OARE—MALMSMEAD—THE BADGWORTHY VALLEY—THE “DOONE VALLEY”—GLENTHORNE
AND now, after having fully considered the evidence for and against the
much-debated existence of these old reprobates and masterless men, let
us advance into their country, and into that of the romantic Lorna, who
was, of course, an adopted Doone merely.
[Illustration: OARE CHURCH.]
The way to Oare, branching off to the left, plunges immediately down
into the profound valley of the Oare Water. “Hookway Hill” is the name
of this abominable road, bad enough in its own native vileness, but
rendered worse by the strange humour of the local road-repairing
authority, always at pains to deposit cartloads of stones on it in the
summer, so that there shall be plenty of opportunity for the tourist
traffic to roll this loose material in by the autumn. Thus the literary
pilgrim to the scenes of “Lorna Doone” is made to earn that title,
eloquent as it is of suffering and difficulties encountered, wrestled
with, and overcome. Long is the way and steep and winding, and he who,
cycling, would seek to avoid the prodigious stones by tracking to the
side, must make his account with the yard-long projecting blackberry
brambles, armed with monstrous thorns, that curry-comb the face, clutch
off the cap, or take one by the arm in a confidential grip, like some
old friend who would bid you “wait a bit.” Later on in the year,
possibly, hedgers will be at work with their “riphooks,” slashing off
these terrors of the way, and then woe to the cyclist’s tyres! It is a
nice point, where and when the blackberry bramble is most offensive;
when it is in a position to scarify the traveller’s person, or when,
shorn off and lying in the road, its thorns play havoc with
india-rubber.
[Illustration: NEAR ROBBER’S BRIDGE.]
At the foot of Hookway Hill, the peaty little Oare, or Weir, water,
rushing over a pebbly bed is crossed by Robber’s Bridge, and
thenceforward the road runs level, past Oareford, and then as an
exceedingly narrow lane, to Oare; passing two or three solitary farms
that in these latter days provide for summer visitors whose humour is
for a fortnight or a month in the wilds. One of these is identified,
more or less accurately, with the “Plovers Barrows’ Farm” of the novel.
Presently Oare church appears, on the left hand, almost wholly hidden in
a circle of tall, spindly trees, and neighboured only by one farm. It is
a grey, sad-toned building, this centre of interest in Lorna’s tragedy.
Chiefly in the Perpendicular style, it consists of an embattled western
tower and a nave without aisles. The chancel is a modern addition. All
day and every day in the summer an old man sits in the little north
porch, with the key of the church on a bench beside him, and if, not
seeing the key, you try the door, and, finding it locked, ask him, he
will give it you, and leave you to let yourself in: mutely remaining
there, a living hint for a tip. “Lorna Doone” has done this. “Parish
clerk, he be, an’ used to be saxon,” remarked an old road-mender. “He do
mek’ a dale o’ money,” is the rustic opinion; but what amount may be
represented by “a deal of money” in this estimate does not appear. Also,
“Dree an’ saxpunz a wik,” he gets from the parish: so there is no old
age pension for him; and unless the parish of Oare, in a fit of wild
extravagance, springs another eighteenpence, he will be a loser.
The interior of Oare church is, truth to tell, lamentably uninteresting,
and architecturally deplorable. A something wooden, that does duty for
chancel screen, divides nave from sanctuary, and a few characterless
marble and slate tablets are affixed to the walls: one of them to the
memory of a Nicholas Snow, 1791. A tablet to various members of the
Spurryer family exhibits a curious uncertainty as to how the name should
be spelled. “Spurre” and “Spurry” are the two other versions given. The
name of “Peter Spurryer, Warden, 1717,” appears under one of a couple of
fearsome paintings in the tower, representing Moses and Aaron; the work
of one “Mervine Cooke, Painter.”
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF OARE CHURCH.]
Under a deplorable representation of the triple Prince of Wales’
feathers, placed on the wall near the pulpit, to commemorate a visit of
the Prince of Wales in 1863 will be found the only interesting object in
the church: a rudely carved stone bracket supporting what was once a
piscina. Shaped in the form of a head, the expressionless face is
flanked by two hands. Very few visitors can have any notion of the
meaning of this grotesque object, and most people set it down as a mere
fantasy; but the thing is symbolical, and really typifies the Divine
gift of speech. Other examples are found throughout England: notably in
the churches of Bere Regis, in Dorsetshire, and Gotham,
Nottinghamshire.[8] This carving is by far the oldest thing in Oare
church, and is probably a relic from some earlier building.
Footnote 8:
See _The Manchester and Glasgow Road_, Vol. I., pp. 265-6; and _The
Hardy Country_, p. 143.
From Oare we come directly to Malmsmead where the Badgworthy Water
divides Somerset and Devon, and is spanned by a grey, timeworn,
two-arched bridge.
The scene is sweet and idyllic. Here the bridge, grown thickly with
ferns and moss, and stained red, brown, and orange with lichens, spans
the water in hump-backed fashion, and on the opposite—that is to say,
the Devonshire—shore, the three farmsteads of Malmsmead, Lorna Doone,
and Badgworthy Farms stand side by side in seeming content, sheltered
beneath swelling hills. Day by day in summer a long succession of brakes
and flys bring visitors from Lynton and Lynmouth and set them down here
for an afternoon’s exploration of the Badgworthy Valley, or drive them
on to Oare.
To see one of these brake-drivers take the steep rise of the narrow
bridge of Malmsmead at full speed, and so continue his reckless way
along the narrow lanes, is to realise that death possibly awaits the
cyclist who descends hills and rounds the sharp corners of these lanes
at high speed at such times when these vehicles are about.
For the comfort and refreshment of these “Lorna Doone” pilgrims, the
three farms, that were nothing but humble farmsteads in the days before
Blackmore wrote that popular romance, have now become rustic
restaurants, doing a very thriving and remunerative business, at prices
which, calculated on the basis of their charge of twopence for a small
glass of milk, must be rapidly earning a more than modest competence for
these simple folk. Simple, did I say? Well, that, perhaps, is hardly the
word. Nor is the content that seems to be pictured here, in every
circumstance of running water, moss-grown bridge, and bird-haunted
trees, more than a hollow mockery. Come with me over the bridge, into
Devon, and I shall show you evidence of keen commercial rivalry, in the
notice-board displayed from the hedge of Malmsmead Farm, which says “No
connection with Lorna Doone and Badgworthy Farm.” Now it is a curious
fact that the names of these rival rustic refreshment-providers are the
same—French—but that does not by any means explain the hatred, malice,
and all uncharitableness that are displayed between these neighbours;
for few must be the pilgrims in these parts who acquire such trivial
facts. The stranger coming from the direction of Oare and halting awhile
on the bridge, to admire the beauty of the scene, will soon find himself
invited, by one or other of these people, to patronise his
establishment, and will thereby learn something not to the advantage of
the rival. Hearing the tale of one, you are shocked at the depth of
infamy with which the other is charged, but the people of the
neighbourhood take it all philosophically enough. “I ’xpec’ they do saay
’most as bad o’ he,” is the general remark.
[Illustration: MALMSMEAD.]
On a busy day, as many as twenty-seven waggonettes and other vehicles
may be found at Malmsmead, drawn up empty, awaiting the return of the
“Lorna Doone” sightseers from the Badgworthy Valley and the Doone
Valley, or Oare. Constant repetition of the trip, day by day in the
season, for many years, has rendered the drivers indifferent. Some you
may observe asleep, others playing cards, and all those who are awake
swearing. Meanwhile, the pilgrims in search of the Doone Valley and the
homes of those entirely fabulous people have tailed away along the
footpaths beside the Badgworthy Water, in search of literary landmarks.
Few, however, get as far as the so-called “Doone Valley,” for it is a
very considerable walk; and most people have by this time sadly realised
that Blackmore’s fervid descriptions of places are, as a rule,
remarkable for their shameless exaggeration. In sober truth, the
Badgworthy Valley, that opens out of Malmsmead, forms a much more
striking scene than the supposed stronghold of the Doones. It is a
typical moorland vale, with the Badgworthy Water—or the “Badgery” as
they style it in these parts—pouring down out of the sullen Exmoor
hills, gliding with an oily smoothness over waterslides, foaming over
stickles, or splashing like very miniature Niagaras over great
moss-grown boulders.
The valley is not nowadays so lonely as Blackmoor pictures it: in fact,
the terrible “Badgery Valley,” as described by him, never existed, and
almost the entire thing is a delusion and a snare. Plantations of fir
and larch partly clothe the rounded hills on the left hand, and a
farmhouse (since the publication of “Lorna Doone” named “Lorna’s Bower,”
in big letters that, painted on its whitewashed garden-wall, stare
across the stream) is perched comfortably half-way up the hillside.
The footpath that winds ribbon-like beside the stream comes presently to
Badgworthy Wood, a wood of stunted oaks, whose limbs are bearded with a
grey-green moss that tells sufficiently of the humid atmosphere and the
mists that drift from Exmoor. Parson Jack Russell believed Badgworthy
Wood to have been a Druid’s grave; but we may, perhaps, with safety
decline to accept him as an authority on the subject. Now, had he
expressed an opinion on horse-coping and sharp practice generally in
horsey matters, his views would carry all the weight due to such an
acknowledged authority.
[Illustration: BADGWORTHY VALLEY.]
Here the foxglove grows in the shade, and hart’s-tongue ferns come to an
unusual size. The whortleberry plant, too, flourishes in this moist spot
to a height prodigious for whortleberries. Some of them must run up to
eighteen inches; but the berries have not the sweetness of those that
grow on the dwarfed plants of the sun-scorched, rain-furrowed, and
wind-lashed downs.
Save for the passing of groups of “Lorna Doone” pilgrims, the place is
very solitary. The hills that look down upon the valley here rise
higher, and draw closer in, swooping down in naked round outlines in the
foreground, and filling in the distance with dense blue-black
plantations of larch. The bald outlines of those near at hand are
sharply accented by a wind-swept lone thorn-tree that stands out
curiously against the sky. Below it, stretching down the hillside is an
ancient earthwork, in shape roughly like the letter Y; and down below
this again, the Badgworthy Water foams and slides amidst its boulders.
Quietly walking through the little wood, and then silently along the
grassy paths through the almost breast-high bracken beyond, I started a
fox from his summer afternoon sleep on a sun-warmed boulder; a fine, but
gaunt fellow of crimson hue, and with a magnificent brush. Not one of
your full-fed Midland foxes, plump with a long career of raids on
poultry-runs, but one accustomed to picking up a mere living by sheer
hard work in these wilds. He loped leisurely away into the woods, with
an easy swinging gait that looked deceptively slow. Up along there,
where he disappeared amid the tangled branches, a monstrous square mass
of rock stands half-revealed, remarkably like some ancient stone-built
house; a veritable Mockbeggar Hall, that, on a near approach, is found
to be no habitation of man, but a crannied, cliff-like place, partly
draped with ivy; the home of jackdaws, and tunnelled about the base of
it with the runs of hares and rabbits.
And thus, at length one comes to the terrible “Doone Valley,” or, as it
is better, and correctly known, Lankcombe; a pretty vale branching to
the right, not in the least terrible, you know, and in fact rather dull
and commonplace, after the beauties of Badgworthy. Perhaps the
enthusiastic Lorna Dooneite, if he would keep his enthusiasm, had better
not adventure thus far; for though he may indeed see some problematic
ruins and doubtful foundations of houses, he will assuredly be keenly
disappointed. A commonplace shepherd’s hut looks down upon the scene,
young plantations mantle the quite unremarkable hills, and romance fails
to keep the expected tryst.
But if so be the pilgrim resents being cheated of scenic delights, let
him then retrace his steps, cross Malmsmead Bridge into Devon, and so
proceed a distance of some six miles down the enchanting gorge of the
Lyn, to Lynmouth. No novelist has flung the spells of romance upon that
delightful scenery, which is indeed sufficient in itself to enchant the
stranger, without such extraneous aid. Or, if it be desired to return to
Porlock, let the stranger proceed to Brendon, and then descend the hill
at Combe Park, coming thus again to the ridge of moorland that runs
between Porlock and Lynmouth. Here turning eastward he will come to
Glenthorne, where the wooded cliffs plunge daringly to the sea, and
where the boundary line passes that divides Devon and Somerset. The name
of Glenthorne clearly invites irresponsible and foolish rhyme, and so,
responding to so obvious an invitation, these pages shall conclude with
such:
There was an old man of Glenthorne,
Who played “tootle-oo” on the horn.
He blew night and day
To his neighbours, till they
Said, “Stop it! you giddy old prawn:[9]
Oh! why don’t you place it in pawn?
You tootle all night,
You malicious old sprite.
We wish you had never been born.”
Footnote 9:
“No class” people, these neighbours, obviously.
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INDEX
ABBOT’S LEIGH, 8, 11, 17
“Abode of Love,” 147–150
_Ad Axium_ (Uphill), 92
Agapemone, The, 147–150
Allerford, 246
Anchor Head, 61, 72
Ashley Combe, 256, 259
Avon, River, 2, 4, 6–19, 124
Avonmouth, 3, 17–19, 20
Axe, River, 91–3, 96
BADGWORTHY VALLEY, 280, 281, 291–297
—— Water, 291, 294
“Bath Bricks,” 121–124
Bawdrip, 118–121
Berrow, 102, 111, 113, 116
Blackmore, Richard Doddridge 271–278
Blake, Admiral, 128–132, 215
Bleadon, 71, 73, 93, 98
Blue Anchor, 198, 199, 202–206
Bossington, 249–251, 259
Brean, 89, 98–102, 116
—— Down, 3, 73, 91, 96
Brent Knoll, 103–110
Brentsfield Bridge, 138
Bridgwater, 93, 117, 121, 126–139, 142, 150, 186
Bristol, 2, 6, 18
—— Channel, 2, 3, 18, 56, 87, 92, 124
Brue, River, 111
Burnham, 1, 4, 102, 111, 113–116, 159
Bussex Rhine, 135, 136, 138
CANNINGTON, 93, 139–142, 158
Charlinch, 148
Chedzoy, 135
Cleeve Abbey, 189–198
Clevedon, 1, 13, 22, 23, 24–45, 76, 113, 192
—— Court, 34, 41–44
Clifton, 6–8
—— Suspension Bridge, 3, 8–17
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 26–31, 142, 152–157
Combwich, 158
Congresbury, 49–53
County Gate, 281
Culbone, 260–268, 281
Cynuit, Battle of, 93, 158, 160
DANESBOROUGH, 142
Doones, The, 270–298
“Doone Valley,” 270, 293, 297
Dunball, 117
Dunster, 3, 177, 202, 206–227
EAST BRENT, 106
East Quantoxhead, 176
Easton-in-Gordano (St. George’s), 19
Exford, 281
FLAT HOLM, 73, 87–91
Folk-speech of Somerset, 168–172
GLATT-HUNTING, 174–176
Glenthorne, 2, 3, 259, 282, 298
Gore Point, 256
HALLAM, ARTHUR HENRY, 25, 32–40
Highbridge, 111–113
Hobbs’s Boat, 93
Holnicote, 245, 276
Hookway Hill, 286, 288
Horner, The, 246, 251, 259
Horsey Slime, 117
Hubba Cock, 160
—— Lowe, 160
—— Pill, 92
Huntspill, 116
Hurlstone Point, 256
_In Memoriam_, 32, 34–40
KENN, 45, 49
Kentsford, 184
Kewstoke, 61–66
Kilton, 167
Kilve, 167, 171–176
Kingston Seymour, 45, 49
LANGMOOR RHINE, 135, 138
Lankcombe, 297
Lavernock Point, 91
Lilstock, 167
“Lorna Doone,” 270–298
Luttrell family, 176, 194, 205, 206–208, 212–216, 218–220, 225, 228,
237
Lympsham, 98
Lynch Chapel, 244, 251
MALMSMEAD, 291–294, 297
Minehead, 1, 3, 139, 142, 177, 199, 202, 227
Mohun family, 208–243
Monmouth Rebellion, 132–138
“Mud-horse,” The, 159
NAILSEA, 81
Nether Stowey, 27, 139, 142–154
OARE, 260, 269, 277, 279, 286–293
Oare Water, 286, 288
Oareford, 288
Old Cleeve, 198–202
Orestone Point, 259
Otterhampton, 158, 160
PARRET, RIVER, 4, 93, 103, 117, 122–125, 126, 127, 140, 142, 161
Pawlett, 117, 159
Pill, 4, 17–19
Polden Hills, 117, 135
Porlock, 2, 3, 139, 244, 246, 247–256, 263, 268, 297
—— Weir, 256–261, 276
Portbury, 19
Portishead, 3, 19–23
Prynne, William, 216–218
Puxton, 54
QUANTOCK HILLS, The, 142–145, 154–157, 179
ROADWATER (ROODWATER), The, 192, 197
Robber’s Bridge, 282, 288
Rownham Ferry, 8, 9, 11, 13
ST. AUDRIES (WEST QUANTOXHEAD), 142, 177–179
St. Decuman’s, 179–186
St. George’s (Easton-in-Gordano), 19
St. Thomas’s Head, 56, 61
Sampford Brett, 185
Sand Bay, 55, 61
Sedgemoor (“Sedgemere”), 102–105, 117, 132, 135–137, 277
Selworthy, 244
South Brent, 106–110
Spaxton, 147–150
Steart, 4, 158–160
Steep Holm, 73, 87–90
Stogursey, 162–167
Stoke Pero, 260
Stolford, 161
Swallow Cliff, 55, 61
TENNYSON, LORD, 25, 32–40
UBBALOWE, 160
Uphill, 71, 72, 73, 91–96
WALTON-IN-GORDANO, 23, 30
Washford, 199
Watchet, 1, 154, 179, 186–188
Wembdon, 139
West Huntspill, 116
—— Quantoxhead, 142, 177–179
Weston Bay, 61
Weston, Clevedon, and Portishead Light Railway, 22, 55
Weston-in-Gordano, 23
Weston-super-Mare, 1, 3, 59, 61, 66–78, 113
Westonzoyland, 134, 138
Wick St. Lawrence, 53, 54
Williton, 179
Woodspring (or Worspring) Priory, 55, 56–61, 84
Wordsworth, William, 153–157
Worle, 49, 55, 71, 84–86
—— Hill, 61, 62, 73, 78–84
Worlebury, 78–84
Wyndham (or Windham) family, 182–186, 215
—— Lady Florence, 183–185
YATTON, 46–50, 53, 54
Yenworthy, 281–283
Yeo, River, 46, 47, 53, 54
PRINTED AND BOUND BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
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● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Index entries showing abbreviated page ranges were written out in
full. For example: “206-8” was changed to “206-208.”
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).