Francis Drake was born to bring fresh glory to Tavistock. At the end of
a long, wide street his statue stands--the familiar figure by Boehm,
all fire and energy, the “Francie Drake” we know. His ardent face is
turned towards the town whose pride he must ever be; behind him is the
ivy-covered gateway of Fitzford House. Through that embattled archway Sir
Richard Grenville--“Skellum Grenville” as he was called--came home with
his bride to her own house; the house in which he afterwards shut her
up, and “excluded her from governing the affaires within dore,” and even,
it is reported, gave her a black eye. This was the Richard Grenville who
was the King’s General in the West, and was described by the Parliament
as “a villain and skellum.”[3] He raised an army in Cornwall “with most
extrem and industrious cruelty” and brought it to this place; and I
believe it was here that young Prince Charles stayed when he came to
Tavistock and complained so bitterly of the weather. The soldiers of the
Parliament afterwards sacked the house, of which nothing is now left but
this gateway.
There may be some who have been led to think that they have but to
drive a few miles from Tavistock to see the house that belonged to the
earlier, and far greater, Sir Richard Grenville, the house of which an
old writer says: “The abbey scite and demesnes was purchased by Sir
Richard Grenvill, whereon hee bwilt a fayre newe howse, and afterward
sold it unto Sir Francis Drake, that famous travailer, wᶜʰ made it his
dwellinge-plaice.” These I must sorrowfully inform that Buckland Abbey is
no longer open to the public.
From the statue of that “famous travailer” we turn to the right upon a
fine road, and presently, crossing the Tamar by a beautiful bridge, climb
into Cornwall on a gradient of one in seven.
THE SOUTH COAST OF DEVON
SUMMARY OF RUN THROUGH SOUTH-DEVON
DISTANCES.
Exeter
Newton Abbot 16 miles
Torquay 7 ”
Totnes 9 ”
Dartmouth, viâ Brixham 16 ”
Kingsbridge 15 ”
Salcombe and back 13 ”
Plymouth 20 ”
---------
Total 96 miles
ROADS.
Hills steep and frequent.
Surface poor, except from Kingsbridge to the outskirts of Plymouth.
III
THE SOUTH COAST OF DEVON
If our object in choosing to cross Devon by the coast road were simply
to cling to the shore as closely as possible we should, of course, drive
to Torquay by way of Dawlish and Teignmouth. But in that case we should
miss the beautiful views of Exeter and the Moor from the slopes of
Great Haldon, and the gorse and pines on the summit of Telegraph Hill,
which most of us will think more desirable things than the beaches and
lodging-houses of popular watering-places. It is true that no esplanade
nor row of bathing-boxes can altogether spoil a Devon sea. It is also
true that the last words of _Endymion_ were written at Teignmouth; but as
Keats, being unfortunate in the matter of weather, disliked the place
very heartily, we shall be following in his footsteps most truly if we
are faithful to “Nature’s holy face.” Her face is very beautiful on the
summit of Great Haldon.
We glide easily down the wooded slopes, with the wild outline of Dartmoor
against the sky before us and the green valley of the Teign below us,
and after an almost continuous descent of seven miles run into the
uninspiring streets of Newton Abbot. Let us pause for a few minutes in
Wolborough Street, and picture the scene that brought this little town
for a moment into English history: the throng of troops; the crowding
onlookers, half curious, half afraid; in the midst of them the keen face
of the foreigner who had come to be their king; the prince’s chaplain,
here where the stone is set, proclaiming William III.; and over all the
pouring, drenching rain. At the outskirts of the town we may see the
house that sheltered William from the weather that night, and has at
various times sheltered many incongruous guests of note--Charles I. and
“Steenie,” Oliver Cromwell and Fairfax. William was at Ford House without
a host, or the Courtenay who owned it at that time doomed it wiser to be
absent; but when Charles I. was there Sir Richard Reynell’s hospitality
was such that a hundred turkeys figured in a single _menu_.
Only five or six miles of a comparatively level road lie between Newton
Abbot and Torquay. The valley through which we drive bears a familiar
name, for it is in this Vale of Aller that the well-known pottery is not
only made, but designed, in vast quantities. I think it must have been
along this road that part, at least, of William’s wet and motley army
marched through the mud from Brixham. As for the prince himself, his
course must have been truly erratic if he slept at all the places in this
neighbourhood that claim to have sheltered him.
Torquay is one of those rare watering-places that upset all one’s
prejudices. Its houses are many and modern, its streets are populous;
but the harbour under the hill is so snug, the sea so blue and bright,
the boats so gay, the buildings so softly framed in trees and flowers,
that the most churlish heart must be won. And near at hand the little
sheltered coves, and wild paths above the cliffs, and woods almost
dipping into the sea are quite as peaceful as though there were no
crowded little harbour on the other side of the hill. This harbour was
not here, nor any town at all, when the Spanish Armada, as Kingsley says,
“ventured slowly past Berry Head, with Elizabeth’s gallant pack of Devon
captains following fast in its wake.” Only a few fishermen’s cottages
were on the shore, and the empty walls of William Bruere’s abbey, and
below the abbey “a peere and socour for fisshar bootes.” Indeed, even
when the _Bellerophon_ and the _Northumberland_ rode on the blue waters
of this bay together, and Napoleon sailed away to St. Helena, there were
more trees here than houses.
To-day there are so many houses on this shore that there is hardly a gap
between Torquay and Paignton. There is nothing to keep us in Paignton,
for though it has an old church, and a tower that is called the Bible
Tower out of compliment to Miles Coverdale, it has none of the charm of
Torquay. Only a few miles away, however, is a place of very definite
charm. There is a better way than this, certainly, of seeing Totnes, but
this hilly and not always very good road has the advantage of passing
near the castle of Berry Pomeroy, one of the few ruins in Devonshire.
The peculiar spell of Berry Pomeroy lies, not in splendour of masonry
nor grandeur of outline, but in the silence and romance of the deep
woods in which the castle rock is closely wrapped. From the old church
where Pomeroys and Seymours lie in their graves we run down noiselessly
through the green shadows into a strange and dusky world of legend and
far-off history. Through the towered gateway that fronts us generations
of Pomeroys have ridden forth to defend or flout their various kings;
and many a Seymour, coming homeward by this path, has lifted his proud
eyes to the house his fathers built within the Norman wall. For when the
last Pomeroy had “consumed his estate and decayed his howse,” he sold it
to the Protector Somerset; and the Seymours who came after him raised
the dwelling that is now a shell and was never altogether finished,
though very magnificent, according to John Prince, with curiously carved
freestone, and stately pillars of great dimensions, and statues of
alabaster, and rooms “well adorned with mouldings,” and a “chimney-piece
of polished marble, curiously engraven, of great cost and value.” These
splendid Seymours were descended from the Protector’s eldest son. “I
believe,” said William III. to the last of them, “you are of the Duke of
Somerset’s family.” Sir Edward bowed. “The Duke of Somerset, sir,” he
said, “is of my family.”
It was to this very gate, I believe, after Henry de Pomeroy had taken up
arms for Prince John, that Cœur-de-Lion’s sergeant-at-arms came on his
sinister errand. Out of the gate, however, he never rode. He “received
kind entertaynment for certaine days together,” says the historian, “and
at his departure was gratified with a liberal reward; in counterchange
whereof he then, and no sooner, revealing his long-concealed errand,
flatly arrested his hoaste … which unexpected and ill-carryed message the
gent took in such despite as with his dagger he stabbed the messenger to
the heart.” One cannot honestly regret it.
This is the kind of place where legend grows round history as naturally
and quickly as the ivy grows over the stones. The walls themselves, it
is easy to see, were raised by a magician; for the castle, seen from one
side, is standing high upon a rock, while from the other it seems to be
deep in a wooded valley. This is plainly due to a spell, and prepares
the mind for tales of imprisoned ladies, and of wild horsemen leaping
desperately into the chasm when they could no longer defend their castle
from an angry king. It is only on emerging from the dim and haunted wood
that one remembers regretfully how the last of the Pomeroys “decayed his
howse”--so far was he from defending it--and sold it quite peacefully to
the Duke of Somerset.
There was no very exciting rivalry, I suppose, between the castle of
Berry, even at its best, and the castle that stands only about two miles
away on the “high rokky hille” of Totnes; for the stronghold of Judhael
de Totnais and William de Braose, of Zouches and Edgecumbes, was the
citadel of a walled town. If we climb the rocky hill in question--through
the old east gate of the town, and past the fifteenth-century church and
the hidden guildhall that was once a priory--we may see for ourselves how
proudly the tower of Totnes once dominated the valley of the Dart. There
is only a fragment of the keep standing now, and even in Henry VIII.’s
time “the logginges of the castelle” were “clene in ruine.” The story of
their decline and fall seems to be unknown, but I think the place must
have been treated with some indifference by the Edgecumbes, who were,
unless I am mistaken, rebuilding their beautiful house at Cothele when
Totnes Castle came to them. If this were the case we could forgive them,
and indeed be grateful for their absorption in the lovely treasure-house
above the Tamar.
The various signs of age that make these steep streets so attractive must
not make us forget that the antiquity claimed by Totnes is a far more
venerable affair than any such thing of yesterday as a Norman castle. It
was on a certain stone in Fore Street that Brutus of Troy, father of all
Britons, first set his adventurous foot when he discovered this island.
So at least says Geoffrey of Monmouth in his brave, imperturbable way.
Brutus, we must suppose, sailed up the Dart; or perhaps at that early
date Totnes was on the coast. In any case it was the charms of these
woods and waters that attracted the voyagers to land in the new island,
and “made Brutus and his companions very desirous to fix their habitation
in it.” That is easily understood.
We too shall do well to come to Totnes by water. It is the best way, and
can be done by steamer from Dartmouth. As this, however, probably means
the neglect of Berry Pomeroy, which is far more serious than the missing
of Brixham, I advise every motorist whose car can travel without him to
drive from Paignton to Totnes, and to send the car by road to Dartmouth
while he himself goes thither by water. For the banks of the winding Dart
are, in their gentle way, incomparable, with their soft woods hanging
over the stream, and their cornfields streaked with scarlet, and the
little creeks where thatched cottages are clustered on the shore and
white-sailed boats flutter beside the tiny quay. And among the trees of
the left bank are Sandridge, the birthplace of John Davis, and Greenway,
the home of the Gilberts, where Sir Humphrey lived before his widowed
mother married Raleigh.
In the meantime those who drive their own cars must return to Paignton
by road, and follow the railway to Brixham past Goodrington sands,
where Charles Kingsley loved to spend the summer days searching for the
orange-mouthed Actinia and dreaming of the Spanish Armada. There is
not a spot upon this Devon coast but is the stuff that dreams are made
of! Dreams of gallantry and war, of conquest and deliverance and wide
adventure haunt us hour by hour as we pass from haven to haven, from
Torquay to Brixham, and from Brixham to Dartmouth, and from Dartmouth to
the climax of Plymouth Sound; with the great names of Drake and Gilbert
and Hawkins, of Raleigh and Grenville ringing in our hearts as we spin
across the soil that bred them, and, shining below us, the green sea that
carried them to their renown.
The sea was not green, but grey and misty, on the day that “the
Protestant wind” blew William the Deliverer into Torbay. The fleet, says
a letter written “on the first day of this instant December, 1688,” had
met with “horrid storms,” but “was not so damnified as was represented
by the vulgar.” It was here, in this harbour of Brixham--now hemmed in
by busy quays, and crowded with trawlers whose flaming sails might well
be meant to commemorate Orange William--it was here where the statue
stands that the prince first stepped ashore. On his flag, as on the
statue, was the motto of his family: _I will maintain_. The statue is not
flattering--or so, at least, we hope--but its presence, with its calm
promise of liberty, is not without dignity amid all the bustle of the
fishing-fleet. The scene was busy enough that day, when William stood
here with Burnet, and the guns roared, and the drums and hautboys made
music, and from every headland and housetop the people shouted their
welcome; and, as the fog lifted, the fleet, lying out there beyond the
breakwater, which was then unbuilt, “was a sight would have ravished the
most curious eyes of Europe.”
William, and gradually all his regiments of horse and foot, climbed these
narrow streets to the top of the hill. Though we take another road than
theirs we by no means escape the climbing. Two slow miles, on gradients
varying from one in twelve to one in ten, lead us to the point where we
immediately begin to descend, on a rough steep road of sharp turns, which
runs down to the shore of Dartmouth Harbour and the slip of Kingswear
Ferry.
These are classic waters that lap upon the clumsy sides of the
ferry-boat. We move slowly, and that is well, for there is much to see:
much beauty of wooded headlands, of old streets drawing nearer, of boats
and ships upon a blue-green sea. To the left are the two points that
shelter the harbour, and on each its ruined tower, the guardians that did
their work so long and well, and perished in the doing of it: to the
right the river winds away into the land and the old _Britannia_ lies at
rest, and the great buildings of the Naval College crown the hill. It was
from this harbour, more than three hundred years ago, that the _Sunshine_
and _Moonshine_ sailed away to the North West Passage with John Davis and
his “company of goodlie seamen, not easily turned from any good purpose;”
and it was between those two green headlands that Francie Drake came home
from “singeing the King of Spain’s beard” at Cadiz, with the _San Philip_
and all her spoils behind him. Historic fleets have ridden at anchor in
the shelter of these hills: ships for Cœur-de-Lion’s crusade; and for
Edward III.’s siege of Calais no fewer than thirty-one, all furnished by
Dartmouth; and on one grim occasion, at least, an unwelcome fleet from
France, which left the town a ruin. Many years later another French ship
came sailing in unsuspiciously with letters from the Queen, a few days
after Dartmouth Castle had surrendered to Fairfax. The captain, when
he heard the news, flung the precious packet into the sea; “but God
provided a Wave,” says the historian, “to bring it to the Boat that went
out to seek it, and so it was brought unto His Excellency.”
[Illustration: BUTTERWALK, DARTMOUTH.]
Round the quays on the Dartmouth side of the harbour the queer old houses
are huddled into streets that climb and twist and turn in bewildering
irregularity. Crooked gables and overhanging eaves nod at one another
across the way: the carved beams and corbels of the wider streets rouse
memories of departed merchant princes: rows of young trees are planted
by the waterside: and always, behind the trees, behind the gables, is
a glimpse of the turquoise sea. Everywhere are signs of the splendid
past: in the fourteenth-century church, with its magnificent screen and
pulpit, and the tomb of John Hawley, “a riche marchant and noble warrior
again the French men”: in the houses of the Butterwalk, with their
heraldic beasts and granite pillars and mullioned windows, their moulded
ceilings and carved chimney-pieces. It is worth while to climb a rickety
staircase, if only for the sake of hearing the Merry Monarch numbered
among the saints.
A narrow shady lane near the shore of the harbour leads to the castle
and the old church of St. Petrock. The oldest part of the fort, the
round tower whence the chain passed across the mouth of the harbour to
Kingswear Castle, is said to date from the time of Henry VII. There must
have been some kind of fort here earlier than that, I suppose, for when
the lively men of Fowey forfeited their chain of defence, we are told,
Edward IV. presented it to Dartmouth. This castle changed hands twice
during the Civil War. Prince Maurice took it and strengthened it, but
could not save it from Fairfax. “Being Master of all but the Castle,”
wrote the general, “I summoned that. The Governour was willing to listen
unto me.… I can say I find it to be in the hearts of all here, in all
integrity to serve you.”
The road from Dartmouth to Slapton Sands is almost entirely composed
of astonishing hills. Only in Devon could hills so many and so fierce
be compressed within so small a space. But only in Devon, surely, is
the coast at the same time so wild and so luxuriant, so stern and yet
so tender; only in Devon can we look down from the clifftop through so
soft a veil of trees, and see far below us sands so yellow and rocks so
red, and the ripples of so very, very green a sea. This road that rises
steeply out of Dartmouth is characteristically deep in the shade of
rocky banks, and walls built of thin mossy stones. Long hart’s-tongues
hang in clusters by the wayside, and every cranny of the walls is filled
with tiny ferns. Having climbed to Stoke Fleming by a variety of steep
gradients we promptly descend, by two miles of gradients nearly as steep,
to the idyllic cove of Blackpool, whose golden sands once flowed with the
blood of four hundred Frenchmen. They, and many more, had landed here;
but the men of Dartmouth, who had not forgotten the sacking of their
town, came swarming down these cliffs upon them, so that the survivors
were glad to put to sea again. Another steep climb takes us up to Strete,
and another steep descent to Slapton Sands.
Here is a dramatically sudden contrast! From the very foot of the hill
the road runs, for two miles and more, over what is probably the most
level strip of land in Devon. It is no more than a strip. Close beside it
on the left runs the long strip of the sands, and close beside it on the
right an equally long strip of water, the reedy mere called Slapton Ley.
“There is but a barre of sand,” says Leland, “betwixt the se and this
poole. The waite of the fresch water and rage of the se brekith sumtime
this sandy bank.” It is along this bar of sand and shingle that our road
runs. If we turn away from it for a few minutes, on the by-road that
crosses the pool near the hotel, we shall see Slapton itself.
[Illustration: SLAPTON.]
The village has no very striking beauty; but its steep little streets,
its thatch and whitewash and flowers, its air of remoteness, its
maidens with their pretty blue pinners and prettier faces, make it a
very attractive place. Nor is it without distinction. Not only is it
dignified by a thirteenth-century spire of extreme austerity, but it
also has the remains of a collegiate chantry. The chapel tower, with its
graceful arch and fragment of groining, rises alone among the flowers
of a lovely garden, where wild olive and camphor grow as serenely as the
Devon apples that hang above them. It is a private garden, but as it
skirts the road we may drive almost into the shadow of the tower. For
several centuries, from the days of Henry II. to those of Henry IV., this
generous soil belonged to a Guy de Brian. It was Joan Pole, the wife
of the Guy de Brian of Henry III.’s time, who founded Pole Priory upon
this spot: we have it on the word of a Pole. The later Brian who made
it a college was one of the original Knights of the Garter, and a very
versatile person, being Edward III.’s standard-bearer in “that notable
fight he had with the French at Calais,” as well as an ambassador and an
admiral-of-the-fleet. In the reign of Henry IV. this manor of Slapton
became the property of Harry Hotspur’s crafty father; but to many of us
the most stirring memory in this place is that of Sir Richard Hawkins,
the third great sailor of his name. He bought Pole Priory--now corrupted
into Poole--before he set sail on that adventurous voyage that lasted
so much longer than he expected. During the ten years of his absence,
years of imprisonment in the South Seas and elsewhere, this was the home
of his “dearest friend, his second self,” Judith, Lady Hawkins. For
some reason--whether to impress the neighbours or because she suffered
from rheumatism I do not know--this lady was in the habit of walking to
church on three quarters of a mile of red velvet carpet. Possibly life
was not very gay at Slapton at the end of the sixteenth century, and this
mild ceremonial may have been a comfort to her. The time came when she
sought another kind of consolation in her loneliness. The story goes[4]
that when Sir Richard came home at last to Slapton he found a strange
air of festivity astir in these precipitous streets. The red carpet was
laid, we may be sure, from Pole Priory to the church, for when he asked
what matter was afoot he found it was his Judith’s wedding-day. It was
fortunate he came in time, for one cannot quite see Richard Hawkins in
the part of Enoch Arden.
The main road to Kingsbridge pursues its level way between salt water
and fresh till it reaches Torcross, a most desolate-looking village with
a reputation for fishing. Here, sad to say, we must turn inland. The
scenery between this point and Kingsbridge is no great matter, but there
are some pretty villages, and Stokenham Church has a good screen. The
road is fair, and the hills less formidable than usual.
There is no means of seeing, as a whole, this beautiful coast between
Torcross and Plymouth, except on foot or from the sea; but most happily
it is possible for motorists of inquisitive habits to find their way,
here and there, to various little havens of the greatest charm. These,
however, are all beyond Kingsbridge. Kingsbridge itself is a place of no
particular attraction nor interest. It has a few picturesque corners and
old houses, but its real claim on our affections is that the only way to
Salcombe lies through it. Now a road that leads to Salcombe is something
to be grateful for.
[Illustration: SOUTH POOL CREEK, SALCOMBE.]
To those who do not know Salcombe, the six miles that lie between it
and Kingsbridge may be a little depressing. The road leads to no
other place, and is preposterously hilly: the country is treeless and
discouraging. To the uninitiated it may well seem, as they drive between
the imprisoning hedges, that no compensation is likely to be forthcoming.
But some of us know better. We reach the edge of the hill, and suddenly
the sea, brilliant and soft--a sea of liquid jewels--is shining below
us, lapping upon the sands of the little creeks; wooded slopes drop
steeply to the rocks that fringe the shore; red and white sails flit
about the harbour, dapper yachts lie at anchor in the shelter of the
hill, wave-worn barges move heavily towards the land; Salcombe lies at
our feet, clinging to the hillside, a tiny town of steep streets and
shipwrights’ yards and little quays; and Bolt Head stretches out a long
arm to protect it.