ABBOT’S LEIGH TO CLEVEDON
IT is a hilly road that leads from Clifton Bridge to Abbot’s Leigh,
through the noble Leigh Woods. Nightingale Valley lies down on the
right; a beautiful seclusion, well-named from those songsters of early
summer. Looking down upon it is the ancient camp of Borough Walls. An
enterprising Land Company has acquired building rights here from Sir H.
Miles, owner of these woods and of Leigh Court, and has recently built a
number of charming detached residences, irregularly disposed among the
glades; and far advanced, in disposition, in planning, and in
architectural style, beyond the methods in vogue when the suburban
villas built nearer the bridge were erected, from about 1870 to 1890.
[Illustration: AVONMOUTH, FROM PILL.]
Three miles, bearing to the right, bring the traveller down to the Avon
estuary again, at the hillside and waterside village of Pill; a queer
little place, clinging and huddling closely to the steep banks, and
ending in a short quay, where pilots and other strange waterside folk
lean and sit on walls and look across to Avonmouth, plainly visible on
the Gloucestershire shore, at the meeting of the Avon and the Bristol
Channel; a distant congeries of clustered masts, great warehouses,
railway signal-posts, and puffs of smoke and steam: all signs of the
great series of docks constructed by the somewhat belated enterprise of
Bristol, between 1880 and 1908. The delays and dangers attending the
progress of modern shipping up and down the Avon, to and from the docks
of Bristol city, have long hindered the expansion of the port, and have
left Bristol behind in that race for commercial greatness in which
Liverpool and Glasgow have emerged foremost; and now it remains to be
seen what the expenditure of millions will be able to effect in
recovering tonnage and redressing the balance of missed opportunities.
There is a ferry across to Shirehampton from Pill and those eager for
light on the subject may readily make the passage into Gloucestershire
and satisfy themselves on the spot of the likelihood of Avonmouth’s
future prosperity. The rise of Avonmouth, at any rate, means loss to the
pilots of Pill, in the diminished call there will be for their services
in guiding vessels up and down the muddy meanderings of the Avon.
A pleasant land opens out before the traveller who wends from Pill
through Easton-in-Gordano (called for short, “St. George’s”) and
Portbury, to Portishead, where the open coast is first reached.
Portishead is almost wholly delightful. The straggling village is
surprisingly unspoiled, considering its nearness to Bristol and the fact
that places further removed have been ruined by overmuch building in
recent times. There are docks, with an area of some twelve acres, at
Portishead, in the level lands below the great bluff of Woodhill and
Black Nore, and there is a single-track railway, with a terminus here;
but the brilliant future once prophesied and confidently expected for
Portishead docks has not yet been realised; and now that the great
modern docks of Avonmouth have been opened, there is even less prospect
of those of Portishead coming into that predicted success.
Attempts have been made to popularise Portishead, but as the derelict
villas on the wooded crest of Woodhill sufficiently prove, entirely
without success, and the beautiful underwoods, traversed in every
direction by footpaths, and commanding fine views over the Channel, are
as yet unspoiled. There is great beauty in this outlook upon the narrow
Channel; great beauty alike in the outlook and in the spot whence it is
obtained. It is not found in the hue of the water, which is here
coffee-coloured; but rather in the glimpses across the five-mile-wide
estuary to another land—to Monmouthshire—where the misty levels of
Caldicot are relieved by a gleam on Goldcliff.
On this side the estuary are the long levels beyond Avonmouth, in
Gloucestershire, ending in the sudden rise of cliff at Aust, where the
Old Passage across the dangerous Severn was situated in the old coaching
days, before railways and the Severn Tunnel were thought of.
This boldly projecting hill of Portishead commands the entire panorama
of the shipping that comes to and from the docks at Gloucester and
Avonmouth; and every wind that blows beats against it, so that the scrub
woods are closely knitted and compacted together. It is a place of
piercing cold and howling blasts in winter, and in summer the most
invigorating spot on the Somerset coast. The ivy-clad, storm-tossed
dwarf oaks and gnarled thorns reach down to the low, black, seaweedy
rocks, and here and there are fine houses, with gardens and
conservatories, perched within reach of the spray.
Woodhill Bay, westward of this windy point, is as sheltered as the
heights of Woodhill are exposed. Near by is the imposing new Nautical
School, which has replaced the old _Formidable_ training-ship that for
many years was a familiar sight in the anchorage of King Road.
The rise and fall of the tide at Portishead, ranging from 33 feet at
neaps to 44 feet at spring-tides, is said to be the greatest, not only
in England, but in Europe.
[Illustration: IN PORTISHEAD CHURCH.]
The old village of Portishead is quite distinct from the modern
Portishead just described. A broad straggling street, a mile long,
connects the two. Some very charming old-world houses are clustered
around this original inland Portishead, whose noble pinnacled
church-tower, rising in four stately stages, is one of the finest in
these parts of Somerset. The north aisle has towards its east end a
transverse masonry strainer, built in the middle of the fifteenth
century to prevent the walls collapsing, owing to a subsidence of the
soil. As in the case of the great stone inverted arches inserted to
support the central tower of Wells Cathedral, a century earlier, the
architects employed have attempted to mask the merely utilitarian
addition by decorative treatment. The attempt has here met with a
greater degree of success than was possible at Wells, and although the
broad arch spanning the north aisle has obviously no ecclesiastical use
or purport, save that of shoring up walls that were in danger of
falling, it is not the offensive blot it might, with less careful
treatment, easily have been made.
At Portishead is the terminus of that quaint short railway, some twelve
miles in length with the long many-jointed name, like some lengthy
goods-train—the Weston, Clevedon, and Portishead Light Railway;
familiarly (for life is short and busy) the “W.C. and P.L.R.” This is a
single-track line, of ordinary gauge, originally planned for a
steam-tramway, when the Parliamentary powers for its construction, as
between Weston and Clevedon, were first obtained in 1887. The Act
authorising the extension to Portishead was obtained in 1898.
The first portion, between Weston and Clevedon, was opened December 1st,
1897. In the interval between 1887 and 1897 the Light Railways Act had
been passed, and the methods of construction were modified in
accordance. This was the first line to be opened under the Light
Railways Act, and has therefore the interest attaching to a pioneer. The
W.C. and P.L.R. has, in the few years it has been opened, conferred many
benefits upon a district almost wholly agricultural and hitherto
peculiarly inaccessible.
The coast between Portishead and Clevedon is formed principally by the
long steeply shelving hill-range known for the greater part of its
length as Walton Down, thickly covered with woods. The road on to
Clevedon runs in the valley formed between the landward dip of these
heights and the rise of other hills yet further inland, dominated by the
camp-crested summit of Cadbury Hill. In the pleasant vale thus formed,
runs easily the W.C. and P.L.R. aforesaid.
There are two villages along this road, Weston and Walton, both equipped
with the “Gordano” suffix, lest they should, perhaps, be confounded with
other Westons and Waltons. They are not remarkable villages, and the
church at Walton has been rebuilt; so that the place holds no particular
interest for the stranger. But the church of Weston-in-Gordano, a small
Perpendicular building, retains in its porch an unusual and very
interesting feature: a wooden musicgallery over the doorway, approached
by a short flight of stone steps in the thick side wall of the porch
itself. This gallery appears to have been used by the church choir in
olden times, principally for the singing of the canticle for Palm
Sunday, “Gloria Laus et Honor,” and for Christmas hymns; but it has, for
centuries past, remained unused and is now merely an archæological
curiosity.
As the stranger approaches Clevedon, his attention cannot fail to be
attracted by a singular castle-like group of buildings upon the skyline,
on the right hand. This is the so-called “Walton Castle,” built in the
reign of James the First by the Paulets, then owners of the surrounding
lands, as a hunting-lodge. Castle-building after the mediæval style had
long been extinct, but this lodge was designed, for picturesqueness’
sake, in that old manner. It is a flimsy and fast-decaying sham.
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