distance of twenty miles.
There are in our county some very old lines of stone-tramway for
horse-traction; from Tavistock to Princetown, for example, and from the
Heytor quarries to the head of the Stover Canal, but they are no longer
in use. Down the former was brought granite to build London Bridge.
The railway from London to Bristol was opened by the Great Western
Company in 1841, was continued to Exeter by the Bristol and Exeter
Company in 1844, and to Plymouth by the South Devon Company in 1846.
Atmospheric pressure was tried for a time between Exeter and Newton
Abbot, but it was a failure, and was soon superseded by steam-traction.
Brunel's railways were made on the broad-gauge system with seven feet
between the rails, in order to give stability to the trains and to
allow of a high rate of speed; and the entire line from London to
Plymouth was broad gauge. Most other companies, however, adopted the
narrow gauge, in which there is only four feet eight-and-a-half inches
between the rails; and owing mainly to the inconvenience of not being
able to interchange rolling-stock with other lines, the Great Western
Railway Company have converted their whole system to narrow gauge.
[Illustration: Teignmouth: the Coast Line and Sea-wall]
The Devonshire railways are now owned by two companies only, the Great
Western and the London and South Western. The latter, which enters the
county near Axminster, runs to Plymouth, especially serving the south
coast to the east of Exmouth, with important branches to Barnstaple and
Ilfracombe and to Bude, and with a continuation into Cornwall. The
Great Western Railway enters Devonshire at two points; near Burlescombe,
running thence to Plymouth and into Cornwall, and near Venn Cross, for
Barnstaple. The Cornish Riviera Express from Paddington, which slips
a coach at Reading, and, passing south of Bristol, slips another at
Exeter, performs the journey of 225 miles to Plymouth--the longest
non-stop run of any train in England--in 7 minutes over 4 hours, which
is an average speed of 55 miles an hour.
There are some famous bridges on the Devonshire roads and railways, of
which the most remarkable are the Saltash Viaduct, 2240 feet long and
102 feet above high-water mark, built by Brunel across the Tamar; the
old stone bridge of 16 arches over the Taw at Barnstaple, originally
built in the thirteenth century, but since much altered and widened;
the fifteenth century stone bridge of 24 arches over the Torridge
at Bideford, also much changed from the days when it was only wide
enough for a pack-horse, but always a valuable source of revenue to
the town from the money that has, at various times, been left for
its maintenance, and has been used to promote education, municipal
improvements, charity and other objects; and the wooden bridge over
the Teign at Teignmouth, one of the longest of its kind in England.
Very different in character are the Lydford Bridge, whose single arch
of stone spans the deep gorge of the river, close to the town; and the
ancient stone clapper bridges, of which perhaps Post Bridge is the best
known, already described in the chapter on antiquities.
24. Administration and Divisions--Ancient and Modern.
In the days of our ancestors the Anglo-Saxons, Devonshire was governed
much in the same way as it is governed now. That is to say, while the
people had to obey the laws that were drawn up under the direction of
the King, they had a great deal of what we now call self-government.
Every little group of houses in Devonshire had its own "tun-moot" or
village council, which made its own by-laws (from the Danish _by_,
a town) and managed its own affairs. The large divisions of the
county called Hundreds--groups of a hundred families--had their more
important "hundred-moot"; while the general business of the whole shire
was conducted by the "shire-moot," with its two chief officers, the
"ealdorman," or earl, for military commander, and the "shire-reeve" for
judicial president. The Devonshire shire-moot met twice in the year.
These three assemblies may fairly be said to correspond to the Parish
Councils, the District Councils, and the County Council of the present
time. Our lord-lieutenant corresponds to the ealdorman of other days,
and the present sheriff to the ancient shire-reeve.
The division called a Hundred may have been named, as already suggested,
because it contained a hundred families. But the present Devonshire
Hundreds, of which there are 32, vary a good deal in population. The
Hundred of Black Torrington, for example, contains 38 parishes, and the
Hundred of Hemyock only three.
The Parish is another ancient institution, and was originally "a
township or cluster of houses, to which a single priest ministered, to
whom its tithes and ecclesiastical dues were paid." Many of the 516
ecclesiastical parishes or parts of parishes situated wholly or partly
within the Ancient Geographical County of Devon fairly correspond to the
manors described in Domesday Book; but the whole country was not divided
up into parishes until the reign of Edward III. The parishes, again,
vary much in size and population. Thus, the parish of Lydford, which
includes a large part of Dartmoor, and measures more than 50,000 acres,
being the largest parish in England, contains 325 inhabited houses and a
population of 2812. The parish of Haccombe, on the other hand, contains
three inhabited houses and nine people.
Queen Elizabeth made the parishes areas of taxation, partly, at any
rate, to provide funds for the relief of the poor. In modern times,
with the idea of taking still better care of the poor, the parishes
have been grouped together in Poor Law Unions, of which there are 20
in Devonshire, each provided with a workhouse, which was meant to be a
place in which the able-bodied poor might find employment. Now, however,
the workhouse is little more than a refuge for the destitute, the idle,
and the incapable.
The local government of Saxon times was swept away by the feudal system
of the Normans, which transferred the power of making and carrying out
laws from the freemen to the lords of the various manors, and was only
restored as recently as 1888 and 1894.
The affairs of each parish, since the latter date, have been managed
by a Parish Council of from 5 to 15 men or women, elected by the
parishioners. District Councils have charge of wide areas, and have
larger powers. They are, in particular, the sanitary authorities, and
are responsible for the water-supply. The County Council, whose very
considerable powers extend to the whole shire, is a small parliament,
which can levy rates and borrow money for public works. It manages
lunatic asylums and reformatories, keeps roads and bridges in repair,
controls the police in conjunction with the Quarter Sessions, appoints
coroners and officers of health, and sees that the Acts relating to
local government are carried out.
The Devonshire County Council consists of 103 members, of whom 77 are
elected every three years by the ratepayers of the various electoral
districts; while 26 are aldermen, elected or co-opted by the 77;
thirteen of them in one triennial period, to serve for six years, and
the other thirteen in the next period, to serve for the same length of
time. The Council meets at Exeter, four times in the year. Plymouth,
Devonport, and Exeter are called County Boroughs, and their corporations
have the powers of a County Council. Ten other towns, Barnstaple,
Bideford, Dartmouth, Great Torrington, Honiton, Okehampton, South
Molton, Tiverton, Torquay, and Totnes, are called Municipal Boroughs and
are governed by a mayor and corporation.
For the administration of justice the county, which is in the Western
Circuit, has one court of Quarter Sessions, the Assizes being held at
Exeter; while Petty Sessions, presided over by local justices of the
peace, are held weekly in 22 towns, to try cases and to punish those who
have broken the law.
[Illustration: The Guildhall, Exeter]
Ecclesiastical affairs are in the hands of the Bishop of Exeter, the
archdeacons of Barnstaple, Exeter, and Totnes, together with numerous
deans and other church officials, in addition to the parish clergy.
The County Council appoints a number of Education Committees, who have
charge of all Government elementary and secondary schools throughout the
county.
Devonshire is divided into eleven Constituencies, of which eight
are Parliamentary Divisions, known as those of Honiton, Tiverton,
South Molton, Barnstaple, Tavistock, Totnes, Torquay, and Ashburton,
each of which returns one member. In addition to these Plymouth and
Devonport each return two members and Exeter one, so that the county is
represented altogether by thirteen Members of Parliament.
We may recall with pride the fact that, among the Members for Devon,
have been some of the most distinguished men who have ever sat in
Parliament. Thus, Sir Walter Ralegh sat for the county, Plymouth
has been represented by Sir Francis Drake, Sir John Hawkyns, and
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Tavistock by John Pym and Lord John Russell,
Barnstaple by Skippon and Lord Exmouth, Okehampton by William Pitt and
Lord Rodney, Plympton by Lord Castlereagh and Sir Christopher Wren,
Dartmouth by Lord Howe, and Tiverton by Lord Palmerston.
25. The Roll of Honour of the County.
Famous as our county is for its beautiful scenery, its wealth of
prehistoric antiquities, and the abundance and variety of its wild life,
it is still more renowned for its long Roll of Honour, for the many
great and distinguished men who were born in it, or who have been more
or less closely associated with it by residence within its borders.
There can be little doubt that the foremost man in the whole history
of Devon is Sir Francis Drake, the greatest of Elizabethan seamen, the
first English circumnavigator of the globe, the terror of every Spanish
ship, and the most conspicuous figure in the defeat of the Armada. Born
near Tavistock, about 1540, of humble parentage, he early took to the
sea, and was only seventeen when he and his kinsman Hawkyns, in the
course of a trading-voyage to Guiana, were so ill-treated at a South
American Spanish port that, for the rest of his life, Drake's chief
aim seems to have been to avenge his injuries by plundering the towns,
destroying the shipping, and capturing the treasure-ships of both Spain
and Portugal.
Among his greatest exploits were his voyage round the world, between
1577 and 1580--after which, on his return, he was knighted by Queen
Elizabeth on board his ship the _Golden Hind_; the ravaging of the
West Indies in 1585 and 1586; the destruction in the harbour of Cadiz
of ships and stores intended for the invasion of England, by which he
delayed for a whole year the sailing of the Armada; and the prominent
part he took in the defeat of the Armada itself, when he captured the
flagship of Admiral Pedro de Valdez.
[Illustration: Sir Francis Drake]
During the comparatively few years he spent on shore Drake constructed
the still-existing leat or water-course for bringing drinking-water into
Plymouth, and he also represented that town as Member of Parliament.
In 1595 he and Hawkyns set out for the West Indies on what proved to be
their last expedition. Misfortune dogged the fleet from the outset. Both
commanders died at sea, Hawkyns off Porto Rico, late in 1595, and Drake
off Porto Bello, early in 1596.
A greater man in some ways than even Drake himself was the gentle,
noble, lovable, gallant Sir Walter Ralegh, a man who won renown in many
fields, not only as soldier, sailor, and explorer, as courtier and
administrator, but as historian and poet; whose whole life was crowded
with adventure and romance, and who is one of the most picturesque
figures in the entire range of English History.
Born in 1552, in a house that still stands at Hayes Barton, he was only
17 when he left Oxford to fight for the Huguenots; and from that time,
except for brief intervals at Court, and even shorter periods of quiet
enjoyment of his property in Ireland, or of his home at Sherborne, or
when he was a prisoner in the Tower, the rest of his life was spent
in action; now fighting the rebel Desmonds in Ireland, now harrying
the ships and towns of Spain and Portugal, now helping in the attack
on the Armada, now engaged with his half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert
in perilous and fruitless exploration in the far north of America,
now attempting to colonise Virginia--an enterprise whose sole result
was the introduction to this country of tobacco and potatoes--and now
sailing up the Orinoco in the vain quest of the fabled golden city of
Manoa.
[Illustration: Sir Walter Ralegh and his signature]
Elizabeth, whose favour he won by the sacrifice of his cloak, and lost
again for a time owing to her jealousy of his passion for one of her
Maids of Honour, when he had to spend four years in the Tower, knighted
him, gave him vast estates in Ireland, made him captain of the guard,
Governor of Jersey, Lord Warden of the Stannaries and Vice-Admiral of
Devon and Cornwall. Like Drake, he sat in Parliament; and it was while
still in favour with the Queen that he was elected Member for his county.
On the accession of James I, however, Ralegh was charged with joining in
the plot on behalf of Arabella Stuart, and was again sent to the Tower.
During his long imprisonment there he wrote his most famous work, the
_History of the World_, whose learned, eloquent, and philosophic pages
proved that his skill was no less with his pen than with his sword.
His stirring description of the last fight of the _Revenge_ inspired
Tennyson's noble ballad.
Released from prison by James in order that he might once more sail
up the Orinoco in search of the mythical treasure-land ruled over by
El Dorado, he came back from that most disastrous expedition a broken
man. Again committed to the Tower at the instigation of the Spanish
Ambassador, he was soon afterwards beheaded on the old charge of
treason, dying as he had lived, dignified, noble, and fearless to the
last.
Two other heroic figures of the Elizabethan age, worthy to be ranked in
the same company with Drake, are his gallant comrade Hawkyns, who was
born at Plymouth in 1532, and Grenville the indomitable, the hero of
that last fight of the _Revenge_.
Several other men who were born in our county have distinguished
themselves as explorers, or by having helped, by peaceable means, to
found our over-seas empire. Such were Davis, the arctic navigator,
who was born near Dartmouth about 1550, who left his name in Davis's
Straits, and who wrote _The Seaman's Secrets_ and other works; Sir
Humphrey Gilbert, born in 1539 at Dartmouth, distinguished as a soldier
in the Irish wars of Elizabeth's reign, but still more as having taken
possession of Newfoundland, thus establishing the first British colony;
Gate, who with Somers colonised Bermuda in 1611; and Wills, who perished
in 1861 with Burke in crossing Australia.
Devonshire has been the native land of many soldiers. Two of the most
distinguished, both of whom strongly influenced their country's destiny,
and were made dukes as a reward for their services, were Monck and
Marlborough. George Monck, born near Torrington in 1608, distinguished
himself both by land and sea. He twice defeated the great Dutch admiral
Van Tromp; and although severely beaten by de Ruyter he afterwards
gained a great victory over him off the North Foreland. At first a
Royalist, he joined the parliamentary army after his capture by Fairfax
(followed by two years in the Tower) and Cromwell made him governor of
Scotland. On the death of the Protector he marched to London, and was
the chief instrument in the Restoration of Charles II, who made him Duke
of Albemarle.
John Churchill, better known as the Duke of Marlborough, born at Ashe
House in 1650, was not only the greatest general of his time, but one
of the ablest military commanders the world has ever seen. His most
memorable successes were the four great battles of Blenheim, Ramillies,
Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, in which he defeated the long-victorious
armies of Louis XIV, then the most powerful monarch on the continent. By
this series of victories, followed by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, the
peace of Europe was secured for thirty years.
Many great Devonshire men, including some of the earliest who became
distinguished, were churchmen or divines, not a few of whom are also
famous as authors. Such, for example, was Winfrid, otherwise Saint
Boniface, and known as the Apostle of Germany, who, born probably at
Crediton in 680, began his career as a Benedictine monk at Exeter,
and after spending many years in converting the wild German tribes to
Christianity, was appointed archbishop of Mainz, and was afterwards
murdered by the Frisians in 755. Such were Leofric, the first bishop
of Exeter, Warelwast the builder of the Norman cathedral, Quivil
the designer of the magnificent fabric that replaced it, Stapledon
and Grandisson his able successors, Reynolds the leading Puritan
divine at the Hampton Court Conference of 1604, whose proposal of a
new translation of the Bible led to the Authorised Version of 1611,
Trelawney, one of the Seven Bishops whose trial and acquittal formed
one of the most memorable events of the reign of James II, Jewel,
Bishop of Salisbury, one of the fathers of English Protestantism, the
"Judicious" Hooker, author of the _Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_,
Barclay, who translated Brant's satiric allegory under the title _The
Shyp of Folys_, Prince, author of the _Worthies of Devon_, Dean Buckland
the famous geologist, author of _Reliquiae Diluvianae_, who died in
1856, and Charles Kingsley, born at Holne in 1819, distinguished as an
able and eloquent preacher and as a strenuous worker for the good of
mankind, as poet, novelist, and naturalist, author of many books, and
especially of _Westward Ho!_ and the _Water Babies_, and of the words
of many beautiful songs, such as the _Three Fishers_. Not a native of
the county, but Bishop of Exeter in 1551, was Miles Coverdale, whose
translation of the Bible appeared in 1535. To him many of the finest
phrases in our Authorised Version of 1611 are directly due.
[Illustration: Charles Kingsley]
The most distinguished of the many Devonshire men of letters is
Coleridge, poet and dreamer, philosopher and critic, who was born at
Ottery St Mary in 1772. That, however, was his sole connection with
the county. It was chiefly during his three years' residence at Nether
Stowey, in Somerset, that the finest of his few masterpieces, especially
the _Ancient Mariner_ and part of _Christabel_, were written. Amongst
other authors who were born in Devon may be named Gay, writer of plays,
fables, and songs, among them the _Beggars' Opera_ and _Black-eyed
Susan_; Ford the dramatist; William Browne, the author of _Britannia's
Pastorals_; Kitto, the deaf compiler of Biblical literature; Merivale
the Roman historian; Rowe and Risdon, each of whom wrote books on the
county; and Froude the historian, author of many books, and especially
of the _History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the
Spanish Armada_.
Herrick was not Devonshire born, but it was while he was vicar of Dean
Prior, between 1647 and 1674, that he wrote the _Hesperides_, among
which are some of the best lyrics in the language. Dryden, again, was
a frequent visitor at Lord Clifford's seat at Ugbrooke, and there is a
tradition that he there finished his translation of Virgil. It was at
Lynton that Shelley wrote part of _Queen Mab_. Keats finished _Endymion_
at Teignmouth. Tennyson was often a guest of Froude at Salcombe, and it
is said that he had Salcombe Bar in mind when he wrote his last verses,
_Crossing the Bar_.
Distinguished in other ways may be mentioned Blundell, the Tiverton
cloth-merchant, who, dying in 1601, left money for the establishment
of Blundell's School; Bodley, born at Exeter in 1545, founder of
the Bodleian Library at Oxford; John Baring, founder of the great
banking-house of Baring Brothers; Babbage, the inventor of the
calculating machine; Bidder, the "Calculating Boy," son of a stone-mason
of Moreton Hampstead; Cookworthy, the originator of Plymouth china; and
Newcomen, a Dartmouth ironmonger, whose improvement on the atmospheric
steam-engine of Savery, also a Devonshire man, was used early in the
eighteenth century for pumping water out of mines.
[Illustration: Blundell's School, Tiverton]
Devonshire has been specially remarkable for its artists, of whom the
most distinguished were Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great portrait-painter,
born at Plympton in 1723; Cosway, who painted exquisite miniatures;
Samuel Prout, the famous architectural painter, and Skinner Prout his
nephew; Eastlake, the great painter of figures, and the author of books
on art; and Hilliard the goldsmith of Queen Elizabeth.
[Illustration: Samuel Taylor Coleridge]
Two very famous Devonshire houses are those of Courtenay and Carew.
There is said to be hardly a parish in all Devon in which a Courtenay
did not hold land. Courtenays followed the King to many wars. One tilted
with Francis I at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Three were at Navarete
with the Black Prince. Three died during the Wars of the Roses, either
in battle or on the scaffold. Of the house of Carew, one was at Cressy
and another at Agincourt. One was knighted on the field of Bosworth, one
was at Flodden, and one, while fighting the French, was blown up with
the _Mary Rose_.
26. THE CHIEF TOWNS AND VILLAGES OF DEVONSHIRE.
(The figures in brackets after each name give the population
of the parish in 1901, from the official returns, and those at the
end of each paragraph are references to the pages in the text.)