Part 5

Sidmouth, the "Baymouth" of Thackeray's _Pendennis_, set among beautiful hills, and one of the pleasantest of west-country watering-places, was once a port, with valuable pilchard fisheries. But its harbour has been destroyed by repeated falls of rock from its grand cliffs of deep red sandstone, the Sid is silted up with sand and shingle, and the pilchards have left this part of the coast. About a mile west of Sidmouth is the beautiful headland of High Peak, whose summit, 511 feet above the sea, is the most lofty point on the south coast of Devon. Just beyond it is the popular bathing-place of Ladram Cove, whose firm sands are fringed with brightly-coloured pebbles. Rather more than two miles farther on is the estuary of the Otter, a harbour 500 years ago, but now, like so many of these river mouths, barred with shingle. Close to the estuary lies the quiet little town of Budleigh Salterton, set in a beautiful valley, famous for its mild climate and its luxuriant vegetation. Some five miles of coast-line--broken half-way by Straight Point, beyond which the shore is low--extend from Budleigh to the mouth of the Exe, the widest of Devonshire estuaries, but almost closed by a long bar of grass-grown sand called the Warren, on which, during the Civil War, stood a Royalist fort mounting sixteen guns. Exmouth, at the east side of the estuary, formerly a fishing-village, is now a highly popular watering-place.

Four miles farther on, in a little bay walled-in by lofty cliffs of deep red sandstone, is Dawlish, noted for its warm climate and its good sands. At the eastern end of the bay is a rock called the Langstone, and at the western end are the strange-looking pillars of red sandstone known as the Parson and Clerk. Teignmouth lies rather more than two miles S.S.W. of Dawlish, with picturesque red cliffs and firm sands all the way, at the mouth of the estuary of the river Teign, whose swiftly-flowing stream is here crossed by one of the longest wooden bridges in England. It is a small port and a very popular watering-place, with beautiful inland scenery behind it, and inside the Den--the dune or sand-bank which bars a great part of the river's mouth--is a good harbour for vessels of light draught. Teignmouth is one of the towns that in the past have suffered from the attacks of the French, who burnt it in 1347 and again in 1690.

Four miles south of the estuary of the Teign is Babbacombe Bay, in whose beautiful cliffs of red and grey is some of the richest colouring on the whole coast. The paler-toned cliffs round the picturesque little inlet of Anstis Cove are of limestone. Half a mile farther is the prominent cape called Hope's Nose, the northern limit of Torbay, and a spot of much interest to the geologist on account of the raised sea-beach which, at a height of some thirty feet above the present high tide-line, may be traced under the headland, and also, at a lower level, on the Thatcher Rock. Among the marine shells of the latter deposit is _Trophon truncatus_, an arctic species, whose presence here is another proof that the climate of Devonshire was once far colder than it is now.

Torbay, which extends from Hope's Nose on the north to Berry Head on the south--two prominent headlands nearly five miles apart--is one of the best known and most beautiful bays on the coast of England. In all except easterly winds it affords an excellent anchorage which was much used by ships of the Royal Navy in the old sailing days, and it is still a great yachting station. At the northern end of the bay, occupying, it is said, more ground in proportion to its population than any other town in the island, is the much frequented watering-place of Torquay, widely celebrated for the beauty of its situation and the mildness of its winter climate. Along the whole coast of Torbay, at a level which shows that the land has sunk some forty feet, lies a submerged forest, in which have been found bones of the wild boar, red-deer antlers, and mammoth's teeth. But proofs of an elevation on a still greater scale are to be found in the borings of sea-shells in the limestone cliffs above Kent's Cavern, within the limits of the town, at a height of 200 feet above the present sea level.

Half-way along the shore of Torbay is Paignton, another favourite seaside resort, famous for its fine beach, and on a steep slope at the head of an inlet rather more than a mile before coming to Berry Head stands Brixham, a town second only in importance to Plymouth among the fishing-stations of the south coast of England. Here, on the 5th of November, 1688, the Prince of Orange landed. And here, six weeks after the Battle of Waterloo, the _Bellerophon_ anchored, with Napoleon Buonaparte a prisoner on board.

Beyond Berry Head, which forms the end of a broad promontory, worn at its base into many caves, and noted for its quarries, there extends for many miles--all the way, in fact, to the mouth of the Dart--a stretch of very beautiful coast-line, with low but finely-coloured cliffs of sandstone and limestone and slate, varying in tint from red to purple, and from brown to grey, with a series of sandy bays and fringed by outlying rocks, two of which are called Mewstones. One of these, standing just where the coast sweeps round to the estuary of the Dart, is a lofty pinnacle of stone more than 100 feet high. Well inside the mouth of the Dart, on the steep slope of its left or eastern entrance, is the quaint little town of Kingswear; and opposite to it, on the western shore, lies Dartmouth, once a noted port, but now only a favourite yachting station. The old man-of-war, the _Britannia_, anchored here close to land and long used as a training-ship, has been superseded by a naval college on shore, and is now used only as a store. Dartmouth is a place of much historic interest. It was from here that part of Richard C[oe]ur de Lion's crusading fleet sailed for Palestine. The port furnished thirty-one ships towards Edward III's attack on Calais. Twice, in the half century that followed, it was plundered by the French. It played a prominent part in the Civil War, and was taken first by Prince Maurice, and afterwards by Fairfax.

Between the mouth of the Dart and Start Point, nine miles as the crow flies, is Start Bay, walled for about half its length with low and quiet-coloured cliffs of slate, and fringed in great part with sand and shingle. At Blackpool, a picturesque little cove near the northern end of the bay, du Chastel the Breton landed, in 1404, on a pillaging expedition, for the plundering was not all on the side of the English. But the Frenchman was killed, with 400 of his men, and 200 more were taken prisoners. Half-way along the shore of Start Bay are Slapton Sands, where a beach of small and brightly-coloured pebbles and a bank of shingle separate the long and narrow lake called Slapton Ley from the waters of the Channel. Off this spot, marked by two beacons on the shore, is the spot, "measured mile" for testing the speed of steamships. Not far from Slapton the coast rises again, and above the fishing villages of Hallsands and Beesands, which stand at the water's edge, reaches a height of some hundreds of feet. The people of these two little hamlets train powerful dogs, which, in rough weather, swim out through the surf, catch the painters thrown to them and thus enable the fishing-boats to be dragged ashore.

Start Point, or, as it is perhaps more often called, the Start, is one of the famous capes of Britain, a bold headland sloping steeply both ways, like the roof of a house; whose iron base, fringed with white quartz pebbles; has been the scene of many shipwrecks, and whose dark cliffs and rugged crags are haunted by multitudes of sea-birds. The cliffs of this part of Devon, from the Start round Prawle Point and Bolt Head to Bolt Tail--cliffs whose grey rock, relieved by bands of white quartz, has been bent and twisted by volcanic upheaval, and weathered by rain and frost, by wind and sea, into the wildest and most fantastic shapes--are as remarkable for picturesqueness of form as other parts are for richness of colouring. Three miles beyond the Start is Prawle Point, a magnificent mass of jagged rock, the most southerly point in the county, and a well-known steering-mark for ships in the Channel. It was off this shore, in 1793, that the English ship _Nymphe_ captured the French man-of-war _Cléopatre_; the first naval battle in the struggle between England and the French Republic. Between Prawle Point and Bolt Head is Salcombe Mouth, a creek rather than an estuary; a long, winding, and picturesque inlet, whose entrance is obstructed by a bank of sand. Trunks of oak and other trees, from a submerged forest not far from land, are sometimes thrown ashore here after rough weather. To the west of Salcombe stands Bolt Head, of no great height, but a noble mass of rugged and weather-worn rock. Beyond the Head the coast rises into steep and lofty cliffs, culminating in Bolt Tail, close under whose eastern face, in 1760, the 74-gun ship _Ramillies_ was lost, with more than 700 of her crew. A gun recovered from the wreck lies by the Hope signal-station, on the height above. These cliffs have been much broken away by landslips; and a series of fissures called the Pits suggest that much more ground is still to fall.

Round Bigbury Bay, of which Bolt Tail is the eastern limit, is some of the most beautiful scenery of this beautiful coast. A striking feature of the bay is a great rock called the Thurlestone, an outlying mass of red sandstone, conspicuous against the general greyness of the cliffs, and pierced by a lofty archway, worn by wind and sea. Two estuaries, the Avon Mouth and the Erme Mouth, break the coast-line of the bay; and there is a third, called Yealm Mouth, near the entrance of Plymouth Sound, a couple of miles beyond the grand slate headland of Stoke Point. Outside the Avon Mouth is Borough Island, carpeted in spring-time with the beautiful blue of the delicate little vernal squill. The Erme, whose mouth is guarded by rugged cliffs of slate, is strewn with rocks and sandbanks; but the estuary of the Yealm is a fine sheet of deep, navigable water. Standing far out into Wembury Bay, at the mouth of the Yealm, is the third of the Mewstones, a rocky and beautiful little islet, nearly 200 feet high, and frequented, as its name implies, by many sea-gulls.

The Mewstone may be said to mark the eastern side of the entrance of Plymouth Sound, one of the best known, most important, and most beautiful bays in the kingdom. It is by nature fully exposed to southerly winds, and it has, in the past, been the scene of many shipwrecks. But the breakwater, which was built in the early half of the nineteenth century right across it, two miles south of Plymouth Hoe, with the special object of sheltering ships of the Royal Navy, now affords a safe and excellent anchorage. Nearer the shore is Drake's Island, now strongly fortified, but in Stuart times a State prison, where Lambert, one of the most distinguished of Parliamentary generals, spent the last eighteen years of his life.

At the head of the Sound, on its eastern side, is the inlet called the Catwater, the estuary of the river Plym, an important mercantile anchorage, protected by Batten breakwater. It was here that the English Fleet waited until the Spanish Armada, on its way up the Channel, had passed the entrance of the Sound.

Between the Catwater and the Hamoaze, the great naval anchorage which extends from the Sound to Saltash Bridge, are the "Three Towns," Plymouth, Stonehouse, and Devonport, now joined into one by continuous buildings, forming the busiest and most populous part of the county, and constituting, with their dockyards, barracks, gun-wharves, and victualling yards, one of the most important stations of the Royal Navy.

10. Coastal Gains and Losses. Sandbanks. Lighthouses.

There are parts of our island where, even within historic times, the coast-line has been greatly changed by the encroachment of the sea, usually through the wearing away of the cliffs along the shore. This is especially the case on the eastern coast of England, where, in the lapse of ages, villages, towns, and whole manors have been completely swept away. The old town of Ravenspur, for example, a place that in its time rivalled Hull as a sea-port, is to-day a mere sandbank far out from shore; and the sea runs twenty feet deep over the once great shipping town of Dunwich, whose site is now two miles from the land.

On the other hand, there are places where the reverse has happened; where the shore has gained upon the sea. The town of Yarmouth, for instance, stands on ground that first became firm enough to build upon nine hundred years ago. A large tract of land on the coast of Carnarvonshire has, in times much more recent, been reclaimed from the sea; and the day cannot be far distant when the mud-flats of the Wash will be under the plough.

Similar changes--changes resulting both from gain and loss--have happened and are still happening in Devonshire. Braunton Great Field, a rich tract of land some 300 acres in extent, cut up into hundreds of small freeholds, was, it is believed, reclaimed from the estuary of the Taw. On the other hand, the Pebble Ridge on the shore of Barnstaple Bay has been slowly driven inland by the force of the sea, and is said to have advanced 200 yards in the last fifty years, thus covering a long stretch of pasture-land under heaps of stones. Attempts have been lately made, by means of piles and groynes of timber, to stop its further movement.

Much more remarkable, however, and much more widely distributed, are the alterations that have taken place on the south coast of Devonshire, owing mainly to erosion of the cliffs and consequent landslips, and to the washing up, by strong currents, of vast quantities of sand and shingle. From the Dorset border westwards, especially between Pinhay Bay and Culverhole Point, in the White Cliff near Seaton, and at Beer Head, long stretches of cliff, undermined probably by streams and heavy rains, have fallen, sometimes in masses half a mile long. The old town of Sidmouth is now buried under the shingle, the cliffs that protected the harbour having been entirely washed away. At Dawlish, again, rather more than fifty years since, a mass estimated at 4000 tons fell bodily into the sea. Nor is the erosion the work of natural forces alone. In 1897 immense quantities of fine shingle were taken from the beach at Hallsands, to make concrete for Keyham dockyard, with the result that the beach there has sunk twelve feet, that high-water mark is now much farther in-shore, and that many houses in the village have been swept away by the sea, whose further inroads have at last been checked by means of massive walls of concrete.

Most of the south coast estuaries, as has already been pointed out, have been more or less blocked up by banks of sand or shingle, some of which are still undergoing change. The Warren, for example, the great bar at the mouth of the Exe, now connected with the western shore, was in the seventeenth century joined to the Exmouth side of the river, and was still reached from there by stepping-stones as late as 1730. The Warren is now being slowly washed away, at the rate, it is said, of an acre in a year; and the river has within historic times encroached upon the site of Newenham Abbey.

Great as has been the loss of land on the south coast, there have been some gains. More than 170 acres of land, for instance, have been reclaimed from the Laira near Plymouth; and the village of Penny-come-quick, lower down, whose anglicised Celtic name means "the house at the head of the creek," is no longer at the water's edge. In 1805 some thirty acres were recovered from the Charleston marshes, on the Salcombe estuary.

The Bristol Channel is one of the most stormy and dangerous parts of the British seas, and is the scene of about one-tenth of all the shipping disasters that happen on our coasts every year. In its upper reaches navigation is made difficult by banks of mud and sand which are continually altering in shape and position. On the north coast of Devonshire, however, there are no outlying sandbanks. There is a small patch of sand off Lynmouth, 1-1/2 miles N.N.W. of Countisbury Foreland, and the estuary of the Taw and Torridge is obstructed by a dangerous and shifting sandbank known as Barnstaple Bar, upon which ("the harbour bar" of Kingsley's song), many vessels have been wrecked. But the dangers of this stormy shore lie mainly in the iron-bound coast itself, and in the rocks that stretch seaward from the bases of the cliffs. From Bull Point to Baggy Point, especially off Morte Point, and again from Clovelly to the border of Cornwall, particularly off Hartland Point, the shore is fringed with reefs and sharp edges of rock.

Lundy, again, is a constant source of danger to sailors; partly because of the many rocks that stretch out from it, especially the Hen and Chickens at the north end and the Lee Rocks at the south; partly because of the strong currents that, off the south point of the island, run five knots an hour; and partly because of the fogs that so frequently envelope it. It was all three clauses combined that, in 1906, occasioned the loss of the first-class battleship _Montagu_, which, carried out of her course by the current, and deceived by the fog, became a total wreck on the Shutter Rock, the southern extremity of the island. Off Lundy, too, are the only banks of importance. Over the Stanley Bank, which lies to the north-east, where the depth at one point is only four and a half fathoms, there run, in heavy weather, the dangerous "tide-rips" known as the White Horses.

The navigation of the south shore of Devonshire is much more important than that of the north; partly because of the number of ports in the county itself, and partly because the English Channel is a much more crowded waterway.

The principal danger to navigation on the south coast is the group of reefs called the Eddystone Rocks, fourteen miles south-south-west of the entrance of Plymouth Sound. They are all covered at high tide, but the top of one of them is nineteen feet above low-water mark. In Plymouth Sound itself, especially near the eastern shore, there are many rocks and shallow patches. The most conspicuous of the former is the Mewstone, 194 feet high. On the Shagstone, a little farther in, the P. and O. steamship _Nepaul_ was lost. From this point eastward the coast is fringed with rocks and small islets, most of them close in-shore. But from the Start a chain of sandbanks called the Skerries extends out some miles from the land. From Bigbury Bay to the Start is one of the most dangerous parts of the coast, and has been the scene of many wrecks. Here, to name a few of many instances, were lost the _Ramillies_, of whose crew 708 were drowned; the _Chanteloupe_, when only one man was saved; the _Marana_, from which seven men escaped; and the _Dryad_, on which every man perished.

From the mouth of the Dart to Hope's Nose there are many outlying rocks; but from that headland to the Dorsetshire border the coast is comparatively "clean," that is to say, free from obstructions. All the rivers east of Plymouth Sound are more or less blocked by bars, with the exception of the Dart, whose entrance, however, is strewn with rocks.

To warn the sailor against these and other dangers, buoys, bells, beacons, fog-horns or sirens, guns or explosive signals, and lighthouses have been provided at many points along the Devonshire coasts. There are also numerous storm-signalling stations, and there are no fewer than thirteen lifeboats, of which eight are on the south coast. The men of the thirty-three Devonshire Coastguard stations have been the means of saving many lives.

On the two coasts, including Lundy, there are in all fifty-one lights of various sorts and sizes, from the eight first-class lighthouses with massive stone towers, of which the most famous although not the most powerful is the Eddystone, down to the small but useful lights of a hundred candle-power or less, most of which are connected with quays and harbours; while others, like that at Clovelly, lighted only in the fishing-season, are temporary, a number of them consisting merely of a lantern on the top of a post. A hut that carries the red and white lights at the mouth of the Barnstaple river is on wheels, and is moved as the bar shifts its position.

The first Eddystone lighthouse, a fantastic structure of wood, with six stages, begun in 1690 by Winstanley--who, while engaged in building it, was carried off by a French privateer, but promptly released by command of Louis XIV--was swept away, with its builder and three other men, in the historic storm of 1703. The second lighthouse, also of wood, built by Rudyerd in 1706, was destroyed by fire in 1755. The third, which was the first real lighthouse ever erected, was constructed by Smeaton of stones dovetailed together, with a shaft eighty-seven feet high, shaped like the trunk of an oak-tree for the sake of strength, and with the idea that it would offer greater resistance to the waves. It was finished in 1759, but its woodwork having been burnt in 1770 was then replaced by stone. The foundations of this tower having been undermined by the sea, a fourth lighthouse, whose top is 133 feet above high-water mark, was built by Douglas, between 1878 and 1882, on a rock forty yards south-south-east of the original site, which is nine miles and a quarter from the nearest land. Part of the old tower was taken down, and re-erected on Plymouth Hoe, in memory of Smeaton. Like most of the Devonshire lights the Eddystone lantern is of the group-flashing order, giving a light equal to that of nearly 300,000 candles, with two quick flashes every half-minute, and visible in clear weather for seventeen miles. A minor fixed light, in the same tower, shines on the Hand Deeps, a bank to the north-west; and the lighthouse is also provided with an explosive fog-signal, giving two reports every five minutes.

Other very powerful lights, visible for from seventeen to twenty-one miles, are--giving them in ascending order--those at Hartland, Bull Point, Countisbury Foreland, North Lundy, the Start, and South Lundy, the last named being the most brilliant of all, of 374,225 candle-power. All these lighthouses have fog-sirens or explosive fog-signals.

Most of the English lighthouses are under the charge of the Trinity House, a corporation founded in 1512, and now having a yearly revenue of £300,000, derived from "light-dues" levied on shipping. The expense of keeping up the lighthouses of the United Kingdom in 1909 amounted, however, to £464,540. The early beacon-lights were simply fires of coal, and one of these was in use at St Bees Head as recently as 1812. There are now round the coasts of Britain more than a thousand lighthouses and lights of various degrees of importance, from those at the Lizard and at St Catherine's Point, which are the most brilliant in the world, and may be reckoned in millions of candles, down to insignificant little structures, of which there are many, like the 100-candle-power "Jack-in-the-Box" on the river Tees.

11. Climate and Rainfall.