Those who have never been to Clovelly can have no idea of its
quaintness, no matter what descriptions they have read or pictures they
may have seen. One goes there expecting to find the little place exactly
as he imagines it to be, and is agreeably surprised to find it is quite
different. It is so unlike any other place, that one looks back at it
more as a dream than a real recollection. We do not hint that the
everlasting climb up and down may be likened to a nightmare. Not a bit
of it. Though we gasp and sink with fatigue, we have still breath enough
left in our body to sing in praise. Were the steps more steep and less
rambling, perhaps we should not be so satisfied. What excellent exercise
for muscular-leg development. But how about the older part of the
inhabitants?
We had the honour to converse with the oldest Clovellian, a hale and
hearty fisherman, who, by no means tardy in introducing himself,
promptly proceeded to business. For twopence we might take his
photograph. We thanked him kindly, and having disbursed that sum
reserved our plates for inanimate curiosities.
It is gratifying to learn that there is no room for "improvement" at
Clovelly, and there are fewer houses than there used to be.
Consequently there is nothing new and out of harmony. The cottages are
really old and quaint, not as we expected to find them, imitations, like
half the houses in Chester.
Even the "New Inn" is delightfully old, with queer little rooms and
corners, and little weather-cock figures above the sign, of the time of
Nelson. It is a novel experience to arrive there in the dusk and
walk (?) down the High Street to the sea. The most temperate will
stumble and roll about as if he had sampled the cellar through, and ten
to one but he doesn't finally take an unexpected header into the sea.
But granted he reaches the end of the little pier (which projects after
the fashion of the "Cobb" at Lyme Regis), he will find a hundred lights
from the cottages as if lanterns were hung on the hillside, their long
reflections rippling in the water.
The place is as much a surprise as ever in broad daylight. One might be
in Spain or Italy. Donkeys travel up and down the weed-grown cobble
steps carrying projecting loads balanced on their backs. Indeed, one is
quite surprised to hear the people speaking English, or rather
Devonshire, the prettiest dialect. In the daylight the little
balconied-houses overhanging the sea look more like pigeon-cots nailed
to the steep rock, and one almost wonders how the inhabitants can get
in. Long may Clovelly remain as it is now, the quaintest little place in
England!
[Illustration: CEILING IN THE GOLDEN LION, BARNSTAPLE.]
The town of Barnstaple is an excellent centre for exploration, and the
antiquity of the "Golden Lion" is a guarantee of comfort. It was a
mansion of the Earls of Bath, and upon a richly moulded ceiling, with
enormous pendants of the date of James the First, are depicted biblical
subjects, including the whole contents of the Ark, or a good proportion
of it. The spire of the church of SS. Peter and Paul looks quite as out
of the perpendicular as the spire at Chesterfield. There are some good
Jacobean tombs, but nothing else in particular.
The aged inmates of the almshouses point out the bullet-marks in their
oaken door, made when the Royalists fortified the town in 1645. Lord
Clarendon, who was governor of the town, tells us that here it was
Prince Charles first received the fatal news of the battle of Naseby.
The prince had been sent to Barnstaple for security. The house he lodged
at in the High Street was formerly pointed out, but has disappeared.
The poet Gay was a native of the town, and early in the nineteenth
century some of his manuscripts were discovered in the secret drawer of
an old oak chair that had passed from a kinsman on to a dealer in
antiques who lived in the High Street.
Close to the town is Pilton, whose church is full of interest. The
carved oak hood of the prior's chair, which dates from Henry VII.'s
reign, serves the purpose now to support the cover of the font. At the
side may be seen an iron staple to which in former years the Bible was
chained. From the fine Gothic stone pulpit projects a painted metal arm
and hand which holds a Jacobean hour-glass. The screen and parclose
screen are also good, and the communion rails and table in the vestry
are of Elizabethan date. The church pewter is also worth notice, as well
as an old pitch pipe for starting the choir. The porch bears evidence
that the tower was roughly handled when Fairfax captured Barnstaple in
1646. The existing tower was built fifty years later.
Nowhere have we seen so fine and perfect a collection of carved oak
benches as at Braunton, a few miles to the north-west of Pilton. They
are as firm and solid as when first set up in Henry VII.'s reign, and
are rich in carvings, as is the graceful wide-spanned roof. One of the
bosses represents a sow and her litter, who by tradition suggested the
idea of the holy edifice being erected by Saint Branock. A window
showing some of this good person's belongings, spoken of in the tenth
commandment, is mentioned by Leland, but since then possibly some local
antiquary may have disregarded what is forbidden in that ancient law.
Presumably there have been attempts also to annex the ruins of the
patron-saint's chapel, for the villagers pride themselves that all
attempts to remove them have failed. What an object-lesson to the jerry
builders of to-day!
Farther to the north-west and we get to Croyde Bay, which perhaps one
day may have a future on account of its open sea and sands. At present
it looks in the early transition state.
Tawstock, to the south of Barnstaple, is said to possess the best manor,
the noblest mansion, the finest church, and the richest rectory in the
county. Certainly the church could not easily be rivalled (the
"Westminster of the West," as it is called) in its picturesque position,
surrounded by hills and woods, with the old gateway of the manor-house,
the sole remains of the original "Court," flanking the winding road
which leads down to it: we almost feel justified in adding to these
superlatives the "handsomest Jacobean tomb, and the most elaborate
Elizabethan pew," but will not commit ourselves so far. The former, on
the left-hand side of the altar, is that of the first Earl of Bath
(Bourchier) and his wife. Above their recumbent effigies is a great
display of armorial bearings, with sixty-four quarterings hung upon a
vine, showing the intermarriages of the principal families of England.
There are many other fine monuments, that of Rachael, the last Countess
of Bath, who died in Charles II.'s reign, representing a lifelike and
exceedingly graceful figure in white marble. She was the daughter of
Francis, Earl of Westmoreland, and married secondly, Lionel, third Earl
of Middlesex, who predeceased her. The Elizabethan pew of the
Bourchier-Wrays, lords of the manor, has a canopy, and is richly carved;
but it was originally of larger dimensions. Close by are some fine
bench-ends, one of which displays the arms of Henry VII. High aloft is a
curious Elizabethan oak gallery by which the ringers reach the tower,
upon which are carvings of the vine pattern, a favourite design in
Devon. An early effigy in wood must not be forgotten, the recumbent
figure of a female, supposed to be a Hankford, who brought the Tawstock
estates into the Bourchiers' possession.
From northern Devonshire let us turn our attention to some nooks in the
easternmost corner and in the adjoining part of Dorset.
Of all the villages along the coast-line here, Branscombe is the most
beautiful and old-fashioned. Many of the ancient thatched and
whitewashed cottages have Tudor doors and windows. Some of the best,
alas! were condemned as being unsafe some fifteen years ago, among them
one which in the old smuggling days had many convenient hiding-places
for that industry, for Branscombe was every bit as notorious as the
little bay of Beer. The church is, or was not long since, delightfully
unrestored, for fortunately the good rector is one who does not believe
in up-to-date things, and the sweeping changes which are rampant in
places more accessible. It is the sort of comfortable old country church
that we associate with the early days of David Copperfield or with
Little Nell. Truly the high box-pews are not loved by antiquarians, but
is it not better to leave them than replace them with something modern
and uncomfortable? If the original oak benches of the fifteenth or
sixteenth centuries could be replaced, that is entirely another matter.
But they cannot, therefore let those who love old associations not
banish the Georgian pews without a thought that they also form a link
with the past. The church is cruciform, and principally of the Early
English and Early Decorated periods, the old grey tower in the centre
standing picturesquely out in the beautifully wooded valley. The village
of Beer is also very charming, and the fisher folk fine types of men. It
is delightful to watch the little fleet set sail; but in the summer the
air in the tiny bay is oppressive, and the effluvia of fish somewhat
overpowering. The extensive caves here have done good service in the
smuggling days.
[Illustration: BINDON.]
[Illustration: BINDON.]
Another charming village is Axmouth, situated on the river which gives
its name. Old-fashioned cottages with gay little gardens straggle up the
hill, down which the clearest of streams runs merrily, affording delight
to a myriad of ducks who dip and paddle to their hearts' content. The
church has Norman features, and the tower some quaint projecting
gargoyles. From the other side of the river at high tide the old church
and cluster of cottages around it, backed by the graceful slope of
Hawksdown Hill behind, make a charming picture. High up in the hills,
through typical Devonshire fern-clad lanes, is Bindon, an interesting
Tudor house containing a chapel of the fifteenth century. The entrance
from the road, with its circular stone gateway and gables with latticed
mullioned-windows peeping over the moss-grown wall, is charming, as are
also the old farm-buildings at the back, in which an enormous canopied
well is conspicuous. But more gigantic still is the well at Bovey,
another Tudor house, near Beer, which bears the reputation of being
haunted. But with the exception of some gables at the back, Bovey is
less picturesque than Bindon, owing, perhaps, to the fact that the roof
has been re-slated.
More interesting are the remains of old Shute House, which lies inland
some six or seven miles. This was a far more extensive mansion, as will
be seen by the imposing embattled gateway and a remaining wing, which
rather remind one of a bit of Haddon. Here during the Monmouth Rebellion
the Royalist commander Christopher, second Duke of Albemarle, encamped
on June 18, 1685, the same day that the other duke, the boon companion
of his wilder days, entered Taunton. The house belonged then, as it does
still, to the De la Poles.
Most of the old houses hereabouts are associated in some sort of way
with the rebellion. Close upon the county border to the north-east
stands Coaxden, a much modernised old farm, where stories are told of
fugitives from Sedgemoor. How its occupant, Richard Cogan, being
suspected as a Monmouth adherent, fled from his house to Axminster,
where in the "Old Green Dragon Inn" the landlord's daughter secreted him
between a feather-bed and the sacking of a bedstead. Kirke's "lambs"
traced him to the house, but failed to hit upon his hiding-place. The
story ends as all such stories should, the girl who preserved his life
became his wife. The house is further interesting as the birthplace in
1602 of Sir Symonds D'Ewes the historian.
[Illustration: WYLDE COURT.]
A couple of miles or so to the west is Wylde Court, another interesting
old farmhouse, much less restored, dating from Elizabeth's reign, with
numerous pinnacled gable ends and characteristic entrance porch and oak
panelled rooms. This and Pilsdon, another Tudor house a few miles to the
west, at the foot of Pilsdon Pen, belonged to the Royalist Wyndhams, and
in the troublous times they were looked upon with suspicion, and
searched on one or two occasions by the Parliamentary soldiers.
"Hellyer's Close," near Wylde Court, is so named because a Royalist
commander, Colonel Hellyer, was taken prisoner and executed here by
Cromwell's soldiers. At the time that Charles II., in 1651, attempted to
get away to France from the coast of Dorset, Pilsdon was visited by a
party of Cromwellian soldiers, and Sir Hugh Wyndham and his family
secured in the hall while the house was thoroughly searched, suspicion
even falling upon one of the ladies that she was the king in
disguise.[26] Sir Hugh's monument may be seen at Silton in the extreme
north corner of the county.
Chideock is a charming old-world village in the valley between Charmouth
and Bridport, snugly perched between the cone-shaped eminence Colmer's
Hill and Golden Cap, the gorse-covered headland, said to be the highest
point between Dover and the Land's End. The castle of the De Chideocks
and Arundells, a famous stronghold built in Richard II.'s reign, long
since has disappeared, but its moat can be traced. The fine old church
exteriorly is one of the most picturesque in Dorsetshire, but the inside
has been much restored and modernised. A handsome tomb of Sir John
Arundell in armour is in the south aisle.
Longevity seems to be the order of the day round "Golden Cap." At Cold
Harbour we chatted with a hearty old man enjoying his pipe by his
cottage door. He was close on eighty; but there was still a generation
over his head, for his father, evidently to show his son a good example,
was hard at work digging potatoes in the back garden. We solicited the
honour to photograph the pair, and asked the elder of the two if he
would have a pipe. No, he didn't smoke, but he could drink, he said; and
so, of course, we took the hint, and he with equal promptitude toddled
up the lane, as digging potatoes at the age of ninety-nine is thirsty
work.
There is a deep picturesque lane near Chideock called "Skenkzies" which
at night-time is particularly dark, and held in awe, for there are
stories of evil spirits lurking about; and little wonder, for close at
hand is a farmhouse called "Hell!" Old customs and superstitions die
hard in western Dorset. Forlorn and love-sick maidens as a special
inducement for their lovers to appear, place their boots at right angles
to one another in the form of a T upon retiring to roost. The charm is
said to be irresistible; but there have been cases where it has failed,
when the size has exceeded "men's eights."
[Illustration: MAPPERTON MANOR-HOUSE.]
[Illustration: MELPLASH COURT.]
To the north-west of Bridport and the south-west of Beaminster are two
old houses within a couple of miles of one another, the manor-houses of
Melplash and Mapperton. The former, a plain Elizabethan gabled house, is
said to have been one of the many residences of Nell Gwyn. Whether the
old Hall of Parnham, the seat of the Strodes, was honoured by a visit of
the Merry Monarch we do not know. If so, it is possible Nell may have
been housed at Melplash. Mapperton is a remarkably picturesque house,
with projecting bays and a balustraded roof, above which are little
dormer windows. Part of the house is evidently Jacobean and part dates
from the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, and the combination of
styles, the niched entrance gates surmounted by eagles, the ornamental
pinnacles, and the "upping-stock" beside the wall, make a most fantastic
whole. It was once the seat of the Coker family.
[Illustration: WATERSTONE.]
There are some interesting old mansions within a few miles of
Dorchester. Wolverton or Wolfeton manor-house, for example, and
Waterstone and Athelhampton, the last two of which appear in Nash's
_Mansions_. Each one is entirely different from the other. Waterstone is
a small late-Elizabethan or early-Jacobean house, with a quaint
balustraded bay over the entrance porch, and some elaborate and graceful
stonework upon a projecting gable that stands at right angles to it.
This presumably was once the principal entrance. It is certainly quite
unique and somewhat perplexing. At Wiston House in Sussex we remember
having seen some very elaborate Elizabethan ornamentation upon a gable
which really had no business there, although the effect was very
pleasing: and here, perhaps, we have the same sort of thing. Wolverton
is a fine early-Tudor building with battlemented tower and a stately
array of lofty mullioned windows, and careful restoration has added to
its picturesque appearance.
[Illustration: ATHELHAMPTON.]
[Illustration: ATHELHAMPTON.]
[Illustration: ATHELHAMPTON.]
But sympathetic restoration may be seen at its best at Athelhampton. We
took some photographs many years ago, when it was occupied as a
farmhouse, and upon a recent visit could scarcely recognise it as the
same. Not that the house has been much altered exteriorly, but the
quaint old-fashioned gardens, with pinnacled Elizabethan walls, ancient
fish-ponds and fountains, have sprung up and matured in a manner that
had one not seen the gardens as they were, one would scarcely credit it.
Wonders have been done within as well, and the great hall is very
different from what it was before the present owner came into
possession. There are suits of armour and Gothic cabinets to carry us
back to the days of doublet and trunk-hose and square-toed shoes. Where
formerly were pigsties is now a terrace walk, and the quaint old
circular dovecot has been carried off bodily and planted where it
balances to best advantage. But one thing we should like to see, and
that is the ancient gatehouse that was standing in Nash's time. There is
his drawing to go by, and where everything has been done in such
excellent taste one need have little fear that in a few years a new
building would settle down harmoniously with the rest.
Close by is Puddletown, a pretty old village with a remarkable church,
where, as at Athelhampton, everything is in harmony. It is the sort of
church one reads about in novels, yet so seldom meets; and now we come
to think of it, this village does figure in a popular Wessex novel.
Doubtless there are some lovers of ecclesiastical architecture who would
like to see the Jacobean woodwork cleared out and _modern_ Henry VII.
benches introduced to make the whole coeval. The towering three-decker
pulpit is delightful, and so are the ancient pews, and the old gallery
and staircase leading up to it. Within the Athelhampton chapel are
mailed effigies, and several ancient brasses to the Martin family who
originally owned the mansion.
Bere Regis church, some six miles to the east of Puddletown, is also
remarkable, particularly for its open hammer-beam roof from which
project huge life-size figures of pilgrims, cardinals, bishops, etc.,
and monster heads suggestive of the pantomime. The whole is coloured,
and the effect very rich and strikingly original. One can imagine how
the younger school-children must be impressed with these awe-inspiring
figures looking down upon them with steady gaze. There are two fine
canopied tombs (one containing brasses dated 1596) to the Turburvilles,
who possessed a moiety of the lordship since the Conquest. Their old
manor-house, a few miles south at Wool, a red-brick Jacobean gabled
house with roomy porch in which a great pendant is conspicuous,
picturesquely situated by an old bridge and the winding reed-grown
river, has of recent years obtained notoriety by Mr. Thomas Hardy's pen.
We photographed the old house some years ago before it had been thus
immortalised. Upon a recent visit we found the house desolate and empty.
Had the good farmer flown in consequence, and sought an abode that had
not become a literary landmark?
But the vicinity of Bere Regis had obtained notoriety of a tragic kind
many centuries before the birth of _Tess of the d'Urbervilles_, for that
very undesirable lady, Queen Elfrida, retired there for peace and
quietness after various deeds of darkness, one of which, according to
the _Annals_ of Ely, is said to have been inserting red-hot nails into
Abbot Brithnoth's armpits; and from Lytchet Maltravers to the east of
Bere came Sir John Maltravers to whose tender mercies the unfortunate
Edward II. was delivered before he was done to death at Berkeley Castle.
Sir John's monument is in the church; but as it was not the fashion in
those days to enumerate the various virtues of the departed in laudatory
verse, this particular act of charity is not recorded in suitable
effusion.
[Illustration: MONMOUTH'S TREE.]
Wimborne Minster to the north-east is too world-famed to call for any
particular description here, but a word may be said about the first Free
Library in the country. In past days, when there was no good Mr.
Carnegie to cater for the welfare of millions, nor the finest classics
to be purchased for sixpence, it was only natural, books being rare,
that the local authorities should not have placed the same implicit
trust in would-be readers as is shown by the British Museum Library
authorities. The rusty iron chains securing the aged tomes to an iron
rod above the queer old desks even after the lapse of centuries would
hold their own. The literature cannot be said to be of a much lighter
nature than the bulky volumes in weight. The rarest specimens are placed
in glass cases, and are calculated to make the mildest bibliomaniac
full of envy. Before the Reformation the Minster was rich in holy
relics, conspicuous among which was a part of St Agatha's thigh. One of
the most curious things still to be seen is a coffin brilliantly painted
with armorial devices, placed in the niche of a wall, which according to
the will of the occupant has to be touched up from year to year; and
thus the memory of the worthy magistrate, Anthony Ettrick, is kept more
actively alive than good King Ethelred who rests beneath the pavement by
the altar. Ettrick lived at Holt Lodge near Woodlands, a few miles away
in the direction of Cranborne; and when the Duke of Monmouth was
captured in rustic garb in the vicinity, he was brought before the
magistrate and removed from Holt to Ringwood, where at the "Angel Inn"
the room in which he was kept prisoner is still pointed out. We have
elsewhere described the old ash tree near Crowther's Farm beneath which
the unfortunate fugitive from Sedgemoor was found. It is propped up, and
has lost a limb, but is alive to-day, and surely should be protected by
a railing and an inscription like other historic trees. To the north is
St. Giles, the ancestral home of the Earls of Shaftesbury, the first
representative of which title, Anthony Ashley Cooper, worked so
skilfully on Monmouth's ambition. When the Merry Monarch visited the
noble politician at St. Giles, he little thought that his favourite son
would be taken a prisoner as a traitor within only a mile or so of the
mansion. A memento of the royal visit is still preserved in the form of
a medicine chest that the king left behind, which in those days
doubtless contained some of his favourite specific "Jesuit drops."
Another historic mansion is Kingston Lacy, to the west of Wimborne,
the old seat of the Bankes family, which is rich in Stuart portraits
as well as other valuable works of art. It is a typical square
comfortable-looking Charles II. house, with dormer-windowed roof and
wide projecting eaves. The staunch Royalist, James Buder, the great Duke
of Ormonde, lived here in his latter years, and died here in 1688. The
duke's intimate friend, Sir Robert Southwell, has left a graphic account
of the last hours of the good old nobleman, which he concludes with the
following:--"His Grace could remember some things that passed when he
was but three years old. He was only four years old when his
great-great-uncle Earl Thomas died in 1614, but he retained a perfect
remembrance of him. That Earl lived in the reigns of King Henry the
Eighth, King Edward the Sixth, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and King
James; and His Grace had seen King James the First, King Charles the
First, King Charles the Second, and King James the Second; so that
between them both they were contemporary with nine princes who ruled
this land!"[27]