STEEP HOLM—FLAT HOLM—UPHILL—BREAN DOWN
IF one might dare so greatly as to make one prominent comparison to the
disadvantage of Brighton and the advantage of Weston, it would be this:
that the seascape off Brighton beach is a mere empty waste of waters.
What shipping there is to be occasionally seen is observed going far
away out in the Channel; there so broad that it might be, for all the
evidence there is to the contrary, the wide ocean itself. Here at
Weston, on the other hand, where the Bristol Channel is so narrow that
the coast of South Wales is easily to be seen, a constant passage of
shipping enlivens the outlook. Here also are those picturesque islets,
Steep Holm and Flat Holm, that have so companionable and cheerful a
presence.
The two Holms that stand forth so picturesquely midway in the Channel
deserve some detailed description, for they not only form prominent
objects in every view from Weston, but have a curious history. Both are
favourite places for excursions by sailing skiffs or motorboats, and if
there be those persons who cannot obtain a sufficiency of sea-bathing on
Weston shores, Flat Holm affords plenty. The name, “Holm” is Norse for
“island,” and remains evidence of the Danish descent upon these coasts
in A.D. 882. The Saxon names for the isles, as given in the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, were “Stepanreolice”; and “Bradanreolice”; _i.e._ “Steep Reel
Island,” and “Broad Reel Island”: the word “reel” being probably an
allusion to their supposedly reel-like shape; Steep Holm a long and
narrow rock, rising abruptly, with steep and jagged limestone cliffs, to
a height of 256 feet above the sea; and Flat Holm presenting a broad,
flat, egg-like form.
It was on Steep Holm that Gildas, the bitter and melancholy monkish
Celtic chronicler of the woes that befel Britain after the death of King
Arthur, wrote his Latin complaint, _Liber Querulus de Excidio
Britanniæ_, telling how the country was overrun by the Saxon hordes in
the fifth and sixth centuries.
In later centuries the Saxons themselves fell upon evil times, and were
overcome by stronger races, or waged inconclusive defensive wars with
other oversea marauders. Thus the isles were the scene of a hostile
descent from Brittany in A.D. 918. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us,
in doleful language, of the miseries of that time; how a numerous fleet,
commanded by Earls Ohtor and Rhoald, pillaged either shore from these
fastnesses, and how finally they were defeated and Earl Rhoald slain, on
the mainland; when “few of them got away, except those alone who there
swam out to the ships. And then they sat down on the island of
Bradanreolice, until such time as they were quite destitute of food; and
many men died of hunger, because they could not obtain any food.” At
length a famished remnant at last dispersed to South Wales and Ireland,
and thus ingloriously faded out of history. Seventy years later, that is
to say A.D. 988, the Danes, ravaging these coasts, made Steep Holm a
base, and in 1066, after the Battle of Hastings, Gytha, mother of the
brave but unfortunate Harold, took refuge here from the Norman.
Steep Holm, one and a half miles round, is not an easy place to
approach, having only two landings. It is the nearest of the two from
Weston, being but three miles offshore, while Flat Holm is five and a
half miles distant. The area of Steep Holm is, roughly, seventy acres.
Geographically it is situated in the parish of Brean. It is the property
of Mr. Kemeys-Tynte, of Cefn Mably, Cardiff, and is partly leased to the
War Office, which maintains six heavy batteries here; the Gordon, Rudder
Rock, Split Rock, Laboratory, Summit, and Tombstone forts, mounted with
modern heavy guns, crowning the cliffs. Here also is a Lloyd’s
signalling station, together with an inn, formerly a residence built by
Mr. Kemeys-Tynte, who at one time resided here.
Steep Holm was formerly known as the home of the single peony, a wild
flower peculiar to the island; but enthusiastic botanists would appear
to have by this time collected it so extensively from the wild, ivy-hung
cliffs that it is not now to be found. But wild birds, of aquatic and
other varieties, still abound. Scanty remains of an obscure
fourteenth-century priory, in the shape of a dilapidated wall with no
architectural features, are left. A ruined inn, roofless, a melancholy
sight to thirsty souls, is left on the island, relic of the illegitimate
enterprise of a fugitive publican and sinner, who, fleeing to this
sanctuary for debtors, outside the ordinary jurisdiction of the petty
courts, imagined himself, wrongly as it appeared, also beyond the reach
of the Inland Revenue.
Flat Holm is geographically and politically in South Wales, is the
property of the Marquess of Bute, and is situated in the parish of St.
Mary, Cardiff. Once a year the vicar and curate of St. Mary’s visit the
island and hold service in the barracks. Four batteries are situated on
the island: the Castle Rock, Farm, Lighthouse and Well batteries. The
tall white lighthouse that shows up so prominently from the shore at
Weston is situated on Flat Holm, and rises to a height of a hundred and
fifty-six feet. A singular phenomenon obscured the light in February
1902, when a shower of sticky whitish-grey mud fell and completely
covered the lantern. Scientific men explained this happening as due to a
portion of a dust-shower driving from the Sahara, and being converted
into mud by the Channel mists. A day’s hard work was necessary before
the glass was properly cleaned.
A light was first shown here in 1737, when it consisted of a brazier of
burning coals; no very effectual beacon on foggy nights. Nor was it
greatly improved by the early years of the nineteenth century, for it
was then still possible for such disasters as that of the _William and
Mary_ to happen. This unfortunate ship was wrecked in 1817, between Flat
Holm and Lavernock Point, which marks the extremity of Brean Down; and
sixty lives were then lost.
The present light, of the occulting variety, has a power of 50,000
candles, and is visible for eighteen miles.
The total population of Flat Holm is twenty. Here is an inn. There are
two fresh-water springs on the island.
There is much charm in the curious islanded and semi-islanded features
of the Weston outlook. Boldly rising from sea-level to the left of the
long front of the town, are the great hunchbacked masses of Brean Down
and Uphill.
Uphill stands romantically at the mouth of the Axe, marked from great
distances by its abrupt hill rising to a hundred feet above the plain,
but looking much loftier. It is made further noticeable by the ruined
church that stands prominently on its barren summit. The seaward side is
scarred by limestone quarries into the likeness of cliffs, at whose feet
the turbid waters of the Axe crawl sluggishly to the sea, between deep,
muddy banks. This was the site of a Roman station and port, whence the
lead and other minerals mined by those strenuous ancients on the Mendip
hills were shipped. From Old Sarum, a distance of fifty-five miles, a
Roman road has been traced, going by Charterhouse-on-Mendip, and ending
here. Antiquaries give the name of the Roman station as _Ad Axium_,
following the lead of Sir Richard Colt Hoare, who himself invented the
name. Still on the hilltop, near the church, may be traced the
earthworks that once enclosed the Roman fort, and many coins of that
period have been found here. Down below is a limestone cavern
accidentally discovered in 1826, when it was found to contain bones of
the hyæna and other animals long extinct in Britain: long centuries
before ever the Romans came.
[Illustration: UPHILL.]
In Domesday Book Uphill is found as “Opopille,” a form which takes the
place-name almost entirely out of the category of names descriptive of
the physical features of the spot, and places it in that of personal
names. For “Uphill” is, in short, not what it seems, and does by no
means refer, in its true form, to the hill. It is, reduced to the name
first given, “Hubba’s Pill”; that is to say, Hubba’s Creek, or harbour.
All creeks, and many small streams on either side of the Bristol
Channel, are “pills.” This particular name was first conferred in A.D.
882, the year when these Channel coasts in general were attacked by
Danish raiders under the leadership of one Hubba, who was slain in
battle with Alfred the Great, either near Appledore, on the North Devon
Coast, at a place still known as “Bloody Corner,” or at Cannington, near
the river Parret, in the neighbourhood of Bridgwater, supposed to be the
“Cynuit” of ancient chronicles where the “heathenmen” were also utterly
defeated by the great King.
Those sea-rovers were naturally attracted by the safe harbours afforded
by such estuaries as these of the Parret and Axe, and laid up their
piratical craft here. Probably Hubba’s flotilla first anchored in the
Axe before moving on to final disaster at Cynuit; and the stay, it might
be supposed, could not have been short, for the place to have been given
his name. Moreover, between Uphill and Bleadon we have the ferry known
at this day as “Hobbs’s Boat,” this name itself hiding, in another
corrupted form, that of the ancient chieftain.
Here, then, is good news for the Hobbses of modern times, writhing
perhaps under the possession of so ungainly and apparently plebeian a
name, and wishing they were Mount joys or Mauleverers, or something of
equally aristocratic sound. Any Hobbs may, it is clear, derive from
Norse berserkers, and who knows but Biggs and Triggs also, and their
like!
Oh! what a chance of high romance
Lies hid in names like Hobbs;
There’s balm therein for all their kin,
And eke for Squibbs and Dobbs.
And Viking blood its daring flood
May pour in veins of Snooks:
Crusaders’ dash with conduct rash
Inflame the frame of Jukes.
_Per contra_, oft a noble name
Is borne by alien loon,
And Rosenberg is “Rossiter,”
Cohen becomes “Colquhoun.”
Around Park Lane, with might and main,
You hear the rumour wag
That “Gordon” may be Guggenheim,
And “Mervyn,” “Mosenbag.”
Romance we trace in commonplace,
And fact that custom shocks.
Thus we come daily face-to-face,
With cunning paradox.
Thus again we have, in the undoubted derivation of the name of Uphill,
another instance of that eternal truth: “Things are not always what they
seem.” Yet who, looking at this most notable hill, rising so suddenly
from the surrounding levels, would doubt, without the evidence of
ancient forms, that the name was and could be nothing else than
descriptive of the peculiarly striking geography of the spot?
The Norman clerks who, travelling from place to place, compiled Domesday
Book from information received on the spot, very often made a singular
hash of the place-names they heard from the Saxon, who spoke what was to
those newcomers a difficult language. “Opopille,” the best those Norman
emissaries could make of “Hubba’s Pill,” sounds very like a sudden and
violent Norman appearance, and the shaking of some unfortunate Saxon
churl, with the rough question put to him. “Vat is zat which you call
zis place here, hein?” and the reply, “Oh, sir! don’t shus-shake me like
that: ’Ubba-pup-pille, sir.”
The ruined church of St. Nicholas has not been in that condition so long
as might be supposed. It was in use until April 5th, 1846. From Norman
times it had stood here, and the religious fervour of many generations
had proved easily equal to this arduous climb to the hilltop, a very
real exercise, alike of piety and of the body. But hilltop churches must
in modern times expect less faithful attendance, and must be resigned to
compete, on terms disadvantageous to themselves, with dissenting chapels
more fortunately situated in the levels. Thus, when, in the first half
of the nineteenth century, the roofs of the old church of Uphill were
discovered to be in a highly dilapidated condition, a long-sought
opportunity was seized to abandon the building, which was otherwise not
in any desperate structural condition. A new church was accordingly
built below, and the old building unroofed and left to the winds of
heaven and the fowls of the air. Even the old font was left here to
unregarded desecration for a number of years. The chancel, it will be
observed, has been re-roofed to serve as a mortuary chapel; for the
churchyard still receives the bodies of parishioners. Stoutly the
ancient walls yet stand, and sharp to this day are the carvings of the
Norman north porch and the grim, uncanny faces of the uncouth gargoyles
that look out over Weston and the bay.
Brean Down, that huge, almost islanded hill—a sort of miniature
Gibraltar—that rises from the Axe marshes and the sand-flats opposite
Uphill, to a height of 321 feet, looks from Weston, and from Uphill
itself a place quite easy to arrive at, but, as sheer matter of fact, no
one can reach it by road under nine miles, by way of Bleadon and Brean
village. In a direct line from Uphill, across the river Axe, Brean Down
is only about a mile and a half away. The readiest method of reaching
this spot is by the ferry across the Axe at the end of Weston sands, a
threepenny passage, generally, at low water, the matter of walking along
planks laid in the mud, and a pull of three or four boat’s lengths. And
then you have the breezy isolation of all Brean Down before you; and you
will have it very much to yourself. Wild birds and wild flowers are the
only habitants of the Down, once you have left the farmhouse on the
flats behind, but the place has been the subject of not a few ambitious
schemes. The summit was fortified in 1867, but suddenly ceased to be so
in July 1900, when the magazine was blown up by a soldier firing his
rifle into it. Whether he did this by accident, as a novel way of
committing suicide, or as an ill-advised joke, does not appear, because
there was nothing left of him from which to seek an explanation.
A grand scheme was formulated in 1864, which a fine harbour was to be
built under the lee of the Down, with piers, quays, and all the usual
appurtenances of a steam-packet station, together with a railway from
the Great Western. The huge sum of £365,000 was expended upon the pier,
but the scheme eventually came to nothing, and the derelict works were
finally destroyed in the storms of December 1872. So those far-distant
merchants, the pre-Roman Phœnicians, who are said to have used this spot
as a commercial port, are not immediately likely to have any successors.
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