BUDE
We read in the memoir of Tennyson that in the year 1848 he felt a
craving to make a lonely sojourn at Bude. "I hear," he said, "that
there are larger waves there than on any other part of the British
coast, and must go thither and be alone with God." So he came, with
the subject of his Idylls simmering in his mind. He found the great
rollers, the grand, open coast, the solitude; these are still there,
to be found of all that seek. There may be some lessening of the
solitude, but only in parts; Bude has not yet become widely popular;
it is the haunt of those who love bracing air and quiet. It grows, but
grows slowly; old friends may return to it without being tortured by
too glaring a change.
The coast must indeed be destitute of harbours that can call Bude a
haven; yet the name Bude Haven stands, as if in deadly irony. This
whole north coast of Cornwall and Devon has little enough of refuge
for seamen in distress; and if they endeavour to make Bude when seas
are running high they are simply courting disaster; it were better to
stay far out, if the cruel Atlantic will let them. Yet a rumour of
history says that Agricola landed here. It is not impossible, though
accredited history tells nothing of such a visit; seas are not always
stormy, even on the shores of North Cornwall--there are days when the
waters from St. Ives to Lundy are peaceful as a child asleep. But such
slumbering is not their characteristic mood; there is generally a
strong ocean swell, and when westerly winds chafe the tide its force
and fury are tremendous. Hawker, who was familiar with every yard of
the district, has a ballad to the purpose:--
"Thus said the rushing raven
Unto his hungry mate:
'Ho! gossip! for Bude Haven;
There be corpses six or eight.
Cawk, cawk! the crew and skipper
Are wallowing in the sea;
So there's a savoury supper
For my old dame and me.'
. . . . . .
'Cawk, cawk!' then said the raven;
'I am fourscore years and ten;
Yet never in Bude Haven
Did I croak for rescued men.--
They will save the captain's girdle,
And shirt, if shirt there be;
But leave his blood to curdle
For my old dame and me.'"
The graveyards, the fields, the farmyards, will bear out this grim
character; there are traces of shipwreck everywhere--memorials of
drowned seamen in the burial-ground, figure-heads of shattered vessels
placed here and there, beams and spars applied to unintended
agricultural uses. One such figure-head is that of the _Bencoolen_, in
the churchyard, reminding us of a vessel wrecked in 1862, when only
six were saved from its crew of thirty-five. The _Bencoolen_ was
trading from Liverpool to Bombay. We may take Hawker's description of
the disaster, recollecting, however, that he wrote in great
excitement, and that he was a little unjust to the men of Bude. The
wreck took place towards the end of October, after a hurricane that
"lasted seven days and nights. On Tuesday at two o'clock afternoon a
hull was seen off Bude wallowing in the billows. All rushed to the
shore. At three she struck on the sand close to the breakwater--not
300 yards from the rocks. Manby's apparatus was brought down--a rocket
fired and a rope carried over to the ship. The mate sprang to clutch
it--missed--and fell into the sea, to be seen no more alive. 'Another
rope!' was the cry. But from the mismanagement of those in charge
there was no other there. They then saw the poor fellows constructing
a raft and launching it. A call for the lifeboat, one of large cost,
provided with all good gear, kept close by. She was run down to the
water. A shout for men--none--a few of the Hovillers, pilotmen, got on
board, but refused to put off--all Bude lining the cliffs and
shore--Well, well--to abbreviate a horror, the raft was tossed over.
About six were washed ashore with life in them, four corpses, and the
rest were carried off to sea dead--26 corpses are somewhere in our
water, and my men are watching for their coming on shore. The County
gives 5s. for finding each corpse, and I give 5s. more. Therefore they
are generally found and brought here to the vicarage, where the
inquest and the attendant events nearly kill me.... Hordes of people
picking up--salvors with carts and horses--and lookers on. It reminded
me of old Holingshed's definition, 'a place called Bedes Haven (Bede,
a grave).' When the masts went over the captain, married a fortnight
before, rushed down into his cabin, drank a bottle of brandy, and was
seen no more. The country rings with cries of shame on the dastards of
Bude." A calmer eyewitness quite absolves the Bude men from all
blame--to render more help had been impossible. The vessel was being
steered skilfully to take the haven, but she was too large for its
mouth. But, unjust or not, we must love Parson Hawker. He tells of his
procedure when a corpse was reported: "I go out into the moonlight
bareheaded, and when I come near I greet the nameless dead with
the sentences 'I am the Resurrection and the Life,' &c.
They lay down their burthen at my feet--I look upon the
dead--tall--stout--well-grown--boots on, elastic, and socks--girded
with a rope round the waist. I give him in charge to the sexton and
his wife to cleanse, to arrange, to clothe the dead. I order a strong
coffin, and the corpse is locked in for the night. I write a letter to
the coroner and deliver it for transit to the police. And here the
misery begins." To every corpse discovered Hawker gave burial in
consecrated ground; it was not many years since the law had forbidden
this. The few graphic words quoted give us an idea of his days spent
on this lonely, pitiless coast--days which he varied by acts of
beneficence to his parishioners, and by the writing of much beautiful
poetry. Close to the mouth of this perilous haven is the low
breakwater, built to connect an outlying mass of rock that was
formerly insular with every tide. Carew (1602) speaks of this rock; he
says: "We meete with Bude, an open sandie bay, in whose mouth riseth a
little hill, by euerie sea-floud made an Iland, and thereon a decayed
chapell: it spareth roade only to such small shipping as bring their
tide with them, and leaveth them drie, when the ebb hath carried away
the salt water." He tells how Arundel of Trerice had a house here
named Efford, now the Bude vicarage; and how this gentleman "builded a
salt-water mill athwart this bay, whose causey serveth, as a verie
convenient bridge, to save the way-farers former trouble, let and
daunger." The present church stands near, built by Sir Thomas Acland
in 1835. The chapel on the islet, decayed even in Carew's time, was
dedicated to St. Michael, its dedication being transferred to the
present church; only a few faint traces of the old building can be
seen. It was this same Sir Thomas Ackland who constructed the
bathing-pool at the end of the breakwater, where it forms a very
pleasant little swimming-bath. But in time of storm, rock and pool and
breakwater are a mass of snowy, quivering foam; even in less
tempestuous times it is fine to see the waves rush seething up the
sides of the substantial little breakwater, with suggestiveness of
what they can do in wilder hours.
It must be confessed that this corner by the haven is the most
interesting portion of Bude, which some visitors have condemned as an
unattractive place. Certainly the growth of lodging-houses has not
added to its charm, as these houses have all the tameness, though
doubtless also the convenience, of modern street-architecture. It is
by the haven and on the banks of the now useless canal that there is
anything of an old-world atmosphere. As compared with places like
Polperro or Boscastle, Bude has a touch of the commonplace, but its
coast is fine, and it is an excellent centre for a district of
supreme attraction. Readers who care to see how it figures in modern
fiction should turn to the _Seaboard Parish_ of the late George
Macdonald, in which Bude is the Kilkhaven of the story. Even here the
novelist had to borrow another church for his setting; the present
Bude Church is by no means that of the romance. The town is now
reaching from the canal banks to the breezy Summerleaze Downs, and
beyond; and of course the golfer is here in all his glory. But if we
go a little more than a mile inland we find all that may be lacking in
Bude at Stratton, which may or may not be named after an old "street"
that passed this way from Devonshire. That street was almost certainly
not Roman, even if the Romans used it. There is a little stream here
called the Strat, which does not help us, for the stream _may_ have
been called after the town. Stratton shares with Stowe in the glorious
memories of Sir Beville Grenville, his wife Grace, and his servant
Anthony Payne; but Bideford has also its claim to long association
with the Grenvilles--it was from Bideford that Sir Richard sailed the
_Revenge_. Stowe, in the parish of Kilkhampton, a few miles north of
Bude, is now a farm, showing very few traces of the Grenville
manor-house, which was one of the finest and most extensive in the
West. There were two houses, an earlier and a later, but both are now
things of the past. At Stratton, however, there is still the Tree Inn,
which seems to have been the business residence of Sir Beville,
whither he came to settle matters with his tenants and followers; and
it was here that his servant, Anthony Payne, was born. Payne, who
stood seven foot four in his stockings, was devoted and loyal to his
heart's core; it was he who, when Sir Beville fell fighting for King
Charles at Lansdown, led the knight's son up the hill at the head of
the gallant, irresistible Cornishmen. These Cornishmen had already
proved their powers much nearer to Stratton. The battlefield known as
Stamford Hill is close by; it was here that Sir Beville and Hopton
defeated the Parliamentary forces under the Earl of Stamford and
Chudleigh. The fight took place in 1643, and was one of those Royalist
victories in the West that for a time made the cause of the King look
very hopeful. The Cornish troops were outnumbered almost by two to
one; they were tired and hungry, and they had the worst of the ground,
for the Roundheads had entrenched themselves; yet they stormed the
hill, routed the Parliament men, and took 1,700 prisoners. An old gun
still lies there to mark the spot, and above is the inscription: "In
this place an army of ye Rebels under ye command of ye Earl of
Stamford received a signal over-throw by ye valour of Sir Bevill
Grenville and ye Cornish Army." If there be ever glory attaching to
battlefields, it may be found here. While the battle was raging Grace
Grenville, the wife of Sir Beville, was waiting in anguish of heart at
Stowe, only to be pacified when her husband himself came home at night
to tell her of the issue. Yet scarce two months had flown when the
sorrowful Payne wrote telling his beloved mistress the sore tidings of
Lansdown, where the Cornishmen followed their slain master's son up
the hill with tears in their eyes. "They did say they would kill a
rebel for every hair of Sir Beville's beard. But I bade them remember
their good master's word when he wiped his sword after Stamford fight;
how he said, when their cry was 'stab and slay,' 'Halt, men; God will
avenge.' I am coming down with the mournfullest burden that ever a
poor servant did bear, to bring the great heart that is cold to
Kilkhampton vault. Oh, my lady, how shall I ever brook your weeping
face?"
Never was a sweeter communionship of husband and wife than that
between Sir Beville and Lady Grace, thus brought to an earthly end; it
gives a lovely touch of domestic affection to annals that are
otherwise stern and bloody enough, with all their glory. There are
some charming letters preserved, that passed between the two; showing
the beautiful simplicity of their natures and the tone of their home
life. "My dearest," wrote the knight from London, "I am exceedingly
glad to hear from you, but doe desire you not to be so passionat for
my absence. I vow you cannot more desire to have me at home than I
desire to be there." And again: "Charge Postlett and Hooper that they
keepe out the Piggs and all other things out of my new nursery, and
the other orchard too. Let them use any means to keepe them safe, for
my trees will all be spoild if they com in, which I would not for a
world." And the lady, addressing "Sweet Mr. Grenvile," adds in a
postscript to her letter: "If you please to bestowe a plaine black
Gownd of any cheape stufe on me I will thank you, and some black
shoes." She died about four years after her husband fell at Lansdown.
These two lie buried at Kilkhampton, but Payne, the loyal servant, is
somewhere within the noble church of Stratton; there is no monument to
say where. The church is of excellent restored Perpendicular, with
fine pinnacled tower. Within are a Norman font, a Jacobean pulpit, and
the black marble tomb of Sir John Arundel (1561), whose former
manor-house at Efford is now Bude Vicarage; there are brasses of the
knight, his wives and their children. The fourteenth-century effigy of
a knight in the north aisle is supposed to be that of Sir Ranulf de
Blanchminster, who is commemorated in one of Hawker's ballads. It is
fitting to think of the poet-parson in this spot; not only are we now
approaching very near his own parish, but his father was Vicar of
Stratton and lies buried in the church's chancel. Hawker was often
asked to preach here, but he long declined, fearing that the
associations would be too overwhelming for him. This proved to be the
case when at last, in his old age, he preached at the church. Suddenly
breaking in his sermon, he explained with faltering voice, "I stand
amid the dust of those near and dear to me." It is little wonder that
his listeners shared his emotion; and some touch of it may still come
over those to whom the records of Hawker are very dear. The number of
such lovers should have been much increased by the adequate biography
that is now at the service of the public, prepared by the son-in-law
of the poet; and Hawker is pre-eminently one of those whom we learn to
love even more through his memoirs than by his writings. For his life
was a life of noble deeds, not only of beautiful words.