Wanderings in Wessex by Edric Holmes

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A good deal of Honiton lace is made both here and at Beer, though this
East Devon industry is slowly dwindling in the several localities in
which it was once an important commercial item.

[Illustration: SEATON HOLE.]

The environs of Seaton are beautiful and interesting. The most popular
excursion is to the Landslip at Dowlands. The nature of the scenery is
so strange and bizarre, as well as beautiful, that it would impress
the most stolid and sophisticated as something quite out of the
common. North of the town are the villages of Colyford and Colyton;
visitors are usually content to view these from the train, but they
are worthy of closer inspection. The first-named is now a small
village two miles from the sea. It is on the high road from Lyme Regis
to Exeter and was once an important borough with a charter dating from
the reign of Edward I. Colyton, a mile farther, is a queer old place
with narrow, crooked streets. Its Perpendicular church is of much
interest, and seems to have been designed by an architect with
original ideas who, however, has not been preeminently successful in
its details. The square battlemented tower with its octagonal lantern
above is poorly executed, but otherwise the uncommon conception
arrests attention and is worthy of praise: The parvise chamber over
the porch, like many others, was for a long period the town school.
The nave, rebuilt about the middle of the eighteenth century, is of no
interest, but the Perpendicular arches between the chancel and aisles
are very elaborate and fine. The Pole chapel is formed out of the
eastern end of the south aisle and separated from the other portions
by a stone screen of elaborate and beautiful workmanship. Within are
the ornate figures of Sir John Pole and his wife. On the other side of
the chancel is the Jacobean mausoleum of the Yonges, a great local
family during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The
Gothic tomb with the recumbent figure of a girl upon it is known
locally as "Little Chokebone." Margaret Courtenay, daughter of an Earl
of Devon, was said to have been suffocated by a fish-bone, but the
tradition has been doubted. From the armorial bearings above the tomb
it would appear that the figure represents one of the daughters, or
possibly the wife, of the sixth Earl of Devon. An interesting
inscription in the south transept perpetuates the name of John
Wilkins, who was minister from 1647 to 1660 when, as a Nonconformist,
he was deprived of the living.

The vicarage was originally built in 1529 by Canon Brerewood, who
erected the stone screen of the Pole chapel. It has been altered and
partly rebuilt, but the porch retains the original inscription placed
there by the Canon--" _Meditatio totum; Peditatio totum_."

Colcombe Castle, half a mile from the town, is now Colcombe Farm. It
was once the seat of the Courtenays and the headquarters of Prince
Maurice during the Civil War. In 1680 the Duke of Monmouth stayed
either here or at the Great House near by, now a farm, but once
occupied by the Yonges. An old stone arch in a field above the castle
covers a spring of clear cold water.

Seaton Hole, the western extremity of Seaton Bay, lies under White
Head, which is not white but brownish grey. Up the steps from the
beach, a path leads from the "Hole" for a mile of steep up and down
walking and then the explorer reaches Beer, famous for its "free
trade" and its memories of a prince of smugglers--Jack Rattenbury;
the 'Arrypay of Seaton Bay. His adventures, though not on the grand
scale of the hero of Poole, were exciting enough, from his capture by
the French, while ship's-boy on a local coaster, to his attempted
arrest by a posse of soldiers in a Beer inn, where his escape was
effected by the women of the village raising the cry "A wreck! a
wreck!" and diverting his captors' attention. Rattenbury died in 1833
after receiving the princely sum of one shilling per week pension
during the last years of his life from Lord Rolle. During this period
he dictated his memoirs for publication in Sidmouth, to an editor who
unconsciously gave the book a delicious touch of humour by putting
into the mouth of this son of a Devon shoemaker the grandiloquent
phrases of an early Victorian divine.

[Illustration: BEER.]

The picturesque and unspoilt little beach and the village street
leading down to the sea are in great contrast to the new houses built
on the hill behind, and the fine new church erected at the instance of
the Lord of the Manor, one of the Rolle family. This replaced an
ancient chapel dedicated to St. Michael, from which two old memorial
tablets were transferred; one is to "Edward Good, late an Industrious
fisherman," who left twenty pounds in trust for the poor of Beer and
Seaton in 1804, and the other to "John, the fifth sonn of William
Starr of Bere, Gent., and Dorothy his wife, which died in the plague
was here bvried 1646." The dwelling of this Starr family was the Tudor
house at the end of the main street which bears on it the design of a
star, the rebus of the one-time owners.

A firm tradition is current among the fishermen, most of whom gain a
livelihood in the summer by boat hire, that their forefathers were
Spaniards shipwrecked in the Cove just after Beer had been depopulated
by the plague, and that they settled in the empty houses,
intermarrying with the maids of Devon left in the village. The story
is certainly made convincing by the remarkably dark and foreign
appearance of the villagers, especially in the case of the older men.

The famous quarries, from which the stone for Exeter Cathedral was
taken, are about a mile from the village. The subterranean quarries
are not now worked. They were used by the Romans and possibly before.
The passages extend for a long distance under the hill and are said to
communicate with the shore. They were no doubt of great value to the
smugglers. It is extremely dangerous to attempt the penetration of the
mysterious passages and caves without a competent guide and a
dependable light. Holes of unknown depth filled with water are met
with in the passages and a fatal accident is possible in any unwary
exploration.

Bovey House is about a mile to the north. It is chiefly remarkable for
a well about 180 feet deep which has a square chamber, 30 feet down,
undoubtedly built as a hiding place. Another secret chamber in one of
the chimneys is traditionally said to have hidden Charles II, but it
has been proved that he did not pass this way.

[Illustration: THE WAY TO THE SEA, BEER.]

Beer Head is the last outpost of the chalk and is a dazzling contrast
to the prevailing reddish yellow of the Devonian coast. On the other
side of the airy common that crowns the head, and that is known as
South Down, is the delightful village of Branscombe (usually
pronounced "Brahnscoom") built in the three valleys that unite at
Branscombe mouth, the opening to the sea under the shadow of Bury
Camp. The fine cruciform church is mainly Norman but with Early
English and still later additions. It is supposed that the base of the
tower is of Saxon workmanship. A monument (1581) in the transept is to
Joan Tregarthen, her two husbands and nineteen children. One of the
sons of her second marriage was the founder of Wadham College, Oxford.
In the churchyard is a rough pillar usually described as a coffin-lid.
It is probably a "Sarsen," indicating that the church site was used
for worship in prehistoric times or at least that it was a place of
sepulture. There are two headstones of very early date--1579 (?) and
1580, and the tomb of Joseph Braddick (1673) bears the following
curious epitaph:

"STRONG AND IN LABOUR
SUDDENLY HE REELS
DEATH CAME BEHIND HIM
AND STRUCK UP HIS HEELS.

SUCH SUDDEN STROKES
SURVIVING MORTALS BID YE
STAND ON YOUR WATCH
AND BE ALLSO READY."

There are several other curious records here that will repay perusal
by their quaintness and unconscious pathos. One is rather ferocious:

"STAY, PASSENGER, AWHILE AND READ
YOUR DOOM I AM
YOU MUST BEE DEAD."

The dedication and the name of the village are in some doubt.
Authorities make claim for St. Brendan as the patron, hence
Branscombe. A chapel was built at Seaton in honour of this traveller
saint.

[Illustration: BRANSCOMBE CHURCH.]

The coast at Branscombe is wildly beautiful, and an interesting ramble
may be taken at low tide among the masses of rock that form a sort of
undercliff; the miniature valleys between are carpeted with rare and
beautiful flowers. It is not practicable to continue by the shore
except at the expenditure of much exertion. The road to Sidmouth
should be taken by way of the few houses that constitute Weston, and
then by the highly placed Dunscombe Farm and the picturesque ruin near
it. These winding lanes lead eventually to the lonely little church
hamlet of Salcombe Regis--"King Athelstan's salt-works in the Combe."
This is one of those sweetly-pretty lost villages by the sea which one
hesitates to mention lest a speculator should investigate with the
idea of an elaborate "simple life" hostel in his mind. But Salcombe is
too difficult of approach, even for faddists, although only a nominal
two miles separates it from the South Western terminus on the other
side of the hill. The church dates from 1150, though aisles were added
a hundred years later and the tower in 1450.

We now approach the borders of the older Wessex, the limit for which
for want of definite evidence to the contrary the writer has had to
fix arbitrarily at the mouth of the Otter. The last of the coast towns
in this region is one of the best centres in south-east Devon for a
detailed exploration of the countryside. That is, the best if a coast
town must be chosen. To the writer's mind a better plan is to make a
break from this established usage and get quarters in one of the quiet
old places about eight or ten miles inland, such as Ottery or
Axminster. But Sidmouth is an exceedingly pleasant spot, in which one
need never feel dull or bored, and in which the vulgarities one
associates with the "popular" watering place are entirely absent. The
bright and clean appearance of the stuccoed houses, nearly always
painted white, contrasting with the red of the cliffs and the green
foliage with which the town is embowered, is very effective and even
beautiful. The houses are grouped in a compact and cosy way between
the two hills, although of late years a number of new and, at close
quarters, staring red brick efforts at modernity have been made on the
hillsides. But these are decently covered, in any general view of the
town, in the wealth of trees that climb the lower slopes.

[Illustration: SIDMOUTH.]

Certain quarters of Sidmouth have an air of antique and solid
gentility that is a heritage from those days when it was a select and
fashionable resort before the terraces of Torquay were built on the
lines of its parent--Bath. After Lyme it was the first of the western
coast towns to bid for the custom of the habitues of such inland
resorts as Tunbridge Wells, Cheltenham and the like. The
Victorian-Gothic building known as Royal Glen, originally Woolbrook
Cottage, was for several years the home of the Duke and Duchess of
Kent and the infant Princess Victoria. The Duke died here in 1820 and
Queen Victoria caused a window to be placed to his memory in the
rebuilt parish church.

The town is mentioned in Thackeray's _Pendennis_, and was the home of
the immortal Mrs. Partington, an old acquaintance of Sidney Smith; she
is supposed to have lived in one of the cob cottages that used to be
on the front. Like the Lords with Reform, so was Mrs. Partington with
the Atlantic Ocean, which she tried to keep out of her front door with
a mop. "She was excellent at slop or puddle, but should never have
meddled with a tempest." If she was an actual character the good
dame's house probably stood where now the fine esplanade runs its
straight course between Peak Hill and the Alma Bridge over the Sid. At
the bridge the shingle bank baulks the stream from a clear course into
the sea and usually forces it into an ignominious and green scummed
pool that slowly filters through the stony wall. From the bridge a
path ascends to the Flagstaff, where there is perhaps a better view
than that from the much higher Peak Hill on the west. Torbay, Start
Point, and the south Devon coast are in full but distant view across
the bay, but Teignmouth and Dawlish hide behind the promontory called
Black Head.

The direct Honiton road goes up the valley of the Sid through pleasant
Sidford, which has a fine old farmhouse called Manstone and a number
of picturesque cottages, and through Sidbury, beneath the encampment
called Sidbury Castle. The Early Norman church at Sidbury is
interesting. Alterations at various dates have given the building
thirteenth-century transepts and a roof and aisles dating from two
hundred years later. The fine Norman tower was entirely rebuilt about
forty years ago when the two figures of SS. Peter and Giles were found
and placed on the new west face. A Saxon crypt was discovered under
the chancel when that portion was restored and a trap door gives
access to this chamber from the floor. The church porch has a room
over it known to the villagers as the "Powder Room." It is thought
that this formed a sort of magazine for the troops quartered in the
neighbourhood during the Napoleonic wars.

The "Sid Bury" is the tree-clad hill on the west. Upon its crown is an
encampment with a ditch, its bottom 45 feet from the summit of the
wall. The view, except down the Sid valley to the sea, is restricted,
but in every direction it is beautiful.

About half a mile north of the village is a fine old mansion called
Sand, belonging to the Huish family and erected in the closing years
of the sixteenth century. It is now a farmhouse, but practically
unaltered from its ancient state.

The coast from Sidmouth to the mouth of the Otter bends
south-westwards in a long sweep and encloses within the peninsula thus
formed the small and uninteresting village of Otterton that has on the
other side of the river a station on the line running from Ottery St.
Mary through Budleigh Salterton to Exmouth. The fine Peak Hill has its
western slopes running down to the Otter valley just north of Bicton
Park, where is a magnificent arboretum. The line from Sidmouth climbs
round the northern slopes of the hill and drops into the valley at
Tipton St. John's. The train then follows the waterside as closely as
may be to Ottery St. Mary. This beautifully placed town is as
delightful and convenient to stay in as any in Devon.

Ottery's proud boast is that it has the grandest church, apart from
the great fane at Exeter, in the county. It is said that it owes its
plan and general appearance to the inspiration of the Cathedral, and
there is a striking resemblance on a small scale to that beautiful and
original building. Not that St. Mary's is a small church; for the size
of the town which it dominates it is vast. Erected during the period
when national ecclesiastical art was at its most majestic and
imposing, the Early English style of the greater portion of the
structure is given diversity by certain Decorated additions. The
beautiful stone reredos is at present empty of figures. Behind the
altar the Lady Chapel, which has a stone screen, contains an old
minstrels' gallery. The carving here, and the vaulting throughout the
church, but especially in the chapel on the north side, is deservedly
famous. During the time of Bishop Grandisson, about 1340, the church
was made collegiate. In 1850 a so-called restoration by Butterfield
did much damage, and some of the woodwork then introduced could well
be "scrapped" and the church again restored to something of its
previous simple dignity. The painting of the nave and chancel roofs
has a peculiarly "cheap" and tawdry effect.

Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have lived in the town for a time, and
during the Civil War it was for a month the head-quarters of Fairfax,
who turned the church tower into a temporary fortress. Samuel Taylor
Coleridge was a native of Ottery and the son of one of its vicars. The
poet was only nine when his father died in 1781. He was then placed in
the Bluecoat school and there met his lifelong friend, Charles Lamb.
The theological studies that at first seemed to be his natural bent
were no doubt a consequence of his early environment. Near the church
is a house now occupied by Lord Coleridge. Thackeray spent his school
holidays at Larkbeare, the house of his stepfather, Major Carmichael
Smith, and afterwards used Ottery ("Clavering St. Mary") as the scene
of part of _Pendennis_.

The steep, narrow streets around the church have lost many of their
picturesque old buildings, though a few of the smaller houses remain
in the side turnings. The pleasant aspect of the town is greatly
increased by the beauty of the river and of its banks both above and
below the bridge. The stream is a great favourite with anglers, and
Otter trout have a great reputation.

The great high road from Exeter to London passes a short distance
north of Ottery and follows the river valley on its way to the old
town under the shadow of Dumpdon Hill. Honiton is of world-wide fame
in connexion with the beautiful lace that is still made in the
vicinity. The long and broad High Street is practically all there is
of the town, except for a few shops and smaller houses on the way to
the railway station. Save on market day Honiton sleeps the hours away,
or seems to do so; possibly there is an amount of business done behind
doors, and in a quiet way, to account for the comfortable appearance
of the burgesses (for this is a municipal borough). By reason of its
sheltered position from any breeze that may be blowing aloft and its
open arms to the sun, the town has, on an ordinary summer's day, the
hottest High Street in England; that fact may partly account for its
air of somnolence.

The Perpendicular cruciform church suffered greatly from fire some
years ago, though happily the tower escaped. A beautiful old screen
and several other interesting details were entirely destroyed. The
black marble tomb of Thomas Marwood commemorates a fortunate physician
who cured the Earl of Essex of an illness and was rewarded by Queen
Elizabeth with a house and lands near the town. On the Exeter road is
St. Margaret's Hospital, endowed by Thomas Chard, Abbot of Ford
(1520), for nine old people. It was originally a lazar-house founded
about 1350. The chapel was built by its later benefactor.

A curious custom is kept in Honiton Fair week, usually held the third
week in July. On the first day of the Fair a crier goes about the
streets with a white glove on a long wand crying:

"O yes the Fair is begun
And no man dare be arrested
Until the Fair is done."

It is said that this strange privilege is still respected.

The high road to Axminster climbs up the long ascent of Honiton Hill
(there is an easier way over the fields to the summit for
pedestrians), and with beautiful views on the left keeps to the high
lands almost all the way until the drop into the valley of the Yarty.

Axminster is on a low hill surronded by the softer scenery of typical
Devon. The by-ways near the town are narrow flowery lanes such as are
naturally suggested to one's mind whenever the West Country is
mentioned. Axminster has given its name to an industry that has not
been carried on in the town for over eighty years, though "Axminster"
carpets are still famous for their durability and their fine designs.
The whole period during which the manufacture was carried on in the
town did not cover a century. The carpets were made on hand-looms and
the house, now a hospital, that was used as the factory is opposite
the churchyard.

The church is said to have pre-Norman work beneath the tower. The
building as it stands is mostly Perpendicular, but with certain
Decorated details in the chancel and a Norman door. The sculptured
parapet of the north aisle is interesting. On it are the arms of many
ancient families of the county. The two effigies in the chancel are
supposed to represent Gervase de Prestaller, once vicar here, and Lady
Alice de Mohun. In the churchyard is a tombstone with two crutches;
this is the grave of the father of Frank Buckland, the famous
naturalist, who was born here in 1784.

[Illustration: AXMINSTER.]

The town suffered greatly during the Civil War. It was taken by the
Royalists and used as a head-quarters during the investment of Lyme
Regis. It was the resting-place of William "The Deliverer" on his way
from Lyme northwards. He is said to have stayed at the "Dolphin" while
it was the private residence of the Yonges.

Close to the Axe and to the main line of the railway are the scanty
ruins of Newenham Abbey, once of great renown. Founded in 1245 by the
de Mohuns, it met with the usual fate at the Great Dispersal. A mile
farther, on the Musbury road, is Ashe Farm, which once belonged to the
Drake family. A daughter of the house married one Winstone Churchill,
and here in 1650 was born John, afterwards to become the great Duke of
Marlborough. These Drakes were claimed by Sir Francis as his
relatives, but they rather fiercely repudiated the claim, and this
obscure county family took proceedings against the great Seaman for
using their crest--a red dragon. Gloriana, however, retaliated by
giving her bold Sir Francis an entirely new device showing the dragon
cutting a most undignified caper on the bows of his ship. The effigies
of three of these Drakes, with their wives in humble attitudes beside
them, are to be seen in Musbury church, another mile farther on.

Somewhere in this fertile and beautiful valley, between Axminster and
Colyton, was waged the great battle of Brunanburgh between the men of
Wessex led by Athelstan and the Ethelings, and Anlaf the Dane, an
alien Irish King, who captained the Picts and Scots. Five Kings (of
sorts), seven Earls, and the Bishop of Sherborne were killed, but the
victory was with the defenders. Athelstan founded a college to
commemorate the battle and its result, and caused masses to be said in
Axminster church for ever (!) for the repose of the souls of those of
his friends who fell.

The London road from Honiton runs a beautiful and lonely course of
fourteen miles up hill and down dale to Chard in Somersetshire,
passing, about half way, the wayside village of Stockland. The hills
that here divide the valleys of the Otter and the Yarty are crossed by
the high road and involve several steep "pitches" up and down which
the motorist must perforce go at a pace that enables him for once to
view the landscape o'er and not merely the perspective of hedge in
front of him. The remote little village of Up-Ottery is away to the
left on the infant stream surrounded by the southern bastions of the
Blackdowns. Here is the fine modern seat of Viscount Sidmouth. Beacon
Hill (843 feet), to the north of the village, commands a celebrated
view, as wide as it is lovely.

[Illustration: SHERBORNE.]

CHAPTER VIII

THE SOMERSET, DEVON AND DORSET BORDERLAND

Chard is a place which satisfies the aesthetic sense at first sight and
does not pall after close and long acquaintance. The great highway
from Honiton to Yeovil becomes, as it passes through the last town in
South Somerset, a spacious and dignified High Street with two or three
beautiful old houses, among a large number of other picturesque
dwellings which would sustain the reputation of Chard even without
their aid. First is the one-time Court House of the Manor, opposite
the Town Hall. Part of the building is called Waterloo House. It was
built during the last quarter of the sixteenth century. A very
beautiful and spacious room with two mullioned windows and a fine
moulded ceiling graces the interior. This apartment is panelled with
the most delightful carvings of scenes from the Old Testament, and
with birds, animals and heraldic designs above the noble fireplace.
The back of this house is even more charming than the front and the
visitor should pass through the porch and passage-way for the sake of
a glimpse at its old gables and mellow walls. The Choughs Inn at the
west end of the town, not far from the church, is another fine example
of late medieval architecture. Here also one should not be content
with a mere passing glance. The interior is well worth inspection, as
the old woodwork and queer guest rooms of the ancient hostelry have
been jealously preserved. The present Town School was erected in 1671,
but a pipe bears the date 1583, indicating an earlier building on the
site.

The early fifteenth-century church is cruciform if we regard the high
porches as transepts. The whole building, including the tower, is very
low in proportion to its length. The fine gargoyles will be noticed
before entering; equally elaborate is the roof of the chancel, but
perhaps the most striking item is the magnificent tomb of William
Brewer (1641) in the north transept.

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