THE HINTERLAND
Although Culmstock and its immediate vicinity is somewhat deficient in
what I have ventured to term “live” interests, it must not be inferred
that the neighbourhood has nothing further to show; and among the
objects that deserve to be scheduled as worthy of attention are the
colossal stone quarries at Westleigh, which, whether viewed from the
parallel line of railway or from the opposite height on which stands
Burlescombe Church, present an imposing spectacle. For ages they have
been the principal source of supply for the district, huge quantities of
limestone having been drawn from them for building and agricultural
purposes. Much of it was formerly conveyed to Tiverton in barges towed
along the canal, the terminus of which was fitted with a number of
kilns. These, in my boyhood, I have often seen burning, and regarded
with no little awe, owing to stories that were circulated of persons
having gone to sleep on the margin, fallen over into the glowing
furnace, and been consumed to powder. They are now a picturesque ruin.
Older men can recall a yet earlier time when pack-horses came to
Westleigh from Tiverton and fetched lime in boxes. In front was a man
riding a pony, and the horses followed without compulsion.
The string of pack-horses mentioned in chapter ii. of _Lorna Doone_, as
arriving from Sampford Peverell, may be a reminiscence of this traffic.
Not far from the entrance to the Whiteball tunnel, and in the
neighbourhood of the great limestone quarries, in a pleasant meadow
facing south, are the ruins of Canonsleigh Abbey. To a connoisseur like
Mr F. T. Elworthy, these remains tell their own story, and it is thanks
to that gentleman’s investigations and researches that we are able to
furnish a concise account of the ancient nunnery. A gateway yet stands,
though unhappily disfigured by the desecrating touch of modern man, and
near it is a doorway of red sandstone leading to a staircase doubtless
belonging to the porter. In the upper storey, square-headed
windows--wrought, we may believe, in the fourteenth century--command the
approach in either direction; other features are less easy to determine,
since there are modern walls and a modern roof, which have been added
for the purpose of turning the place into a shed, and incidentally
obscure the older architecture.
Without spending more time here, let us pass to a quadrangular building
of massive construction, and supported at two of its angles by solid
buttresses. Situated at the east end of the convent, this is considered
to have been a great flanking tower communicating, by means of strong
walls (fragments of which yet remain), at the angles opposite to the
buttresses, with the residential portions. The outer or enclosing wall
of the abbey precincts started from the middle of the east wall of the
tower; and under the middle of the tower flowed a stream, which issued
through a covered exit and continued its course outside the boundary
wall, washing its base. The reason for this somewhat peculiar
arrangement was a good one--the supply of the abbey stews; but its
effect was to throw the tower out of line with the walls and the other
buildings.
Inside the walls were two spaces, irregular in shape, and clearly open
courtyards, from one of which a doorway led into the tower. The chief
entrances seem to have been from the two or more floors of the domestic
quarters. On the side next the convent, approached by a massive doorway,
is a narrow chamber, conjectured to have been a “guard-room” for
refractory nuns. Over this, but running the entire length of the
building, and not, like the lower floor, divided by wall and doorway, is
a floor supported by beams.
This tower, with the plaster clinging to its walls--how can we explain
its survival when the rest of the once stately abbey has vanished?
Probably the reason lies partly in its strength and partly in its
plainness and the absence of wrought stone tempting human greed. As has
been well said, “it still stands a picturesque and sturdy relic of an
age of good lime-burners and honest masons.” The wrought stone of one or
two windows in the adjacent walls has been removed, but what indications
remain suggest the close of the twelfth century as that virtuous age.
The Priory of Leigh was founded, Dr Oliver says, in the latter half of
the twelfth century, and Prebendary Hingeston-Randolph opines, before
1173. In its infant days, it seems to have been a dependency of Plympton
Priory--at any rate, in the estimation of the latter monastery, whose
head claimed the right to appoint the superior of Leigh. This demand was
resisted, and in 1219 the then Bishop of Exeter composed the quarrel by
deciding, as a sort of compromise, that the Prior of Plympton might, if
he chose, be present at the election.
In the second half of the thirteenth century there were scandals at
Leigh calling for episcopal cognisance and visitation; and these
disorders proving incurable, Bishop Quivil went the length of ejecting
the prior and canons, and transferring the monastery, with all its
belongings, to a body of canonesses of the same rule of St Augustine.
And Matilda de Tablere became the first Prioress of Leigh. Next year,
Matilda de Clare, Countess of Gloucester and Hertford, presented the
convent with the (then) great sum of six hundred marks, in
acknowledgment of which Bishop Quivil erected the priory into an abbey,
and appointed the countess its abbess.
The patron saints, under the old régime, had been the Blessed Virgin
Mary and St John the Evangelist. St Ethelreda the Virgin was now added,
and practically displaced St Mary, whose name is omitted in later
descriptions. Another change affected the name of the place, “_Mynchen_”
being often substituted for “_Canon_”-leigh. “Mynchen” is the old
English feminine of “monk,” and therefore equivalent to the modern
“nun.”
The indignant canons did not take their extrusion meekly. They appealed
to the archbishop, and, through him, to the king, against the
usurpation of the “little women,” but they appealed in vain.
Sad to relate, the ladies do not appear to have behaved much better than
their predecessors. In 1314 Bishop Stapledon, Quivil’s successor,
addressed a letter to his dear daughters in Christ, telling them in
Norman-French that he had heard of many _deshonestetes_, and calling
particular attention to the fact that there was an entrance into the
cellar where a man brewed _le braes_, and another under the new chamber
of the abbess! These he ordered to be closed by a stone wall before the
following Easter.
The abbey was suppressed in February 1538, and at the end of the same
year the king granted a lease of the site and precincts, with the tithes
of sheaf and the rectories of Oakford and Burlescombe, to Thomas de
Soulemont, of London. The inmates, however, were not turned adrift on
the charity of the cold world. Each received a pension, and this, in the
case of the abbess, Elisabeth Fowell, was considerable. There were
eighteen sisters in all, and some of them, as is proved by their
names--Fortescue, Coplestone, Sydenham, Carew, Pomeroy--were of good
West-country extraction.
In course of time the property passed through various hands, and out of
the spoils of the abbey a certain owner appears to have built a mansion,
which was demolished in 1821.
From Canonsleigh let us away to Dunkeswell, about equidistant from
Culmstock, but in another direction. On the journey we may look again at
the grassy plateau which has Culmstock Beacon at one extremity and the
Wellington Monument, set up in honour of the Iron Duke and his
victories, at the other. This stretch of moorland is yet in its
primitive state, and the Dean and Chapter of Exeter, whose property it
is, exercise zealous supervision over it. Time was when the villagers
depastured their donkeys thereon, but of late years the privilege seems
to have been withdrawn.
The Blackdowns, generally, have been enclosed and turned into farms; and
although one sometimes stumbles on desolate fields with patches of
gorse, mindful of their ancient savagery, this does not affect, to any
appreciable extent, the character of the country. On the whole, a ride
or walk across the long level chines is not specially delightsome, save
indeed for the wholesome air and an occasional glimpse of a fairy-like
_mappa mundi_ spread out at their base. It is only when one descends
into charming little villages, like Hemyock, or Dunkeswell, or
Broadhembury, with their orchards fair and hollyhocks, that complete
satisfaction is attained, and then it _is_ attained.
Amidst so much that is bare (and on this subject we have not said our
last word) the ivied ruins of Dunkeswell Abbey, nearer Hemyock than
Dunkeswell village, and lending its name to a very respectable hamlet,
assuredly deserve remark. Situated in a charmingly secluded spot, they
consist merely of parts of the gatehouse and fragments of walls. The
latter have a blackened appearance as if the destruction of the
buildings had been accelerated by fire; more probably, however, this is
due to the mould of age. In its heyday the abbey boasted an imposing
range of buildings, the outlines of which may still be traced in the
grass, when, in the drought of summer, it withers, more rapidly than
elsewhere, over the foundations.
The history of the abbey is almost as scanty as its remains. It was
founded in 1201 by William Lord Briwere or Bruere, on land that had
previously belonged to William Fitzwilliam, who, having borrowed from
one Amadio, a Jew, was compelled to mortgage his manor of Dunkeswell.
According to one version, Briwere redeemed the land from the Hebrew, but
a charter of King John shows the vendor to have been Henry de la
Pomeroy. There is clearly a tangle. Possibly Pomeroy bought Dunkeswell
from the mortgagee and resold it to Briwere, who, in any case, bestowed
it on the Cistercians of Ford.
Just outside the north wall of the modern church may be seen a stone
coffin, with depressions for the head and heels. It is one of two that
were discovered some thirty years ago covered with plain Purbeck slabs,
and containing skeletons--a man’s and a woman’s; in all likelihood,
those of the powerful Lord Briwere and his good lady. The body of the
founder, it is known, was laid to rest in 1227 in the choir of the abbey
church; and it is only natural to suppose, though there is no evidence
to prove it, that husband and wife shared a common tomb. The bones,
placed together in one of the coffins, were reinterred, while the other
coffin, as I said, has been suffered to remain above-ground, a
gazing-stock for posterity.
The abbey was richly endowed by its founder with lands and tenements,
including the manor of Uffculme and the mill there; and his munificence
was supplemented by liberal gifts from the monks of Ford and others. At
the date of its surrender, February 14, 1539, the annual value of the
property amounted to £300--a large income in those days.
Most of the notices relating to the abbey are drawn either from the
Coroners’ or De Banco Rolls, and, as they are concerned with actions for
debt or trespass, are anything but entertaining. The one exception is
the account or accounts of the storming of Hackpen Manor by John Cogan,
of Uffculme, his son Philip, and others, in the year of grace 1299.
Entering the buildings _vi et armis_, they ejected the monks and lay
brethren, who, after the custom of their order, were carrying on farming
operations there; and beat and wounded two of the abbot’s servants to
such purpose that he was deprived of their services for a year or
longer. Moreover, they were said to have captured three score oxen and a
score of cows, and driven them to Cogan’s manor of Uffculme, whither
also they bore certain _furcæ_, which were there burnt.
To this grave indictment Cogan replied, denying the trespass, and
alleging that the two manors adjoined, and that the abbot desired to
“lift” _furcæ_, etc., the property of Cogan, whereupon he instructed his
men to prevent him, which they did. Now as to those _furcæ_. Writing
aforetime on the subject, I fell into the pardonable error, if error it
be, of supposing that the term, being employed in an agricultural or
pastoral context, denoted “pitchforks.” It is my present
[Illustration: CULMSTOCK BRIDGE (page 13).]
belief that these _furcæ_ were the kind of thing that gave its name to
Forches Corner, just over the Somerset border--in other words, gallows.
The abbot, as lord of Broadhembury, had not only assize of bread and
beer in that manor, but, very certainly, a gallows. The Lady Amicia,
Countess of Devon, had at least one gallows, and considering the extent
of her domains, probably gallows galore; and apparently John Cogan had
one. The Abbot of Dunkeswell, it seems to me, must have had at least
two. If this reading be correct, the undignified squabble was all about
that grisly symbol of mortality and power.
It is possible that a distorted version of this affair yet lingers in
Culmstock tradition. I have heard from a Methuselah of the place that,
according to an old tale, a band of freebooters named Sylvester made an
eyry of Hackpen, whence they descended to the more fertile regions
below, raiding the farms, and carrying off the fleecy spoil to their
hold on the hill.
On the break-up of the monastery the site of the buildings, the home
farm, and other lands were assigned by letters patent to John, Lord
Russell, who showed himself an utter vandal. The lead of the roofs and
the bells, of which there were four in the church tower, were the
special objects of his rapacity; but all was grist that came to his
mill, and, as the result, the fabric was left in a condition in which it
was bound to become “to hastening ills a prey.” As there was never an
abbey at Culmstock, either Canonsleigh or Dunkeswell probably served as
a model for the ruins described in _Perlycross_. The latter is the more
likely, owing to the presence of the “district” church built by Mrs
Simcoe, close to the remains of the ancient abbey.
At the southern end of the Blackdowns is Hembury Fort, an old British
encampment, of triple formation and considerable extent, which commands
perhaps the finest view in the neighbourhood. It is believed by some to
have been also a Roman station--the Moridunum (or Muridunum) of
Antonine. On this point, however, there is considerable doubt, there
being other claimants, of which High Peak on the coast is one, and
Honiton another. The very latest view of the matter is that given by
Canon Raven in _The Antiquary_ of December 1904, in which he inclines to
the opinion that the legion divided the year between a winter at Honiton
and a summer at Hembury, with the advantage of a strong fort to retire
upon in case of Dumnonian risings.
In writing of these distant ages, I have often felt how remote they are
in another sense. Such a term as “Dumnonian,” for instance, though we
know its geographical significance as referring to the inhabitants of
south-west Britain--how little it conveys, and perhaps can be made to
convey, to us of the life that people lived, even if we are sure that
beneath their breasts beat human hearts like our own, with interests and
affections strong and manifold! Much gratitude, therefore, is due to the
late Rev. William Barnes, author of the classic Dorset poems, for his
bold attempt to reconstruct for us the mode of existence and
surroundings of those ancient Britons, of whom all have heard from their
childhood. This also may be poetry, but it is worth perusing only as
such. The picture he describes is that of a little pastoral settlement
occupying a valley, and finding refuge in time of war in a great camp
that crowns a neighbouring hill; and the season is the end of summer,
after the reaping of oats and rye and the mowing of lawns and meadows
round the homesteads.
“The cattle are on the downs, or in the hollows of the hills. Here and
there are wide beds of fern, or breadths of gorse and patches of wild
raspberry, with gleaming sheets of flowers. The swine are roaming in the
woods and shady oak-glades, the nuts are studding the brown-leaved
bushes. On the sunny side of some cluster of trees is the herdsman’s
round wicker-house, with its brown conical roof and blue wreaths of
smoke. In the meadows and basins of the sluggish streams stand clusters
of tall elms waving with the nests of herons; the bittern, coot, and
water-rail are busy among the rushes and flags of the reedy meres. Birds
are ‘charming’ in the wood-girt clearings, wolves and foxes slinking to
their covers, knots of maidens laughing at the water-spring, beating the
white linen or flannel with their washing bats; the children play before
the doors of the round straw-thatched houses of the homestead, the
peaceful abode of the sons of the oaky vale. On the ridges of the downs
rise the sharp cones of the barrows, some glistening in white chalk, or
red, the mould of a new burial, and others green with the grass of long
years.”
Close to Hembury Fort is a house built by Admiral Samuel Graves, whose
best title to fame is that he invented the lifeboat. The fort is in the
parish of Payhembury. The adjacent parish of Broadhembury, a picturesque
village among the hills, could vaunt in ancient days a cell of Cluniac
monks belonging to Montacute Priory, Somerset; and from 1768 to 1775 the
incumbent was none other than Augustus Toplady, author of “Rock of
Ages.” The Grange, a fine old Jacobean manor house, long the residence
of the Drewes, was built in 1610 by an ancestor of theirs, who was
sergeant-at-law to Queen Elizabeth--Edward Drewe. It was modernised
about the middle of the last century.
At one time the Blackdowns must have presented a very different
appearance from that which they do now, and the cause of the
transformation may be found in a measure passed in the thirty-ninth year
of His Majesty King George the Third, up to which time the commons of
Church Staunton, Clayhidon, and Dunkeswell produced little but heath,
fern, dwarf-furze,[5] and very coarse, tough and wiry herbage. At the
beginning of the last century these lands were taken in hand with a view
to cultivation or planting.
The Napoleon of the reclamation was General Simcoe, an officer who,
having greatly distinguished himself in the American War, afterwards
settled down on the Blackdowns. Altogether he enclosed about twelve
thousand acres, and part of his design was to build two or three
farmhouses, assigning to each of them about three hundred acres. The
remaining allotments he portioned out to adjacent farms belonging to
him, or converted into plantations. At Wolford Lodge--the name of his
residence--he carried out some interesting experiments in arboriculture.
One practice adopted at Wolford, and apparently with success, was that
of pruning the young oak, the stem being left clean to a height of
twenty feet, and a proportionate top being allowed. The wounds soon
healed and became covered with bark, and the result is said to have been
a notable increase in the strength and substance of the stock.
General Simcoe paid much attention also to the culture of exotic trees.
The black spruce of Newfoundland, the red spruce of Norway, the Weymouth
pine, pineaster, stone and cluster pine, the American sycamore or
butterwood, the black walnut, red oak, hiccory, sassafras, red bud,
together with many small trees and shrubs of the sorts which, in the
Western hemisphere, compose the undergrowth of the forests--all these
different species were introduced and found to flourish at Dunkeswell.
The soil of Dunkeswell Common consisted chiefly of a brown and black
peaty earth on beds of brown and yellow clay and fox-mould, all resting
ultimately on a deep stratum of chip sand. Wherever the chip sand and
marl emerged, the more retentive stratum of the latter held up the
water, which burst forth into springs or formed “weeping
ground”--“zogs,” as it is termed by the natives, who add that you must
be careful where you plant your foot. Many of the morasses and peaty
margins along the declivities and side-hills abounded with bog-timber.
Out of a bed of peat near Wolford Lodge was raised an oak of this
description, about twenty feet long and squaring thirteen inches at the
butt. The whole of its sap was gone, and, to judge from its appearance,
it might have been a fork of a much larger tree. Before it was taken up,
General Simcoe received and refused an offer of five guineas for it.
Local opinion favours Roughgrey Bottom, Dunkeswell, as the original of
Blackmarsh or the Forbidden Land of _Perlycross_. The situation is
fairly suitable; it was not far from the Blackborough quarries (see
chapter xxxviii.).
There is probably still preserved at Wolford Lodge, which is a
treasure-house of interesting curios, a specimen of the serpent stone,
or _cornu ammonis_, found at the Blackborough quarries, which in their
time have produced a large crop of fossilised shells, and delighted the
geologist with instructive visions of the underworld. The specimen in
question exceeded fourteen inches in diameter.
Once upon a time the Blackdowns were generally known as the Scythestone
Hills, and travellers often digressed from the beaten track in order to
pay a visit to the whetstone pits at Blackborough, which were justly
regarded as a remarkable scene of industry, and, indeed, one of the
sights of the West. These quarries were worked in the following way. A
road or level about three feet wide and about five and a half feet high
was driven from the side of the hill to a distance of three or four
hundred yards. All the loose sandstones within eight or ten yards of
the road were extracted, pillars being left to support the roof of the
mine, until, having served their purpose, these also were gradually
worked out and the whole excavation suffered to fall in. The size of the
stones rarely exceeded that of a horse’s head; and all were more or less
grooved and indented, their appearance suggesting that they had been
subjected to the action of rills or running water. Many years have
elapsed since the pits were in full working order. A little while ago
there were two shafts remaining; to-day there is only one, and, most
probably, by the time this paragraph is in print, the doom of the mines
will be irrevocably sealed, and Finis appended to their history. Dr
Fox’s strange adventure in this weird spot must be in the recollection
of all readers of _Perlycross_ (chapter xii.).
But there is another wonder at Blackborough besides the quarries, and
that is Blackborough House--a great rambling mansion, with windows and
doors innumerable. The building, which is rented by an aged lady and her
daughter, is so utterly inconsequent as to inspire curiosity concerning
its origin in this lonely out-of-the-way place. Well, a good many years
ago, Dr Dickinson, of Uffculme, was in one of the eastern counties when
he fell in with an old admiral who knew the spot, knew its former
owner--the eccentric Lord Egremont--and told him all about it. Long
before, the earl and the admiral were looking over the property, when
the latter chanced to remark that it might be a good thing to erect a
residence there. My lord was impressed with the notion, and the
construction of this gigantic tenement--in its way almost as
extraordinary as Silverton House, now demolished, which stamped him as
an _aedificator_ that neither reckoned nor finished--was his mode of
giving effect to the idea.
In the middle of the last century Blackborough House was a warren of
young students professedly reading with the Rev. William Cookesley
Thompson, most of whom were of Irish nationality. They were a wild set,
and enjoyed nothing so much as sharing in one of the country revels,
which were then so common in Devonshire. On one occasion they made their
way to Kentisbeare Revel, where an old woman had a gingerbread stall.
Evening came on, and to avoid a slight sprinkling of rain, the dame took
refuge in the doorway of the inn. At the same instant a wagonette or
some such vehicle emerged from the adjoining passage, and turning a
sharp corner, overturned the old woman’s stall, whose contents, tilted
into the roadway, were eagerly scrambled for by children. Of course
there were profuse, if not very sincere, apologies, and sympathetic
promises of compensation, but whether they were ever honoured in the
sequel my informant is inclined to query.
One great feature of a revel was wrestling, and this reminds me that at
Kentisbeare there are about fifty acres of common, which were once the
subject of debate between that parish and Broadhembury. After much
bickering it was agreed to settle the point by “fair shoe and stocking,”
with the result that the men of Kentisbeare were victorious, and
acquired firm possession of the disputed territory.
[Illustration: OLD BLUNDELL’S SCHOOL, TIVERTON.]