Part 9
Several episodes in the history of Devonshire are associated with the French war of the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. In 1797 a French squadron, afterwards captured by Admiral Bridport, sank the fishing-boats in Ilfracombe harbour. A few years later, in 1809, Princetown was built for the reception of the rougher class of French prisoners of war, and during the five years that followed 12,679 Frenchmen and Americans were confined there, while many others were billeted at Okehampton, Ashburton, Tavistock, and Moreton Hampstead. The Princetown buildings were afterwards disused--except for a short occupation by a naphtha company--until 1850, when they were converted into a prison for convicts.
It was at this period that Torquay came into note, having become a place of residence for the families of naval officers serving on men-of-war anchored in Torbay. In Torbay, too, was enacted what may be called the last scene of the war. For it was here, on the 24th of July, 1815, that Napoleon was brought a prisoner. And here he remained, except for a few days spent in Plymouth Sound, until the 11th of August, when he was taken to St Helena.
19. Antiquities.
To the archaeologist and the antiquarian Devonshire is one of the most interesting counties in England. With the exception of Cornwall no other district is so rich in relics of the ancient inhabitants of Britain; and it was from the caves of this county that Pengelly obtained that clear evidence of the extreme antiquity of man in this island which proved that he lived here, unnumbered ages back, when such animals as the cave-lion, the hyaena, and the mammoth ran wild in what we now call England.
The people who inhabited Britain before the coming of the Romans are said to have belonged to the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, or the Iron Age, according to the material which they used for their tools and weapons; and the first of these epochs is further divided into the Earlier and the Later Stone Ages, or the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic Periods. The implements of the former were very roughly fashioned of chipped, unpolished flint; those of the latter were more skilfully made, and were sometimes very highly finished.
Relics of all these periods have been found in Devonshire, but it is not always possible to say to which age a particular weapon or implement belongs. The use of flint for arrow-heads, for example, certainly continued long after the invention of bronze; and bronze was employed, especially for ornaments, long after iron had come into regular use.
Traces of Palaeolithic man are nowhere common, and they are rare in Devonshire; but they have been found, in the shape of massive tools of roughly chipped flint, in Kent's Cavern near Torquay, in the Cattedown Cave, now destroyed, near Plymouth, and in the river-drift near Axminster. Very fine examples have been obtained from a ballast-pit at Broome.
Remains belonging to the Neolithic Age, on the other hand, are not only much more abundant, but are of greater variety, showing an advance in knowledge of the arts of life, and they include not only axe-heads, spear-points, and arrow-tips of flint, in some cases beautifully finished, but weapons and ornaments of bone and horn, rude pottery, spindle-whorls, and even primitive musical instruments. No traces of the dwellings of the people of this age, except as regards the caves that sheltered some of them and their predecessors of the earlier time, have yet been found, nor of their graves, if we except the Spinster's Rock, two miles west of Drewsteignton. This is a dolmen consisting of three huge stones, on which rests a still larger block, twelve feet long and estimated at sixteen tons in weight; it doubtless was a Neolithic burying-place.
Relics of the Bronze Age are far more abundant, and they form, indeed, the chief archaeological feature of Devonshire. Dartmoor in particular, chiefly perhaps because its great upland wilderness has never been broken up by the plough, is dotted all over with remains of primitive Bronze Age dwellings, sometimes standing alone, sometimes grouped in villages and surrounded by a wall, and also with many stone circles, tumuli, kistvaens, menhirs, and rows of upright stones. It is, moreover, intersected by a network of ancient trackways, linking settlement to settlement.
The best example of an early Bronze Age village is Grimspound, eight miles north-east of Princetown. It consists of twenty-four round huts made of stone slabs set on end and standing about three feet above ground, scattered over a space of about four acres, surrounded by a nearly circular double wall, from nine to fourteen feet thick, and about five feet high, built of blocks of granite, some of which are tons in weight. Half the huts contain fire-hearths, which have been much used; and a good many have raised stone benches, from eight inches to a foot high. Except that the roofs, which were no doubt made of poles and thatch, have disappeared, these primitive dwellings, of which there are hundreds on Dartmoor, are probably much in the same condition as when they were inhabited, perhaps 2000 years ago. It has been suggested that Grimspound, like many ancient camps or hill-forts, was a place of refuge in times of danger, rather than a permanently occupied fortress.
The objects found in these and similar dwellings consist of flint implements, pottery--some of it decorated--spindle-whorls, and cooking-stones such as are still in use among the Eskimo. So far, no fragment of metal of any kind has been discovered, from which it might, perhaps, have been inferred that the huts were the work of a race unacquainted with the use of metal. But the pottery so closely resembles that found in the burial-mounds of the Bronze Age that archaeologists are satisfied that the dwellings belong to that period.
Other remarkable monuments are the stone circles, or upright, unhewn blocks of granite arranged in rings, of which there are many on Dartmoor, and of which some of the finest are the Grey Wethers near Post Bridge, and similar structures near Chagford and on Langstone Moor; the avenues or alignments, consisting of rows of stones set up in straight lines, as at Merivale Bridge, Hurston, and Challacombe; and the menhirs, which are single stones, sometimes twelve feet high, of which the best are at Drizlecombe, at Merivale, and on Langstone Moor.
It is probable that these structures were connected with primitive forms of worship, but Sir Norman Lockyer has endeavoured to show, in one of the most fascinating chapters of archaeological research, that the circles and avenues, and the monoliths or menhirs connected with them, were in all probability set up as rough astronomical instruments for observing the rising of the sun or of particular stars, in order to regulate the true length of the year. It is even possible, he contends, to form some idea of the date of their erection. Thus the two avenues at Merivale were probably laid out at different times, one about 1610 B.C., and the other about 1420 B.C., in order to watch the sunrise in May, which was then regarded as the first month of the year; while the avenues at Challacombe, among the most remarkable of all the monuments, are probably of far older date, perhaps 3500 B.C., and seem to have been arranged for the observation of sunrise in November, a month long accepted by some Celtic tribes as marking the beginning of the year.
Kistvaens, of which nearly 100 have been found, almost all of them on Dartmoor, are small stone burial chambers, generally used for the reception of the burnt ashes of the dead, probably in many instances originally covered with earth, and made of four slabs of granite set on edge, forming a sort of vault, with another and more massive stone laid on the top. Specially good examples have been found at Fernworthy, on Lakehead Hill, and at Plymouth. The most remarkable kistvaen--belonging, however, to a later period, when burial had displaced cremation--was that discovered on Lundy, containing a human skeleton eight feet two inches in length.
Tumuli or burial mounds, called cairns when they are made of small stones, and barrows when they are merely piles of earth, are to be seen in all parts of Devonshire, especially on high ground, sometimes alone, sometimes in groups of from two to ten or twelve, and always round. No long barrows have been discovered in the county.
The men of the Bronze Age reached a much higher stage of civilisation than their stone-using predecessors, and very fine examples of their bronze swords, daggers, spear-heads and axes; of their pottery, some of it finely decorated; and of their ornaments, including beads of shale and clay and amber, and an amber dagger-hilt with studs of gold, have been found at various places in Devonshire.
Relics that can be attributed with certainty to the prehistoric Iron Age are rare, partly, no doubt, because iron so quickly rusts away. Some very remarkable remains of this period were however found on Stamford Hill near Plymouth, during the construction of a fort, when the workmen dug into an ancient burial-ground, in which, in addition to human bones, were discovered red, black, and yellow pottery, mirrors and finger rings of bronze, fragments of beautiful amber-tinted glass, and some much-corroded cutting-instruments of iron. In the old camp called Holne Chase Castle, a man digging out a rabbit came upon about a dozen bars of rusty iron, two feet long, nearly two inches broad, and a quarter of an inch thick, which although at first mistaken, as has been the case elsewhere, for unfinished sword-blades, were subsequently identified as specimens of the iron currency-bars which passed as money among the ancient Britons. British coins of gold, silver, and copper have been found in several places, particularly at Exeter and at Mount Batten near Plymouth. The commonest are of what is known as the Channel Islands type, bearing the effigy of a horse rudely imitated from the Macedonian stater, and probably struck about 200 B.C.
A special feature of the prehistoric antiquities of Devonshire is the great number of camps or hill-forts, of which there are more than 140; some in the heart of the county, some on the coast, often on prominent headlands, and some along the lines of division between this and the adjoining shires; showing in many instances great military skill and knowledge both in construction and in the choice of good, defensive sites. Two of the most remarkable of the many strongholds, both near Honiton, are the great encampment of Dumpdon and the magnificently planned fortress of Hembury--a monument of military skill. Another fine example is Hawkesdown, the strongest of the chain of border forts--of which Membury and Musbury are two important links--built along the river Axe as defences against the ancient inhabitants of Dorsetshire. One of the largest and most elaborate of all is Clovelly Dykes, twenty acres in extent, and defended by from three to five lines of intricate earthworks. Another remarkable fort, and the largest in the county, is Milber Down, two miles south-east of Newton Abbot.
There is no real clue to the makers of these fortresses. Roman coins have been found in several of them, but there is not one which competent authorities attribute to the Romans, and it is probable that they were built by British tribes during the ages of Bronze and of Iron, but perhaps chiefly by the Gaels or Goidels. A few of them have played a part in modern history. Cadbury, for instance, was occupied by Fairfax in 1645; and in 1688 the Prince of Orange parked his artillery in the great fort of Milber Down, a camp which it is thought was not only occupied but adapted by the Romans.
The Romans, as was pointed out in the previous chapter, left comparatively few traces in Devonshire; and at only twelve spots in the county have Roman relics other than coins been discovered. At Exeter, the only town where there seems to have been continuous occupation, there have been found the foundations of the city walls, a bath, several tesselated pavements--one of which has been relaid in the hall of the police-court, on the spot where it was discovered--statuettes in bronze and in stone, engraved gems, lamps--one encrusted with lizards, toads, and newts--many pieces of finely decorated Samian pottery, and great numbers of coins. The finest mosaic pavement was that found at Uplyme, on the site of one of the only two known Roman villas in the county. Coins have been dug up in many places. Considerable hoards have been discovered at Compton Gifford, Holcombe, Tiverton, and Widworthy. The largest, however, was at Kingskerswell, where 2000 were found together. Perhaps the most remarkable Roman relic was a bronze object found on the beach at Sidmouth, believed to be the head of a standard, and representing Chiron the Centaur carrying Achilles.
Except as regards coins, of which great numbers are in existence, especially, as has been stated, in the Royal Museum at Stockholm, few antiquities that can be ascribed to the Saxons have been found in Devonshire. One remarkable relic, now in the British Museum, was a bronze sword-hilt, dug up in Exeter in 1833, finely ornamented with key-pattern, and inscribed LEOFRIC·ME·FEC(IT). Part of the lettering is inverted, a fact which at first entirely disguised the real words. One of the treasures of Exeter Cathedral is an Old English manuscript headed "A Mycel Englisc Bok," placed in the Chapter Library by Leofric, who in 1050 was bishop of the diocese. It contains some of the work of Cynewulf and his school. One poem has been thus translated:
"To the Frisian wife comes a dear welcome guest; the keel is at rest; his vessel is come; her husband is home; her own cherished lord she leads to the board; his wet weeds she wrings; dry garments she brings. Ah, happy is he whom, home from the sea his true love awaits."
A Norman relic of the highest interest is the Exeter Domesday Book, also preserved in the Chapter Library, describing in greater detail than is given by the Winchester Survey, especially as regards live stock, the five counties of Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Somerset, and Wiltshire. Among many points of difference between the two books is that where the more general survey gives the letters T.R.E., for _tempore regis Edwardi_, meaning that such were the facts in the time of Edward the Confessor, the Exeter Book uses the phrase "eadie q^a rex·E·f·u·&·m·" for _eâ die qua Rex Edwardus fuit vivus et mortuus_, that is to say, "on the day when King Edward was alive and dead," meaning the day he died, which was the 6th of January, 1066. It is worthy of note that, with one exception, the Devonshire Hundreds were the same in 1086, the supposed year of the completion of the Survey, as they are in our time.
Scattered up and down over Devonshire are many old stone crosses, some in churchyards or by the wayside, probably intended as preaching places, and some standing on the open moor as marks of boundary or of lines of ancient roadway, a few of them bearing brief inscriptions or traces of decoration. Fine examples are those of Addiscot, Helliton, Mary Tavy, and South Zeal, the last-named of which has been restored, and measures, with its steps, eighteen feet in height; the Merchant's Cross near Meavy, the tallest on Dartmoor; the very ancient Coplestone Cross, once decorated with interlaced Celtic ornament, standing where three parishes meet, and named in an Anglo-Saxon charter of 974; and the Nun's or Siward's Cross, inscribed on one side (SI)WARD, and on the other BOC LOND, set up in the twelfth century to mark the boundary between the royal forest and the property of Buckland Abbey.
With these may be mentioned the inscribed stones of Lustleigh, Stowford, Tiverton, and Fardel--the latter now removed. The last-named, and one of the three Tiverton examples, bear inscriptions in Ogham or Irish runic characters.
Among the features of Dartmoor are the so-called "clapper bridges," made of great blocks of unhewn stone. Their date and their builders are matters of conjecture. If, as has been said, they were meant for pack-horse traffic, they may be at least as old as the time of the Norman Conquest, for packhorses are mentioned in the Exeter Domesday. There are fine examples at Dartmeet, Bellaford, and near Scaurhill Circle. But the most striking and perhaps the most ancient is that at Post Bridge, in which two of the stones are fifteen feet long.
The idea has long been abandoned that Logan or rocking stones were the work of man, or that the rock basins which are found on the top of some of the Dartmoor tors had anything to do with Druidical ceremonies. Both are now recognised as of natural origin. But it may here be noted that the largest of the Devonshire Logans is the Rugglestone, at Widecombe, estimated at from 100 to 150 tons, but it can no longer be moved. The largest that will still rock is one of about fifty tons weight at Smallacombe. The largest of the many rock basins, which vary from a few inches to five feet or more, are on Heltor and Kestor.
20. Architecture--(_a_) Ecclesiastical.
The ecclesiastical buildings of Devonshire,--its magnificent cathedral, which is without doubt the finest example of the Decorated style in all England; its many noble churches, some of which, specially remarkable for their interest and beauty, are situated in remote and thinly-peopled rural parishes; and, in a minor degree, the picturesque fragments of its ruined abbeys--form altogether one of the most striking features of the county. Speaking generally, it may be said that Devonshire churches, as a whole, are remarkable for their interiors, very many of them containing beautiful wood-work, especially rood-screens, and finely-carved stone pulpits, to which, in many instances, the addition of gold and colour has lent a still more striking and even gorgeous effect. Some of the exteriors also are very beautiful; but, on the other hand, many of them, partly on account of the intractable nature of the stone of which they were built, are simple and even severe in character. As might be expected, the material varies with the geological formation. Thus, many churches were built of grey limestone. In East Devon much use was made of flints and of freestone from Beer. Round Exeter and Crediton volcanic tufa was often employed, particularly in vaulting. The use of Old Red Sandstone and even of granite greatly affected the style, which in buildings of those difficult materials is plain and with little ornament.
A large proportion of the churches of Devonshire were more or less rebuilt during the Perpendicular period, that is, between 1377 and 1547; but many, probably even the majority of them, contain features of earlier dates, in a few cases going as far back as Saxon times. Some have been skilfully restored. But in too many cases the work of renewal was carried out in an age when church architecture was imperfectly understood, and when the value of old and beautiful, even if time-worn, details was not sufficiently appreciated; and it is unfortunately true that, in order to accomplish needless or barbarous alterations, many interesting features were ruthlessly swept away.
The oldest existing work is the Saxon masonry in the bases of some of the central Norman towers--those of Branscombe, Axminster, and Colyton, for example, and in the crypt of Sidbury. No church is wholly or even largely Norman; but the transeptal towers of Exeter Cathedral are of this period, as are the towers of South Brent, Ilfracombe, and Aveton Gifford, in addition to those named above. There are also fine Norman doorways at Paignton, Kelly, Axminster, Hartland, Bishop's Teignton, and elsewhere. In at least a hundred churches, most of which probably possess no other feature of the time, there are Norman fonts, of which the most remarkable are those at Hartland, Alphington, and Bradsworthy. The font in Dolton church is believed to be Saxon.
Perhaps the best examples of Early English architecture are to be seen in the aisles and transeptal towers--the latter imitated from those of Exeter Cathedral--of the very beautiful church of Ottery St Mary, the finest and most interesting church in Devon. The plain little building on Brent Tor, one of the smallest of churches, measuring only forty feet by fourteen, is probably all Early English. The churches of Sampford Peverell, Haccombe, and Aveton Gifford are almost entirely of this period, as are the transepts and central tower of Combe Martin and the tower of Buckfastleigh, which carries one of the few spires in the county.
The Decorated style is not so well represented as regards the number of examples. But to this period belongs almost the whole of Exeter Cathedral, a great part of the beautiful church of Tavistock, and the nave, chancel, and Lady-chapel of Ottery St Mary. There is also good work of this style at Beer Ferris, Plympton, and Denbury.
So many Devonshire churches, as already remarked, were rebuilt in Tudor times that the majority of the ecclesiastical buildings in the county appear to belong to the Perpendicular period. There is very beautiful Perpendicular work in the church of Tiverton, whose south front and chapel were decorated by their founder, a wool-merchant named Greenway, with very elaborate carvings, some symbolic of his trade, and some representing scenes from the life of Christ. Other notable churches mainly of this period--to name a few only out of a multitude of examples--are those of Crediton, Hartland, Plymptree, Awliscombe, Kenton, Harberton, Dartmouth, and Buckland Monachorum.
To the Perpendicular period belong the finest of the Devonshire towers, which as a rule, however, owing in many instances to the absence or to the poorness of buttresses and pinnacles, lack the majesty of those which are so striking a feature of the ecclesiastical architecture of Somerset. There is a group of three towers in near neighbourhood, assigned by tradition to the same architect, and known as Length, Strength and Beauty, at Bishop's Nympton, South Molton, and Chittlehampton, respectively; and the last of these, a magnificent piece of architecture, is the most beautiful specimen of an enriched tower in Devonshire. Other very fine towers are those of Cullompton, Chumleigh, Berrynarbor, Arlington, Kentisbury, and Combe Martin. The tower of Colyton is unique in character, being crowned by an octagonal lantern supported by slender flying buttresses. There are not now many spires in Devonshire, but there are fine examples at Modbury--which tapers the whole way up--and at Barnstaple, both of the sixteenth century; and there are others at Braunton, Brushford, and West Worlington. One of the towers of Ottery St Mary carries a spire, the other is without.
One of the special characteristics of Devonshire churches is their woodwork, their roofs and bench-ends, their pulpits--although some of the best of these are of stone--and, above all, their rood-screens. The last-named are among the finest in the kingdom, and are not rivalled even in Norfolk and Suffolk.