The Coast to Teignmouth--Torquay--Brixham
From Sidmouth to Exmouth, although the coast is picturesque and
interesting, there is no harbourage of any account. Those who do not
know the land may, upon looking at the map, jump to the conclusion
that in the estuary of the Otter there is not only a picturesque creek
to be explored, but also good anchorage. But, alas, their hopes as
regards the latter will be disappointed. The mouth of the river is
so silted up that no yacht, and certainly no vessel of any tonnage,
attempts nowadays to enter it, and thus there is no shelter unless the
wind happens to be directly off shore. Hard by, however, a few cables’
length beyond the western “hook” of land which almost locks the mouth
of the river, is Budleigh Salterton, partially concealed from the
sea, and one of the most delightful and picturesque of spots along
the stretch of coast line which lies between the border of Dorset and
Teignmouth. The cottages are many of them isolated from the street by
the tinkling brook, which runs through the village and falls eventually
into the Otter, and are approached by charming rustic bridges. In the
gardens, which are pictures all the year round, flourish hollyhocks,
sunflowers, sweet peas, sweet williams, marigolds of flaming hue,
stocks, nasturtiums, myrtle trees, roses, lavender, and all the sweet
country flowers which seem especially to favour the cottage gardens
of fair Devon. The village is well worth seeing, and, indeed, during
the summer months, the coasting yachtsman is a familiar figure in the
little street, at the upper end of which stands the picturesque church.
The River Otter is navigable in a dinghy, and at the head of the
estuary, about two miles from the sea, and half a mile from the river,
is the interesting little village of Hayes Barton, which has peculiar
interest for those who love the sea, because here Walter Raleigh,
sea-dog, fine gentleman, conqueror of Virginia, and introducer of
tobacco and the potato, was born in 1552, in a two-storied, thatched
house, which nestles at the foot of the hills, and happily still
remains much as it was in Raleigh’s time.
There is little of interest along the coast from Budleigh Salterton
until pretty Dawlish is reached. The wide-mouthed Exe is as
disappointing as the smaller Otter estuary, but we imagine few who do
enter fail to remain long enough (usually bringing up off Star Cross,
two miles up from the sea on the western shore) to visit historic
Powderham Castle and Exeter.
From the Exe onward, especially near Dawlish, the coast is exceedingly
pretty, and it becomes more and more charming as one approaches
Teignmouth, which lies chiefly upon a tongue of low land stretching
from the wooded hills or cliffs to the mouth of the estuary, with
Little Haldon’s crest 800 feet above sea level in the background, and
the other hills sheltering the pretty little town from the north and
north-east very effectively. The harbour of Teignmouth is a fair one,
and might easily be much improved. Indeed, it seems a great pity that
something has not been done to make it rank with that of Torquay,
even though there are undoubted difficulties in the way, which do not
exist with the famous yachting and holiday resort, in the shape of a
shifting bar, and the heavy seas which sweep into the harbour mouth,
more especially during easterly gales. Formerly the Den, which now
affords so inviting an expanse of green lawn to the lately come ashore,
can have been little more than a sand dune, or a sandy and muddy spit
thrusting out southward into the river’s mouth and breaking the inrush
of the sea.
It is probably to the fact that Teignmouth consists of two distinct
parishes--East and West Teignmouth--that the pleasing irregularity
of architecture arises to which many writers have from time to time
referred. The most picturesque portion of the town is that nestling
under the wooded cliffs which gradually rise to the moorland beyond,
and the slopes of Little Haldon.
Teignmouth, which is a typical west-country port, from its low-lying
situation has suffered in the past, and will doubtless suffer in the
future, from inundations. In seasons of great rain the bogs of Dartmoor
and the moorland surrounding Haldon, contribute miniature torrents to
the Teign and the Tame, so that they are swollen, and when meeting the
incoming seas are forced backwards like a bore with disastrous results
for the owners of low-lying property. On such occasions as these the
harbour, enticing as it seems in summer, becomes no place for the
average yachtsman.
But it is, nevertheless, an interesting and picturesque little port,
built beneath the shelter of the hills, and situated right at the mouth
of the estuary of the River Teign, which at low tide is left almost dry
twice a day. In the harbour there is generally a good handful of craft
of a fair tonnage, some of them with bowsprits almost in the windows of
the stores and houses by the waterside, and all of them careening over
at low water in picturesque impotence.
As for Teignmouth folk, they are just Devonians to the heart’s core;
a trifle slow of speech (as much as their forbears were quick of
action), with kindly hearts, and a soft burr at times in their homely
fisherman’s talk, dwelling in a sunny, favoured spot, where life goes
on slowly, if steadily, and where as yet the commerce, such as it is,
knows little of modern rush and competition.
Teignmouth of to-day, with its modern houses and bright, sunny streets,
has little left of antiquity. Probably the most ancient dwelling does
not date back two centuries, and except for the tower of St James’s
Church, West Teignmouth, there is little left of antiquarian interest.
One must not, though, forget the really beautiful reredos (alas!
disfigured by texts in the niches where once stood figures of beautiful
workmanship) with its exquisite moulding of leaf and knot design, and
its small figures of saints so perfectly carved as in most cases to be
easily identifiable.
Not a few ancient writers have accounted for the red colour of the
cliffs throughout this part of the Devon coast by the old tradition
that the Danes in ancient times killed so many of the inhabitants
hereabouts that the blood of the slain dyed the soil for all time.
And Teignmouth is by several stated to have been the landing place
of the Danish pirates on several of their expeditions or raids, but
there would not appear to be any very sound historical basis for this
assertion. It seems beyond question, however, that the marauders did
land somewhere along the Devon coast, and enter the valley of the
Teign, burning and ravaging as they went. In the first year of the
eleventh century they were out on one of their expeditions, and burned
what is described in the chronicles as Teigntun or Tegntun, which
may have been any of the “Teigntons,” either Bishop’s Teignton or
Kingsteignton. It is also not unlikely that the little settlement at
the mouth of the river now known as Teignmouth, but which is not even
mentioned in Domesday (although certainly existing) received a share
of their attention. The Saxon fortress church of St Michael, which,
unhappily, was pulled down and re-erected in the third decade of the
last century, was most probably originally built to place a check upon
the depredations of the invaders, and to defend the town.
Edward the Confessor granted the Manor of Dawlish, till then a Royal
Manor, to Leofric, his chaplain and chancellor, in or about the year
1044, and the boundary to the south-west was Teignmouth. The original
grant, in which St Michael’s Church is mentioned, is preserved amongst
the documents and charters of Exeter Cathedral, and serves, at least
in some measure, to date the old and former church. In time this
same Leofric became Bishop of Crediton, but transferred the seat of
the Bishopric to St Peter’s Church, Exeter, and at his installation,
which was a most imposing ceremonial, both his patron the King and
the Queen were present. With the coming of the Conqueror many changes
ecclesiastical as well as civil took place, but Leofric was permitted
to retain his See and its possessions. And after the siege of Exeter
was a thing of the past, the Conqueror confirmed the gift of Edward the
Confessor to his faithful “Bishop Leofric,” but with this difference,
the manors were granted to him “for the See of Exeter,” and not, as
formerly, for his private use and enjoyment.
Leofric appears to have left all his lands and possessions to the See,
but a subsequent holder, Bishop Bruywere, towards the middle of the
thirteenth century, gave Dawlish and the portion of Teignmouth to the
Cathedral itself to endow the Dean. The Bishops of Exeter appear always
about this period to have reserved the Manor of Bishop’s Teignton for
their personal benefit. They were undoubtedly powerful, and unless
history slanders them “were not so law-abiding as one might have
anticipated,” seeing they were the spiritual leaders of men. Indeed,
there are several mentions of illegal markets being held under the
Bishops’ auspices, which doubtless brought money to their treasuries,
and accounted for their refusals to abandon their privilege.
[Illustration: FISHING FOR MACKEREL OFF EXMOUTH]
Regarding the history of Teignmouth in the Middle Ages it is sufficient
to mention that the town enjoyed some considerable measure of
prosperity, as the different historical documents relating to it prove.
The port was situated at West Teignmouth, and that there was a foreign
trade of some extent seems certain. It was one of several towns which
were called upon to furnish jointly a ship for use in Edward I’s
expedition to Scotland, but in those days enforcement of such orders
must have been attended with some difficulty, if one may judge from the
way in which they were successfully set at defiance. There then existed
extensive salt works or salterns, which originally were features of
many low-lying strips of sand dunes and land along the south coast,
when salt was a far more valuable article than it is nowadays.
An interesting sidelight upon the ecclesiastical manners of those
far-off times is thrown by one of the ancient registers of the Bishops
of Exeter, which tells in language comparing favourably with the
“vivid at all costs” style of “our own correspondents” of the present
day, how a feud raged between one John Eustace, the incumbent of West
Teignmouth Church and his parishioners. We are told that so hot grew
the dispute, and so high ran local feeling, that a large number of the
parishioners set upon their priest even with “diabolical fury,” and
that in retaliation John Eustace (who truly must have carried a hot
heart beneath his priest’s cassock) so far forgot that he should preach
and practice peace and not the sword, that he hired some one unknown to
stab his bitterest opponent, one Henry Baker, with a knife.
As often happened in those far-off days, the merits of the case
seem to have been rather overlooked, and judgement, as was also not
infrequently the case, was given of a most comprehensive kind. The
priest was removed from his office, and the recalcitrant parishioners
were promptly excommunicated. That this local disturbance of long ago
was of a serious and somewhat widespread character is to be gathered
from the fact that the populace of Teignmouth almost to a man (to say
nothing of the women, who sided mostly with the priest) took sides, and
eight years after the excommunication and suspension the feud was still
burning. So much so, indeed, that the attention of the King himself
was called to the fact. The then rector of Bishop’s Teignton (who had
much to do with the affairs of West Teignmouth Church), wise man that
he was, did not seek to settle the matter, but when the parishioners
showed signs of once more getting out of hand, he promptly applied
for a licence to enable him to leave his cure and travel abroad! His
excuse was that he required the permission to enable him to proceed
on a pilgrimage to Rome, and for study. Thus did Sir William Kaignes
or Keynes exercise that discretion which a cynic has declared is the
better part of valour, leaving the Bishop of Exeter himself to settle
the points in dispute, and bring the parishioners to a sense of their
contumacy and wrongdoing. Eight years or more after the feud broke out
the Bishop received the submission of the parish; every man, woman and
child in which it would seem, from a contemporary account, had not only
actually or tacitly to acknowledge their wrongdoing and ask pardon, but
also do penance to obtain it.
One of the most stirring incidents of Teignmouth history occurred in
1340, about Lammastide, when a body of French--called in those times
pirates, rightly or wrongly, as one happened to regard retaliatory
measures of the foe across the water--entered the harbour and sailing
up the river set fire to the town and sacked it, besides “barbarously
putting to the sword sundry of its inhabitants.” But whatever may have
been the extent of the damage effected, the place made a satisfactory
recovery in a very short time, for seven years afterwards we find the
port and inhabitants contributing seven ships and 120 seamen towards
the fleet that Edward III was gathering together for the siege of
Calais. It is not presuming too much to imagine that Teignmouth men,
like most of their kind along fair Devon’s coast, set out with some
alacrity to avenge the deeds of the “pirates” of seven years before,
and saw the tree-crowned Ness which marks the western side of the
harbour entrance dip beneath the blue water astern, with mingled
feelings of regret and exultation.
So in order that the town might not in the future fall an entirely
unresisting victim to “pirates” and marauders, bulwarks of timber and
rubble were thrown up, the proper maintenance of which devolved upon
the two parishes jointly.
The life of Teignmouth during the next century was probably much
as that of other small coast towns of Devon, where the harbour,
however suitable for trade and commercial growth, had unfortunately
insufficient depth of water to permit of the entrance of vessels
of any very considerable tonnage. Indeed, it is probably owing to
this deficiency--and to the fact that in former times there were few
means of adequately deepening or keeping harbours and harbour mouths
clear, that Teignmouth, admirably situated as it is as a port and for
commerce, has never risen to any great commercial eminence.
In the past its chief industries were fishing, fish curing, and salt
making; and in pursuit of these it took its uneventful course. Leland
casts an informing eye over the place during the marvellous journey
which he undertook, and crystallized in his _Itinerary_, reaching
Teignmouth sometime during the thirties of the sixteenth century. Of
the place he says, referring to the ground upon which East Teignmouth
is built and the “Den” stands, “The Est-Point of the Haven is callid
the Poles ... a low sandy Ground other cast out by the Spring of Sands
out of the Teign or els throuen up from the Shores by rage of Wynd and
Water, and thys Sand occupieth now a greate Quantitie of Ground bytwene
Teignmouth Towne, where the Grounde mounteth and Teignmouth Haven.”
Leland goes on to say that “ther be two Tounes at this Point of the
Haven by name of Teignmouth, one hard joining the other;” and also
states that at the date he writes the houses at West Teignmouth on “the
peace of Sanddy Ground afore spoken of ther caullid the Dene” had not
been built many years. Leland’s name the _Dene_ (meaning a dune or
bank) being a much more comprehensible one than its present form _Den_.
The stories of the destruction of the towns “by the Danes, and of
late Tymes by the Frenchmen” were doubtless told to the indefatigable
traveller and diarist. But, as is so often the case with him, Leland is
not entirely accurate, and is at fault in referring to East Teignmouth
as Teignmouth Regis.
During the years immediately succeeding his visit the place seems to
have declined, rather slowly, but nevertheless surely, and a century
or so later we find a well-known writer describing it as having been
formerly considerably more resorted to and held in higher esteem.
This same authority appears to have accepted the tradition of the
Danish landing and wholesale slaughter of the unfortunate inhabitants
in its entirety, for he ascribes the colour of the cliffs--which
forms so striking a feature of local scenery--to the bloodshed which
traditionally took place. He writes in pursuance of this theory that
it is in memory of the Danes’ atrocious massacre that the cliff is so
“exceedingly red”; and adds that at the memory of the crimes the place
“doth seem thereat again full fresh to bleed.”
The inhabitants at the time of this later historian would seem to have
become slothful as their town declined. Perhaps the one circumstance
may be traced to the other. At any rate we are told that at the
time the country was in the throes of Civil War, and Royalists and
Roundheads were marching and countermarching around Exeter, the
inhabitants discontinued their practice of keeping the bulwarks
and defences of the harbour and town in repair, which led to the
promulgation of an order from Exeter calling upon them to fulfil their
duty.
Then for fully a century history is silent as to the progress or doings
of the town and its people. The veil which so often at that time
obscured the history of the smaller and more secluded places on the
south and west coasts, seems to have also enwrapped Teignmouth. And it
was not lifted until the last decade of the seventeenth century, when
the town again became the theatre of stirring scenes.
In those days the ports and sea-coast towns of the West were most of
them not only undefended in the sense of not possessing fortifications,
but were “out of touch” with the rest of the world to such an extent
that they presented great temptations for attack to England’s enemies
who were neither weak nor few. In a word, for a hostile force to effect
a landing seemed to be the easiest thing in the world. Both the Duke
of Monmouth in 1685, and William of Orange, after the Revolution,
three years later, had done this with ease. It is, therefore, perhaps
little to be wondered at that the banished King James II and his
adherents in England should, without much difficulty, have persuaded
Louis XIV to attempt a landing on behalf of the Stuart cause, upon the
almost defenceless Devon coast. Louis had no love for England or for
Protestant William, and also probably was anxious to unburden himself
of James II, who promised to become a perpetual pensioner and trouble
so long as he was in France, or rather, one might perhaps say, out of
England. So when James II, relying upon the representations of his
adherents in England, succeeded in persuading the French King that
the English people were longing for his return, and would give him an
enthusiastic welcome, Louis prepared a fleet for invasion in support of
the Jacobite cause. In pursuance of this design Admiral de Tourville
set sail, and made his way with his squadron up Channel, to fight the
combined Dutch and English fleets.
Owing no doubt to the fact that the affairs of this country were still
in an unsettled state, William and Mary of Orange not being as yet
firmly established on the Throne, and a large number of the people
still favouring the Stuarts, the English fleet detached itself and
allowed the Dutch single-handed to engage De Tourville, who succeeded
in crushing them. The result of this action, fought on June 30, 1690,
was to place the south, and especially the badly defended south-west
coast, at the mercy of the French admiral and his fleet, and to bring
well within the bounds of possibility the invasion that his expedition
was intended to accomplish. But the spirit of the West Country was
aroused, and the fighting blood of the old sea-dogs of Devon asserted
itself. So when De Tourville and his fleet of warships and galleys,
which had been brought up from the Mediterranean for the purpose of the
projected invasion, appeared off the coast, something had already been
done towards defence by the summoning of the militia and country folk.
One can imagine that the appearance of the lumbering galleys--and the
tales that were rife of the life of the slaves who manned them--had
not a little to do with the zeal with which the people of the West set
about to put their defences in order.
De Tourville appears to have wasted his opportunities, for a
contemporary document, which is of great value and interest as being
probably the work of an eyewitness, tells us “The French fleet having
been on our coasts for several days, sometimes coasting about, other
times at anchor in Torbay, has had this good effect, as to put us in a
very good posture of defence.” Then follows what is probably the best
account extant of the part Teignmouth played in the disturbing and
stirring events which ensued.
“On Saturday morning, July 26 (old style), about daybreak, the whole
fleet, being with their galleys, about one hundred and twenty sail,
weighed anchor and stood in for a small fishery village called
Teignmouth.”
Macaulay writes concerning the event, “The beacon of the ridge above
Teignmouth was kindled, Hey-tor and Cawsand made answer, and soon all
the hill-tops of the West were on fire. Messengers were riding all
night from deputy-lieutenant to deputy-lieutenant, and early next
morning, without chief, without summons, five hundred gentlemen and
yeomen, armed and mounted, had assembled on the summit of Haldon Hill.”
Quoting again from the account to which we have already referred, we
find, “about five o’clock the galleys drew very near the shore of the
said place, their men of war at the same time played their cannon on
the shore for the space of about an hour or an hour and a half, which
scared the poor inhabitants from their cottages, they first taking with
them what of any value so short a warning and great plight would permit
them.”
It is, of course, doubtful if the French admiral knew of the “raising
of the countryside round about,” but whether he did or did not, we
are told “The inhabitants being fled, the invaders immediately landed
their men in the long boat(s) to the number of one thousand foot, who
being no sooner come in shoar but they presently set the town on fire;
which was soon done, there being never a house in the place but was
thatched except the parson’s, which was covered with Cornish slate.
They likewise burnt two or three fishermen’s boats in the river, and
the beacon, and plundered some other straggling houses.”
One can imagine how the wretched inhabitants watched the destruction
of their homes and property from the neighbouring heights, or even
so close by as the Ness which, being well-wooded, afforded cover; or
perhaps, waited in the sheltering rocks and crannies on distant Haldon,
in hopes that after all the enemy might not have effected a landing,
only for these hopes at last to be cruelly dissipated by the column
of smoke which floated upwards and across from the burning village,
telling its tale of destruction.
Not content with the burning and sacking of Teignmouth, bands of the
marauders made their way across the river to Shaldon and St Nicholas,
and to villages up the river, which in each case they plundered and
burned. Except for the communion plate and other sacred articles found
in the churches (which the invaders thoroughly ransacked) there could
have been, one would imagine, little of value to repay their search
in the villages they visited. But from St Michael’s they undoubtedly
carried off, amongst other things, the famous herrings made of gold,
and presented as votive offerings centuries before by the fishermen of
the parish. Not only was everything of value stolen from the churches,
but the books were destroyed, the pulpits defaced, or pulled down and
burned in bonfires, together with the wooden communion tables.
Then, as has been recorded, “Upon the news of this villainous attempt
and bold invasion, the militia of the county, horse and foot,
immediately made a body, and marched after the invaders, showing a
great deal of zeal and resolution.... The invaders having intelligence
by their scouts of the posture of our forces, and that we were moving
towards them, they immediately prepared to return to their ships....”
But before doing this they took the precaution to send “seven or eight
small pieces of cannon just by the shoar side to play on our horse in
case we came too quick upon them.”
The destruction wrought was estimated at no less than £11,000, a sum
which in those days represented several times its present-day value. So
serious, indeed, was the position of the poor fisherfolk of Teignmouth
rendered, owing to De Tourville’s visit, that King William and Queen
Mary themselves made an appeal to the country on their behalf. The
Royal letter which was issued and read in upwards of ten thousand
parish churches, and elsewhere throughout the country, had the result
of so arousing the sympathies of those who listened to the recital of
the Teignmouth folk’s sad plight, that the money to rebuild the place
was soon forthcoming. In the name “French Street,” the landing of De
Tourville’s force is commemorated.
How long the town was a-building there appears to be no record; but it
is certain that the new town much surpassed the old in convenience,
size and healthiness. For many years, naturally enough, fear of the
French was very prevalent, and as a protection a battery was formed on
the shore at the end of the Den.
Regarding the lasting effect upon the country at large of what, at
so long a distance of time, may be looked upon by some as merely the
destruction of a small fishing village, and not as an event of any
great importance, Macaulay says:
“Hitherto the Jacobites had tried to persuade the nation that the
French would come as friends and deliverers; would observe strict
discipline, would respect temples, and the ceremonies of the
established religion. The short visit of Tourville to our coasts had
shown how little reason there was to expect such moderation from the
soldiers of Louis. They had been on our island only a few hours and
occupied only a few acres, but within a few hours and a few acres had
been exhibited in miniature the destruction of the Palatinate.”
The terror of a French invasion lasted for many years; it was, indeed,
revived, and it became again prevalent at the time of the long war with
Napoleon. But for more than a hundred years the history of Teignmouth
was uneventful and even tranquil, save for the doings of the smugglers
who gained some prominence in the latter half of the eighteenth
century, and of whom there were many famous desperadoes along the Devon
and Cornish coasts.
Then came another scare of possible French invasion at the time when,
indeed, the whole of the south coast from the Foreland to Land’s End
was agitated by the spectre of “Boney.” And at Teignmouth, “though
the place was now provided with a battery as a wall of defence,” on
at least one occasion during the year 1797, the inhabitants suddenly
forsook their homes and once more fled in confusion and affright to
the recesses of Little Haldon. Some, we are told euphemistically, “in a
state bordering upon that in which they entered the world. By the which
at least one unfortunate maid died of a cold so contracted.” The origin
of the scare on this occasion, when it was confidently asserted that
the French had landed near Torquay, and were burning and ravaging the
countryside, was the accidental ignition of a stack of furze on Stoke
Common over the Ness. But no invaders came to disturb the peace of the
affrighted town, and after a few hours of discomfort and dismay, the
crestfallen inhabitants slowly by twos and threes returned to their
homes.
Teignmouth, about the year of Waterloo had acquired something of a
reputation as a watering place or seaside resort and boasted not
only the usual Public Assembly rooms, in which Georgian belles and
Georgian beaux were wont to disport themselves at routs and balls,
and (if gossip may be credited) drink dishes of tea, and game for
high stakes; but also a theatre, library, and other social places of
resort. A quaint but vivid picture of the life of the town at this
period is obtained in the _Guide to Teignmouth_, by Risdon, published
in 1817 in three slender volumes, one of which refers to Teignmouth and
neighbourhood. There would appear to have been the usual attractions
offered by seaside resorts in these times, for we have a mention of a
good coach service between the town and Exeter, with carriers’ wagons
for those who could not afford coach fares. And there were Sedan chairs
for hire, Bath chairs, and donkeys for the venturesome maidens; with
whom, we are told, such a means of locomotion was a passion. The more
staid and steady matrons were accommodated with horses and pillions,
and many a gay and humoursome scene was enacted, we may warrant, upon
the “fine sandy beach” of which much is made, or along the shore where
no “obstruction was permitted which could interfere with the pleasure
and progression of riders.” In several old prints published early in
the last century, one catches glimpses of the fashions, foibles, and
pastimes of “young ladies and gentlemen” who, as regards attire and
carriage, might have stepped out of the pages of _Persuasion_ or _Pride
and Prejudice_.
During the first three decades of the nineteenth century, Teignmouth
appears to have suffered a gradual decline, from which it did not
recover until the railway came in 1846, gradually making the town what
it is to-day--a modern, picturesque, holiday resort, pleasant alike to
landsmen and yachtsmen.
To-day the trade of Teignmouth is considerable, as is indicated by the
constant presence in harbour of a number of craft of medium tonnage,
and groups of barges with picturesque square-cut, red-brown sails. The
sea-going commerce of the place is nowadays chiefly the export of china
clay, brought down from the pits at Newton Abbot in the barges, but
there is also some little trade in wood pulp, timber from Norway, flour
and oil.
There is a tale with the true flavour of the supernatural about it
relating to the jutting crag on Hole Head, to the north of the town,
which bears some remote resemblance to a “Parson” after which it is
named, and the “Clerk,” which stands far out from the shore. Once, so
the tale goes, a priest of Dawlish was riding homeward with his clerk
from Teignmouth, where they had been to collect tithes. They took their
way by the inland road with its many lanes, and after wandering about
came to a standstill, having lost their way.
The night was both wet and stormy, and after a pause they struggled on
in the darkness, knowing scarcely at all where they were going.
At length they came to a house which was unfamiliar to them both, but
from the windows of which bright lights were streaming, as they seemed
to the lost ones, of welcome, whilst from within came the sounds of
laughter, merry-making, and music. Happy at their discovery of shelter,
the priest and his clerk paused, and almost immediately one of the
windows was thrown open, and they were invited to come in. Nothing loth
they tethered their steeds, and putting off their riding cloaks entered
the house, and were soon enjoying the warmth and gaiety.
The party grew more merry and boisterous each moment, and soon the
priest, forgetting his sacred calling, having drunk somewhat deeply,
burst into ribald songs; in which the clerk, following his master’s
lead, joined. At length, however, they realized that it was getting
late, and that they ought once more to be riding homeward; and so with
heads none too clear from the liquor they had drunk, and legs none too
firm from the same cause, they bid adieu to their host, and sought
their horses.
Once outside the priest declared that he should never find the way, and
that he must have a guide, “even though it were none better than the
devil himself.”
On hearing this remark, his host, who had invited him to enter the
house, volunteered to put him and his companions in the right way for
Dawlish. He then guided the travellers to the end of the road, and told
them to keep straight on. However, they had not gone very far ere they
found themselves riding through water, which kept rising and rising,
although but a few minutes previously they had believed themselves not
only on dry ground, but a safe distance from the sea. They turned, as
they thought, inland, and made every effort to escape the water, but
the more they urged on their horses the higher the water rose. In their
fright they called loudly for their guide, who had disappeared, but
their appeals for help called forth loud and mocking laughter from a
little distance. Then came a flash of vivid lightning, and their late
guide appeared to them in his true guise--the devil, tail and all! He
jeered and mocked them, and pointed to the sea into which they had
ridden, and from which they could not now escape.
What became of the two unfortunate wayfarers the story does not
actually say, but it tells us that their horses were found by a
countryman going to work early next morning wandering riderless along
the sands; whilst at Hole Head appeared the two rocks now known as “The
Parson and Clerk.”
There is also a legend that the beach near the Head is haunted (as is
that of Woollacombe in North Devon) by the spectre of an old gentleman,
who for his sins is set the task of making ropes out of sand until
Judgement Day.
If staying any time in the harbour one can do far worse than take the
dinghy and pull up the river for a few hours’ fishing. The salmon
fishery of the Teign (which owes its origin to the late Frank Buckland)
is good, and during the period from March to September provides
interest for many visitors to the town, who watch the operations of the
fishermen from Monday morning till Friday at sunset, as they cast and
draw their seines. Quite big fish are sometimes taken, and a 56-pounder
is by no means unknown. The fish are often brought ashore, laid on the
beach, and sold by auction; and when a good haul has been made, we have
known them bought sometimes as cheaply as sevenpence or eightpence a
pound.
The upper river is lovely. The low cliffs which skirt it for some
distance are edged with foliage, and are beautiful in the spring with
apple-trees in full bloom and wild cherry blossom in thick, snowy-white
clusters, affording a striking contrast in rural beauty with the busy
harbour and quays a few miles away below the bridge.
Alongside Teignmouth quay there are often quite big steamers noisily
unloading or taking in cargo; colliers, grimy and red with rust, busily
discharging their useful though unpicturesque freight; whilst the
clay barges are being cleared of their lumps which are picked up on
spiked sticks by the men who are locally known as “lumpers,” and thus
transferred from the barge to the quay or the hold of another vessel.
At high tide there is generally some craft or other--a Norwegian timber
brig, a trading schooner, or a coasting tramp steamer coming in or
going out of harbour, which gives animation and an interest to the
scene.
But yachtsmen, even of the least fashionable type, do not remain long
at Teignmouth, but make for the westward to Torquay. The coast is very
pretty, and one passes in turn Labrador, then the Minnicombe Bell Rock,
Watcombe, and then Petit Tor, with jagged crest and sides looking out
over the sea. The coast then becomes rocky off shore, which it has not
been for many a mile, and to pass along it to Torquay either in the
early morning, or towards the late afternoon, when the shadows of the
cliff fall in charming colour upon the surface of the water, and the
luxuriant vegetation which crowns the cliffs and headlands is seen at
its best is to enjoy an experience of loveliness and even glamour not
easily forgotten. The memory of the beauty of the scene remains as we
once left Teignmouth at a little after sunrise on a July morning, when
the shore was yet wreathed in mist, and the light soft and pearly-grey.
As the sun climbed out of the sea eastward towards Portland, the mist
rolled away, and the red cliffs with their crown of pleasant green
trees and luxuriant vegetation gradually disclosed themselves. The
reflection of all this beauty seemed literally to be falling into the
calm, deep green sea, whose surface was only here and there disturbed
by ripples where the young morning breeze flecked it.
Then appeared Babbacombe Downs, on which the cowslips grow within sound
of the sea, and nowadays there are golf links and smart villas, and
Oddicombe, with its white pebble beach forming so vivid a contrast to
the still red cliffs in the bright light of early morning. Then ever
delightful Anstey’s Cove, excelling in beauty even Babbacombe, and both
of these with deep water close in shore. Through the passage between
Hope’s Nose and the Orestone, where there is also deep water, one
glides at once into Torbay; beautiful almost beyond description, with
its three and a half miles of shining sea lying between picturesque
Daddy’s Hole, and sheer upstanding Barry Head, which forms the southern
horn of the bay, flat-topped as Table Mountain itself.
Torquay is so charmingly situated, and presents, as one passes London
Bridge, and enters the harbour, such a beautiful picture of tree-clad
heights and foliage amid which the picturesque-looking villas are
embosomed, that it is little wonder the town has been popular with both
holiday folk and yachtsmen for many years, and has been often likened
to towns on the Italian Riviera, and by the great Napoleon himself to
Porto Ferrajo, Elba.
The harbour is a good one, and of considerable size, and in summer time
there are many white-winged craft within its basin which can lie snug
enough in any save strong easterly or southerly gales, when a nasty sea
outside makes an uncomfortable swell within.
From a beautiful watercolour drawing by David Cox (reproduced as a
print at the end of the eighteenth century) one is able to see that
even then the wooded heights above Meadfoot Sands and the present
harbour and the lovely coves along that favoured shore from Daddy’s
Hole to Hope’s Nose were being gradually dotted over with houses and
villas set picturesquely amid the green.
It is claimed for Torquay that it is not only singularly beautiful
(which is best and most speedily realized by those who approach it from
the sea) but that it is favoured by so equable a climate that it is
difficult to say positively when the town is seen at its best. Those,
indeed, who, like ourselves, have visited it at various seasons of the
year, cannot easily decide which is the most pleasant and beautiful.
Whether in winter when a climate resembling that of Mentone for
mildness ensures astonishing vegetation, and flowers almost unknown
at that season at other similar towns on the south coast; in spring,
when the hills take on the tender green of oaks, beeches, and birches
to supplement by their beauty the “evergreens” which have done so much
to make the scene charming throughout the winter months, and when
spring flowers gem the hillsides, meadows and lanes with blossom; in
summer when the sky is deep blue, and the waters of Torbay scarcely
less so, and the red-sailed trawlers out of Brixham show up blots of
colour in contrast to the white-winged yachts which come into the bay
from the east, and south, and west, “things instinct with life upon a
painted sea,” and ashore all is sunlight and brightness; or in autumn
when the sea takes on more sombre hues, but the hillsides, bright
with the exquisite dying tints which blaze forth from the branches of
oaks, beeches, chestnuts, sycamores, copper beeches, and elms, and the
creepers on the houses, supply a yet more vivid note of crimson, gold,
and brown. It was doubtless of this wealth of beauty in each succeeding
season that caused a great writer to say, “of all places on the coast
of England I would, if condemned to pass my days in one spot, choose
Torquay.”
From the deck of a yacht in harbour many, though truly not all, of its
attractions are speedily obvious, and a short time ashore reveals most
of the rest. On all hands, when once the commercial part of the town is
left behind, one is charmed by shady roads, pretty gardens and equally
delightful vistas (not alone from Chapel Hill and other well-known
vantage points) which appear on almost every hand.
Anciently, Torquay formed one of the most important manors into which
in those days the district round about was divided. The manor was
known as that of Tor or Torre, and the earliest direct reference to
it is found in Domesday. At the time of the Conquest it was bestowed
by William of Normandy upon one Richard de Brewire or Brewer, whose
descendant, William, Lord Brewer, in 1195, bestowed a portion of the
manor on the Church, and founded the monastery afterwards to become
famous, and known as Tor Abbey, the ruins of which, set amid fine
avenues of elms, chestnut, and limes, look out over the green and
gently sloping fields once forming the Abbey grounds, and lead down to
the seashore. The Manor ultimately passed into the possession of the
Mohuns by the marriage of Lord Brewer’s daughter Alicia with Lord Mohun.
The Abbey, on account of other grants of land made to it by pious
benefactors, as the years sped by ultimately became the wealthiest of
all the Premonstratensian monasteries in England, which Order had been
founded in Picardy in 1120 by Norbert (afterwards canonized by Gregory
XIII in 1584).
It was not only--as were most of the religious foundations in the
Middle Ages--the centre of the ecclesiastical, but also of the social
and industrial life of the district round about. The chief rules of
the Order related to the leading of a pure and contemplative life,
and provided that the monks should themselves labour for the common
weal. This Order of Premonstratensians, also known as the Norbertines,
was noted for its industry, and for the fact that the brethren were
skilful cultivators of the soil. Those at Tor Abbey were evidently no
exception to the rule, as their wide and perfectly cultivated lands of
the past bore witness; they are also generally supposed to have been
the founders and promoters of the woollen industry, for which the West
of England was afterwards destined to become famous. In addition to the
many duties of their Order they undertook the teaching of the children,
and were always generous patrons of art and learning. Some of the most
saintly and wise of men in the Middle Ages in England sprang from the
Premonstratensians, who were noted for their boundless charity and good
works.
It was from the civil community which gathered round the Abbey, and
the people who built their homes within the shadow of its patronage
and protection that the beginnings of what is now known as Torquay
undoubtedly sprang. These spread first along the shore to the
north-eastward, as fishermen came and settled down here and built their
dwellings, and a small trade with other villages along the coast was
gradually built up.
The history of Tor Abbey, though interesting as reflecting the life of
those far-off times, was comparatively uneventful. It was chiefly made
up of the coming and going of travellers, occasional alarms of possible
marauders, and the simple pleasures and events of life and death. It
need not, therefore, detain the general chronicler. About 1540 the
Abbey shared the fate of all other institutions of the kind, when King
Henry VIII brought about the Dissolution of the religious houses,
and it probably deserved its hard fate much less than many of its
neighbours. The King promptly granted the fair lands--he had stripped
the building of its possessions, sacramental vessels, and doubtless
the much revered altar cloth made of the famous “cloth of gold”--to
his favourite, John St Leger, from whose family it passed in time once
more into that of the Mohuns. Finally, in 1653, it was sub-divided into
two portions. The Abbey domain went to Sir John Stowell, by sale, who
resold it to Sir George Cary in 1664, in the possession of whose family
it remains. The Manor of Tormoham passed into the hands of the Earls of
Donegal by marriage, but was sold a little more than a century later to
Sir Robert Palk, an ancestor of Lord Haldon, whose family continued to
own it until recently.
[Illustration: TORQUAY HARBOUR. ENTRANCE]
The Tor Abbey House of the present day owes its origin to one Ridgeway
(a descendant of Lord Mohun, the original possessor), who had purchased
the Tor Abbey estate granted by King Henry to John St Leger from the
then owner. Though this building is severe, and devoid of any great
artistic merit, in it are incorporated some interesting features of
the ancient Abbey, remains of which in the form of the old church
and chapter house, and the refectory (now used as a chapel) are so
picturesque and interesting a feature of the Abbey grounds.
Although there is no doubt that throughout the distant centuries
known as the Middle Ages a handful of scattered dwellings of yeomen,
fisherfolk, and the like constituted all that is now known as Torquay,
to this hamlet, whose very existence was so largely dependent upon that
of the great religious house which dominated its life, came at times
more than an echo of passing stirring events. Not far distant from it
on occasion were enacted some great and strenuous events of history.
The Wars of the Roses, and later the storm and stress of the coming
Armada, amongst them. Tor Abbey, indeed, has more than a legendary
connexion with the destruction of the great fleet of Philip of Spain,
for upon the capture of the Spanish flagship _Capitana_, the huge
vessel and her crew were given over into the care of Sir John Gilbert
and George Cary, an ancestor of the Sir George who became the purchaser
of the Abbey. The prisoners, numbering upwards of 400, were landed, and
confined in the granary of the Abbey, which in consequence even to-day
is known as the Spanish barn. For these and other services, including
the command of a couple of regiments raised for the defence of the
country, Cary was knighted by Queen Elizabeth.
It is only a little more than a century and a quarter ago that Torquay
commenced to attract attention as a place of any importance, at this
period its modern history may be said to begin. Certainly as late as
the third quarter of the eighteenth century it was little more than
a small village with perhaps a couple of inns, and a few houses of a
better sort on the heights. But soon the importance of the Bay, the
trade with Newfoundland which had come into being, and the fishing
industry in which a considerable number of people were now engaged,
caused the inhabitants of neighbouring inland villages to gravitate
to Torre--as it was then commonly called. There was at this period,
too, a quay of some size and convenience, and it was chiefly in the
neighbourhood of this that the new houses were built, so that the life
of the rapidly growing town centred round the quay. About this time the
place was called Fleet or Fleete, which, derived from the Saxon, means
a spot where the tide comes up; and for some time this name (preserved
nowadays in that of its principal street) remained unchanged. Then at
length Tor Key--modernized into Torquay--came into common use, and
eventually entirely superseded the older name.
There is little record of the growth of the place at this particular
period, but somewhere towards the close of the eighteenth century,
the fleet being stationed in the bay, a need arose for more houses,
and of a better class, for the use of the officers of the fleet and
their families and dependents. These were principally erected along
that part of the foreshore which is nowadays known as the Strand, and
soon, we are told, people from a distance, chiefly civilians, were
enticed hither either by the inducements offered by trade, or by the
growing reputation of the place as a beautiful and healthy spot. In
those seemingly very remote days the whole of the site on which the
town now stands was a series of meadows, wooded heights, dells, and
apple orchards. “On the hills above Tor Key,” one writer states, “are
woods of greatest charm, split asunder here and there by tiny streams,
or clearing where some one of enterprise is about to erect a house....
The meadows in the lower part are fragrant with flowers, and dotted
with kine, and in spring time there is a show of apple blossom in the
orchards not excelled by any other in the West Countrie....” It is
difficult, indeed, now, after little more than a hundred years, for
the visitor to Torquay to quite realize that the large, well-built,
and commercially prosperous town consisted then of but a handful of
scattered houses set amid pastures and virgin woods.
By the end of the eighteenth century, two streets of houses existed,
one known as George Street, the other as Cane’s Lane (afterwards
renamed Swan Street), and the population which a few years before
probably numbered only a few score of persons, reached almost to four
figures. The first decade of the nineteenth century saw progress of a
rapid character, and by 1803 several new streets had been added to the
growing town--notably on the Quay, Strand, and on the ground now known
as Torwood Street--notwithstanding the alarm which was at the time so
prevalent concerning Napoleon’s projected descent upon the English
shores.
In no part of the country was the affright more keen than at Torquay,
which by many was supposed to be the objective of the fleet which was
gathering across the Channel for the purpose of invading our shores.
So seriously, indeed, was the possibility of Napoleon’s descent
considered, that a meeting was held for the purpose of arranging for
the speedy exodus of the women, aged, and children, should the French
appear in the bay. It was arranged that the infirm, and all children
who were not able to walk a distance of ten miles in a day, should in
event of necessity be assembled at a specified place, from whence they
were to be driven to Dartmoor in vehicles. Happily for the future of
Torquay, Napoleon’s scheme did not materialize, and three years or so
later Sir Lawrence Palk constructed the harbour, which was ultimately
to form the inner basin. This work gave a considerable impetus to
the sea trade and commerce of the place, which in the same year was
honoured by the visit of the Princess of Wales, daughter of George III.
Other Royal visits are recorded, during which encomiums were lavished
upon the beauty of the town by the distinguished visitors, one of whom
referred to it as “an earthly paradise.” But even so favoured a spot
could not escape the distress which afflicted the country when in
1846 the harvest failed and bread was in consequence at almost famine
prices. Added to this misfortune came one of the severest winters
known for many years. In May of the following year Bread Riots broke
out, and several bakers’ shops were broken into and looted by the
starving mob. The Riot Act was read in Torquay, troops were hurried
into the town from Exeter, and some three hundred special constables
were sworn in, whilst H.M.S. _Adelaide_ and _Vulcan_ landed bluejackets
and coastguards, with the result that numerous arrests were made, and
the riots were soon quelled. Torquay citizens of those days would not
appear to have been very amenable to law and order, for only twenty
years later much the same scenes were enacted, the Riot Act was once
more read, and some considerable disturbance and destruction of
property took place.
The history of the town from that time onward, however, has been
uneventful save for the visits of Royal personages of various
nationalities (including the late Queen Victoria, who was at Torquay
on several occasions during her long reign) and the usual events of a
local character which go to make up the life of a fashionable seaside
health and holiday resort. But in 1870 an event occurred which was to
have a great and lasting influence upon the development of the town.
In that year the harbour, which had been constructed by Sir Lawrence
Palk, afterwards raised to the peerage as Lord Haldon, was opened, and
this marked the beginning of Torquay’s rise as one of the favourite and
most important yachting stations in the West Country. The cost of the
harbour works was upwards of £70,000, and seventeen years later they
were acquired by the local authorities, who have spent at various times
a further sum of £100,000 upon them, and nowadays the harbour ranks as
one of the best artificial havens of the south coast.
Few seaside towns of the size of Torquay we imagine have been the
temporary home of so many poets, or have been so “sung” of in what
formerly was called “tuneful numbers.”
One of the earliest to describe the town’s beauties in verse was
probably the once well-known Dr Booker, who in the year of Waterloo
published a poetic effusion entitled _Torquay_, which was of a
flattering prophetic nature, if somewhat commonplace in expression.
He was succeeded by the Rev. Joseph Reeve; Edmund Carrington, the
author of a rhymed account of the small talk and scandal of the town
in the early forties, which (probably because of the latter feature)
had a marked success; Matthew Bridges, whose poetic work was of a
considerably higher order than that we have already named; John A.
Blackie, whose work gained the commendation of some distinguished
critics; and of later poets mention must be made of F. B. Doveton, who
has written many verses of local significance.
Torquay has especial interest for admirers of Charles Kingsley, as
it was here that he came in 1855 to live in a cottage at Livermead,
overlooking the Bay. As the author of _Yeast_ and _Alton Locke_, he
appears to have become anathema to the orthodox inhabitants of the then
rising watering place, an attitude which was fostered and encouraged
by the then Bishop of Exeter, who seems to have regarded Kingsley as
a particularly dangerous and outrageous heretic. The local clergy
followed the Bishop’s lead, with the result that not only were all
the churches of the neighbourhood closed to Kingsley so far as his
preaching or officiating in them was concerned, but he was completely
boycotted.
His biographer states that it was the magnificent view of Torbay which
was spread out before him from his cottage windows that led him to
meditate upon the historic scenes which had been enacted on the face of
those ever-changing waters, and ultimately gave him the germ idea for
his famous romance _Westward Ho!_
Of the many other famous poets and authors who have been dwellers in
the beautiful town may be mentioned Tennyson, who came in 1840; Lord
Lytton, who took a villa on the hillside above Rock Walk in 1856, and
spent every winter in it till his death in 1873; Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, who before her marriage lived several years in the town;
James Anthony Froude; Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, who came
here to visit an old widow lady (who eventually left him her fortune)
many times in the fifties and early sixties; Robert Louis Stevenson;
Henry James; John Ruskin, and many others.
It is with real regret that most yachtsmen leave Torquay and the
beautiful bay which lies between Hope’s Nose to the north and Berry
Head to the south. A bay whose magnificent anchorage would have
merited, one would think, the founding upon its shores of a city like
Plymouth or Portsmouth, given over to naval construction and service
of the State. But strangely enough, with the exception of the holiday
resorts of Torquay and quaint Paignton, and the little fishing port of
Brixham, it embraces no large town or port. This circumstance must be
a matter for wonderment, as one either gazes out over the beautiful
expanse of water from the heights of Warberry Hill, or crosses it when
bound further westward.
The reason, however, is not far to seek, when one considers the former
conditions of life and property upon the coast. The ports, which
far back in the centuries had sprung into gradual existence, had
now to serve more than the purpose of affording a safe anchorage in
“dirty” weather. Those were the days of that predatory naval warfare,
which proved so great a scourge to commerce in the Channel, when the
sister counties of Devon and Cornwall, and even that of Dorset to a
less degree, were ever at issue with the Breton sea rovers. It was,
therefore, essential that a great port should form a defence against
the attacks of men as well as a protection from the elements. Thus it
happened that whilst Falmouth, Dartmouth, Fowey, and Plymouth grew into
flourishing shipping centres, Torbay (in which a fleet of battleships
could ride secure in most winds), with its widely opened mouth, did not
offer the double security that the troublous times demanded.
Hither, in the early centuries of the Christian era, came, doubtless,
Roman and Danish galleys, devastating the coast; and in later times
the daring pirates and privateers out of St Malo, Morlaix, Brest, and
other French ports, “who lay in wait like sea spiders under the safe
anchorage of Berry head, for merchantmen bound up Channel, or making
for Dartmouth.”
De Tourville’s fleet itself, before detaching vessels for the attack
upon and destruction of Teignmouth, lay here in full sight of the
terrified inhabitants, who fled inland in fear of capture and
confinement in French prisons or the galleys. In later years the bay
and neighbourhood, with its coves and creeks, provided just the kind of
retirement and shelter beloved of the smugglers, whose daring exploits
made the Devon and Cornish coasts famous at the end of the eighteenth
and beginning of the nineteenth centuries.
It was in Torbay, too, that the _Bellerophon_, commanded by Captain
Maitland, with the captive Napoleon aboard, anchored in August of 1815
to permit the prisoner’s transfer to the _Northumberland_, commanded by
Admiral Sir George Cockburn. It will, therefore, be seen that the bay
has played its part in the drama of history, even though it has missed
its destiny as the centre or base of extensive commerce, or naval
activity and life.
Brixham is but a short half hour’s sail in a good breeze from Torquay.
It is a picturesque (if somewhat “fishy”) little town with the houses
set West Country-wise, in the sides of a chine, and the principal
street, known as Fore Street, descending steeply to the harbour itself.
Like Torquay, Brixham was originally an agricultural village, which,
as time went on, gradually crept down to the water’s edge, until its
foundations were almost set in the sea, the result being that its
inhabitants in time abandoned the tilling of the soil for the harvest
of the sea. Nowadays these number nearly nine thousand, most of whom
are fisherfolk, or in some way connected with the fishing industry.
The Brixham trawling fleet has been painted so often, that it must be
perfectly familiar to most readers. Of its picturesque charm for both
brush and camera, there can be little question. In the little harbour,
which unfortunately for yachting folk is dry at low water, there is
no room for the upwards of two hundred and fifty trawlers which, with
their graceful lines and red-brown sails, form such paintable groups at
their moorings in the outer harbour, just off the Victoria Breakwater,
where they are obliged to lie.
Brixham was anciently a manor in the possession of the Pomeroys of
Berry Pomeroy, but on its sale at the end of the seventeenth century
was split up into a number of small lots, not a few of which were
acquired by the more wealthy farmers, merchants, and fisherfolk. These
portions were, as time went on, subdivided and split up again either by
sale or other means, till at the present time the ancient manor is held
by some two hundred persons, all of whom are known as Quay Lords or
Quay Ladies, according to their sex.
Brixham men are “characters.” Centuries of traffic upon the great
waters has given them those features and idiosyncrasies which usually
distinguish fisherfolk and seamen at large. But to these must be added
a certain element of swaggering independence, which has doubtless come
down to them from ancestors engaged in periodical struggles with the
French privateers, and the hardy race of smugglers for which the coast
was notorious less than a century ago.
The town is just one of those irregularly built picturesque
congregations of houses--few of them large--which one finds in the West
Country, where the water runs up into the land, and a fishing industry
has been created. Many of the buildings have little flights of steps
running up to them, rendered necessary by the different levels at which
dwellings are placed even in the same street; whilst the fish cellars
are everywhere, and the odour of fish is triumphant over the fresh
winds from the sea, as well as the perfumed breezes which sometimes
fall upon the town from the heights of Guzzle Down.
There are other industries, however, besides the capture of fish
(“the best fish along the coast,” as all Brixham men asseverate with
unnecessary strength of language), for there is boat building on a
considerable scale, net making, and not a few of the womenfolk of the
place are employed in knitting the heavy woollen jerseys which seem the
staple garments of the fishermen of the coasts.
Though much of the history of Brixham is obscure, the town has,
nevertheless, played an important part in at least two events of
historical importance. It was into Brixham that the Elizabethan
sea-dog, Sir Francis Drake, sent the first of the galleons captured
from Spain when the Armada was skurrying up Channel amid the constant
boom of cannon and the smoke of burning vessels, with the bull dogs of
Drake, Howard, and Hawkins hanging on its flanks. And it was in Brixham
fishing boats (the name of one, the _Roebuck_, has come down to us), of
whose fleetness Drake had doubtless heard, that he sent the priceless
powder taken from the galleon’s magazine to the English ships, which
were keeping up that eight days’ running fight, July 21-29, 1588, upon
the ultimate result of which the fate of England depended.
It was to Brixham, just a hundred and one years later, that William of
Orange came, when, on the morning of the fifth of November, 1688, his
fleet appeared in the offing off the coasts of Devon. A contemporary
account tells us how the morning was foggy, with a thick sea haze, but
that later in the day (as though for a good omen) “the sun dissipated
the fog, insomuch that it proved a very pleasant day.”
One can imagine how the country folk from far and wide came flocking
to the capes and headlands of the Devon shore, straining their eyes
to catch a glimpse of the coming ships. Some, we learn from the same
diarist, thought the fleet was French, “because they saw divers white
flags, but the standard of the Prince, the motto of which was ‘For the
Protestant religion and liberty,’ soon undeceived them.” Then the fleet
entered Torbay, and coming off Brixham, the Prince’s barge was lowered,
and he was rowed ashore amid scenes of enthusiasm and the sound of
cannon; for we are told, “the Admiral of Rotterdam gave divers guns at
his landing.”
The Prince, his guards, and sundry lords were speedily ashore and
received a warm welcome.
It would appear, however, to be a mere legendary story which tells us
that he stopped the weigh of his barge when still some distance from
the shore, and called out to the people who stood waiting on the quay,
“If I am welcome, come and carry me to land,” and that thereupon a
little man plunged into the water and carried William on his back;
at any rate, it finds no place in the authority we have quoted, who
appears to have been a keen and accurate observer, unlikely to omit an
incident of such importance.
[Illustration: BRIXHAM]
We can gather from this writer a very vivid picture of the scene. The
people came running out of their houses to welcome the Deliverer....
And then the Prince, with Marshal Schomberg, and many lords, knights,
and gentlemen, marched through the narrow streets up the hillside,
whilst those aboard the fleet in the Bay could watch the progress of
the procession by means of the flags and banners waving above the
house-tops; whilst cheers, music and huzzas floated down and across
the water to the ships at anchor. A vivid touch which places
before one like a picture the conflicting interests, sympathies, and
forces of those troublous times is afforded by a description in which
the Catholic as against the Protestant attitude is exemplified. The
causes of the rejoicings at Protestant Brixham were construed quite
differently by a priest in the house of Mr Carey (probably the owner
or a relative of the owner of Cockington) near Torquay, for we are
told “This priest going to recreate himself upon the leads, it being
a delightsome day, as he was walking there, he happened to cast his
eye upon the sea, and espying the fleet at a distance, withal being
purblind in his eyes, as well as blinded by Satan in his mind, he
presently concludes that ’twas the French navy come to land the sons of
Belial which should cut off the children of God.” Naturally transported
by joy and excitement he descended from his point of vantage to tell
the occupants of the house, who, being Catholics, had doubtless been
“parlously low in their spirits since the flight of the King; and now
rejoiced greatly with him.” These unfortunate people seem to have
celebrated the (as they supposed) happy event by merry-making, and also
the singing of a Te Deum. But their joy was short lived, for ere sunset
they learned that it was the fleet of William of Orange and not of
Louis XIV they had seen.
By nightfall over fifteen thousand Dutch troops and mercenaries were
safely landed, made up of some twenty-six regiments, and one of the
most astonishing things in connexion with the coming of the Prince
is the indifference with which the landing of such a large body of
foreign troops was regarded by the inhabitants, who welcomed the
soldiers as though feeling secure from injury, material or otherwise,
and brought in supplies of food for the men, and fodder for the horses
with alacrity. In a few days the gentry round about, who on William’s
landing had held aloof for the moment to consult as to whom they should
support, James the fugitive or William the present, decided on the
latter course, and the country was bloodlessly conquered.
Near the harbour where the Prince landed now stands a memorial statue
of him, erected to celebrate the bi-centenary of the event.
Since that foggy morning in November, now more than two centuries
ago, Brixham has been little disturbed by any events of historical
importance. Twenty-five years after William’s landing, on the death
of Queen Anne, a French warship suddenly appeared off the port and
fired three guns. On board was the Stuart Duke of Ormonde, who had
conceived the bold idea of effecting a landing there in support of the
Old Pretender. The attempt failed, as no one came to his support, and
the enterprising nobleman was forced (lest he should be captured by a
vessel of the English fleet) to make a hasty departure for the French
coast.
During the Napoleonic wars Brixham benefited in a measure from the
victualling of the warships of the fleet which were frequently in
the bay, and suffered, too, from the depredations of the pressgang;
otherwise it must have been much the place that it is now, a quaint,
straggling, narrow-streeted, picturesque fishing village, loved rather
by artists than other folk.