TIVERTON
Two-fords Town--The Seven Crosses--Numerous chapels--Tiverton
Church--Blundell's School--Parson Russell--Washfield--Sampford
Peverell Ghost--"Old Snow"--White Witches--Instance of
evil done by them--The Four Quarters--Machine lace--John
Heathcoat--Cullompton--Bampfylde Moore Carew--Bampton Pony
Fair--The Exmoor ponies.
Tiverton, or, as it was originally called, Twyford, takes its
name from being planted between the Exe and the Loman (Gael.
_liomh_, smooth or sluggish[11]), which are here fordable. It rises
picturesquely above the Exe, and the height when crowned with castle
as well as church must have presented a remarkably fine group of
towers. The main castle tower was, however, pulled down and left as
a stump about thirty-five years ago.
[11] The same in Loch Lomond and in Lake Leman, in the Lyme in
Dorsetshire, and the Leam by Leamington.
The castle was a great Courtenay stronghold, and occupied a site
that had doubtless been previously fortified. There is, however, a
large and strong earthwork, Cranmore, that occupies the height above
Collipriest and looks down upon the town.
At Hensleigh, a hamlet to the west of the town, is a spot called
"The Seven Crosses." The origin of this name is, according to a
generally accepted tradition, as follows:--
One day the Countess of Devon was taking her walk abroad in the
direction of Hensleigh, when she met a tailor descending the hill,
laden with a large covered maund, or basket. As he passed, she heard
a cry from the hamper. She stayed her steps and inquired what he was
carrying.
"Only seven puppies that I be going to drown in the Exe," was his
reply.
"I want a dog," said the Countess. "Open the hamper."
The tailor tried to excuse himself, but in vain. The Countess
insisted, and, on the lid being raised, seven little babes were
revealed.
"Alas, my lady!" said the tailor. "My wife gave birth to all seven
at once, and I am poor, poor as a church mouse. What other could I
do than rid myself of them?--they are all boys."
The Countess saw that they were lovely and vigorous babes, and she
made the tailor take them back to his wife, and charged herself
with the cost of their bringing up and education. When they were
sufficiently old she had them all sent to Buckfast Abbey, to be
reared for the priesthood, and in due time they were ordained and
became--that is, four of them--rectors of Tiverton (for Tiverton had
four together), and the three others their curates. As they were all
of a birth, they loved each other, and never disagreed; and that
was--so it is averred--the only instance within a historic period
that the rectors of the four portions of Tiverton have agreed, and
have got on smoothly with each other and with their curates. As the
seven hung together in life, in death they were not parted. All died
in one day, and were buried on the spot where the Countess of Devon
saved their lives, and there above their heads seven crosses were
reared, but not one of these remains to the present day.
Formerly there were in Tiverton parish eighteen chapels, of which
the only remains are found in a cottage at Mere, and a restored
chapel at Cove. Tidcombe Rectory was built by a former rector, named
Newte, on the graveyard of one of these chapels, and it is pretended
that none of the eldest sons of the Newte family have ever since
come of age, as a punishment for this act of profanation.
Tiverton Church, dedicated to S. Peter, represents three periods of
architecture. In the north aisle is a Norman doorway, with zigzag
moulding. The tower, a hundred feet high, is the most beautiful
feature--Perpendicular. The nave, chancel, and north aisle are
of early Perpendicular work; the south aisle, with its Greenway
chapel, dates from early in the sixteenth century. It was built by
John Greenway, a rich merchant of Tiverton, and running round it,
represented in relief, are twenty scenes from the life of our Lord,
beginning with the Flight into Egypt, and ending with the Ascension.
The roof of the south porch is also Greenway's work, and is very
fine. He and his wife Joan are represented over the door kneeling
in adoration. He died in 1529, but the chapel was built in 1517.
The exterior is covered with lavish enrichments--representations
of ships, wool-packs, men, and horses. Formerly this chapel was
separated from the south aisle by a richly-carved, gilt and coloured
screen of stone, containing paintings in panels. This was wantonly
destroyed in 1830, but the fragments were happily rescued by the
Earl of Devon and removed to Powderham. At the "restoration" in 1854
the rood-screen was also removed, but was secured by the Rev. W.
Rayer, rector of Tidcombe Portion, who had just purchased the whole
of the Holcombe estate from the Blewett family, and his son had it
restored and erected in Holcombe Rogus Church.
The screen was in a very worm-eaten condition, and its restoration
was a very expensive matter.
Blundell's Grammar School was founded in 1604, and was for many
years the leading school of Devonshire. Under Dr. Richards it
contained the largest number of pupils, 200, ever within the walls,
until the new buildings were erected on a suitable spot to the east
of Tiverton, where there are now 250 boys.
Dr. Richards was a good teacher, but a very severe disciplinarian.
Perhaps the most famous of his pupils, both as a clergyman and
sportsman, was the late John Russell, "Parson Jack" as he was
called. He was a great favourite as a schoolboy, and always showed
a considerable amount of shrewdness. With another boy, named Bovey,
he kept a scratch pack of hounds. Having received a hint that this
had reached the ears of Dr. Richards, he collected his share of the
pack, and sent them off to his father. The next day he was summoned
to the master's desk.
"Russell," said the Doctor, "I hear that you have some hounds. Is it
true?"
"No, sir," answered Russell; "I have not a dog in the neighbourhood."
"You never told me a lie, so I believe you. Bovey, come here. You
have some hounds, I understand?"
"Well, sir, a few--but they are little ones."
"Oh! you have, have you? Then I shall expel you."
And expelled he was, Russell coming off scatheless. I tell the
following tale because it was told in Blundell's School of Russell,
during his lifetime, as one of his pranks, but I mistrust it. I
believe the story to be as old as the twelfth century; and if I
remember aright, it occurs in one of the French Fabliaux of that
period.
Dr. Richards had some very fine grapes growing against his garden
wall, under the boys' bedroom windows. "Jack was as good as
his master," and the young scamp was wont to be let down in a
clothes-basket by night, by his mates, to the region of the grapes,
and to return with a supply when hauled up.
The Doctor noticed how rapidly his grapes disappeared, and learning
from his man John the cause, took his place under the vine along
with his gardener, who was ordered to lay hold of the boy in the
basket and muffle his mouth, lest he should cry out. This he did
when Russell descended; and Dr. Richards took his place in the
clothes-basket. The boys hauled away, wondering at the accession of
weight, but when they saw the Doctor's head level with the window,
panic-stricken they let go their hold of the rope, and away went
Doctor and basket to the bottom.
No bones were broken, and nothing came of it, the Doctor being
rather ashamed of the part he had played in the matter.
It was said of Russell, as Napoleon said of Ashton Smith, that he
was "le premier chasseur d'Angleterre." His love for sport made
him always a poor man. On one occasion he invited a young curate
to breakfast with him, and preach for him. After breakfast two
likely-looking hunters, perhaps a little screwy, were brought round
and steadily mounted.
"No time for going round by the road," said Parson Jack; "we will
ride to my church across country, and so save a couple of miles."
Off they rode. The curate presently remarked, "How bare of trees
your estate is," as they crossed lands belonging to Russell. "Ah!"
responded the sportsman "the hounds eat 'em." Coming to a stiff
gate, Russell, with his hand in his pocket, cleared it like a bird,
but looking round, he saw the curate on the other side crawling over
the gate, and crying out in piteous tones, "It won't open."
"Not it," was the reply, "and if you can't jump a gate like that,
I'm sure you can't preach a sermon. Good-bye."
But he was not only a mighty hunter, he was also an excellent parish
priest and a fine preacher, though not always depending on his own
sermons. He was ordered to preach at one of Bishop Phillpotts'
visitations. His sermon was good, and at the consequent dinner
the Bishop complimented him in almost exaggerated terms for "his
splendid sermon." Russell knew that the Bishop when most oily was
most dangerous, and suspected that he had recognised the sermon, so,
as always, ready, he said in returning thanks, "As to the sermon, my
lord, I quite agree with you. I have ever considered it as one of
Barrow's best." Needless to say, the Bishop collapsed.
I can cap that with another anecdote.
The late Dr. Cornish, of Ottery S. Mary, was pompous and
patronising. A curate under him, recently ordained, preached his
first sermon. In the vestry the vicar, swelling out, said, "For a
beginner it was not wholly bad." "Ah, Doctor, I must not take any
credit to myself. It is one of Bishop Andrews' finest discourses."
Needless to say that Doctor Cornish's stomach went in.
There have not been many conspicuous lights from Blundell's. Perhaps
the most famous of them is the present Archbishop of Canterbury.
The school has passed through many vicissitudes. By a Chancery
decision in 1846 all boarders were swept away and the school reduced
to seventeen boys. £10,000 were put into the lawyers' pockets in
defending the suit, whereby the school was reduced well-nigh to
bankruptcy. By another decision of the courts and at the cost of
another £10,000, boarders were restored, and new buildings were
erected. The old school has been altered into private dwellings.
Near Tiverton is Washfield, where there is a very fine Jacobean
screen with the arms of James I. upon it, and in the north aisle
those of Charles as Prince of Wales. It deserves a study. In this
church the old parish orchestra still performs on Sunday, or did so
till recently. There is here a curious church-house with an oriel
window.
Outside the churchyard was buried a squire of the parish, so wicked
that he was denied a place in consecrated ground. Three times were
Acts of Parliament passed to enable either sale of property or the
management to be taken from successive squires as one after another
was mad. Worth House has now passed away from the family of that
name, which has died out in the male line.
In 1810 much public interest was excited by a report of spiritual
manifestations at Sampford Peverell, five miles from Tiverton, and
the Rev. C. Colton published an account of them. They consisted of
the usual rappings, dealing of heavy blows, and the throwing about
the room of heavy articles. That these were produced by some cunning
servant-maid cannot be doubted. Mr. Colton, who vouched for the
truth of the phenomena, did not bear a good character; he ended his
days by suicide, after having been "unfrocked," and his last years
spent in gambling-houses.
That these tricks were at one time not unfrequently resorted to
is probable. The Germans give them as the work of a Poltergeist.
In my own neighbourhood, in or about 1852, a precisely similar
exhibition took place. Stones, cups, pans flew about a room,
and strange knockings were heard. Many people went to witness
them, and came away convinced that they were the work of spirits;
especially was it so with one yeoman, whose hat was knocked off
his head by the spirit. My father investigated the matter, and
came to the conclusion that the whole was contrived by a girl of
low intelligence but of much cunning. It is now, with the advance
of education, persons of a superior grade who are the dupes of
spirit-mediums. Education will not give brains, but it will varnish
emptiness.
At Tiverton lived, till a few years ago, "Old Snow," a rather famous
"white witch," to whom many persons had recourse, among others a
farmer who was a churchwarden and a well-to-do man. I knew him well,
and in 1889 believed him to be a doomed man, with a hacking cough,
worn to a shred, and bent by weakness. Having consulted all the
prominent doctors in the south of the county, he went in desperation
to "Old Snow." What the white witch did to him I cannot say, but I
can testify he was a changed man from that day, and is at present a
robust, hale man, looking good for another twenty or thirty years.
In an article I wrote on "White Witches" for the _Daily Graphic_ I
mentioned this case. Some days after I met the farmer. "Why," said
he, "you have put me in the papers." "So I have," I answered, "but
what I told was literally true." "True--aye," he said, "every bit.
Old Snow cured me when the faculty gave me up. _How_ he did it,
neither you nor I know."
The white witch is an institution that has not been killed by board
schools in the West, nor, as far as can be judged from the favour
in which he is still regarded, is he likely to die. A witch is
generally supposed to be the feminine of wizard, but in the West of
England "witch" is of common gender, and those in highest repute are
men. Their trade consists in prescribing for the sick, in informing
those who have been "overlooked" whose evil eye has influenced them
for ill, where lost articles are to be found, and how spells cast on
their cattle are to be broken.
A white witch is one who repudiates utterly having any traffic
with the Evil One. His or her knowledge is derived from other
sources--what, not specified. I had for many years as a tenant in
one of my cottages a woman who was much consulted as a white witch.
She is now dead, and her decease is a matter of outspoken regret.
The village inn frequently had guests staying there to undergo
a course of "blessing" from this woman. She was an ill-favoured
person, with a wall-eye, and one eye higher in her head than the
other. She was bent, heavy-featured, and stoutly built. A worthy
woman, scrupulously neat in her person, and who kept her cottage in
beautiful order. She certainly believed in her own powers, and as
certainly performed very remarkable cures, which it was not possible
to deny, though they might be explained. For instance, in the
hayfield in a parish four miles distant as the crow flies, eight by
road, a young man cut his leg with the scythe, and the blood spurted
out. At once the farmer dipped the man's handkerchief in the blood,
mounted one of his men on a horse, and sent him galloping to the
white witch, who took the kerchief, blessed it, and simultaneously
four miles off as the crow flies, the blood was stanched. The son of
the largest farmer in the place, a man who is worth his thousands,
was suffering from glandular ulcerations in the neck. The village
doctor attended him and did him no good. He consulted the principal
medical man in the nearest market town, also to no advantage. Time
passed and he was no better; he gave up consulting doctors, who sent
him in bills and left him rather worse than when they began on him.
At last he went to the white witch. Whether she "struck" his glands
or prescribed some herbs I cannot say, but what I do know is that
within a month the young man was perfectly well.
The woman, who was my tenant, was no conscious impostor, of that
I am convinced. What her secret was she would not communicate,
but most earnestly did she deprecate any communication with evil
spirits. Not only did the village innkeeper derive a certain
revenue from patients lodging in his house to be under treatment
by her, but the postmen of the neighbourhood also earned their
crumbs by carrying kerchiefs blessed by her to sufferers within
their districts. It was no uncommon sight to see a walking postman
careering along with arms extended holding a kerchief in each hand,
fluttering as he walked. It is held that the blessing is drawn out
of the material if it be folded, put in a pocket, and handled other
than most gingerly between finger and thumb.
When among the educated, the cultivated classes, we find belief
in faith-healing, and so-called "Christian Science," is it to be
wondered at that in classes lower down in the scale there should be
credulous persons who not only believe in white witches, but believe
in their own powers as white witches?
It is the same as in the Lourdes miracles; the imagination acts
on the nervous system, and that stimulates the body to throw off
disease. That is the true secret.
I cannot doubt but that in many cases herbs are employed that have
been sadly neglected ever since our doctors have gone in for mineral
medicines. The latter act violently, but the herbs slowly, and, in
many instances, more surely.
However, in the majority of cases the white witches are mere
impostors, and may do much harm, as in that I will now record, which
took place three years ago only. I shall, for obvious reasons, not
give the true names, nor indicate the locality.
A cattle dealer in 1896 had a daughter, who two years previously had
been a victim to influenza. This had affected her head and produced
profound melancholy. As doctors proved unavailing, the man went to
Exeter and consulted a white witch there. According to his statement
the witch showed him the face of a neighbour, Mrs. Thomas, in a
glass of water, and told him that his daughter was "overlooked" by
the person he saw. The white witch further informed him that the
individual who had "ill wished" his daughter passed his door every
day, but had hitherto never entered it, but that on the following
Saturday she would do so. The cattle dealer returned home, and, sure
enough, next ensuing Saturday Mrs. Thomas entered his house and
asked if he would take of her a little meat she had to spare, as she
had been killing a pig.
Next night the Thomases' house was set on fire. It was thatched, and
six persons slept under the thatch. By the merest chance Mr. Thomas
woke in the night, and hearing a strange sound went outside his
house to see what was the matter, and found his roof in flames. He
had barely time to rouse and bring forth his wife and family before
the roof fell in.
It was ascertained by the police that the thatch had been
deliberately fired. The incendiary had struck two matches, which
had failed, and in drawing the matches from his pocket had dropped
two halfpenny stamps. He had climbed on to a hedge to effect his
object, and the third match had ignited the thatch. But it was never
ascertained _who_ had done the deed.
A few years ago I wrote the little account of "Devonshire White
Witches" for the _Daily Graphic_ already referred to. This brought
down on me a copious shower of letters from all parts of England,
entreating me to furnish the addresses of some of our white witches,
as the correspondents had found it profitless and expensive to apply
to medical practitioners, and they were anxious to try the cures of
these conscious or unconscious impostors.
Tiverton parish was ecclesiastically divided into four quarters,
each under an independent rector, and all co-equally regnant in the
parish church. The arrangement was not happy--and led to constant
ruffles and conflict of opinion. The condition was so unsatisfactory
that the late Bishop of Exeter and present Archbishop carried an Act
to alter it.
Tiverton is a seat of machine-lace manufacture, introduced by Mr.
John Heathcoat in 1816.
Lace is said to have been brought into France by Mary de Medici from
Venice; and the making of this beautiful work of art rapidly spread
and took root in the Low Countries. Refugees from Flanders brought
it into England, when they settled at Cranfield, in Bedfordshire.
The lace made was Brussels point; the network was formed by bone
bobbins on a pillow, which held the threads, and the sprigs were
worked with a needle.
The introduction of machinery told heavily on the commoner and
coarser lace-making.
In the reign of George II., or about a hundred and fifty years after
the introduction of the first knitting machines, many additions
and improvements were made in them, and the so-called "tickler,"
guided by mere accident, was now applied for the first time to the
manufacture of lace. This attempt was succeeded by a "point-net"
machine, an invention that was nearly, but not entirely, successful.
In 1768 a watchmaker, named Hammond, applied the stocking-frame
to the manufacture of lace, but it worked slowly and without
accuracy. Attempts were made in various parts of the kingdom to make
fishing-nets by machinery, and a workman discovered, by observing
a child at play, the secret of the "bobbin and carriage," which
was first applied to the manufacture of fishing-nets. It was not,
however, till 1809 that Mr. Heathcoat patented his machine, which
combined the discoveries of the past with immense improvements of
his own.
The point-net frame had been invented in the early years of the
century. Attempts were made to produce a twist mesh. Heathcoat
divided the warp threads and put them on a beam, apart from the
transverse threads, which latter he wound upon thin bobbins, and
arranged them so that they could pass around and amongst the former.
This machine was, however, complex, having twenty-four motions to
the series for twisting the mesh, and four for the pins to secure
the twist when unravelling, but after the expiration of the patent
it was simplified so as to require only six, with two motions to
prevent the unravelment.
The introduction of mechanism threatening the manufacture at home
provoked grave riots in the counties of Nottingham, Derby, and
Leicester, headed by a weaver named Ludd, who gave his name to
the riots. The man himself was really insane. Troops of men went
about breaking machines and intimidating workers in the factories.
William Horsfall, a Marsden manufacturer, they murdered. This
was in 1813. Although peremptory punishment fell on the rioters,
still insecurity to life and property continued for some years,
and induced Mr. Heathcoat to transfer his frames to and start as
a manufacturer in Tiverton in 1816, and abandon his factory at
Loughborough. He brought with him as a foreman Mr. Asher, who had
been shot at and wounded in the back of his head by the rioters.
This transfer was so much loss to Loughborough and gain to Tiverton,
and that not temporary, but lasting, for what was begun in 1816 is
continued to this day in full vigour, finding employment for 1400
hands and 130 children. John Heathcoat's only child and daughter
married a solicitor named Amory, and their son was made a baronet
by Mr. Gladstone in 1874, a well-deserved honour, as, but for the
introduction of the lace manufacture, Tiverton would have sunk to
the position of a stagnant county town.
The Exe valley below Tiverton presents pleasant scenery, but nothing
fine. An excursion should be made to Cullompton in the Culm (Welsh
_cûll_, Gael. _caol_, narrow, slender) valley to see the interesting
church with its fine restored screen in all the splendour of colour.
Cullompton had the wit to preserve and cherish what Tiverton cast
away. Uffculme has also a screen; near this is Bradfield House, a
rare treasury of old oak carving. Culmstock has a stone screen,
which has stupidly been converted into a reredos.
Holcombe Rogus is a very fine specimen of an Elizabethan house and
hall. In the church is some beautiful cinque-cento carved screenwork
to the manorial pew.
At Bickleigh was born Bampfylde Moore Carew in 1693. His father
was the rector, and the son was educated at Blundell's School at
Tiverton, where he showed considerable ability. He and other boys
kept a pack of hounds, and as these, with Carew and others behind
them, once gave chase to a deer strayed from Exmoor over standing
corn, so much damage was done that the farmers complained.
Bampfylde Moore Carew was too great a coward to wait and take
his whipping. He ran away from school, and sheltered among some
gipsies. He contracted such a love for their vagrant life, and such
satisfaction in getting their applause for thefts that manifested
low cunning, that nothing would induce him to abandon their mode
of life and return to civilisation. At one time he postured as a
non-juring parson who had been forced to leave his rectory, and
preyed on the sympathy of the Jacobite gentry. Then learning from a
newspaper that a cargo of Quakers bound for Philadelphia had been
wrecked on the Irish coast, he disguised himself as a Friend, and
traded on the charity of the Quakers by representing himself as one
of those who had been rescued from the sea.
He was elected King of the Beggars on the death of Clause Patch,
who had reigned previously over the mendicants. At last he was
arrested, tried at the quarter sessions at Exeter, and transported
to Maryland, where he was sold to a planter, and as he tried to
escape an iron collar was riveted about his neck. He again escaped;
this time succeeded in getting among the Indians, who relieved him
of his collar. He stole a canoe from his benefactors, and got on
board a vessel sailing for England. What became of him is not known,
but he is thought to have died in obscurity in 1770, aged 77, but
where buried is unknown. The fellow was a worthless rogue, without a
redeeming quality in him.
The Bampton Fair is an institution that should not be passed
by unsought by the visitor to North Devon, if he be a lover of
horseflesh or a student of mankind. He will see there choice
specimens alike of Exmoor ponies and of North Devon farmers, and
will catch many a waft of the broadest dialect of the borders of
Somerset and Devon.
A writer in _S. Paul's Magazine_, December 12th, 1896, says:--
"As a dead-alive, archæologically interesting place, the Devon
Bampton on the Exe is a more or less desirable centre for the
angler and the hunting man, but ordinarily, in the eyes of the
unsporting, sane person, it is a useful hole to strive to avoid.
"Bampton Fair, however, is a celebration once to be seen by
every woman or man who has eyes, ears, and nose for novelty.
Such lowing of oxen, bleating of sheep, and assemblage of
agrestics and congregation of ponies! The side shows are naught.
Who cares for gingerbread, pasties, cockles, fairings, tipsy
yokels, trolloping hussies, and other attributes of Bœotia
let loose? The play's the thing--that is, the pony exhibition.
Nijni Novgorod is all very well--quite unique in its way; Rugby,
Barnet, and Brampton Brian fairs are things apart. But Bampton
Fair is absolutely _sui generis_. Exmoor ponies throng the
streets, flood the pavements, overflow the houses, pervade the
place. Wild as hawks, active and lissom as goats, cajoled from
the moors and tactfully manœuvred when penned, these indigenous
quadrupeds will leap or escalade lofty barriers in a standing
jump, or a cat-like scramble, whilst the very 'suckers' have to
be cajoled with all the Dædalian adroitness with which the Irish
pig has to be induced to go whither it would not."
The great sale of ponies formerly took place at Simonsbath, but it
was moved to Bampton in 1850, and is held on the last Thursday in
October.
"Seventy years ago," said a bailiff, "there were only five men and
a woman and a little girl on Exmoor, and that little girl was my
mother. She drew beer at Simonsbath public-house. There were a rough
lot of customers then, I promise you."
The moor was the property of the Crown, and it was leased in part to
Sir Thomas Dyke Acland since 1818, and was used for the rearing of
ponies and the summering of sheep.
There was a good deal of horse stealing in the early days of this
century. In spite of the severe laws on this sort of theft, and of
the Acland brand of the anchor, a good many ponies were spirited
away by the shepherds and disposed of in Wiltshire. The Acland breed
is pure, and can only be obtained from the Baronet. All the rest are
the result of crossing. Sir Thomas moved his stock away from Exmoor
to the Winsford Hills, and left only a dozen mare ponies to preserve
the line, when the father of the late Sir Frederick Knight rented
10,000 acres of the moor and added 6000 subsequently.
"An after-dinner conversation led Mr. Knight to consider the
great pony question in all its bearings. The party met at Sir
Joseph Banks's, the eminent naturalist. They discussed the
merits of the Dongola horse, which had been described as an
Arab of sixteen hands and peculiar to the regions round Nubia.
Sir Joseph proposed to the party to get some of the breed, and
accordingly Lords Headly, Morton, and Dundas, and Mr. Knight
then and there gave him a joint £1000 cheque as a deposit for
the expenses. The English consul in Egypt was applied to, and in
due course the horses and mares which he sent bore out Bruce's
description to the letter. In addition to their height, they
were rather Roman-nosed, with a very fine texture of skin, well
chiselled under the jowl, and as clean-winded as all their race.
About ten or twelve arrived, and Mr. Knight was so pleased
with them that he bought Lord Headly's share. His two sires
and three mares were then brought to Simonsbath, where he had
established a stud of seven or eight thoroughbred mares and
thirty half-breeds of the coaching Cleveland sort.
"The first cross knocked out the Roman nose as completely as
the Leicester destroys the Exmoor horn, but the buffy stood
true to its colour, and thus the type was never quite lost.
The half Dongolas did wonderfully well with the West Somerset,
which often came to Exmoor to draw for a fox, and they managed
to get down the difficult hills so well, and crossed the brooks
so close up with the hounds, that the vocation of the white-clad
guides on chase days gradually fell into disuse."[12]
[12] Condensed from "The Exmoor Ponies," by "DRUID," in _The
Sporting Magazine_, October, 1860.
The average height is 12½ hands, and bays and buffy bays with
mealy noses prevail; in fact, are in a majority of at least three to
one.
The older ponies live all through the winter on the hills, and seek
out sheltered spots for themselves during the continuance of wind
and rain. These favourite nooks are well known to the herdsmen,
who build up stacks of hay and straw, which are doled out to them
in times of snow. "Still, like honest, hard-working labourers, the
ponies never assemble at the wicket till they have exhausted every
means of self-support by scratching with their fore-feet in the snow
for the remnants of the summer tufts, and drag wearily behind them
an ever lengthening chain of snowballs."
A writer in _All The Year Round_ for May, 1866, says:--
"Throughout North Devon and Somersetshire and wherever ponies
are famed, the Exmoor breed have a great reputation, not without
reason, for they are not only hardy and sure-footed, but from
their earliest years the foals follow their dams at a gallop
down the _crees_ of loose stones on the steep moorland sides;
they are extraordinarily active and courageous. The writer once
saw an Exmoor, only 44 inches high, jump out of a pound 5 feet 6
inches in height, just touching the top bar with his hind feet."
Well, let a visitor go to Bampton Fair, and see the pranks of these
wild, beautiful creatures, and note as well the skill with which
they are managed by the men experienced in dealing with them. Such
a sight will remain in his memory, and when he gets back to town he
will have something to talk about at dinner, and if he has a bit of
descriptive power in him he will hold the ears of those who are near
him at table.
NOTE.--HARDING (Lt.-Col.), _The History of Tiverton_. Tiverton,
1845.