Part 9

Especially on a hot afternoon this is one of the most desirable runs in Devon. From Bideford to Torrington the road is shaded nearly continuously by high banks of trees rising from the wayside: on the left the cool stream winds beside us. Torrington, on its abrupt hill above the river, must have been a place of dignity when its castle dominated the valley. Through these streets where we are driving Fairfax chased the royalists one night in the dark, after a long resistance “with push of Pike and butt end of Musket”--chased them clean through the town and out of it to the bridges. This engagement, wrote the general, was “a hotter service than any storme this Army hath before been upon.” The royalists meantime had bribed “a desperate villain” to fire their store of powder in the church, lest the army of the Parliament should benefit by it; with the unexpected result that when “the Lead, Stones, Timber, and Ironwork of the Church were blowne up into the Ayre” two hundred royalist prisoners were blown up too. Hardly any of the Parliament-men were injured, though Fairfax himself had a narrow escape, and was obliged to return to “Master Rolls his house” for the night, “in regard the Quarter at Torrington was inconvenient, the Windowes broken in pieces, and the houses so shattered with the great blast that they could not performe a convenient shelter from the raine.” This church on our right among the trees replaced the one that was blown into the air so completely that hardly a fragment of the old building remains; and this street by which we pass through the town is the one by which Fairfax rode back that night to Master Rolls his house. He went straight on to Stephenstone, but we turn away to the right on the road that skirts the castle hill and passes near the Waterloo obelisk.

We see little more of the Torridge; but this splendid Exeter road takes us through very lovely scenery; by woods, and beds of fern, and level heaths, and fields of meadowsweet, and rows of shady beeches, while for the last time our view is bounded by the beloved hills of Dartmoor. It is a curiously lonely road: hardly a village, and indeed for some miles hardly a cottage, breaks the solitude. Between the two valleys, as we pass through Winkleigh and bear round to the left to cross the Taw, the country is less beautiful and the surface rougher; but after the sharp turn at Morchard Road Station we have a splendid run to Barnstaple.

This is the most level road in Devon. This fact alone commends it to us, but there are many other facts to make it memorable: woods of oak, and larch, and mountain-ash, and chestnut-trees, not only shadowing us but filling all the landscape: tall red fir-stems, and ferns beside the road, and wildflowers everywhere. All the way we follow the railroad, swinging past station after station, Eggesford and South Molton and Portsmouth Arms and Umberleigh, while the valley widens and narrows and opens out again; and all the time the Taw is close at hand, growing from a tiny stream between low banks of red earth and grass to a strong river rippling over the shingle, with trees dipping into its sunny waters.

Somewhere in Bishop’s Tawton lies the dust of the first Bishop of Devon. It was here that the see was originally fixed; but when the second bishop was murdered it was thought wise to move to a more central position at Crediton. Beyond the pretty village the estuary widens, and we see Barnstaple before us through the trees.

Barnstaple, says Mr. Warner of the eighteenth century, “is by far the most genteel town in North Devon.” This is a very happy word; though why a town whose history includes the days of Athelstane, a town that has had a castle and a priory and a life by no moans dull, should be “genteel” when all is said, is hard to understand. The nice public gardens and open spaces, the air of clean prosperity, and the colonnade with the fluted pillars give it an eighteenth-century air, at latest. Yet, if we look behind the church with the crooked spire we shall find the brown stone grammar-school where Bishop Jewell and the poet Gay learnt their lessons; and in the narrow street near the Imperial Hotel are some almshouses whose granite pillars and beautiful moulded gutters date from 1627; and spanning the river is the “right great and sumptuus bridge of stone” that was “made long sins by a merchaunt of London caullid Stamford.” Nothing is left of the priory where Sir Theobald de Grenville was excommunicated with bell, book, and candle; nor of the castle that belonged at various times to Judhael of Totnes, and the Tracy who murdered Becket, and Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII. Even at the beginning of the Civil War it was “a place of small strength,” and during the struggle it led a hard life. The Colonel Basset who defended it while it was in royalist hands figures among John Prince’s Worthies. “This gentleman as to his stature was somewhat short, but of an high crest and noble mind. As to his religion he did not boast great matters, but lived them … he being as plain in his soul as he was in his garb, which he resolved should be proud of him rather than he of it.”

The road that crosses the hill between Barnstaple and Ilfracombe leaves the town by the suburb of Pilton, whose white houses and gaily painted shutters and high walls have rather a foreign air. There is a long but well-graded hill before us, and a surface that is not very good. Each flowery village is followed by another as gay, and each green valley leads into another as green, and still we climb higher and higher till we come to the heather. For a little time the scenery is dull; then the road winds down a deep valley, and we see Ilfracombe in a gorge below.

Ilfracombe, like everyone’s grandmother, was lovely when it was young. That, however, was some time ago, and at present its charms are a matter of taste. That thousands love its piers and pierrots is evident at a glance, but some of us can only look sadly at its bluffs and sparkling sea, and long for the days that are no more. The change must have come very quickly, for only fifty years ago George Eliot thought Ilfracombe the loveliest sea place she ever saw, and found Tenby tame and vulgar after it. “But it would not do,” she adds, “for those who can’t climb rocks and mount perpetual hills; for the peculiarity of this country is that it is all hill and no valley.”

There are hills, and valleys, too, in astonishing numbers along this coast. The contour of the road between Ilfracombe and Porlock makes a sinister picture. But those thirty miles include some of the finest scenery in England; and by making them more than thirty, one may avoid some of the worst gradients without missing any of the beauty.

For the first few miles the road clings to the brow of the cliff, twisting round curve after curve, and mounting and falling and mounting again. All the colours of the rainbow are in the landscape. There are headlands of every shade of purple and red, foliage of every tint of green, shadows that are intensely blue, sands that are really golden, and a sea of a colour that has no name. We swing round a curve and see the white houses of Combe Martin wedged between the brown cliffs, and a few minutes later we turn away from the sea and mount the long village street. Combe Martin may be defined as length without breadth; for though it is a mile and a half long it is in no place wider than two little houses. It has contributed in its day to the honour of its country, for Edward III. and Henry V., it is said, made use of the silver-mines of Combe Martin during their wars with France. Elizabeth gave cups of the same silver to her friends; but Charles I., though ingenious in the art of extracting the precious metals, sought here in vain.

The road, as it climbs up to Exmoor, grows rather rough. From Blackmoor Gate the direct way to Lynton is of course through Parracombe, where there are two hills of some renown, a descent and a climb. The inconvenience here is in the fact that the change from the downward to the upward gradient is in the middle of the village, and a run is out of the question. None the less this hill, though steep, is quite practicable; but the still more famous hill between Lynton and Lynmouth thoroughly deserves its reputation, and, after personal experience, I strongly advise motorists to avoid it unless they have absolute confidence in the staunchness of their car, the power of their brakes, and the scope of their steering-locks. Its difficulty lies, not only in the gradient--though at one point that is steeper than one in four--but in the extremely acute angle that occurs at the steepest spot and makes it impossible, if there should chance to be so much as a wheelbarrow by the wayside, for a car of any size to turn without pausing. An added difficulty is the looseness of the surface, for the constant use of drags has ploughed the road into a mass of stones and sand. It is possible now to take cars on the “lift,” or funicular railway that runs up and down the cliff; but it seems to me that the simplest plan is to drive round by Simonsbath to Lynmouth. There is shelter there for both man and car; but those who prefer to stay at Lynton--and they are many--may leave their cars at the bottom of the hill, and mount it themselves, with their luggage, in the cliff railway.

At Blackmoor Gate, then, instead of taking the road to Parracombe, we must go straight on till we turn to the left at Challacombe. The country is not inspiring. Technically, I suppose, this is part of Exmoor; but there is nothing in these undulating fields and hedgerows to suggest the hunting of the red deer by Saxon kings, or the jealous guarding of forest-rights by the Conqueror. For William, though he gave away these lands, was very strict about the hunting. “He loved the tall deer as though he had been their father,” says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. His love was like that of the little boy who was so fond of animals that he always went to see the pigs killed.

At Simonsbath there is a sudden outburst of beauty. The tiny village lies in a hollow among the fir-clad hills, and makes an idyllic picture with its stream and bridge; and here the road turns and winds up to a fine expanse of true moorland. It is sterner than Dartmoor. There is no luxuriance of bracken here, nor acres of purple, but mile beyond grassy mile of stately, rolling hills, very austere at noonday, but in the light of a summer sunset transfigured into splendour. The new road to Lynmouth turns abruptly back upon the hillside, and on it we plunge into the green depths.[17]

If Nature is austere upon these hills, in the valley she is riotous. We seem to be dropping down and down into her generous heart, and, like the poet, we bless ourselves with silence. Far above us, as we wind beside the river, the tall sides of the valley are clear-cut against the sky; but just below the line of rock and heather the rich woods rise up and take triumphant possession of the hills, and fill every curve and hollow, and clothe the steep heights, and hang over the stream, and rustle by the wayside. We have dropped so suddenly and deeply into these green waves that we almost expect them to close over our heads. And as the road winds on we think at every corner that all this beauty must come to a sudden end. Surely we have passed the climax: surely the next curve will take us out of this enchanted valley into the world we know. But the beauty does not end. It grows; and only finds its climax in the red and green headlands, and in the lovely village that lies between the hills where the valley ends in the sea.

Lynmouth below and Lynton above, when one recalls them, seem, like Clovelly, too good to be true. All the charms of Devon are here. Charms that elsewhere seem incongruous are here in accord; grandeur and homeliness agree together; the lion lies down with the lamb. Boats and heather are in the same picture; the cliffs are clothed with woods almost to the water’s edge. The two places cannot be compared; they are so different that neither is complete without the other. Some love best the boats and shallow pools and shaded river of Lynmouth; and to some the wide view from Lynton hill seems the fairest thing in England.

Wherever we stay ourselves, there is little to be gained by taking the car up the cliff. The only roads that lead away from Lynton are the Parracombe road and the road to Hunter’s Inn, which is not open to motors--that wonderful road that runs through the wild Valley of Rocks, and past the Castle Rock with its fine views of the coast, and past Lee Abbey on its grassy plateau, and then for miles along the face of the cliff, with dense woods closing round it on every side, and, through the trees, hints of a blue sea very far below. This narrow way that is hung so high in air, and has so many sharp corners and steep pitches, is truly not a motoring road. It turns inland where a gap comes in the cliffs, and ends at Hunter’s Inn, in a narrow gorge that is sheltered from every wind.

From Lynton we look over the roofs of Lynmouth to Countisbury Hill and the red road that climbs it--apparently quite perpendicularly. Into the mind there steals a hope that this is not our road. But it is.

We may avoid it, of course, by going back to Simonsbath and taking the road through Exford and Whiddon Cross to Dunster--a road that is fairly good, if dull. But most of us will think the loss of all the beauty of the moors and woods is too heavy a price to pay for ease of travelling. The lower part of Countisbury Hill, it is true, is quite as rough and nearly as precipitous as the hill to Lynton, but as we rise the surface becomes quite good, and the gradient is nowhere so steep as at the bottom. And from the top of the cliff we look away across the heather to the high uplands of Exmoor, and see below us on the right the green cleft in the hills that is the Doone Valley.

THROUGH SOMERSET AGAIN

SUMMARY OF SECOND RUN THROUGH SOMERSET

DISTANCES.

Porlock Taunton 30 miles Ilminster 12¼ ” Yeovil 13¾ ” -------- Total 56 miles

ROADS.

No steep hills.

Surface on the whole very good.

VII

THROUGH SOMERSET AGAIN

Porlock is a word of dread significance to those who are interested in the roads of England. A precipitous hill nearly three miles long, with a surface of sand and stones and several sharp corners--such is the vision that this name invokes. There is, however, not the least necessity to lower ourselves into Porlock on these alarming gradients. Near the top of the hill there is a private road that turns off to the left, and may be used for the sum of one shilling. It is narrow, and has a poor surface and two “hairpin” turns, but it is nowhere steep, and the woods through which it runs are entrancing. The car slips gently down among the birches and rowan-trees, and soon we see the bay below us with its dark grey beach, and Porlock under the hill.

The two roads join, and run into the village together, at the corner where the “Ship” Inn and the cottages round it, with their thatched roofs and porches and gay creepers, make a pretty picture with the green hill for background. Indeed, all Porlock is made of pretty pictures: an inland village could hardly be more decorative. There was a time when it was not an inland village, but a favourite landing-place for visitors of various nations but of one marauding aim. It does not to-day appear a promising field for a robber of any ambition, but time was, I believe, when it was quite a stirring place, with a royal palace and much prosperity. When the Danes landed here in the night they were routed to their ships with empty hands: but when, a hundred and fifty years later, no less a man than Harold Godwinson sailed in from his exile in Ireland, he was not content with plundering and burning Porlock itself, but made it a centre for expeditions. He built himself a fort here, whence he could comfortably raid the country that was afterwards his own kingdom. The French invasion of the seventeenth century turned out to be a false alarm, but none the less the inhabitants arose as one man, armed themselves valiantly with scythes and pikes, and hurried away to Exeter to join William of Orange--which seems an original way of repelling invasion.

There is an interesting church here. The alabaster figures of a knight and his lady in elaborate headdresses represent Lord Harington of Aldingham and his wife, afterwards Lady Bonville; whose finely carved garments and faces have been thickly covered with deep-cut initials by those who love antiquities as the Conqueror loved the tall deer.

Those whose love of antiquities is of another kind will find it worth their while to run to the “Anchor” Inn at Porlock Weir, where every room is rich in ancient furniture and vessels of copper and brass. The road that leads to it is excellent, and so is the one that takes us on to Dunster, though the redness of its surface adds a new terror to dust. We pass through Allerford with a fine view of the hills and a glimpse of the old pack-horse bridge; but when we reach the by-way to Selworthy we shall do well to turn aside. For this pretty lane, which is roofed with foliage as completely as a pergola, leads not only to an interesting church and a tithe-barn, but to a group of almshouses that is unequalled in its simple way: half a dozen thatched and gabled cottages ranged, not in a stiff row, but round a sloping green, with wild woods to shelter them, and walnut-trees to shade them, and hollyhocks and fuchsias to make them gay. Between them and the woods a tiny stream trickles through the moss, and over it a rough tree-stem has been flung to serve as bridge.

After a few more miles on the fine red road, with Dunkerry Hill conspicuous on the right, we see, first Minehead lying by the sea and spreading up the hill, and then the watch-tower of Dunster. A minute later we drive into the Middle Ages.

This street of Dunster makes one half in love with the feudalism that could produce so perfect a picture. On one side are the porch and archway of the “Luttrell Arms”; on the other the octagonal yarn-market, gabled and tiled and mossy, with a little mullioned window in each gable; between them lies the straight, wide street; and in the background, dominating and protective, the castle towers are lifted high upon their wooded hill. Through all the centuries between the Conquest and to-day this castle has had no masters but the Mohuns and the Luttrells, and there is nothing in Dunster that is not connected, directly or indirectly, with one of these two ancient names. These buildings to right and left of us, for instance--this inn with the mediæval porch and the beautiful north wing, and this market-house that used to be the scene of “a very celebrate market at Dunstorre ons a wekes”--were both built by George Luttrell of the sixteenth century and repaired by George Luttrell of the seventeenth. And if we walk down the wide street and turn to the left we shall find the church of the Mohuns’ priory, the Benedictine priory that the first Mohun of Dunster founded, “pricked by the fear of God.”

It is a very notable church. “The late priory of blake monkes,” says Leland, “stoode yn the rootes of the north-west side of the castelle, and was a celle to Bathe. The hole chirch of the late priory servith now for the paroche chirch. Afore tymes the monkes had the est parte closid up to their use.” Of late years the church has been restored to the form it had aforetimes, with the seats of the prior and monks, and the monastic choir. The very beautiful rood-screen with the canopy of fan-tracery, which was set up in the fifteenth century, forms the entrance to the parish choir: the choir of the monks is reached through the curious arch that is wider below than above--an arrangement made by the brothers themselves to allow room for their processions. Round about the high altar of the priory are monuments of the Luttrells. Thomas Luttrell, whose great Elizabethan memorial is in the south-east chapel, was the father of the man who rebuilt the castle and did so much for Dunster--George Luttrell, who kneels here in effigy; and the slab that now lies under the window of the south aisle once covered the grave of the Lady Elizabeth who, as a widow, bought the manor of Dunster from the widow of Sir John de Mohun. On the north side of the altar is the alabaster figure, though probably not the tomb, of her son Sir Hugh, first Luttrell of Dunster, Great Seneschal of Normandy, Steward of the Household to Queen Joan, a warrior who won much renown in fighting the French and the great Glyndwr and the little Perkin Warbeck. Most of the Mohuns were buried at their abbey of Bruton, but here in the monks’ choir, under a canopy, is the figure of Dame Hawise, wife of the second Sir Reynold de Mohun.

Near the church are some remains of the monastic buildings: the refectory, the prior’s apparently impregnable barn, a couple of archways, and, in the vicarage garden, a lovely thirteenth-century dovecot with a tiled roof and hanging creepers.

Although the “glory of this toun rose by the Moions,” and though the memory of them is everywhere, it is so many centuries since they went away to Cornwall--to Hall near Fowey, and later to Boconnoc--that there are few actual relics of them left. Of the three castles that they built successively upon the hill there remains little more than a gateway of the third, the gateway with the massive door and the mighty knocker of iron. It is just within the main entrance, and strangely enough was built by the husband of Dame Hawise, whose tomb is the only Mohun monument in the church. The castellated gatehouse itself is the work of the first Luttrell of Dunster. His descendants still live in the great red dwelling-house with the martlets of the Luttrells over the door, but by their kindness we are allowed, with a guide, to climb the steep path under the yew-hedge that is sixty feet high; and to see the strange half-tropical plants of the gardens, the cork-tree and the lemon-tree upon the wall; and then to climb still higher to the bowling-green and look out upon the park and the Severn Sea.

This was not always a bowling-green. It was here that the keep stood till great Robert Blake, as formidable on shore as at sea, brought all his batteries against it, and the Parliament finally dismantled it. The whole castle, indeed, would have been ruined if it had not been wanted as a prison for poor Mr. Prynne. Some years earlier, while there was a royalist garrison in the castle, young Prince Charles was sent hither for safety; and here, as elsewhere, tradition has assigned a certain Red Room to him, for no other reason than that it contained a hiding-hole.[18]