Devonshire
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Title: Devonshire
Author: Francis A. Knight
Louie M. Knight Dutton
Release date: January 23, 2014 [eBook #44738]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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Transcriber's Notes
###################
This e-text is based on the 1910 edition. The following errors have
been corrected.
# p. 68: "standstone" --> "sandstone"
# p. 71: bad print image; "south of": "of" restored
# p. 131: "exent" --> "extent"
Italic text in the original version has been placed between underscores
(_text_); bold passages have been symbolised by hash marks (#text#).
The caret symbol (^) indicates a superscript letter; the symbol [oe]
represents the respective ligature.
[Illustration: Physical Map of Devon]
CAMBRIDGE COUNTY GEOGRAPHIES
General Editor: F. H. H. GUILLEMARD, M.A., M.D.
DEVONSHIRE
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
London: FETTER LANE, E.C.
C. F. CLAY, Manager
[Illustration]
Edinburgh: 100, PRINCES STREET
Berlin: A. ASHER AND CO.
Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS
New York: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.
[_All rights reserved_]
_Cambridge County Geographies_
DEVONSHIRE
by
FRANCIS A. KNIGHT
AND
LOUIE M. (KNIGHT) DUTTON
With Maps, Diagrams and Illustrations
Cambridge:
at the University Press
1910
Cambridge:
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
PREFACE
In preparing this book much use has been made of the _Proceedings_ of
the Devonshire Association and of the first volume of the _Victoria
History of Devon_. The authors also desire to take this opportunity of
recording their grateful thanks to Her Gracious Majesty Queen Alexandra
for her kindness in providing one of the most interesting illustrations
in the volume--the beautiful photograph of the Armada trophy preserved
among the Royal plate in Windsor Castle, taken for the purpose of this
volume by her command.
F. A. K. AND L. M. D.
_March, 1910._
CONTENTS
PAGE
1. County and Shire. The Name Devonshire 1
2. General Characteristics 4
3. Size. Shape. Boundaries 8
4. Surface and General Features 11
5. Watershed. Rivers and the tracing of their courses.
Lakes 20
6. Geology 30
7. Natural History 41
8. A Peregrination of the Coast: 1, The Bristol Channel 55
9. A Peregrination of the Coast: 2, The English Channel 65
10. Coastal Gains and Losses. Sandbanks. Lighthouses 79
11. Climate and Rainfall 88
12. People--Race. Dialects. Settlements. Population 97
13. Agriculture--Main Cultivations. Woodlands. Stock 104
14. Industries and Manufactures 111
15. Mines and Minerals 119
16. Fisheries and Fishing Stations 124
17. Shipping and Trade 129
18. History of Devonshire 136
19. Antiquities 152
20. Architecture--(_a_) Ecclesiastical. Cathedral, Churches,
Abbeys and Monastic Houses 167
21. Architecture--(_b_) Military. Castles 185
22. Architecture--(_c_) Domestic. Famous Seats, Manor
Houses, Farms, Cottages 192
23. Communications: Past and Present--Roads, Railways,
Canals 202
24. Administration and Divisions--Ancient and Modern 208
25. The Roll of Honour of the County 213
26. The Chief Towns and Villages of Devonshire 225
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Devonshire in the Exeter Domesday Book. _Phot._ Worth
& Co 3
King Tor, near Tavistock. _Phot._ Frith 5
A Typical Devon Stream--Watersmeet, Lynmouth. _Phot._
Coates & Co. 6
A Devon Valley--Yawl Bottom, Uplyme. _Phot._ Frith 7
Glen Lyn, near Lynmouth. _Phot._ Coates & Co. 9
The Upper Dart, from the Moors. _Phot._ Frith 12
Tavy Cleave, showing disintegrated granite 14
On Lundy 17
The River Exe at Tiverton. _Phot._ Frith 21
On the Dart; Sharpham Woods. _Phot._ Frith 24
The Axe at Axminster Bridge. _Phot._ Frith 26
Bideford and the Torridge Estuary. _Phot._ Frith 28
Geological Section across England 32
Logan Stone, Dartmoor. Phot. Frith 34
A smoothly-weathered granite Tor, Dartmoor. _Phot._ Frith 36
Footprints of _Cheirotherium_. _Phot._ H. G. Herring 38
A Red Deer. _Phot._ H. G. Herring 43
Otters. _Phot._ H. G. Herring 44
Spurge Hawk Moth, with Pupa and Caterpillar. _Phot._
H. G. Herring 51
The Castle Rock, Lynton. _Phot._ Coates & Co. 56
Valley of Rocks, Lynton. _Phot._ Frith 57
Ilfracombe, from Hillsborough. _Phot._ Coates & Co. 59
Cliffs near Clovelly. _Phot._ Frith 63
Clovelly Harbour 64
Church Rock, Clovelly. _Phot._ Frith 65
Pinhay Landslip. _Phot._ Frith 67
White Cliff, Seaton. _Phot._ Barrett 68
Parson and Clerk Rocks, Dawlish. _Phot._ Frith 70
Anstis Cove, near Torquay. _Phot._ Frith 71
Torquay from Vane Hill. _Phot._ Frith 72
Brixham. _Phot._ Frith 74
"Britannia" and "Hindostan" in Dartmouth Harbour.
_Phot._ Frith 75
A Rough Sea at Ilfracombe. _Phot._ Frith 81
The Eddystone Lighthouse. _Phot._ Frith 84
The Start Lighthouse. _Phot._ Frith 87
The Winter Garden at Torquay. _Phot._ Frith 90
Upcott Lane, Bideford. _Phot._ Frith 94
A Cockle Woman, River Exe. _Phot._ Frith 101
A Honiton Lace-Worker. _Phot._ Frith 102
Old Ford Farm, Bideford. _Phot._ Frith 105
Exmoor Ponies. _Phot._ Sport and General Illustrations Co. 106
Red Devon Cow 107
Gathering Cider Apples 109
A Water-mill at Uplyme. _Phot._ Frith 110
Devonshire Lace 113
Devonshire Pottery from the Watcombe Works 115
Cider-making in the 17th Century 116
A Modern Cider Press 117
Ship-building Yard, Brixham. _Phot._ Frith 118
Devon Great Consols Mine. _Phot._ Frith 121
Stone Quarry, Beer. _Phot._ Frith 123
Fish Market at Brixham. _Phot._ Lake 126
Brixham Trawlers. _Phot._ Frith 128
Teignmouth. Phot. Coates & Co., Bristol 133
Drake's Island from Mt. Edgcumbe. _Phot._ Frith 135
Penny of Ethelred II, struck at Exeter. _Phot._ Worth & Co. 139
Signatures of Drake and Hawkyns 143
Flagon taken by Drake from the "Capitana" of the Armada.
From a photograph taken by the Queen's command 144
Drake's Drum. From a photograph presented by Lady
Eliott Drake 145
The "Mayflower" Stone on Plymouth Quay. _Phot._ Frith 146
Palaeolithic Implement from Kent's Cavern 152
Dolmen near Drewsteignton. _Phot._ Mr John S. Amery 154
Palstave of the Bronze Age, from Exeter Museum. _Phot._
Worth & Co 155
Fernworthy Circle, near Chagford. _Phot._ Frith 156
Hurston Stone Alignment. _Phot._ Mr John S. Amery 157
Triple Stone Row and Circle near Headlands, Dartmoor.
_Phot._ Mr John S. Amery 158
Bronze Centaur forming the Head of a Roman Standard.
_Phot._ Worth & Co 162
Saxon Sword-hilt 164
Cyclopean Bridge, Dartmoor. _Phot._ Frith 166
Norman Doorway, Axminster Church. _Phot._ Miss E. K.
Prideaux 169
Ottery St Mary Church. _Phot._ Frith 170
Decorated Window, Exeter Cathedral. _Phot._ Worth & Co. 171
Rood Screen and Pulpit, Harberton Church. _Phot._ Crossley,
Knutsford 174
The Seymour Tomb, Berry Pomeroy Church. _Phot._ Frith. 177
Exeter Cathedral, West Front. _Phot._ Worth & Co. 179
The Nave, Exeter Cathedral. _Phot._ Worth & Co. 181
Buckland Abbey from a photograph presented by Lady
Eliott Drake 184
Compton Castle. _Phot._ E. Kelly 189
An Old Devon Farmhouse Chimney Corner. _Phot._ Miss
E. K. Prideaux 193
Hayes Barton: Sir Walter Ralegh's House. _Phot._ Miss
E. K. Prideaux 196
Mol's Coffee House, Exeter. _Phot._ S. A. Moore of Exeter 198
Sydenham House 199
Dartmouth: Old Houses in the High Street. _Phot._ Frith 201
Newton Village. _Phot._ Frith 202
Teignmouth: the Coast Line and Sea-wall. _Phot._ Frith 206
The Guildhall, Exeter. _Phot._ Frith 211
Sir Francis Drake 214
Sir Walter Ralegh. _Phot._ Emery Walker. Signature. _Phot._
Worth & Co 216
Charles Kingsley. _Phot._ Emery Walker 220
Blundell's School, Tiverton. _Phot._ Frith 222
Samuel Taylor Coleridge. _Phot._ Emery Walker 223
Clovelly. _Phot._ Frith 228
Dartmouth, from Warfleet. _Phot._ Frith 230
Cherry Bridge, near Lynmouth. _Phot._ Frith 234
Lynmouth Harbour. _Phot._ Coates & Co. 235
Ogwell Mill, Newton Abbot. _Phot._ Frith 237
Shute Manor House. _Phot._ Barrett 240
Tiverton Bridge. _Phot._ Frith 241
Diagrams 243
MAPS
Devonshire, Topographical _Front Cover_
Devonshire, Geological _Back Cover_
England and Wales, showing Annual Rainfall 92
The authors are indebted to Mr John S. Amery for leave to reproduce the
pictures on pp. 154, 157 and 158.
1. County and Shire. The Name Devonshire.
The word "shire," which is probably derived, like "shear" and "share,"
from an Anglo-Saxon root meaning "to cut," was at one time used in
a wider sense than it is at present, and was formerly applied to a
division of a county or even of a town. Thus, there were once six small
"shires" in Cornwall.
The word shire was in use at the time of King Ina, and occurs in the
code of laws which that monarch drew up about the year 709; but the
actual division of England into shires was a gradual process, and was
not complete at the Norman Conquest. Lancashire, for example, was not
constituted a shire until the twelfth century. Alterations in the extent
and limits of some of the counties are, indeed, still being made; and in
the case of Devonshire the boundaries have been changed several times
within the memory of persons still living.
The object of thus dividing up the country was partly military and
partly financial. Every shire was bound to provide a certain number of
armed men to fight the king's battles, and was also bound to contribute
a certain sum of money towards his income and the expenses of the state;
and in each district a "shire-reeve"--or sheriff, as we call the officer
now--was appointed by the Crown to see that the people did their duty
in both respects. The shire was a Saxon institution. County is a Norman
word, which came into use after the Conquest, when the government of
each shire was entrusted to some powerful noble, often a count, a title
which originally meant a companion of the King.
It has been suggested that the reason why the names of some counties end
or may end in "shire," while in other cases this syllable is never used,
is that the former were "shorn off" from some larger district, while the
latter represent entire ancient kingdoms or tribal divisions. According
to this theory, Yorkshire is a "shire" because it originally formed
part of the kingdom of Northumbria; and Kent is not a "shire" because
it practically represents the ancient kingdom of the Cantii. The form
"Kent-shire" is, however, found in a record of the time of Athelstan.
In the case of our own county both forms are in use, and we say
either "Devon" or "Devonshire," although the two names are not
exactly interchangeable. Thus, while we generally talk of "Red Devon"
cattle, we always speak of "Devonshire" cream. "Devon," which is the
older form, may be derived either from _Dumnonii_, the name given by
Ptolemy, an Alexandrian geographer of the second century, to the
inhabitants of the south-west of Britain, perhaps from a Celtic word
_Dumnos_, "people"--or it may come from the old Welsh word _Dyvnaint_
or _Dyfneint_, "the land of the deeps," that is to say, of deep valleys
or deep seas. To the Saxon settlers the people they found in possession
of the district were _Defn-saetan_ or "dwellers in Devon"; and in time
these settlers called themselves _Defenas_, or "men of Devon." In the
Exeter Domesday Book--the Norman survey of the five south-western
counties, completed probably before 1086--the name of the county is
given as _Devenesira_. It would appear, then, that the Britons called
their province "Devon," and that the Saxons called it "Devonshire." It
is characteristic of the peaceable nature of the Saxon occupation that
the two names, like the two nations, seem to have quietly settled down
side by side.
[Illustration: Devonshire in the Exeter Domesday Book]
It is believed that it was Alfred the Great who marked out the
border-line between Devon and Somerset; and it was undoubtedly Athelstan
who, after his victory over the West Welsh, made the Tamar the boundary
between Devon and Cornwall.
2. General Characteristics.
Devonshire is a county in the extreme south-west of England, occupying
the greater part of the peninsula between the English and Bristol
Channels, and having a coast-line both on the south and on the north.
Situated thus, on two seas, and possessing, especially on its southern
sea-board, a remarkable number of bays and estuaries, it has always been
noted as a maritime county. And although many of its harbours have, in
the lapse of ages, become silted up with sand or shingle, and are now of
comparatively slight importance, it has one great sea-port, which, while
only thirtieth in rank among British commercial ports, is the greatest
naval station in the Empire.
The county has in the past been famous for its cloth-weaving and for its
tin and copper-mining, but these industries are now greatly decayed, and
the main occupation of the people is agriculture, to which both the soil
and the climate are particularly favourable.
[Illustration: King Tor, near Tavistock]
A special characteristic of Devonshire is its scenery, which is so
striking that it is very generally considered the most beautiful
county in England; while there are probably very many who regard its
mild and genial, equable and health-giving climate as more noteworthy
still. It is a remarkably hilly country, and it also possesses not
only many rivers, but a great number of broad river estuaries. Another
characteristic with which every visitor to the district is struck is the
redness which distinguishes its soil, its southern cliffs, and its
famous breed of cattle, which is not less noticeable than the soft and
pleasant dialect, with its close sound of the letter "u" so typical both
of Devon and of West Somerset.
[Illustration: A Typical Devon Stream--Watersmeet, Lynmouth]
Another characteristic of the people has always been their loyalty
to their sovereign, to their county, and to each other. Devon is
proverbial, like Cornwall and Yorkshire, for the clannishness of its
inhabitants. It is a land, too, where superstition dies hard. Belief
in pixies--fairies, as they are called elsewhere--in witches and
witch-craft, in whisht-hounds and other weird and uncanny creatures, and
in portents and omens, still lingers, especially on Dartmoor.
[Illustration: A Devon Valley--Yawl Bottom, Uplyme]
Dartmoor itself, with its wild and picturesque scenery, its unrivalled
wealth of prehistoric antiquities, and its singular geological
structure, forms one of the most striking features of the county, and
one to which there is no parallel in England. The marine zoology of
Devonshire is more interesting than that of any other English county,
and nowhere else in the island has there been discovered clearer
evidence of the great antiquity of man than was found in Kent's Cavern
and other Devonshire caves.
Above all things, its position has made Devonshire a native land of
heroes. Very few other counties have produced so many men of mark, so
many men of enterprise and daring. Certainly no other has played a
greater part in the expansion of England. From Devonshire came not only
some of the most distinguished seamen of the Golden Age of Elizabeth,
some of the most skilful and daring of her naval captains, but some of
the earliest and most famous of our explorers; the founder of the first
English colony, the first Englishman to sail the polar sea, the first
Englishman to circumnavigate the globe.
3. Size. Shape. Boundaries.
Devonshire, which occupies rather more than one-twenty-second of the
whole area of England and Wales, is one of the largest counties in the
British Islands, being exceeded in size only by Yorkshire and Lincoln in
England, by Inverness and Argyll in Scotland, and by Cork in Ireland.
Its extreme length from east to west, measured along a horizontal line
drawn through the middle of the county, starting at the Dorsetshire
border half-way between Lyme Cobb and the Seven Rocks Point, passing
close to the city of Exeter, and reaching to the point where the river
Ottery enters the county, is 67 miles; exactly the same as that of the
county of Somerset. Its greatest breadth, from Countisbury Foreland on
the north coast to Prawle Point on the south, is 71 miles. It may be
added that a longer east and west line can be drawn only in Yorkshire
and Sussex, and a longer meridional line only in Yorkshire and Lincoln.
The area of the "Ancient" or "Geographical" county of Devonshire,
according to the revised return furnished by the Ordnance Department,
is 1,667,154 acres, or 2605 square miles. Compared with the counties
that adjoin it, it is two-and-a-half times the size of Dorset, it is
roughly twice as large as Cornwall, and it is more than half as large
again as Somerset. It is fifteen times as large as Rutland, it is
about half the size of Yorkshire, and its area is less than that of
Lincolnshire by only 48 square miles.
[Illustration: Glen Lyn, near Lynmouth]
Although usually said to be irregular in form, the outline of the
county has a certain degree of symmetry, being roughly shaped like a
life-guardsman's cuirass, with nearly equal sides, with a small hollow
at the top or north coast, and a much larger one at the bottom or south
coast.
Devonshire, like Kent and Cornwall, is bounded on two sides by the sea,
having the Bristol Channel on the north and north-west, and the English
Channel on the south. On its western side the river Tamar, with its
tributary the Ottery, forms almost the whole of the frontier between it
and Cornwall. The eastern and north-eastern border is less definite,
but is roughly marked by Exmoor and the Blackdown Hills, which partly
separate Devonshire from Somerset. The short length of frontier between
Devonshire and Dorsetshire is marked by no natural feature.
No part of Devonshire is now, as was formerly the case, wholly
surrounded by any other county. Three of its parishes, however, are
partly in Dorset, one is partly in Cornwall, and one, a district of
Exmoor containing no houses or inhabitants, is partly in Somerset.
Culmstock, which before 1842 was considered to belong to Somerset,
although completely islanded in Devon, and Stockland and Dalwood, which
were reckoned with Dorset, although they were entirely inside the
Devonshire border, have now been formally transferred to this county. On
the other hand, Thornecombe and Ford Abbey, which belonged to Devonshire
although they were situate in the adjoining county, have been handed
over to Dorset. Still later alterations were the transfer of Hawkchurch
and Churchstanton from Dorset to Devon in 1896.
4. Surface and General Features.
Devonshire is characterised by such great irregularity and unevenness of
surface that practically the only level land in it is along the shores
of its estuaries; with the almost inevitable result that it is one of
the most picturesque and beautiful counties in England. Its scenery has
been very greatly affected by subterranean movements, which have not
only roughly shaped its hills and valleys, partly by upheaval and partly
by the shrinkage of the earth's crust, but have been the principal cause
of the breadth of the river estuaries which are so marked a feature of
its coasts, especially of the south. At many points along the shore of
Devonshire there is evidence, in raised sea-beaches, and, near Torquay,
in the borings of marine mollusca at a great height above the present
tide-line, of upheavals that must have raised the whole coast, even if
they did not materially change the contour of the country. On the other
hand, the existence of submerged forests at many places near the shore
proves that the land has sunk at least forty feet, thus allowing the sea
to flow further inland; thereby greatly widening the already existing
valleys, which had been formed in part by the shrinkage of the earth's
crust, and in part by the action of the rivers.
[Illustration: The Upper Dart, from the Moors]
The chief physical feature of Devonshire, a feature without parallel in
any other part of England, is the Forest of Dartmoor, the great upland,
some twenty miles long and eighteen miles broad, which occupies so
large a part of the southern half of the county. It is all granite,
the largest mass of granite in England, and forms part of a chain of
outcrops of that formation extending from Devonshire to the Scilly
Isles. The word "forest," it should be remembered, originally meant,
not a wood, but a hunting-ground. No part of the open moor is now covered
with trees, nor is it likely, considering the poorness of the soil,
that it ever was so covered, although roots and other remains of trees
have been found in various parts of it. In early days it was a royal
hunting-ground, and most of it is still Crown property, forming part
of the Duchy of Cornwall.
The most prominent feature of the moor, which contains the highest
ground in England south of Ingleborough in Yorkshire, are the isolated
rocky heights called tors, some 170 in number, many of which have been
weathered, not only into very rugged and highly picturesque, but even
into most strange and fantastic shapes; in many cases having their
steep slopes strewn with fallen fragments of rock, some of them tons in
weight, forming what are known on the moor as "clitters" or "clatters."
The highest points are High Willhays, 2039 feet; Yes Tor, 2029 feet,
only half a mile away from its rival, Newlake, 1983 feet; Cuthill, 1980
feet; and Great Lynx Tor, 1908 feet above sea-level; and among the most
striking and picturesque are Great Lynx Tor, Staple Tor, Mis Tor, and
Vixen Tor, although many others are remarkable for their strange and
time-worn outlines.
The moor is seamed by many valleys and ravines, not a few of which are,
in parts, well-wooded, each with its swiftly-flowing stream or river,
and many of them most picturesque and beautiful. Such, in particular,
are the Valley of the Dart, especially including Holne Chase and above;
of the Teign near Fingle Bridge; of the Tavy at Tavy Cleave; of the Lyd
at Lydford, and of the Plym at the Dewerstone.
[Illustration: Tavy Cleave, showing disintegrated granite]
Dartmoor is distinguished in being the coldest and rainiest part
of Devonshire, and to these two features of its climate are no doubt
largely due the fogs which so frequently envelope it. Its great extent
and its heavy rainfall make the moor the main watershed of the county.
Most of its rivers have their sources in the bogs, which are a well-known
and somewhat dangerous feature of the district, and of which the most
remarkable are Fox Tor Mire, Cranmere Bog, and Cuthill Bog.
Its varied and peculiar features, its vast expanses of wild and desolate
moorland, now aglow with golden gorse, and now still more splendid
with the magnificent purple of its broad sheets of heather or with the
warm hues of dying bracken, and beautiful, as the seasons change, with
the varying tints of grass and sedge, of ferns and rushes, of moss
and bog-myrtle and bilberry, of cotton-grass and asphodel; the almost
unrivalled beauty of its river-valleys, its multitudinous streams, its
wild life, its extraordinary wealth of prehistoric antiquities, its
lingering superstitions of pixies, of witch-craft, of night-flying
whisht-hounds and ghostly huntsmen, its very solitude and silence,
combine to make Dartmoor, to the antiquary and the artist, the
naturalist and the angler, one of the most attractive spots in England,
and one whose charm poets, painters, and authors have striven from
earliest days to immortalise.
The greater part of Exmoor, and all its principal heights, are in
Somerset, but it extends into the north-eastern corner of Devon, and
detached portions of it, which appear to be really parts of the same
upland, reach to the hills above Combe Martin. Part of Span Head, whose
summit is 1619 feet above the sea, is in our county; and the outlying
spurs of Bratton Down, Kentisbury Down, and the Great Hangman are
all over 1000 feet high. There is very beautiful scenery on Exmoor,
especially on the Somerset side of the border, somewhat resembling that
on Dartmoor, although less wild and picturesque, and without any of the
tors which are so characteristic of the greater upland. Exmoor is the
only part of England where red deer still run wild; and the district
is visited every year by stag-hunters from all parts of the island and
especially from Ireland. Both it and Dartmoor are famous for a breed
of sturdy little ponies, originally, no doubt, of the same stock. In
the Badgeworthy Valley, which is in Somerset, although not far from
Lynton, may be seen what are said to be the ruined huts of the Doones, a
community of freebooters immortalised by Blackmore, who represents them
as having been the terror of the country-side towards the close of the
seventeenth century.
Other Devonshire hills are the Black Downs, along the border of
Somerset, in which the highest point is 860 feet above the sea; another
Black Down, six miles due south, reaching 930 feet; the Great Haldons,
south-west of Exeter, 817 feet high; and Dumpdon Hill, about two miles
north by east of Honiton, 856 feet above sea-level.
Devonshire is in parts extremely fertile, especially towards the south,
and it has been called (in common, it is true, with other counties) the
Garden of England. Two very large and specially productive areas are
the Vale of Exeter, and the South Hams,--the latter a name somewhat
indefinitely applied to the district south of Dartmoor and occupying
a large part of the region between the Teign and the Plym, with
Kingsbridge as its chief centre. The great fertility of this famous
district is due partly to the nature of the soil, partly to the mildness
of the climate and the shelter afforded by the heights of Dartmoor,
and partly to its nearness to the sea.
[Illustration: On Lundy]
A very remarkable and interesting feature of Devonshire is Lundy--an
island three miles long by one mile broad, lying out in the Bristol
Channel, opposite Barnstaple Bay, and twelve miles north-north-west of
Hartland Point. Its name, it is believed, is derived from two Norse
words meaning Puffin Isle.
Composed entirely of granite, except for its southern extremity,
which is millstone grit, its lofty cliffs are very wild and rugged
and picturesque, and for two miles along its eastern side there is a
remarkable series of chasms, from three to twenty feet wide and some
of them of great depth, known to the islanders as the Earthquakes. The
shingle beach at the south-eastern corner, in the shelter of Rat Island,
is the only landing-place, but many vessels find good anchorage on the
eastern side, well protected from westerly winds. Many ships, however,
have been wrecked among the terrible rocks round its base, including the
battleship _Montagu_, lost in 1906, and, according to tradition, one of
the galleons of the Spanish Armada. There is a lighthouse at each end of
the island, and the southern one is the most powerful in Devonshire.
Perhaps the greatest charm of Lundy lies, as will be shown in some
detail in a later chapter, in its natural history, especially in the
vast numbers of birds which visit it in the breeding season. Among
very rare stragglers that have been shot here is the Iceland falcon,
a species of which very few examples have been recorded for this
country. A few plants and insects are peculiar to the spot. There are
now few trees, except those planted not long ago near the owner's
house in a cleft at the south-eastern end, but some shrubs, such as
fuchsias, hydrangeas, and rhododendrons grow to a great size, and the
mesembryanthemums are particularly vigorous and beautiful.
Granite for the Thames Embankment was obtained here, but the quarries
have long been closed, and farming is the chief industry of the few
inhabitants.
There are evidences of very ancient occupation, in the shape of
kistvaens, tumuli, and the foundations of primitive dwellings; and in
times more recent the island has had a stirring history. In the reign
of Henry II it was held by the turbulent family of the Montmorencies or
Moriscos, and the shell of Morisco Castle, now converted into cottages,
still stands on the south-east corner of the island. During the Civil
War it was fortified for the king, and only surrendered in 1647. At
various times in the seventeenth century it was captured by French,
Spaniards, and Algerines; and it was, moreover, several times occupied
by pirates, some of whom were Englishmen, who found it a convenient
station from which to plunder ships sailing up the Bristol Channel.
5. Watershed. Rivers and the tracing of their courses. Lakes.
Devonshire is a well-watered county, a county of many rivers; and
although not one of its multitudinous streams is of real commercial
importance or of much value as a water-way, by their mere abundance and
by the beauty of their scenery, especially of the magnificent ravines
which many of them in the lapse of ages have worn deep in the rock, they
form one of its most striking features.
By far the most important watershed is the great upland of Dartmoor,
where, with few exceptions, rise all the principal rivers. The
headwaters of the Tamar and the Torridge--which rise close together,
but flow in very different directions and reach different seas--are in
the high ground in the north-west, on the very border of Cornwall, and
the sources of the Exe and of its great twin stream the Barle are on
the moor to which the former gives its name, just inside the county of
Somerset. But the tributaries of all these are drawn from the bogs of
Dartmoor, and especially from the morasses round the now insignificant
sheet of water known as Cranmere Pool. The whole eastern border of the
county, from Exmoor southward to the Blackdown Hills, is a source of
streams. Such are the Lyn, flowing into the Bristol Channel; the Bray,
the Yeo, and the Mole, tributaries of the Taw; the Loman, the Culm, and
the Clyst, tributaries of the Exe; the Otter, falling into the English
Channel; and the Yarty, a tributary of the Axe. It is remarkable that
of all the many streams of Devonshire, only two of any consequence reach
the estuary of the Severn. Almost all flow into the English Channel.
[Illustration: The River Exe at Tiverton]
The longest of the Devonshire rivers is the Exe, after which are
named Exford and Exton in Somerset, and Exeter and Exmouth in our own
county--a strong and beautiful stream which rises near Simonsbath on
Exmoor, flowing for the first twenty miles through Somerset and crossing
the Devonshire border near Dulverton station, where it is met, on the
left bank, by its great tributary the Barle. It then runs nearly due
south, through well-wooded and fertile country, being joined on its
left bank, at Tiverton, "the town of the two fords," by the Loman; and
farther down on the same side by the Culm, which gives its name to
Culmstock. Near Exeter it receives on the right bank the Creedy, a
pretty and winding stream that lends its name to Crediton, and along
whose shores in some of the richest land in Devonshire. A little below
Exeter, close to the once famous port of Topsham, it is joined on the
left bank by the Clyst, a small and unimportant stream, flowing through
most fertile country, and giving its name to no fewer than seven
villages. Below Topsham the Exe widens out to nearly a mile, forming,
at high tide, from this point to the sea, a noble estuary five miles
long, with the popular watering-place of Exmouth on the slope of the
eastern side of its entrance, which is almost closed by a long sandbank
called the Warren, divided into two parts by a stream. Until late in the
thirteenth century the Exe was navigable from the sea to Exeter. But in
1290 Isabella de Fortibus, Countess of Devon, having quarrelled with the
citizens, blocked the river-bed with stones, at a place still called
the Countess Weir, leaving, however, sufficient room for ships to pass.
At a later period this space was closed by the Earl of Devon, and the
navigation of the river entirely stopped. Vessels now reach Exeter by a
canal.
The second river in point of length is the Tamar, after which are
named North Tamerton in Cornwall and Tamerton Foliott in our own
county. Rising in the extreme north-west, in the high ground that parts
Devonshire from Cornwall, it forms almost the whole of the dividing line
between the two counties, and is characterised throughout the lower
portion of its course by some very beautiful scenery. It is joined by
many streams, some rising in Devonshire and some in Cornwall; some of
which--the Lyd, for example--are renowned for their wildness and beauty.
The largest of the western tributaries is the Lynher, entirely a Cornish
river, whose estuary joins the Hamoaze. The most important of those on
the left bank is the Tavy, a Dartmoor-drawn stream, giving its name to
the town of Tavistock and to the villages of Peter Tavy and Mary Tavy,
and flowing through some of the most fruitful land in Devonshire. A
particularly fertile district is that lying between the Tavy and the
Tamar.
Although it is a much shorter river than the Exe or the Tamar, the Dart
is better known than either, and is perhaps the most familiar by name
of all the Devonshire streams. Along its banks, especially near Holne
and Buckland-in-the-Moor, and along the wooded shores of its magnificent
estuary, is some of the most beautiful river-scenery, not in this county
only but in all England. The most important of its many tributaries are
the East and the West Dart--both of which rise in the great bog round
Cranmere Pool, and join at a picturesque spot called Dartmeet--and the
Webburns, East and West. Below Totnes the Dart widens out into a long
and most beautiful estuary, winding among finely-wooded hills. On the
west side of its entrance is the old port of Dartmouth, named, like
Dartington, after the river, and on the opposite shore is the smaller
but equally picturesque little town of Kingswear.
[Illustration: On the Dart; Sharpham Woods]
Famous as the Dart is for the wildness and beauty of its scenery, and
for the excellence of its trout and salmon fishing, it has an evil name
for the dangerous nature of its swiftly-flowing waters, which, after
heavy rain on the moor, rise with extraordinary rapidity, changing it
in a few hours from a peaceful and easily-forded stream into a raging
and resistless torrent. At Hexworthy, in November, 1894, the river rose
ten and a half feet above the level of the previous day. Characteristic
of this as the other of the moorland streams, is the strange sound it
sometimes makes, especially towards nightfall, known as its "cry," and
believed by the superstitious to be ominous of flood and danger. To
"hear the Broadstones crying"--masses of granite lying in the bed of the
stream--is considered by the moor-folk a sure sign of coming rain.
The Dartmoor rivers, in the upper part of their courses, are naturally
all swift, and are all more or less tinged by the peat of their
moorland birth-place--lightly, when the stream is low, and deepening in
flood-time into the colour of a rich cairngorm.
The Teign, another of the streams that rise in the Cranmere bog, is
famous both for the beauty of the scenery along its winding shores and
for the many prehistoric antiquities--stone circles and alignments,
menhirs and tumuli--which stand near them. Its two main branches, the
North and the South Teign, meet about a mile to the west of Chagford. To
the east of that moorland village the river flows through beautifully
wooded valleys, and is joined on its right bank, below Chudleigh, by
another Dartmoor tributary, the Bovey, on which stand Bovey Tracy,
famous for its beds of lignite and clay and for its potteries, and North
Bovey, near which are the remains of the very remarkable Bronze Age
village of Grimspound. Below Newton Abbot the Teign becomes a broad
estuary, on or near whose shores are five of the townships that are
named after the river, the most important of which is the little port
and well-known watering-place of Teignmouth. The river mouth is almost
blocked by a low promontory, which, although now built over, was once a
mere sand-bank or dune, from which latter word, no doubt, it takes its
name of the Den.
[Illustration: The Axe at Axminster Bridge]
Other south-coast rivers are the Axe--one of whose two main branches
rises in Somerset and the other in Dorset--which gives its name to
Axminster and Axmouth; the Otter, which rises in the Blackdown
Hills, and flowing past Honiton, Ottery St Mary, and Otterton, reaches
the sea at Budleigh Salterton; the Aune or Avon, especially famous
for its salmon, the Erme, and the slopes Yealm, small but beautiful
streams rising on the southern slopes of Dartmoor, widening into estuaries
as they near the English Channel, and giving names to Aveton, Ermington,
and Yealmpton, respectively. The Plym, after which are named Plympton,
Plymouth, and Plymstock, is another Dartmoor river, flowing through some
very beautiful country, especially in the neighbourhood of Bickleigh,
and at length forming a broad and important estuary known first as
the Laira, and lower down as the Catwater or Cattewater, which joins
Plymouth Sound.
The chief rivers on the north coast are the Torridge and the Taw, the
former of which, rising in the extreme north-west, on the Cornish
border, near the source of the Tamar, flows south-west for nearly half
its course, and then sweeps round to run in the opposite direction,
giving its name to three several Torringtons, and having as its chief
tributaries the Walden, the Lew, and the Okement, all on its right bank.
The last-named stream is formed of the East and the West Okements, which
meet at Okehampton, their namesake. The lower waters of the Torridge
form a long and narrow estuary--its shore only ten miles distant from
the original source of the river--half-way down which is the once
important port of Bideford, built on both sides of the stream, which
is here spanned by a very ancient bridge. Near the entrance of the
estuary, but neither of them on the open sea, are Appledore, the port of
Barnstaple, and Instow, a small but growing watering-place.
The Taw is a Dartmoor-drawn river, rising, like so many streams, in the
Cranmere bog, giving its name to Tawstock and to three several Tawtons,
and receiving on its right bank the Yeo, the Little Dart, and the Mole.
The most considerable town on it is Barnstaple, beyond which it becomes
a broad tidal estuary, joining that of the Torridge, and flowing out
into what is known both as Barnstaple and Bideford Bay.
[Illustration: Bideford and the Torridge Estuary]
Many small streams fall into the Bristol Channel, among which is the
Lyn, renowned for its beautiful scenery and its good trout-fishing.
A large proportion of the Celtic words in our language are found in
the names of natural features, especially of hills and rivers. This is
particularly well seen in Devonshire, where, as has been pointed out,
the Saxons came as settlers rather than conquerors, adopting many of
the names which they found already in use, and where an unusually large
number of towns and villages have been called after the streams on which
they stand.
The names Exe, Axe, and Okement, from the Celtic _uisge_; Avon, Aune,
and Auney, from _afon_; Dart, from _dwr_; and Teign, from _tain_, are
all derived from roots meaning "water." Other names are taken from
descriptive adjectives, such as Wrey, from _rea_, rapid; Lyn, from
_lleven_, smooth; and Tamar, Taw, and Tavy, from _tam_, spreading or
still.
The lakes of Devonshire, as is the case in the majority of English
counties, are little more than ponds. Cranmere Pool, in the great morass
where many Devonshire rivers rise, lying in a dreary spot, as befits
the reputed place of punishment of evil spirits, has shrunk of late
years in consequence of much peat-cutting in its neighbourhood, and
is now an insignificant pond, rarely more than seventy yards across,
and in hot summers sometimes quite dry. Bradmere Pool and Classenwell
Pool, the sites of old mine-workings, are beautiful little lakes, but
they are only a few acres in extent. Burrator Reservoir has been made
in order to supply water to Plymouth. The largest of these miniature
lakes is Slapton Ley, or Lea, a long and narrow sheet of water, two and
a quarter miles in length and measuring about 200 acres, separated from
the sea, with which it was no doubt once connected, by a bank of fine
shingle. The reeds of its north-eastern end, which are cut and sold for
thatching, are the haunt of many water-birds; and the Ley is visited in
winter by immense numbers of migratory ducks and waders.
6. Geology.
Three main points characterise the geological features of Devonshire;
the simplicity of the system in the west, north-centre and south-west of
the county; the comparative complexity and variety of the strata in the
east and south; and, most remarkable of all, the extraordinary number of
outcrops of igneous rock, from the great mass of Dartmoor granite, which
has no parallel in England, to the hundreds of small dykes or elvans
that are scattered chiefly over the southern region, although some occur
to the north and east of Dartmoor.
The oldest rocks in Devonshire are probably not, as was once thought,
the granites, but the highly altered or metamorphic formations in the
extreme south; that is to say, the mica and quartz schists and the
hornblende epidote schists which extend from near Start Point to Bolt
Tail, a district which, owing in great measure to distortion by volcanic
upheaval, includes some of the most picturesque scenery in Devon.
Next in order of age is the series called Devonian, after the name of
the county, in which they were first distinguished from the Old Red
Sandstone. They are, however, by no means confined to Devonshire, but
are very widely distributed, covering a large part of Cornwall, and
occurring on the continent of Europe, especially in Russia, and in Asia
and North and South America. The Devonian beds--which are found both in
the north and south, occupying two distinct areas separated by widespread
deposits of culm or carboniferous measures--were, it is thought,
formed in open water, and probably at the same time that the Old Red
Sandstone of the adjoining county of Somerset and elsewhere, which is
not found in this county at all, was being deposited in estuaries and
land-locked seas.
NAMES OF SUBDIVISIONS CHARACTERS OF ROCKS
SYSTEMS
{Metal Age Deposits }
{Recent {Neolithic " } Superficial
{Pleistocene {Palaeolithic " } Deposits
{ {Glacial " }
T{
E{ {Cromer Series }
R{ {Weybourne Crag }
T{Pliocene {Chillesford and Norwich Crags } Sands chiefly
I{ {Red and Walton Crags }
A{ {Coralline Crag }
R{
Y{Miocene Absent from Britain
{
{ {Fluviomarine Beds of Hampshire }
{ {Bagshot Beds }
{Eocene {London Clay } Clays and Sands
{ {Oldhaven Beds, Woolwich and Reading} chiefly
{ {Thanet Sands Groups }
{ {Chalk }
{ {Upper Greensand and Gault } Chalk at top
{Cretaceous {Lower Greensand } Sandstones, Mud
S{ {Weald Clay } and Clays below
E{ {Hastings Sands }
C{
O{ {Purbeck Beds }
N{ {Portland Beds }
D{ {Kimmeridge Clay }
A{ {Corallian Beds }
R{Jurassic {Oxford Clay and Kellaways Rock } Shales, Sandstones
Y{ {Cornbrash } and Oolitic
{ {Forest Marble } Limestones
{ {Great Oolite with Stonesfield Slate}
{ {Inferior Oolite }
{ {Lias--Upper, Middle, and Lower }
{
{ {Rhaetic }
{ {Keuper Marls }
{Triassic {Keuper Sandstone } Red Sandstones and
{ {Upper Bunter Sandstone } Marls, Gypsum and
{ {Bunter Pebble Beds } Salt
{ {Lower Bunter Sandstone }
{ {Magnesian Limestone and Sandstone } Red Sandstones
{Permian {Marl Slate } and Magnesian
{ {Lower Permian Sandstone } Limestone
P{
R{ {Coal Measures } Sandstones, Shales
I{Carboniferous {Millstone Grit } and Coals at top
M{ {Mountain Limestone } Sandstones in
A{ {Basal Carboniferous Rocks } middle Limestone
R{ } and Shales below
Y{
{ {Upper } Devonian and old Red } Red Sandstones,
{Devonian {Mid } Sandstone } Shales, Slates and
{ {Lower } } Limestones
{
{ {Ludlow Beds } Sandstones, Shales
{Silurian {Wenlock Beds } and Thin
{ {Llandovery Beds } Limestones
{
{ {Caradoc Beds } Shales, Slates,
{Ordovician {Llandeilo Beds }Sandstones and
{ {Arenig Beds } Thin Limestones
{
{ {Tremadoc Slates }
{Cambrian {Lingula Flags } Slates and
{ {Menevian Beds } Sandstones
{ {Harlech Grits and Llanberis Slates }
{
{ {Sandstones,
{Pre-Cambrian No definite classification yet made {Slates and
{Volcanic Rocks
[Illustration: DIAGRAM SECTION FROM SNOWDON TO HARWICH, ABOUT 200 MILES.
This cross section shows what would be seen in a deep cutting nearly E.
and W. across England and Wales. It shows also how, in consequence of
the folding of the strata and the cutting off of the uplifted parts,
old rocks which should be tens of thousands of feet down are found in
borings in East Anglia only 1000 feet or so below the surface.]
The North Devonian beds, which extend from the coast as far south as
the latitude of Barnstaple, consist of slates, grits, and sandstones
which, it is believed, judging from the organic remains in them,
were formed in shallow water and near shore. Their lower strata, the
Foreland grits, Lynton beds, and Hangman grits, contain some fossils
and various kinds of coral. But the Middle beds, the Ilfracombe and
Morte slates, are much richer in animal remains; of which perhaps the
most remarkable are primitive palaeozoic fish, such as the very curious
armoured _pteraspis_; while corals and bivalve shells are abundant and
characteristic. The Upper Devonian is less fossiliferous, but contains
some large trilobites, various marine shells, and some land-plants.
The South Devonian, which covers nearly all South Devon and a large part
of Cornwall, is somewhat different in character, consisting chiefly
of slates, with coralline limestones, varied by volcanic outcrops or
elvans--a word said to be of Cornish origin, and meaning "white rock."
To judge from its fossils, it was deposited in deeper water than the
contemporary beds in the north of the county. The Lower and Middle
beds are also far richer in animal remains; and the Middle Devonian of
the south, which is the most typical of the series and includes the
limestones of Plymouth and Torbay, is crowded with shells, trilobites,
and corals. Among the shells, bivalves--such as _Stringocephalus_, which
occurs only in the Devonian formations--spiral univalves, and corals
are very abundant. There are also many crinoids, distinct from those
of the carboniferous limestone, while perhaps the most characteristic
form is the rare and curious _Caleola sandalina_, differing from all
other corals in having an operculum. There are not many varieties of
trilobite, but the large _Brontes flabellifer_ is not uncommon.
[Illustration: Logan Stone, Dartmoor]
The Lower beds of this series contain fewer organic remains, although a
good many fossils are found, including fragmentary remains of various
fishes which have not yet been identified. The Upper Devonian is, on
the whole, very poor in fossils.
Between the two Devonian areas, and occupying a large part of the
centre of the county, are the carboniferous or coal-bearing measures,
containing, however, not true coal but anthracite, which has more carbon
in it than is found in ordinary coal; and these beds are perhaps more
often known as Culm, from the Welsh _cwlwm_, a knot, in allusion to
the fragmentary condition in which the mineral is frequently found.
Anthracite, which elsewhere and especially in South Wales is a most
valuable fuel, is here clayey and impure, and in thin seams. It is
worked to a small extent, to be ground and made into a paint called
Bideford Black. The Culm measures consist of grits, shales, and
sandstones, with beds of chert and limestone containing fossil plants
and other forms of marine life. Fish are few, only two species having
been identified. The anthracite occurs in the middle Culm, and there are
other remains of plants in both the middle and upper beds. The upper
Culm is well seen on the coast near Clovelly and by the river Torridge,
where it has been bent by volcanic upheaval into curious and beautiful
curves. These measures, in general, are characterised by many outcrops
of volcanic rock, some of which were probably contemporary, that is to
say, they were poured out while the culm was in process of formation;
while others are intrusive, or were forced up through the strata after
these had been solidified into rock. These igneous rocks are found in
great variety.
[Illustration: A smoothly-weathered granite Tor, Dartmoor]
By far the most important and striking of these volcanic formations
is the great granite mass of Dartmoor, one of the most prominent
features of the county, measuring 225 square miles in extent, and
constituting the largest granitic area in England. Granite is a volcanic
rock, formed, it has been suggested, by fusion at a great depth and
under great pressure, and consisting in the main of three minerals,
quartz, felspar, and mica. That of Dartmoor is, on the whole, grey and
coarse-grained, but it varies a good deal in colour, fineness, and
composition. Its real origin is obscure. It has been assigned by various
experts to various periods, and it has been called "the sphinx of Devon
geology." There can, however, be no doubt about the great disturbance
which has been caused in the county by upheaval and by the intrusion of
melted rock, which has bent, broken, and twisted previously-existing
formations in a most extraordinary manner, the results of which are well
seen in the picturesque scenery of the Start, Prawle Point, and Bolt
Head. Lundy, which is twelve miles from the nearest point of Devonshire
mainland, is all granite, except for a small part of its south end,
which is Millstone Grit.
A long interval of time appears to have followed the laying down of
the Culm measures, during which so vast an amount of shattered rock
was worn away that when the beds that come next in order--the New Red
Sandstones--were formed, they were, in places, deposited directly upon
the Devonian, the superincumbent carboniferous or Culm strata having
entirely disappeared. The New Red Sandstones occur chiefly in the east
of the county, where their lower beds fill up old creeks and valleys
in the carboniferous system; and they extend northwards from the coast
past Exeter as far as Holcombe Regis, forming broad bands on either
side of the Exe, characterised by the high fertility of the overlying
soil, and with one long spur traversing the heart of the county, past
Crediton and Exbourne, with isolated patches round Hatherleigh, and with
another and less extended prolongation a few miles west of Tiverton.
The Lower New Red consists of clays, conglomerates, red breccias and
sands, in which occur many outcrops of trap, the evidence, not only of
numerous eruptions, but of eruptions extending over a long period of
time. These beds contain no fossils, except in fragments of older rocks.
The Middle New Red, in the form of thick beds of red marl and red and
white limestones, well seen on the south coast, is covered in turn
by the Upper New Red, with beds of pebbles, some of which are derived
from the Devonian and even from the Silurian. In this formation, near
Sidmouth, have been found the remains of two remarkable reptiles, the
_Hyperodapedon_, a strange form allied to the existing tuatera lizard
of New Zealand and in England only known elsewhere in the formations
of Warwickshire, and the _Labyrinthodon_, so named from the intricate
structure of its teeth, and also called _Cheirotherium_, from the
hand-like impressions of its feet.
[Illustration: Footprints of _Cheirotherium_, New Red Sandstone]
The Rhaetic beds are not well seen in Devonshire. They occur on the
coast between Lyme Regis and the mouth of the Axe, and in the estuary of
that river, but are much hidden by landslips of cretaceous formations
from above. One layer, consisting of black shale, with bivalve shells
such as _Cardium_ and _Pecten_, contains also a bone-bed, with remains
of fish, such as _Acrodus_ and _Hybodus_. The former is represented by
its blunt teeth, and the latter, which was a huge, shark-like creature,
by its long and formidable-looking fin-spines.
The Lower Lias is exposed in a narrow strip of coast from the Devonshire
border to the mouth of the Axe, and to a greater extent in the valley of
the river above Axminster. It has been divided on the coast into four
distinct zones, each characterised by its own particular species of
ammonite.
The cretaceous formations occupy a much wider area, but they also
are confined to the southern part of the county. The Greensands of
the Blackdown and Haldon Hills have been divided by geologists into
fifteen layers, varying in thickness from a few inches to as much as
thirty-five feet, some with few fossils, and some very rich in animal
remains. _Trigonia_ and _Inoceramus_ are found in almost all the zones:
other forms less widely distributed are _Murex_ and _Turritella_. Chalk
occurs on the south coast from the Dorset border to Sidmouth; and in
isolated patches it extends inland as far as the Blackdown Hills, and
also further west, in the Haldons. The Lower Chalk, well seen on the
coast and to the west of Hinton, is made up of calcareous sandstones,
with ammonites and pectens. The Middle beds, composed of white chalk
with flints, the zone of _Terebratulina gracilis_, is exposed at Beer.
The lower and harder layer is characterised by _Rhynconella_. The Upper
Chalk also holds many flints, with echini; _Holaster_ in the lower, and
_Micraster_ in the upper strata.
Last of all come the tertiary deposits, which, however, occupy only a
small area in the south-east, chiefly in the valley of the Teign, from
Kingsteignton to Bovey Tracy; and there are a few isolated patches, as
for example near Bideford and at Plymouth. These beds consist of clays,
some of them of much value, with flints from the chalk, and gravels and
beds of sand derived from the wearing away of older rocks. The most
interesting feature of this formation is the lignite of Bovey Tracy,
on the eastern edge of Dartmoor. Lignite, otherwise known as brown
coal, consists of the imperfectly fossilised remains of tropical or
sub-tropical vegetation, such as the palm, cinnamon, and laurel, amongst
which are found lumps of resin. By far the most abundant remains are
those of a very large tree allied to the sequoia of California. It is
very remarkable that in the Pleistocene clay above the lignite are found
stems and twigs of Arctic birch and willow, suggestive of a far colder
climate than prevailed in Tertiary times, when the trees that went to
form the lignite were growing.
To the Pleistocene period also belong the gravels and alluvial deposits
of some of the river valleys (those of the Exe and the Teign, for
example), the blown sands of Braunton Burrows and elsewhere, the raised
sea-beaches, the submerged forests, and the cave-deposits which are
alluded to in other chapters.
7. Natural History.
It is generally believed by naturalists that the ancestors of most of
our fauna and flora reached this country at a time when what we now call
the British Isles formed part of the mainland of Europe, and when there
was no intervening sea to bar the way.
Before this colonisation was complete, however--that is, before all the
different kinds of European beasts and birds had made their way to the
extreme western districts--communication with the continent was broken
off. The land of the north-western districts of Europe sank. The sea
flowed in, forming the German Ocean, the English Channel and the Irish
Sea, and the influx of animal life was stopped.
This is the reason why there are more than twice as many kinds of land
animals in Germany as there are in England, and nearly twice as many in
England as there are in Ireland. This is the reason why there are no
snakes in Ireland, and why the nightingale, on returning from the south,
never crosses into the sister kingdom.
On islands that have long been separated from a continent it is found
that forms of life tend to vary in the lapse of time, and that fresh
species are developed. That it is not long, as geological periods go,
since Great Britain became an island, is shown by the fact that we have
no quadruped or reptile except the Irish weasel (_Mustela hibernica_),
and, setting aside minor differences which some writers have magnified
to the value of a species, only one bird, the red grouse, which is not
also to be found in Europe. Very different is the case in Japan, which
was separated from the mainland of Asia so long ago that new species
have had time to develope; and the islands of that country contain many
kinds of beasts and birds which are unknown on the adjacent continent.
Some of the animals which came from Europe into Britain have died out,
either because the climate changed and so cut off their food supply, or
because they were destroyed by the hunters of the Stone Age. The bones
which have been found in Kent's Cavern at Torquay, and in other caverns,
afford clear evidence that the mammoth, the lion, the bear, and the
hyaena once roamed over the hills of Devonshire.
Although there are many more species of beasts and birds on the
continent of Europe than there are in this country, both birds and
beasts are numerically much more common here. Nothing strikes a
naturalist more forcibly when travelling in France or Italy, for
example, than the scarcity of wild life, and especially the fewness
of the birds. It is true that we have fewer species, but we have many
more individuals. To this, several causes have contributed. Englishmen
do not, as is the custom in many European countries, shoot or trap for
food small birds of every description. And game preserving--although
it has been fatal to the larger birds of prey, such as kites, falcons,
and buzzards, and keeps down other species, such as jays, magpies, and
carrion crows--provides innumerable sanctuaries for great numbers of the
smaller birds, which are safe from harm during the breeding season.
The natural features of Devonshire are so varied in character, including
as they do large areas of wild and uncultivated and thinly-inhabited
country, together with many well-wooded and sequestered valleys, and
wide stretches of bog, salt-marsh, and sea-coast, that it is very
rich in both animal and vegetable life. Its marine fauna and flora,
in particular, are of very great interest, and are among the most
remarkable in England.
[Illustration: A Red Deer]
Nearly all the native mammals of the British Isles are found or have
been found in this county, from the "tall red deer" that has run wild on
Exmoor from time immemorial, down to the pygmy shrew, the smallest but
one of European quadrupeds, and weighing only one-tenth of an ounce, or
about forty-three grains and a half.
[Illustration: Otters]
Among the eight species of Devonshire bats is the very rare
particoloured bat (_Vesperugo discolor_), of which the only example
ever recorded in England was taken at Plymouth, having perhaps
travelled there in the rigging of a ship. It is probably more than a
hundred years since the last genuine wild-cat was seen in the county,
but both the marten and the polecat still survive in secluded spots.
Foxes are common, and there are still many badgers in some of the
Dartmoor valleys, where the two species have been known to inhabit
the same holt. Otters abound on all the principal streams, and are as
regularly hunted as the red deer and the fox. Devonshire is,
indeed, pre-eminent for its otter-hunting, and the Culmstock pack
is believed to be the oldest in the island. Harvest mice and dormice,
although widely distributed, are not numerous, and the original English
black rat is now rare.
Among the many marine mammalia that have been recorded for the county
are two kinds of seal, the sperm-whale, the common rorqual--of which
specimens nearly 70 feet long have been brought into Plymouth--the rare
bottle-nosed dolphin and the still rarer Risso's grampus. Bones of a
whale called _Balaenoptera robustus_, which were once washed ashore in
Torbay, are said to represent a species so rare that these and a few
similar relics stranded in Sweden are the only remains of it that have
ever been found.
Situated as Devonshire is, between the English and the Bristol Channels,
and containing widely-different physical features, suited to the needs
of species of very different habits, the list of its birds, including
residents, migrants, occasional visitors, and stragglers from the
Atlantic and even from America, is a very long one.
Among the larger land-birds which still hold their ground in the county
are the raven and buzzard, both of which are to be seen on Exmoor and
Dartmoor and on the coast, and the peregrine falcon, which has eyries
on both the northern and southern seaboards. A few pairs of choughs
still build in the northern cliffs; while such rare birds as Montagu's
harrier--first identified as a British species in this county--the
hoopoe, and the golden oriole still occasionally breed here, and might
do so regularly were they left in peace. Several birds, such as the
kite and the osprey, the latter of which now breeds nowhere in England,
and the former only in one solitary spot, have long since left the
county. Warblers as a family are less abundant than in some other parts
of the British Isles. The nightingale is nowhere common, but it occurs
every season near Ashburton and in the valley of the Teign. Owing to
the mildness of the climate it is not at all an unusual thing for a few
chiffchaffs and willow-warblers to spend the winter in sheltered valleys
on the south coast, instead of migrating to Africa in the autumn. The
ring-ouzel is a regular visitor to the open country of Dartmoor, while
the dipper haunts many of its streams. Two birds which have greatly
increased in numbers of late years are the jackdaw and the starling.
It is thought that the former has done much towards exterminating the
chough by destroying its eggs; and the latter, by taking possession
of its holes, has in many places driven away the green woodpecker.
Partridges and pheasants are numerous, but black-game, once abundant on
Dartmoor, have become so scarce that they are at present protected the
whole year round.
But by far the most abundant, and perhaps the most characteristic,
of the birds of Devonshire are the sea-fowl, the water-fowl, and the
waders, of which more than 140 different kinds have been recorded for
the county. Not only are its sandy shores, its bays and estuaries
and leys, haunted in autumn and winter by multitudes of northern
immigrants--swans, geese, ducks and a great variety of wading-birds; but
there are several spots along the south coast and a few on the north
where sea-birds regularly breed; while the reed-beds of Slapton Ley
provide sanctuary for great numbers of coots and for many wild-ducks
and teal, together with some rarer species. Herons are common on the
south coast and along the river estuaries, and there are heronries at
Powderham and elsewhere. A great black-headed gull (_Larus ichthyaetus_)
shot on the Exe in 1859, is the only one known to have been seen in the
British Islands.
There is, however, nothing on the mainland of Devonshire to compare
in ornithological interest with Lundy, which in the summer time is
a bird-lover's paradise. Gannets, once very numerous, have now left
the island, but cormorants, shags and gulls of various species here
build their untidy nests. Here multitudes of guillemots and razorbills
assemble in the spring and lay their great pear-shaped and boldly-marked
eggs on the ledges of the cliffs; while even vaster hosts of puffins
come back every year to take up their quarters in rabbit-burrows or in
holes which they have dug for themselves in the turf. Here the raven,
the buzzard, and the peregrine have fastnesses. Here, in chinks and
crannies, storm-petrels breed; and here, when darkness falls, the
startled listener may hear the weird, wailing cry of the night-wandering
shearwaters.
The few reptiles and batrachians of Devonshire present no points of
special interest. Vipers abound on Dartmoor, where they are commoner
than grass-snakes. It is curious that, while the palmated newt is
common throughout the county, the smooth newt and the triton are now
comparatively rare.
The freshwater fish differ little from those found in the neighbouring
counties; but there are fewer kinds in Devonshire than there are in the
midlands or in the east of England. Trout abound in all the streams, and
there are important salmon-fisheries on the Exe, the Dart, and other
rivers. A sturgeon seven-and-a-half feet long was once taken in the
Exe. Eels, which are hatched in the Atlantic, to the west and north of
the British Islands, at a depth of 3000 feet or more, come up from the
sea when they are two years old, and still very small, and ascend the
rivers, especially Exe, in enormous numbers. When they are mature, which
is not until they are several years old, they go down to the sea to
spawn, and never return.
It is, however, in marine zoology, for which few other parts of
England afford so rich a field, and for which its bays and inlets,
its rock-pools and stretches of sand provide ideal hunting-ground for
the naturalist, that Devonshire is most distinguished. Many famous
zoologists, such as Leach, Montagu, Parfitt, Gosse, and Kingsley have
won renown both for themselves and for the county by their researches;
while the Marine Biological Laboratory at Plymouth is constantly adding
to our knowledge of the multitudinous inhabitants of the sea. The
subject is so vast that only a few chief points can here be touched upon.
The sea-fish differ in marked degree from those of the east coast
of England. Plaice and cod, for example, are smaller here than those
caught in the North Sea and the latter are scarce; and the haddock, one
of the most important of east coast fish, is here almost unknown. Two
characteristic fish of the south coast of Devon are the pollack, which
reaches a great size, and the pilchard, confined to this county and to
Cornwall. Many southern and even Mediterranean species find their way to
these waters: notable examples are the gigantic tunny, one specimen of
which weighed 700 pounds, the beautiful rainbow wrasse, one of the most
brilliantly-coloured of all fish, and the boar-fish, which is sometimes
quite common. A number of rare species, such as Montagu's sucker and
the crystal goby, were first made known as British through being taken
off the Devonshire coast. Stray examples of the tropical bonito, the
flying-fish, the electric torpedo, and the sun-fish, one specimen of
which weighed 500 pounds, and the splendidly-coloured opal or king-fish,
have been recorded. Several kinds of sharks have been caught in these
waters, including the blue shark, the spinous shark, covered all over
with sharp prickles, the rare and formidable hammer-head, the huge
thresher, and the still larger basking-shark. The latter is, indeed, the
largest of British fish. Specimens have been caught measuring 30 feet in
length, and weighing more than eight tons. Marketable marine-fish will
be treated of in a later chapter.
Rich as are the Devonshire seas in fish, they are richer still in
crustaceans--crabs, lobsters, prawns, shrimps and their allies; and in
this respect ours is the premier county of England. Among a multitude
of species, two which have occurred nowhere else in Britain may be
specially singled out. One of these is the burying-shrimp, _Callionassa
subterranea_, a little creature something like a very small lobster,
with one claw--sometimes the right and sometimes the left--very much
larger than the other. It was one of Montagu's many discoveries, and was
found two feet deep under the sand of the Kingsbridge estuary. The other
rare species is the turtle-crab, _Planes minutus_, a few specimens of
which have been drifted ashore on fronds of Sargasso weed. The "small
grasshoppers" which Columbus saw floating in the sea a few days before
he sighted the New World, were, it is believed, not grasshoppers, but
turtle-crabs.
Other and very beautiful forms of marine life, such as starfish,
anemones, corals and other zoophytes, and sea-shells are very abundant.
And in spite of the comparative scarcity of lime in the soil of
Devonshire, the list of land and freshwater shells is a long one. It
is remarkable that _Limnaea stagnalis_ and _Planorbis corneus_, two
water-shells that are common in Somerset, are unknown in Devon. The
pearl-bearing mussel, _Unio margaritifer_, is found in both the Taw and
the Teign.
The county is rich in insects, especially as regards butterflies, moths,
and beetles; but several of the first-named which have been caught in
Somerset have not been recorded here. The black-veined white (_Pieris
crataegi_), once a common insect, has disappeared within the last forty
years, and the greasy fritillary (_Melitaea Artemis_)--another vanishing
species--is now almost extinct. Neither insect can have been hunted
down for the sake of its beauty or its rarity, and the reason for this
disappearance is unknown.
[Illustration: Spurge Hawk Moth, with Pupa and Caterpillar]
As in the case of birds, the county is, from its position, a favourite
alighting-place for insects coming from abroad. Between 1876 and 1890
large numbers of a very striking and beautiful American butterfly,
_Danais plexippus_, appeared in England, having apparently crossed the
Atlantic, and three specimens were caught in Devonshire. The Lulworth
skipper (_Hesperia Actaeon_), a small butterfly which elsewhere is only
found in Dorset, occurs along the south-east coast of this county. Moths
are very abundant, and the first recorded British examples of several
species were taken in Devonshire.
About a hundred years ago, caterpillars of the spurge hawk-moth
(_Deilephila euphorbiae_) were very plentiful on spurge plants growing
among the sand-hills near Barnstaple. Many of these caterpillars were
taken by naturalists, and were reared, and ultimately turned into
perfect insects; although neither there nor anywhere else in our
island was a wild example of this very beautiful moth ever seen alive.
The spurge plants were long ago covered up by drifting sand, and the
caterpillars were all destroyed. No other locality for them has been
found in England, and as far as this country is concerned the spurge
hawk-moth appears to be extinct.
As might be expected in a district of such varied physical features,
with so mild a climate and such an ample rainfall, the flowering plants
of Devonshire are very numerous, no fewer than 1156 species having
been recorded. The abundance and beauty of its wild-flowers is one
of the characteristics of the county. No one who has ever seen them
will forget the wonderful wealth of primroses in some of the river
valleys--at Holne, for example--or the splendour of the ling-empurpled
sweeps of Dartmoor, or its sheets of golden gorse; or the marvellous
mist of bluebells upon woodland slopes or in the shelter of straggling
hedgerows. Each several district, sea-shore and salt-marsh, moor and
bog, wood and valley, has its own distinct and characteristic flora.
One Devonshire plant, the Romulea or gênotte, _Romulea columnae_, a
Mediterranean species with very small pale blue flowers, is abundant on
the Warren at the mouth of the Exe, but grows nowhere else in England,
although it is found in Guernsey. Several plants occur in only one
other English county; such for instance are the white rock-rose,
_Helianthemum polifolium_, and the Irish spurge, _Euphorbia hibernica_,
which are confined to Devon and Somerset, and the "flower of the Exe,"
_Lobelia urens_, which grows only in Devon and Cornwall. Three plants,
which are very abundant in Somerset, the cowslip, the sweet violet, and
the mistletoe, are rare in this county, although not unknown. The first
plants of sea-kale ever brought into cultivation were originally dug up
on Slapton sands; and the vegetable came into note in Bath about 1775.
Ferns are characteristic of Devonshire. Not only are most of the
familiar kinds abundant, but rarer species as the true maiden-hair,
two filmy ferns, and the parsley fern (_Cryptogramme crispa_) are to
be found. The magnificent royal fern, _Osmunda regalis_, still grows
in some of the river valleys, and especially in Holne Chase, but it
has suffered much from the greed of collectors, and the raids of
unscrupulous dealers. A great variety of spleenworts has been recorded
for the county, and one of the characteristic hedgerow ferns is the
pretty little _Asplenium adiantum-nigrum_. Mosses, also, are very
abundant, and there is one kind which occurs nowhere else in Britain.
In sea-weeds Devonshire is richer than any other county except Dorset.
Among its 468 different species is the Sargasso or Gulf-weed, sprays of
which are sometimes thrown ashore after rough weather.
Except on the moors Devonshire is well timbered. The elm is perhaps
the most conspicuous tree, but the beech and the ash are also very
abundant. There is a very fine wych-elm, with a trunk 16 ft. in
circumference, in Sharpham Park. The sycamore, which when well-developed
is a very beautiful tree, here attains to fine proportions, and there
are noble examples at Widecombe-in-the-Moor. The oak, although it grows
freely, does not, as a rule, reach a great size, though there are some
well-grown specimens at Tawstock Court. There is an oak at Flitton, near
North Molton, which is thirty-three feet in circumference, and the Meavy
oak is twenty-five feet in girth. An oak-tree thirteen and a half feet
in diameter was cut down at Okehampton in 1776, and there is a tradition
that two couples danced upon its stump. There are no very remarkable
yews in Devonshire. Probably the finest are at Stoke Gabriel, Kenn,
and Withycombe Raleigh, but the first of these is only fifteen feet
in girth at the level of the ground. There is a story that, under the
yew-tree at Mamhead, Boswell vowed that he would never get drunk
again. At Bowringsleigh there is a magnificent avenue of lime-trees,
and the avenue of araucarias at Bicton, planted in 1842, is said to be
the finest in the kingdom. Several manor-houses possess one or more
noble old mulberry-trees planted in the time of James I, with a view to
encourage the cultivation of silk. At Buckland Abbey, once the home of
Sir Francis Drake, there are some beautiful tulip-trees. Palms and other
sub-tropical trees grow without protection at several places on the
south coast; and at Kingsbridge and other towns pomegranates, oranges,
lemons, and citrons will ripen their fruit in the open air.
A good many places in Devonshire take their names from trees. Thus
Ashburton is named from the ash, Egg Buckland from the oak, Bickleigh
from the beech, and Holne from the holly.
8. A Peregrination of the Coast: 1, The Bristol Channel.
Devonshire, like Cornwall and Kent, is remarkable in having both a
northern and a southern seaboard; a peculiarity shared by no other
English county. Its two shores present striking points of difference.
The south coast-line is broken by many estuaries. On the other shore
there is only one important river mouth. There are, it is true, many
little coves and inlets on the Bristol Channel, some of them of great
beauty; but they make little show upon the map of England, and the stern
outline of the North Devon coast affords no harbour of refuge.
Both shores are rock-bound. But while the southern cliffs are, in great
measure, of warm-hued and even brightly-coloured stone, those on the
north are dark and gloomy; and their tones, although in some places very
beautiful, are set in quieter key--in grey or brown or even verging upon
black. Again, the southern shore is fringed at some points with sandy
beaches; while on the north coast there are no sands at all, except on
the western side of Bideford Bay.
Along the northern seaboard of Devon there runs a series of magnificent
cliffs, in parts heavily wooded, whose dark walls, sloping steeply
to the shore and with projecting bases suggestive of the ram of a
battleship, are relieved at many points by deep, rocky clefts, known
variously as combes or mouths; each with its stream, each green with
ferns and oak-coppice and thickets of thorn and hazel, and each with its
butterfly-haunted clumps of tall hemp-agrimony.
[Illustration: The Castle Rock, Lynton]
Down such a hollow, the deep and finely-wooded valley of Glenthorne,
runs the border-line that divides Somerset from Devon. Rather more
than three miles west of it there stands out into the Bristol Channel
the dark mass of Countisbury Foreland, the most northerly point in
the county, and one of the highest along its coast, 1100 feet above
sea-level. Four miles beyond the Foreland, at the mouth of a deep and
well-wooded valley, down which runs the beautiful trout-stream from
which it takes its name, is Lynmouth, famous for its scenery, of which
two striking features are the Watersmeet on the river, and the Valley of
Rocks on the coast. A port and fishing-village up to the close of the
eighteenth century, its small tidal harbour is visited now only by a few
small coasting vessels. About four miles west of Lynmouth is Heddon's
Mouth, a little bay at the foot of towering cliffs, with another
trout-stream flowing down to the sea through one of the loveliest
combes in North Devon. Five miles of cliff stretch from Heddon's
Mouth to Combe Martin Bay, a little inlet lying in the shelter of two
conspicuous heights, the Great Hangman and the Little Hangman--names
associated with no tragic story, but derived, like many others round our
coasts, from the Celtic _maen_, a stone--and with its village, once
famous for its rich silver-mines, running a mile inland. Two miles of
rock-bound and dangerous coast, swept, especially off Rillage Point, by
a strong tide-race, extend from Combe Martin Bay to the ancient port of
Ilfracombe, whose mild yet bracing climate and beautiful surroundings
have made it the most popular seaside resort in North Devon. Its little
land-locked harbour is almost surrounded by lofty hills and rugged
cliffs, whose beauty is greatly heightened by the varied colouring of
the rock and by the vivid green of the abundant vegetation.
[Illustration: Valley of Rocks, Lynton]
Ilfracombe is a place that has played a part in history. In the
fourteenth century it provided six ships towards Edward III's expedition
against Calais. It was from this port that Queen Elizabeth sent troops
to Ireland during the rebellion of the Earl of Tyrone. In the Civil War
it was taken alternately by Royalists and Parliamentarians. It was from
Ilfracombe that Wade and Ferguson and other Sedgemoor fugitives tried
in vain to escape by sea. And it was here, in 1796, that the French
squadron which afterwards landed 1000 scoundrels of the _Légion noire_
at Fishguard, on the opposite coast--the last hostile invasion of these
islands--burnt the fishing-smacks lying in the harbour. The French ships
were in the end taken by Lord Bridport.
A short distance west of Ilfracombe is Wildersmouth, a beautiful bay,
with a gravelly beach, famous for its richness in the lower forms of
marine life, and three miles farther down the coast juts out Bull
Point, a bold headland guarded by a powerful lighthouse, marking the
north-eastern limit of the most dangerous part of the coast, which
here turns abruptly southward, facing squarely to the open Atlantic. A
little farther on is Morte Point, whose name the popular fancy regards,
although without foundation, as hinting at the deadly character of its
black, jagged, sea-swept rocks. The village of Mortehoe, a few hundred
yards inland, was the property in the thirteenth century of the de
Traci family, one of whom was among the murderers of Thomas à Becket.
But there is no ground for the legend that he was buried here, or for
the traditions of him that are current in the district. A tiny little
cove on the south side of Morte Point, called Barracane Beach, was once
famous for its rare and beautiful shells; but it is now so widely known,
and its charm is so completely lost, that it has been said of it that
there are more collectors than specimens.
[Illustration: Ilfracombe, from Hillsborough]
Beyond Morte Point is Morte Bay, most of whose shore lies low, and is
fringed throughout almost its entire length by the broad expanse of
Woollacombe Sands, along whose margin, at heights varying from eight to
fifteen feet above high-water mark, may be traced at intervals a raised
sea-beach. At the southern extremity of Morte Bay is the noble headland
of Baggy Point, a magnificent piece of cliff, haunted by crowds of
sea-birds, and pierced by many caves. The shore of Croyde Bay, beyond
the Point, is famous for its fertility; and from the crest of Saunton
Down, the last headland before the estuary formed by the waters of the
Taw and the Torridge, is a view which, embracing sea and coast-line,
rich expanses of farm-land, the distant heights of Dartmoor and the
faint shape of Lundy on the far horizon, is one of the finest in all
Devon. Along the shore to the south of Baggy Point, where Saunton Sands
form the seaward fringe of Braunton Burrows, is another long stretch of
raised sea-beach, from two to fifteen feet above high-water mark. And
in this beach, not far from Saunton, is a large boulder of red granite,
a rock unknown in the district, which may have been stranded here by
floating ice.
Braunton Burrows is a long, wide tract of sand-hills, some eighteen
square miles in area, stretching far inland, and reaching to the estuary
of the Taw and the Torridge, with deep hollows among which, without a
compass, it is quite possible to get completely lost. It is a place of
much interest to the naturalist and the antiquarian. A number of rare
plants are found here, great quantities of primitive flint implements
have been discovered in the sand, and at low water the remains of a
submerged forest are to be seen along the shore.
The estuary formed by the combined streams of the Taw and Torridge,
the former of which is also known as the Barnstaple River, flows into
Barnstaple Bay at the south end of Braunton Burrows. There is no port
on the open coast; but just inside the estuary are the quaint old town
of Appledore and the equally ancient village of Instow, on the left and
right banks, respectively, of the river Torridge. In the mouth of the
same stream, a little to the south of Appledore, is a long flat rock
called the Hubblestone; named, according to tradition, after the viking
Hubba, who pillaged this coast in the reign of King Alfred, and fell in
battle at the mouth of the Parrett, in the adjoining county of Somerset.
Blocking up a great part of the river mouth, and stretching down the
coast past Westward Ho! a distance of about two miles, is the Pebble
Ridge, a remarkable bank of shingle and sea-worn boulders, some of which
are of great size, though the majority are not more than a few inches in
diameter. The sea has gradually shifted it further and further inland,
and it now covers what was once a long stretch of good pasture-ground.
On its landward side are the golf-links of Northam Burrows, considered
to be among the finest south of the Tweed.
Westward Ho! a modern watering-place named in honour of Kingsley's great
romance, is chiefly interesting on account of its submerged forest, in
whose peat and clay, deeply covered by the sea at high tide, have been
found, not only the trunks of large oak and fir-trees, and bones of
the wild boar, stag, horse, and dog, but bones of man, together with
charcoal, pottery, and implements of flint.
Six miles south-west of Westward Ho! and in the centre of the curve that
marks the southern shore of Barnstaple Bay, is the prettily situated
fishing-village of Buck's Mill, with red and wood-crowned cliffs behind
and beyond it, and extending to Clovelly, the famous little
town that may truly be called one of the most remarkable spots, not in
Devonshire only, but in all England. Crowded in a hollow in the cliff,
with woods on either side, and with an air of climbing up from its
little tidal harbour sheltered by a rough stone pier of the time of
Richard II, it consists of one long, winding, pebble-paved street, too
steep for wheeled traffic, with quaint and irregularly-built cottages
to left and right, beautiful with creepers and myrtles, fuchsias and
geraniums. Not only is Clovelly intimately associated with the memory of
Charles Kingsley, whose father was rector here, but it is the original
"village of Steepways," in Dickens and Collins' Christmas story, _A
Message from the Sea_.
[Illustration: Cliffs near Clovelly]
A long stretch of wild and magnificent coast-line extends from Clovelly
to Hartland Point, where the shore again turns southward, and again
from Hartland to the county border; a wall of precipitous black cliffs,
relieved here and there by bands of red schist, and broken at intervals
by green combes such as are characteristic of the seabord of Devon; a
terrible coast, strewn with fragments of wreckage from ill-fated ships.
[Illustration: Clovelly Harbour]
Hartland Point, believed to be the Promontory of Hercules alluded to by
the geographer Ptolemy, is a noble headland, whose dark steeps rise 350
feet sheer up out of a dangerous and ever restless sea. Perhaps there
is not, in any other part of North Devon, more striking evidence of
volcanic upheaval and disturbance than is to be seen in the curved and
gnarled and twisted strata of the cliffs that tower above Hartland Quay.
Six miles south of Hartland the northern seaboard of the county ends, as
it began, in a deep hollow in the cliffs, Marsland Mouth, a beautiful
combe, down which, under storm-beaten oaks and thickets of thorn and
hazel, there winds the stream that forms the border-line between
Devonshire and Cornwall.
[Illustration: Church Rock, Clovelly]
9. A Peregrination of the Coast: 2, The English Channel.
The points that specially characterise the southern seaboard of
Devonshire, and distinguish it from the northern shore, are its many
estuaries, its numerous bays and bold headlands, the strong, deep red,
in some places, of its rugged cliffs, and, in a minor degree, the sandy
beaches which lend an added charm to many of its seaside towns.
No natural feature marks the spot, half-way between Lyme Cobb and
the Seven Rocks Point, where the border-line between Dorsetshire and
Devonshire begins. But all that part of the coast, almost as far as the
mouth of the Axe, shows signs of having been broken away by repeated
landslips; one of the most serious of which happened in 1839, when a
vast mass of cliff, extending all the way from Pinhay (or Pinner) to
Culverhole Point, slipped bodily down some 300 feet, carrying with it
fields and houses; and it now lies in most picturesque ruin on the beach.
The mouth of the Axe, above whose eastern side rises the Haven Cliff, a
fine mass of red sandstone crowned by white chalk, has long since been
silted up by pebbles, and no ships now visit either Axmouth or Seaton,
the latter of which was once of sufficient importance to contribute
two vessels towards Edward III's expedition against Calais, but is now
only a watering-place. Beyond the mouth of the Axe, separated from it
by a mile of low-lying shore, the White Cliff, also a scene of many
landslips, rises sheer up out of the sea; a fine piece of cliff-wall,
the effect of whose bands of red and white, of brown and grey, is
greatly heightened by the green of its abundant vegetation. More
striking still is the white precipice of Beer Head, the most southerly
outcrop of chalk in England, worn above into picturesque and ivy-mantled
crags, and hollowed at its base into many caves. From its summit, 426
feet above the sea, is a far-reaching view of the coast, covering the
50 miles from Portland on the east to the Start on the west. Half-way
between the mouth of the Axe and Beer Head is the quaint and old-world
village of Beer, famous for its labyrinthine quarries tunnelled deep
into the hill, for its fisheries and lace-making, and, formerly, as a
special haunt of smugglers. From Beer Head, past the little openings of
Branscombe Mouth, Weston Mouth, and Salcombe, to Sidmouth, is a range
of magnificent and picturesquely-coloured cliffs, white and grey and
yellow, and at some points rising straight up from the sea-line.
[Illustration: Pinhay Landslip]
[Illustration: White Cliff, Seaton]
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.
[Illustration: Parson and Clerk Rocks, Dawlish]
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.
[Illustration: Anstis Cove, near Torquay]
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.
[Illustration: Torquay from Vane Hill]
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.
[Illustration: Brixham]
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.
[Illustration: The "Britannia" and "Hindostan" in Dartmouth Harbour]
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.
[Illustration: A Rough Sea at Ilfracombe]
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.
[Illustration: The Eddystone Lighthouse]
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.
[Illustration: The Start Lighthouse]
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.
The climate of any country, or in other words, its average weather, by
which, again, we mean its temperature, rainfall, and hours of sunshine,
as well as the dryness or otherwise of its air, depends upon various
circumstances and conditions, but especially upon geographical position,
that is to say, upon the nearness of the country to the equator, upon
its distance from the sea and its height above sea-level; partly
also upon its soil and vegetation. Speaking generally, the nearer we
approach the equator the hotter will be the climate, and the nearer
to the sea-coast the milder and more equable it will be. The highest
temperature in the shade ever yet recorded, however--127° Fahr.--was in
the Algerian Sahara, at a spot not even within the tropics; and the
greatest cold ever experienced, 90° below zero, Fahr., was at a place in
Siberia only just within the arctic circle.
The climate of the British Isles is very greatly influenced by the
great ocean current, often called the Gulf Stream, from its supposed
source in the Gulf of Mexico, which, impelled by steady winds, carries
a constant stream of warm water from the equatorial regions towards the
north pole. This current washes the shores of these islands, and it is
this circumstance which makes our winters so much milder than those of
Labrador, which is no nearer to the pole than we are. Were it not for
the Gulf Stream our weather would probably be more severe than that of
Newfoundland.
The highest shade temperature ever experienced in Britain was 101°
Fahr., at Alton in Hampshire, in July, 1881; and the lowest was
10° below zero, Fahr., at Buxton in Derbyshire, in February, 1895.
A temperature of 23° below zero is said to have been measured in
Berwickshire, in 1879, but the correctness of the record has been
questioned. What is, however, of more importance, is the average
temperature for the year, which, for the whole of England, is 48° Fahr.
The sunniest part of England lies, as might be expected, along the south
coast, although the south-east and south-west coasts also get more
sunshine than inland districts in the same latitude. The sun is above
the horizon in this country for more than 4450 hours in the year; but,
owing to the frequent presence of clouds, he is not visible for even
half that time in any part of the British Isles and the average for the
country as a whole is only 1355 hours. The southern coasts sometimes
enjoy 2000 hours of bright sunshine in a year, but their average is
probably not more than 1700 or 1800 hours, or about five hours a day
all the year round. The amount decreases as we go north; while the
manufacturing districts of the midland counties, owing to the smoke
which so often obscures the sky, get 1200 hours or less. At Manchester
in 1907 only 894 hours of sunshine were recorded for the year's total.
The sunniest months throughout the country generally are May and June,
and the gloomiest month is December.
[Illustration: The Winter Garden at Torquay]
The climate of a country, however, depends not only upon the sunshine,
but upon the rainfall. The amount of rain that falls in any place
varies according to the height of that place above the sea, its distance
from the coast, and the configuration of the ground, that is to say,
upon its position with respect to valleys, up which moisture-laden
air may be driven by the wind, to be compressed and cooled until its
moisture falls in rain.
The rainfall varies very much in different parts of England, but the
average amount for the whole country is about 33 inches in a year. When
we speak of an inch of rain we mean that it would lie an inch deep on a
perfectly level piece of ground. Thus, if all the rain that fell in a
year stayed on the ground, and did not evaporate, or run away, or sink
into the earth, the water would be 33 inches deep all over England at
the end of the twelve months. An inch of rain all over an acre of ground
weighs rather more than 100 tons. Not only does the rainfall vary in
different parts of the country, but it varies in different years. The
wettest year on record was 1903, when the rainfall averaged 50 inches
for the whole of England; and the driest year was 1887, when it amounted
to no more than 24 inches.
The heaviest rainfall in Great Britain is in the mountains round Ben
Nevis and Snowdon, in the English Lake District, and in the uplands of
Cornwall and Devon. And it may fairly accurately be said that, as we
cross England from west to east, the amount of the annual fall steadily
decreases, as is shown in the accompanying map. The moisture-laden
clouds, driven across the Atlantic by the prevalent S.W. winds,
discharge their contents on meeting the cold high lands of western
England, which thus act as a sort of umbrella, the driest parts of
the country being on the east coast. While the average fall over a
considerable part of the west side of it is from 40 to 60 inches, that
on the east is no more than from 25 to 30; and round the Wash and in
parts of Suffolk and Essex it is under 25 inches. Thus it sometimes
happens that when the west of England has rain enough and to spare, the
eastern districts are suffering from the want of it. The effect of this
difference is shown in a marked degree in the character of the crops.
The farms of the rainier west are to a great extent laid down in grass.
The drier districts of the east grow more corn, which needs dry weather
to ripen it.
[Illustration: ENGLAND & WALES ANNUAL RAINFALL (_The figures give the
approximate annual rainfall in inches._)]
The driest month in England generally is March, whose rainfall averages
1·46 inches; and the wettest is October, in which the average amount is
2·81 inches.
The pleasant climate of Devonshire, which is highly conducive to health
and to extreme longevity, and which, especially in the south, favours
luxuriant and even sub-tropical vegetation, owes its character to five
main causes;--the fact that the county is bounded on two sides by the
sea; the influence of the Gulf Stream or warm ocean current, which
directly affects both coasts; the warmth and moisture of the prevailing
winds; the shelter afforded to the southern districts by the high ground
of Dartmoor; and the large amount of bright sunshine which the county,
and especially the south of it, is favoured.
It is owing to the Gulf Stream that the temperature of the sea in the
English Channel is many degrees higher in winter, even as far east as
the Goodwins, than that in the North Sea. Thus, the east wind, blowing
over 200 miles of warmed water, has, by the time it reaches Devonshire,
lost much of its proverbial bitterness. On the other hand it is mainly
owing to the influence of the Gulf Stream that the climate of Ilfracombe
is more equable than that of any other town in England except Falmouth,
and is, in fact, from half a degree to a degree warmer in winter and
cooler in summer than Torquay itself.
[Illustration: Upcott Lane, Bideford]
It is largely the shelter given to it by Dartmoor and the Blackdown
Hills that makes the south and south-east of Devonshire so famous for
its warm and pleasant climate. The south-west also benefits from the
protection afforded by the spurs of Dartmoor, but the rainfall of that
district is heavier and the air more relaxing.
The prevailing winds in Devonshire are the west and south-west, which,
blowing across the open Atlantic, are also the chief rain-carrying
winds. Both are comparatively warm, the latter following the course
of the Gulf Stream. But they are often violent, and vegetation fully
exposed to them does not flourish.
The peninsula of which Devonshire forms a part contains the warmest
districts in Great Britain. The annual average temperature of the whole
county is 49-1/2° Fahr., which is a degree and a half higher than that
of the whole of England; while the average for Torquay is 51°. In the
three winter months, January, February, and March, in which the average
temperature for London is 39·7°, that for Torquay is 41·3°.
The annual amount of bright sunshine in Devonshire naturally varies
in different years. In 1906 it was nearly 2000 hours on the south
coast, and not less than 1800 on the north. The average amount appears,
however, to be about 1700 in the south, and 1500 on the north coast, or
between three and four hours a day. The actual amount would, of course,
be much more than this in summer, and much less in the winter.
The amount of rain in Devonshire in 1907, which was an average year
throughout the country, was (taking the mean of the 169 stations named
in Dr H. R. Mill's _British Rainfall_) 41·24 inches, falling on 210
days, or about 7-1/2 inches and 7 days above the average for the whole
of England and Wales. In the same year 196.16 inches of rain were
registered at the Llyn Llydaw Copper Mine near Snowdon, and only 16·6
inches at Clacton-on-Sea. The wettest part of the county is Dartmoor,
which catches the moisture-laden clouds coming up from the Atlantic.
In 1907 some 81 inches of rain fell at Princetown, at a spot 1390 feet
above the sea. This amount was, however, much exceeded in 1903, when the
rainfall at the same station was 102·32 inches, and in Cowsic Valley,
a little lower down, it was half an inch more. The driest part of
Devonshire is the south-east coast. In 1907 only 26·27 inches of rain
fell at Exmouth, for example. Heavy as the rainfall is, the slopes of
the land are so steep and the soil in general so porous that the water
soon runs away, with the result that both the earth and the air are
drier than might be expected.
A feature of Dartmoor even more striking and characteristic than its
heavy rainfall is the fog which so frequently covers it, and which is
sometimes so dense as to cause the most experienced moor-men to lose
their way.
Speaking generally, the climate of Devonshire may be described as warm
and moist and remarkably equable. The winters are very mild, and snow
is rare, except on Dartmoor. On the south coast of the county many
plants which in less favoured parts of England need protection in the
winter, such, for instance, as geraniums, hydrangeas, heliotropes, and
camellias, are left out-of-doors all the year. Magnolias reach to the
tops of the houses, myrtles grow to a height of thirty feet or more,
palms and eucalyptus flourish, and oranges, lemons, and citrons do well
in the open air.
Devonshire seems peculiarly liable to seismic disturbances, and many
slight shocks of earthquake have been recorded.
12. People--Race. Dialects. Settlements. Population.
The earliest inhabitants of Devonshire, the people of the Palaeolithic
or Early Stone Age, have left few traces beyond their weapons and
implements of flint. They lived in caves or on the banks of rivers. They
were hunters, and appear to have practised no craft but that of hunting,
while their arts seem to have been almost if not entirely limited to the
use of fire and to the making of rude instruments of stone.
But during the Neolithic Period, as the Later Stone Age is called, the
district, it is believed, was invaded by an Iberian or Ivernian race
from south-western Europe, a race possessing flocks and herds, with
a knowledge of many arts and crafts, such as spinning and weaving,
the making of pottery and of dug-out canoes, but having at first no
acquaintance with the use of metal. They were of the same stock as the
Silures of South Wales, and were probably dark-haired and black-eyed,
round-headed and short of stature. Their descendants may, perhaps, still
be seen in the county, especially on the skirts of Exmoor, and it is
quite possible that their breeds of domestic animals may be represented
upon Devonshire farms to-day.
The Iberians were, it is thought, conquered and driven westward by the
very different Goidels or Gaels, a powerful Celtic race, tall, fair,
long-headed, much further advanced in arts and crafts, and to some
extent users of bronze for tools and ornaments. It is thought by some
authorities that it was they who set up the stone circles, avenues,
and menhirs, and who built the rude stone huts which still remain
on Dartmoor. Many of the people of Scotland and Ireland are their
descendants, and their language is still spoken in the Highlands and
Western Isles of Scotland, in parts of Ireland, and in the Isle of Man.
The Gaels were, it is believed, succeeded and conquered in the fourth
century before Christ by the Brythons, another Celtic race, who gave
their name to our island. They took possession of Wales, and of Scotland
as far as the Highlands, but they do not appear to have crossed into
Ireland. They were, to a great extent, users of bronze, but they also
worked in iron, and were the first of the Iron Age in this country. It
is probable that they built most of the hill-forts of Devonshire, and
that they made many of the roads, some of which were afterwards adapted
and improved by the Romans.
Shortly before the landing of Julius Caesar, Britain was invaded by
still another Celtic race, the Belgae from Gaul, a tall, dark-haired
people, as may be gathered from the appearance of their descendants, the
Walloons of Liège and the Ardennes.
The Roman tenure of Devonshire was of a very limited character, and can
have had little effect upon the inhabitants. The Saxon occupation of the
district was more of the nature of colonisation than of conquest. By
the time they had crossed Somerset the Saxons were, at least nominally,
Christians; and although their treatment of the original occupants was
none too gentle, as, for instance, in the expulsion of the Britons from
Exeter by Athelstan, it seems likely that the two races settled quietly
down together, the Saxons probably becoming the land-owners, and the
Celts the peasantry. It is thought that the main population of the
county is Celtic, of one or other of the three waves of Celtic invasion.
There are in Devonshire many Celtic place-names, especially of hills and
rivers; and some of the latter, with the addition of Saxon endings, such
as _ham_, _ton_, and _stock_, survive also in the names of towns. In
some cases, curious English-looking names can be traced to Celtic words
of quite another meaning. Thus, Bowerman's Nose, the name of a famous
crag on Dartmoor, is probably a corruption of _Veor maen_, "the great
stone."
The dialect of Devonshire, like the very similar speech of west
Somerset, is Saxon, with strong traces of Celtic influence in its
pronunciation. One of many peculiarities is the sound of the diphthongs
_oo_ and _ou_, which are pronounced like the French _u_ or the German
_ü_. Another peculiarity is the great variety of the vowel sounds,
and the indistinctness or modification of some of the consonants.
Again, _th_ and even _v_ are often sounded like _dh_. It is also very
characteristic to put _d_ for _th_ as, for instance, _datch_ for
_thatch_, or _dishle_ for _thistle_.
There are many words in common use in Devonshire which are almost or
entirely unknown elsewhere, and which may be regarded as survivals of
ancient Saxon or, in some cases, British speech. Such, for example,
are:--
_whisht_, weird, uncanny, lonely, "overlooked."
_cloam_, earthenware.
_clam_, a foot-bridge.
_yark_, lively.
_stivery_, disordered.
_clunk_, to swallow.
_giglets_, young men or women seeking new situations.
_havage_, character.
_zamzoaky_, tepid.
_coochey_, clumsy.
_mawn_, a basket.
_frickety_, heavy, sodden.
_pluff_, not well.
_spraggetty_, spotted.
_dimpety_, dusk.
_chicket_, cheerful.
_spilsky_, lean.
_fess_, smart.
_plum_, soft.
_scamlin_, irregular.
_thurdle_, miserable.
_sklum_, to grasp roughly.
_yaw_, to bite.
_shugg_, shy.
_ippet_, a lizard.
It should be remembered that some of the forms of Devonshire dialect
which strike the educated ear as ungrammatical are really survivals of
pure Saxon speech, such as was in use at the courts of Alfred the Great
and Athelstan. English in other parts of England has undergone great
changes. In the West Country it has in some respects kept closer to the
original forms.
The Norman Conquest left its mark in many places. Double names, such
as Berry Pomeroy, Sampford Courtenay, and Wear Gifford, suggest the
addition of a Norman family title to the existing Saxon name of a manor.
It is quite possible that the common Devonshire word _fay_, as in _Yes,
fay_ and _No, fay_, is a survival of the Old French _fay_ (for _foi_),
"faith."
[Illustration: A Cockle Woman, River Exe]
Huguenots and other French refugees have also at various times settled
in the county, as, for instance, at Exeter, where they introduced the
art of weaving tapestry, at Barnstaple, where they taught new and better
methods of making cloth, and at Plymouth, where many took refuge after
the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. And it seems likely that Bratton
Fleming and Stoke Fleming were named after Flemish immigrants, many of
whom settled in Devonshire.
[Illustration: A Honiton Lace-Worker]
The population of the Geographical County of Devonshire, according to
the census of 1901, is 661,314, and there are in the county 123,608
inhabited houses. A hundred years ago the population was 340,308; it
has, therefore, not quite doubled during the century. In the busier
county of Kent the population has in the same time increased from
268,097 to 1,348,841. In common with all except five of the counties of
England, there are in Devonshire more women than men; the excess of the
female over the male population being 37,096.
The chief occupation is agriculture, which provides employment
for 42,000 people, or about one-nineteenth of the inhabitants--a
considerably lower proportion than in the adjoining county of Somerset.
Less than 3000 men are engaged in mines and quarries; 2000 are
fishermen, and lace-making occupies 350 men and 1500 women.
In common with many other parts of England the small country parishes
of Devonshire are much less populous than they were. In the last fifty
years there has been a decline of 17,000 in the rural population.
Devonshire is a somewhat thinly-inhabited county. There are in it a
little more than 2-1/2 acres to every man, woman, and child, or 254
persons to the square mile, compared with 558 to the square mile for the
whole of England and Wales. Westmorland, the most sparsely-populated
county, has only 82 people to the square mile, or eight acres to each
inhabitant. Lancashire, on the other hand, contains more than 2300
people to the square mile, or four people to every acre; and in the
county of Middlesex there are 12,669 to the square mile, which gives
about twenty inhabitants to every acre of ground.
13. Agriculture--Main Cultivations. Woodlands. Stock.
The area of all the land in England is, in round numbers, 32-1/2
millions of acres, of which 24-1/2 millions are under cultivation;
10-3/4 million acres being arable, and the greater part of the rest
being devoted to permanent grass. For some years past the area of
cultivation in the British Islands has been gradually growing less;
and in 1908 the decrease in England alone was more than 25,000 acres,
chiefly in the amount of land given up to barley and oats, but extending
to almost all crops except wheat, potatoes, and lucerne, which showed
a slight advance. The cultivation of fruit, especially of small fruit,
continues to increase, but the total space devoted to it is not quite
300,000 acres.
With regard to live stock, the Government returns show that the total
number of horses in England (about a million) was 10,000 less in 1908
than in 1907; but that the number of cattle (about five millions),
of sheep (about sixteen millions), and of pigs (about two and a half
millions) had increased, especially in the case of sheep and pigs.
[Illustration: Old Ford Farm, Bideford]
Devonshire is eminently an agricultural county, having few industrial or
manufacturing centres, and still fewer mining interests, although in
the past it has been famous for weaving, and for tin and copper mining.
There is in the county a great variety of soil, from almost barren
sand to the rich alluvial earth of the many river valleys, such as the
vales of Honiton and Exeter, for example, and that not very clearly
defined tract of country called the South Hams, lying south of Dartmoor,
including the district between the Tamar and the Teign, and containing
some of the most fertile land in England. The climate, as has been
shown, is mild and equable, but the rainfall is heavy; and the farms of
Devonshire, like those in the adjacent counties, are mainly devoted to
pasturage, although fruit-growing is an important industry. Red Devon
cattle are well known and highly valued; and the sturdy little ponies
of Exmoor and Dartmoor have been famous since Saxon times.
[Illustration: Exmoor Ponies]
According to the latest returns of the Ordnance Survey, Devonshire
contains, exclusive of water, more than a million and a half (1,667,154)
acres, of which nearly a million and a quarter (1,211,648) are under
cultivation, including rather more than 500,000 acres of arable land,
and nearly 700,000 acres of permanent grass. The latter, which as will
be seen is more than half the cultivated area, is more than twice that
in Dorset or Cornwall, rather more than that in Somerset, and is only
exceeded in the much larger county of Yorkshire. It may be added that
the arable land was 11,000 acres less and the permanent grass 11,000
acres more in 1908 than in 1907.
[Illustration: Red Devon Cow]
Corn crops--which in the returns are made to include not only wheat,
barley, oats, and rye, but peas and beans--occupy altogether about
200,000 acres, or one-sixth of the cultivated area. In this respect
Devonshire surpasses the three adjoining counties, and is excelled by
only six English shires; Essex and Lincoln, where corn crops occupy
one-third of the area, Norfolk, where they are two-fifths, Cambridge and
Suffolk, where they take up nearly one-half, and Yorkshire, where more
than half the cultivated area is thus occupied. With regard to wheat
alone, the average yield per acre in Devonshire, for the last ten years,
is only 26-1/4 bushels, which is lower than that of any other county in
England except Monmouth.
Green crops other than permanent grass, and roots, occupy altogether
about 300,000 acres, an amount exceeded only in Norfolk and Yorkshire.
Devonshire ranks very high as a fruit-growing county, and the area of
its apple-orchards, about 27,000 acres, was, in 1908, greater than that
of any other county in England. Apples are grown in many districts,
but especially in the Vale of Exeter, in the South Hams, and in the
Valley of the Dart. Much of the fruit is, however, grown only for making
cider, and is of little value for the table. Plympton is said to have
had the first cider-orchard in England. When pears, plums, and cherries
are included in the fruit returns, Devonshire takes third place, being
surpassed by Kent and Hereford. Vines are grown against many cottage
walls, as is the case in other southern counties; but it is remarkable,
considering the mildness of the climate, that no Devonshire vineyard is
mentioned in Domesday Book, although several are included in the survey
for Somerset.
The space devoted to small fruits--strawberries, raspberries, currants,
and gooseberries--although showing a large comparative increase over
1907, amounted in 1908 to no more than 1252 acres. In this respect
Devonshire is fourteenth among the English counties, producing little
more than one-twentieth as much small fruit as Kent, for instance.
Devonshire has no true forests. Dartmoor and Exmoor were so called
in the sense of being unenclosed and uncultivated. But except on the
moors, the county is well-timbered, and its fine trees add greatly to
its beauty. Its woods, plantations, and coppices amount altogether to
nearly 90,000 acres, or about one-eighteenth of its whole area; and it
here ranks fifth among the shires of England. Sussex has the greatest
proportion of woodland, about one-seventh of its total area; and
Cambridgeshire, with only one-ninety-second, has the least. There are
considerable woods in some of the many beautiful parks; but probably the
most famous is the Wistman's Wood, near Two Bridges, the ancestors of
whose stunted and fantastic-looking oak-trees are mentioned in Domesday
Book.
[Illustration: Gathering Cider Apples]
The total number of agricultural holdings in Devonshire, in 1908, was
nearly 15,000, or about one-twentieth of those in all England. This is
greater than that of any other county except Lancashire, Lincoln, and
Yorkshire. Nearly 3000 holdings are of five acres or less, and there are
only six other counties which have more of these small farms.
[Illustration: A Water-mill at Uplyme]
The numbers of the various kinds of live stock in Devonshire are large,
and the county ranks very high under the four main heads. In cattle
(295,000, or 2000 less than in 1907) it stands second in all England,
being surpassed only by Yorkshire; in horses (59,000, or 1500 less than
the previous year) it is fourth; in sheep (900,000, or 29,000 more) it
is fifth; and in pigs (106,000, or 5000 more) it is sixth. The average
price per stone of fat Devon cattle was higher in 1908 than that of any
other breed in England, and the value per head of three-year-old Devon
store cattle was only exceeded by that of Herefords.
There is no cheese made in Devonshire to compare with the famous
"Cheddar" of the neighbouring county; but Devonshire cream, although
closely rivalled by that of both Cornwall and Somerset, is known all
over the kingdom.
14. Industries and Manufactures.
Devonshire, although in former ages famous even on the continent of
Europe for its cloth-weaving, no longer ranks as a manufacturing county.
Apart from agriculture and fishing, its industries are now mainly
confined to the making of lace and cider, to ship-building, and to the
manufacture of earthenware.
The prevalence in the county of the names of Webber and Tucker is some
evidence of the extent and antiquity of the woollen trade, which, from
very early times, flourished all over Devonshire until the closing
years of the eighteenth century, when it was greatly checked by the
introduction of cotton fabrics. One of the most important seats of the
manufacture was Tiverton, where the industry was established in the
fourteenth century, and reached perhaps its greatest height in the
sixteenth. It was his success as a cloth-merchant which enabled Peter
Blundell to found here his famous school. The chief woollen market
of the county was originally at Crediton, but it was removed in the
sixteenth century to Exeter, which long ranked second only to Leeds,
and in its palmy days exported annually more than 300,000 pieces of
cloth. Other important centres of the trade were Barnstaple, where
towards the end of the sixteenth century improved methods of weaving
were introduced by French refugees; Tavistock, whose kerseymeres had a
European reputation; Honiton, Cullompton, and Totnes. Now Ashburton and
Buckfastleigh, where there are some manufactures of blankets and serges,
are the only towns where the industry survives.
Lace-making, which has been a characteristic Devonshire industry for
nearly three hundred years, is said to have been introduced at Honiton
by Flemish refugees at the close of the sixteenth century, and to have
been well established by 1630. The lace was a most costly product,
chiefly because the special thread used in making it had to be imported
from the Low Countries. In old days the price of Devonshire lace is
said to have been reckoned by the number of shillings which would cover
it. But the change of fashion in men's dress lessened the demand for
lace; and the introduction of machinery in 1808 greatly diminished its
cost. The piece of lace which in the eighteenth century would have cost
£15, could be purchased a few years later for 15_s._, and can now be
obtained, machine-made, for 15_d._ There was some revival of the trade
after the making, at Beer, of Queen Victoria's wedding-dress, at a
cost of a thousand pounds. Schools were established for the training
of lace-workers; and by 1870 the industry provided employment for 8000
people. The manufacture has, however, again greatly declined, and
although there is a lace-factory at Tiverton, and although hand-made
or pillow-lace is still worked in many cottages in the south-east,
especially at Beer, Colyton, and Seaton, the total number of
lace-workers in the whole county, at the last census, was less than 2000.
[Illustration: Devonshire Lace]
Carpets in imitation of those of Turkey were first made at Axminster in
1755, but in 1835 the looms were removed to Wilton, near Salisbury.
There are valuable deposits of various kinds of potter's clay in
Devonshire, and although much of this is exported, a good deal is used
in the county. There were formerly many small, scattered potteries in
North Devon, but the chief seats of the industry now are at Bideford,
where a good deal of rough pottery is made; at Annery, noted for its
glazed bricks and tiles; and at Barnstaple, where are extensive and
long-established potteries of what is called Barum ware, which has been
compared to the Italian _sgraffito_. The potteries of Bovey Tracy,
which use both local and imported clay, employ from 250 to 350 hands.
The fine red clay of Watcombe is used to make terra-cotta; and at Lee
Moor, near Plympton, whence much kaolin or fine china clay is exported,
the silicious refuse is made up into bricks of high quality for use
in metallurgical furnaces. The kaolin deposits of Devonshire were
discovered by Cookworthy, who made porcelain at Plymouth from 1772 to
1774, after which date the works were removed to Bristol.
[Illustration: Devonshire Pottery from the Watcombe Works]
Devonshire is one of the chief cider-producing counties, and its
apple-orchards are the most extensive in our island. Some of the best
varieties of apples for cider-making--an industry which is carried
on throughout a very large part of the county though Totnes, Whimple,
Crediton, Exeter and Tiverton are perhaps the best known centres--are
Kingston Black, both the sweet and the sour Woodbines (known locally as
Slack-me-girdles), Sweet Alford and Fair Maid of Devon.
[Illustration: Cider-making in the 17th Century (_From an old print_)]
[Illustration: A Modern Cider Press]
It is interesting to note that printing was early introduced into
Devonshire. In 1525 the fifth printing-press in England was set up
in Tavistock. There are paper-mills at Cullompton, iron-works near
Kingsbridge, glove-factories at Torrington, umber-works at Ashburton,
tanneries and shoe-factories at Crediton, and agricultural implement
works at Exeter.
[Illustration: Ship-building Yard, Brixham]
In addition to the very important Government works at Devonport
and Keyham dockyards, there is a considerable amount of ship and
boat-building, especially on the Dart and at Brixham, and the industry
employs altogether about 3500 men.
15. Mines and Minerals.
There was a time when mining, especially tin-mining, was the most
important industry of Devonshire. Traces left all over Dartmoor show
that at a very early period tin was obtained there by the process called
"streaming," that is to say by the washing of grains of the metal out
of the disintegrated and crumbling granite. Vast numbers of abandoned
shafts sunk in search of tin, copper, iron, manganese, and even silver,
remain, together with their too often ugly buildings, as evidence of
the former magnitude of the industry. At the present day, however, only
twenty-four mines are in active operation, providing employment for no
more than 700 men, who, in 1907, raised less than 1700 tons of metal of
all descriptions.
The tin-miners of Devon and Cornwall were early formed into a corporate
body whose affairs were managed by a Stannary parliament that met on
Hingston Down. At a later period, probably at the beginning of the
fourteenth century, the Devonshire men held their own parliament,
which assembled on Crockern Tor. They were governed by a Warden--Sir
Walter Ralegh held the office for some years--appointed by the Duchy
of Cornwall, who collected the Duchy dues or royalties, and having
ascertained the purity of each block of tin by "coinage," that is, by
cutting off for analysis a "coin" or corner, stamped it with the Duchy
arms. A miner convicted of selling impure tin was punished by having
some of the melted metal poured down his throat. Lydford, Tavistock,
Chagford, and Ashburton were called Stannary Towns, since at each of
those places blocks of tin might be tested; and the arbitrary nature of
the Stannary Court is hinted at in the proverbial expression: "Lydford
Law; hang first and try afterwards."
The chief mining district of Devonshire begins at the Tamar and extends
across Dartmoor and along its borders. The most important centre was
Tavistock, but there were rich mines at North Molton, where several
kinds of metal were worked, near Ashburton, and elsewhere.
The principal ores are those of copper and tin; some iron is worked, and
there are rich veins, believed to be not yet exhausted although not now
worked, of galena or silver-lead.
The Devonshire mines formerly produced more tin than those of
Cornwall; but since the fourteenth century the output of the latter
county has been the greater. The quantity now raised in Devonshire
is inconsiderable, and in 1907 amounted to only 94 tons. Tin is very
largely used in making what is called tin-plate, which is really
sheet-iron dipped into the melted metal. It is also mixed with copper to
make bronze or machine-brass, and it was for the manufacture of bronze
that it was so much sought after by the ancient inhabitants of the
country.
Copper-mining in Devonshire is believed to be a comparatively modern
industry. It is not known whether the ancient Britons made their own
bronze from native tin and copper, or whether they imported it from
abroad. The Devon Great Consols Mine, four miles from Tavistock, once
by far the richest mine in England, and one of the richest in the
world, has shipped as much as 1200 tons of copper in a single month,
and has produced altogether 3-1/2 million pounds' worth of ore; but it
now yields little but arsenic. In 1907 only 652 tons were raised in the
whole county. The ore is not exhausted, but the cost of raising it from
deep mines is too great to withstand foreign competition.
[Illustration: Devon Great Consols Mine]
Ores of iron and zinc are widely distributed, but are little worked; and
the annual yield, both of these metals and of manganese, of which this
county was once a chief source of supply, is inconsiderable. Very rich
silver-lead ore was formerly worked at Bere Alston and at Combe Martin,
but the mines in both places have been abandoned. A very massive cup,
made of Combe Martin silver, given to the Corporation of London by
Queen Elizabeth, is still used at the inauguration of each Lord Mayor.
Arsenic and arsenical pyrites, ochre, and umber are obtained, especially
from some mines whose more valuable ore is exhausted. Cobalt, tungsten,
and uranium also occur, and gold has been found in small quantities,
generally in streams, as, for instance, in the West Webburn and below
Lethitor.
Although the metal mines of Devonshire have lost their old importance,
there are other minerals of great commercial value, of which altogether
more than a million tons are obtained in the course of a year. China
clay, or kaolin, a product of the natural decomposition of granite,
is worked at Lee Moor, and more than 75,000 tons--which, however, is
only one-tenth of that obtained from Cornwall--are annually exported,
especially to Staffordshire, for the making of fine earthenware. Other
kinds of potter's clay, white at Kingsteignton and Bovey Tracy, and red
at Watcombe, are dug in still larger quantities.
There are many quarries in Devonshire, the most important of them being
of limestone, of which more than half a million tons are worked every
year. Heytor granite was used in London Bridge and Waterloo Bridge, and
Lundy granite in the Thames Embankment. But the stone is not considered
equal to that from Cornwall. The same remark applies to the slate, of
which only 5000 tons are now raised annually. There are old quarries of
it near Kingsbridge, and also at Tavistock and other places. Colyton
slate is used for billiard-tables. Marble is worked at Chudleigh, and
a finer quality at Ipplepen, Torquay, and Plymouth. There are large
quarries at Beer. The material for whetstones has long been dug in the
Blackdown Hills, where the refuse from the workings, like lines of
railway embankment, is a feature in the landscape.
[Illustration: Stone Quarry, Beer]
There is no coal in Devonshire, but there is much lignite at Bovey
Tracy, where, in the bed of an ancient lake, a deposit of layers of
it occurs, alternating with clay and sand, to a depth of 100 feet.
On account of its disagreeable smell while burning and its low
heating-power it is not used for fuel except for firing bricks, and
to some extent in the pottery-kilns. There are also extensive beds of
anthracite or culm near Bideford; but this, again, is not of a quality
to serve as fuel, except for lime-burning, and the product of the one
solitary working is ground up to make a paint called Bideford Black.
There are vast and valuable deposits of peat on Dartmoor, in some places
as much as thirty feet deep.
16. Fisheries and Fishing Stations.
The fisheries of the British Islands form one of our most important
industries, providing regular or occasional employment for nearly
100,000 men and boys in the catching of the fish; for a very great
number of persons engaged in secondary occupations connected with the
industry, who probably far outnumber the actual fishermen; and for
innumerable people of all grades engaged in distributing the eight
million pounds' worth of fish brought into the ports of England and
Wales each year by British ships alone. The fisheries also furnish an
immense quantity of cheap and wholesome food, which, by rapid methods of
transit, is available in all parts of the country.
By far the most productive of our fishing-grounds, although not as
predominant as it was some years ago, is the North Sea--an area of more
than 150,000 square miles, in which are taken more than half of all
the British-caught fish, not including shell-fish, which are annually
landed on the coasts of England and Wales. More fish are brought, every
year, into Grimsby, Hull, Lowestoft, and Yarmouth than into all the
other fishing-ports of England put together. It is interesting to note
that, while according to the latest returns there were 1731 British
steam-trawlers and drifters, exclusive of ordinary fishing-boats,
engaged in the North Sea fisheries, there were only 451 similar craft
belonging to the ports of Germany, Holland, Belgium, and France put
together. In other words there are four British steam-trawlers in the
North Sea to every foreigner. Much fishing is also done by English
trawlers off the shores of Iceland, Norway, and the Faroës, and the
boats now go as far even as the White Sea and the coast of Morocco.
About half the fish are taken by trawling, which consists in dragging a
beam of wood, with a net attached to it, along the bottom of the sea,
in comparatively shallow water. Very many different species are caught
in this way, but haddock, plaice, and cod are by far the most numerous,
and make up between them nearly half the total amount of all the fish
landed in England and Wales in a year. Much fishing is also done with
seine nets, or with drift nets, both of which are long nets, attached
to floats of cork or to air-bladders and let down into the sea without
regard to the depth, and sometimes at a considerable distance from the
shore. Stake nets, fastened to poles fixed in shallow water near the
land, are also much used. Herrings are the chief fish caught in drift
nets and seines, and more of them are landed than of any other kind of
fish. The latest return gives the total quantity of herrings annually
brought into English ports as rather more than 200,000 tons, of cod as
about 100,000 tons, and of plaice as about 50,000 tons. Pilchards, which
are full-grown sardines, and much resemble herrings in appearance, are
caught in large quantities--which, however, seem trifling in comparison
with those of the three fish named above--in seine nets off the coasts
of Cornwall and Devon, and nowhere else in the British Isles. Many
fish, especially halibut, cod, and ling are taken with hook and line,
sometimes at great depths. Crabs and lobsters are caught in wicker traps
or baskets called pots, and oysters are usually taken by dredging.
[Illustration: Fish Market at Brixham]
In spite of its two long stretches of seaboard, the fisheries of
Devonshire are not equal in productiveness to those of Cornwall, and
are insignificant in comparison with those of the east coast; and
the total value of the fish landed at all its ports taken together
amounted, according to the latest return, to no more than £150,000, or
one-nineteenth of what is landed at Grimsby alone. It was far exceeded
at five other east-coast fishing stations.
The fish of the English Channel differ considerably from those of the
North Sea. Haddock, the most abundant species on the east coast, is
very rare in the south, and practically none are caught at any of the
Devonshire fishing stations. The cod, again, is a northern species,
and is almost entirely absent from both the Bristol and the English
Channels. Whiting is one of the most abundant of English Channel fish;
and in this species, as well as in soles and turbot, the south coast
is of all the British fishing-grounds second only in productiveness to
the east coast. More conger-eels are caught in the English Channel than
anywhere else off our islands, and there is also a great abundance of
gurnards, skates, and dogfish.
The Devonshire fishermen catch great quantities of whiting, herring,
mackerel, sprats, and pilchards, together with considerable numbers of
soles, turbot, plaice, pollack, skates, congers, crabs, lobsters, and
prawns. Herrings were formerly very abundant off Lynmouth. The last
great shoals appeared in 1823. A skate caught off the south coast of
Devonshire measured nine feet by six and a half feet, and weighed 560
pounds. The quantity of sprats annually caught in Devonshire waters is
very great, but, as in other districts, varies very much in different
years. Thus the amount brought into Torquay in 1905 was more than 500
tons, or more than were landed at any other port in the kingdom; but in
1906 the quantity was only 100 tons. Pilchards, as has been already
observed, are confined to Cornwall and to the south coast of Devon; but
by far the greater quantity are taken at the fishing stations of the
former county. Almost all the pilchards caught in Devonshire waters are
landed at Plymouth. None are taken further east than Dawlish. These
fish, which are particularly oily, are mostly salted and exported to the
Mediterranean. Dogfish, which are very abundant and formerly thrown away
as worthless, are finding an increasing market, especially in London,
where they are filleted and sold as "flake."
[Illustration: Brixham Trawlers]
The most important fishing stations are Plymouth, Brixham, and Torquay,
the annual value of whose fisheries according to the latest return is
about £66,000, £60,000 and £8,000 respectively. There is also a good
deal of fishing off Exmouth, Teignmouth, Dartmouth, Torcross, and
Budleigh Salterton, where the annual values vary from £4000 to £750 a
year. It is interesting to compare these figures with the annual value
of the fish brought into Grimsby, which, by the last return, amounted to
nearly three millions sterling.
There are valuable salmon fisheries at Exmouth, Teignmouth, and
Babbacombe; and most of the Devonshire streams abound with trout,
although the fish as a rule run small. Thirteen Devonshire fisheries are
named in Domesday Book. The most valuable was that at Dartington, for
which two fishermen paid a yearly rent of eighty salmon.
17. Shipping and Trade.
The ports of Devonshire once ranked among the first in England,
and her sailors have for many centuries been famous for their
enterprise and daring. It was from this county that the first English
trading-expeditions sailed to Africa, Brazil, and North America.
They were Devonshire men, who, by taking possession of Newfoundland,
established the first English colony--in which most of the old families
are of Devonshire descent. Devonshire ships were long the terror of the
Spanish Main. Devonshire men were among the very foremost in the defeat
of the Spanish Armada. A Devonshire captain was the first Englishman
to sail round the world; and although we remember with regret that his
friend and comrade was the first Englishman to engage in the iniquitous
traffic of the slave-trade, we are proud to think that few men did more
than he to improve our ships and the condition of our seamen.
In their palmy days, in the century or more following the flight of the
Armada, Bideford and Topsham had each of them more trade with the young
colonies of North America than any other English town except London.
Barnstaple, Ilfracombe, Dartmouth, Brixham, and Appledore were once
important seaports. At the present day not one of the whole seven has
sufficient trade to be honoured with a separate entry in the Government
Shipping Returns. Plymouth is now the only maritime town of commercial
importance. Even its traffic, large as it seems, is small in comparison
with that of London or Liverpool, and as far as trading statistics go,
it stands no higher than thirtieth among the ports of the United Kingdom.
Several causes have contributed to the decay of the Devonshire ports.
Most of them are situated on river-estuaries which, in the lapse of
ages, have become silted up by mud and sand brought down by the rivers,
or obstructed by shingle washed up by the waves. The harbour of Sidmouth
was destroyed by the encroachment of the sea and the fall of the
cliffs which formerly protected it. Again, the tonnage of ships, and
consequently the amount of water they draw, have very greatly increased
since Tudor and Stuart times, when these ports were in their prime; and
it would be impossible for the large vessels of to-day to navigate the
shallow and danger-strewn waters of our estuaries, even if they could
cross the bars by which they are obstructed. Nor is it worth while to
improve the navigation by dredging, as is done to so great an extent
on the Thames, the Mersey, and the Clyde. The industries of Devonshire
are now of small importance, and the county has no great manufacturing
centres to supply freights. Plymouth Sound is the only busy waterway,
and Plymouth is the one populous town requiring large quantities of
imports.
The only harbour in North Devon given in the shipping returns is
Barnstaple, with which are associated Ilfracombe, Bideford, and
Appledore. Ilfracombe, the only port in the long stretch of coast
between Bridgwater and Padstow, had formerly a good deal of traffic
with Wales and Ireland, but its tidal harbour is now visited only by
excursion steamers and small coasting-vessels.
The other three towns are river-ports. Barnstaple is eight miles from
the mouth of the Torridge, Appledore is just inside the entrance of the
Taw, and Bideford is five miles up the same river, whose estuary is
obstructed by a dangerous bar, only to be crossed at high tide. In the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries all three towns had an active trade
with North America; and even in comparatively recent times ships of 1000
tons have been moored at Barnstaple quay. But at the present day only
37 cargo-carrying vessels sail to and from the whole group in a year,
and the trade (chiefly in timber and dye-stuffs) of all four together,
principally with home ports, but also with Sweden and Norway and some
other European countries, amounts to little more than £18,000 in twelve
months.
Dartmouth, Brixham, and Salcombe form another group of ports, all of
which have played a part in history. Their total trade, the import of
timber and the export of ships and boats, amounts to nearly £19,000 a
year, and such foreign intercourse as they have is chiefly with Sweden,
Norway, and Russia.
Exeter and Exmouth, with which is associated Lyme Regis in the adjoining
county of Dorsetshire, rank next in importance, Topsham, the ancient
port of Exeter, having gone entirely to decay. Their annual trade, about
half of which consists of wood, cured fish, and sugar, and which, as
regards foreign intercourse, is mainly with France, Germany, and Sweden,
is nearly £100,000.
The trade of Teignmouth and Torquay together, in the importation of
paper-making materials and timber, and in the export of China-clay,
chiefly with English ports, but also with France, Germany, Belgium, and
Norway, amounts to £110,000 in the twelve-month.
[Illustration: Teignmouth]
Plymouth which, as has been already pointed out, is the only large
sea-port in the county, has four times as much trade, and is entered
and cleared by four times as many vessels as all the other ports of
Devonshire put together. Its chief imports are grain (£540,000),
timber (£250,000), sugar (£135,000), guano and manures (£110,000), and
petroleum (£52,000); and its principal export is £52,000 worth of clay.
Its imports and exports taken together amount to 1-3/4 million pounds
sterling, and it is entered and cleared by 1656 ships in a year. Its
chief foreign trade is with France, but its commerce may truly be
said to be world-wide. Thirteen lines of ocean steamers sail from or
call at Plymouth, the principal of which are the White Star, American,
Norddeutscher-Lloyd, and Hamburg-American for the United States; the
Orient and Peninsular and Oriental for Australia; the latter and the
British India for India; the Shaw-Savill and New Zealand SS. Co. for New
Zealand; and the British and African for the West Coast of Africa. There
are also regular sailings of steamers for France, Scotland, Ireland, the
Channel Isles, and various home ports.
It is interesting to compare this sea-traffic with that of London, which
is entered and cleared by 18,491 cargo-carrying ships in the course of
twelve months, and has a total annual import and export trade of 333
millions of pounds sterling; which are respectively about 11 times, and
about 190 times as large as the corresponding figures for Plymouth.
But although Plymouth is a place of considerable maritime trade, a
busy fishing station and a port of call for ocean-going steamers, for
whose accommodation are provided spacious docks and ample quays, its
greatest importance and renown--remembering that we include with it its
sister towns of Stonehouse and Devonport--rest upon its rank as a naval
station, as an arsenal which is second only to that of Woolwich, and as
a naval dockyard which is the largest in the kingdom.
The anchorage at the head of the Sound, once very much exposed and
dangerous in southerly winds, is now protected by a stone breakwater
nearly a mile long, designed to shelter ships of the Royal Navy. It
was commenced in 1812 by Rennie, continued by his son, modified in
the slope of its sides and improved in stability by violent storms,
especially in 1817, and completed in 1840.
[Illustration: Drake's Island from Mt. Edgcumbe, Plymouth]
Taking all its various features into account, its commerce, its
passenger traffic by means of ocean-liners and other steamers, its
fisheries, its docks and dockyards, its barracks, its factories of
marine appliances, its arsenal, and lastly the vast number of ships
of all sizes, belonging to the navy, to the mercantile marine, or to
the fishing-fleet, that are constantly leaving or entering the Sound,
Plymouth is one of the most important sea-ports in the British Empire.
18. History of Devonshire.
The history of our country begins with the Roman occupation. For
although we have ample and striking traces, in the shape of earthworks
and stone circles, tools and weapons, pottery and ornaments, of the
successive races of men who lived here before Julius Caesar set foot in
Britain, those ancient and primitive people left no written records, not
so much as an inscription on a single coin, and our knowledge of them is
in the highest degree vague and uncertain.
Of many parts of our island the Romans took complete possession,
constructing fortresses, making roads, establishing towns, building
baths and temples and luxuriously appointed villas, and scattering,
wherever they went, the coins whose lettering and devices have revealed
to us so much concerning the some time masters of the world. In
Somerset, for example, to which the conquerors were attracted partly
by the hot and health-restoring springs of Bath, and partly by the
silver-bearing lead mines of the Mendip Hills, the relics of their
occupation have been found from one end of the county to the other.
In Devonshire, on the other hand, such relics are so few, and are
confined to so limited an area that we are driven to the conclusion
that, except as regards the city of Exeter, there was no definite Roman
occupation at all. There is probably not one camp of Roman workmanship
in the whole county. It is doubtful if any Roman road went farther than
the river Teign. The sites of only two Roman villas are known with
certainty. And although Roman coins have been found in many places,
sometimes in hoards of hundreds, and in one case even of thousands,
they are not absolute proof of actual occupation. The names Chester
Moor, Scrobchester, and Wickchester, all near the Cornish border, may,
perhaps, be of Roman origin.
There is, however, no doubt that Exeter, believed to be the _Isca
Dumniorum_ of Antonine's _Itinerary_--that wonderful register, planned
by Julius Caesar and carried out by Augustus, of distances and stations
along all the roads in the Empire--was an important Roman town; and
there is reason to think, from the coins that have been found at many
points within the walls, that the city was held by the Romans from the
latter half of the first century of the Christian era until the time
when the legions were recalled from Britain. The site of _Moridunum_,
the second Roman station mentioned in the _Itinerary_, has not been
identified, but there is some ground for the theory that it was at
Hembury, four miles from Honiton.
A few vague and brief allusions in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, believed
to refer to this county, describing how "Ina fought against Geraint,"
how "Cynewulf fought very many battles against the Welsh," and how
"Egbert laid waste West Wales from eastward to westward," contain
practically all that we know of the Saxon conquest of Devonshire. There
is, indeed, so little record of actual fighting that it seems probable
that the invaders settled here rather as colonists than conquerors,
although Athelstan appears to have found it necessary to expel from
Exeter the Britons who had so far shared the town with the Saxons.
The chief events in Devonshire between the departure of the Romans and
the Norman Conquest were the repeated descents, spread over a long
period of years, of the pirates whom we speak of as Danes or Northmen
or Vikings; who pillaged the coast towns, sacked Exeter, sailed up the
Tamar, and burnt and plundered Tavistock and Lydford. Victory was not
always on the side of the marauders. Their first raid, in 851, was
repulsed with great slaughter; and when, five and twenty years later,
Guthrum seized Exeter, King Alfred promptly drove him out of it.
During the Saxon period there were mints at Exeter, Barnstaple, Totnes,
and Lydford, and thousands of Devonshire-struck silver pennies are in
existence. By far the greater number of them are in the royal museum at
Stockholm, the most numerous being those of Ethelred II and Canute. Of
the former there are in Stockholm 2254 specimens, compared with 144 in
the British Museum. These Swedish specimens probably represent partly
the plunder carried off by the Northmen, partly the bribes vainly paid
to the invaders by Ethelred (whose surname of Unradig, "he who will not
take counsel," or "the headstrong," has been misrendered "the Unready"),
and partly the results of commerce while Canute was king.
[Illustration: Penny of Ethelred II, struck at Exeter]
The year succeeding the Battle of Hastings found William the Conqueror
before the gates of Exeter, a place already regarded, as it continued
to be for many centuries, as the key of the West of England. He took
the city after a brief siege and proceeded to secure his hold upon it
by building the castle of Rougemont, which was hardly finished when
it was unsuccessfully attacked by the Saxons. A year later the sons
of Harold also tried in vain to take it. The last man of mark in
Devonshire to hold out against Norman rule was Sithric, the Saxon abbot
of Tavistock, who, when all was lost, fled to Hereward's camp of refuge
in the Fens. A few Englishmen were left by the Conqueror in possession
of their estates; but the county, as a whole, was divided among a number
of Norman nobles, some of whose descendants, Courtenay, Carew, and
Champernowne, for example, still survive in Devonshire. An interesting
link with Norman times and customs is the ringing of the curfew bell,
which is still kept up at Exeter, Okehampton, and other places. At eight
o'clock every evening thirty strokes are sounded for "Curfew," and then
eight more for the hour.
In the stormy reign of King Stephen Exeter was the last place to hold
out for Queen Maud. The king was admitted into the town by the citizens,
but the castle of Rougemont cost him a three months' siege.
The importance of Devonshire sea-ports brought the county into great
prominence in mediaeval times. Part of Richard C[oe]ur-de-Lion's
crusading fleet, we are told, assembled at Dartmouth--a town which
Chaucer, probably regarding it as a typical sea-port, chose for the
native place of the Shipman in the _Canterbury Tales_. No other part
of England furnished so many ships and men for Edward III's expedition
against Calais. Again and again, in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, the French, in reprisal for what they had suffered by the
attacks of England, harried the coast of Devon, plundering and burning
Teignmouth, Plymouth, and other places on the coast.
The Black Death, the most terrible and destructive epidemic of which we
have any record, which devastated the whole of England in 1348 and 1349,
was very severe in this county, paralyzing agriculture and trade, and
stopping for a time the building of Exeter cathedral.
Fighting in Devonshire during the Wars of the Roses was confined to an
unsuccessful and half-hearted siege of Exeter by the Yorkists, and to
attacks on the fortified manor-houses of Shute and Upcott. But many
men in the county took sides in the struggle, and some of the great
families suffered severely. Sir William Bonville was beheaded after the
second Battle of St Albans. Of the ancient house of Courtenay, Thomas,
Earl of Devon, was executed at York, Sir Hugh was beheaded at Sarum,
and Sir John was killed at Wakefield Green. The county as a whole was
Lancastrian. Queen Margaret herself was there after her defeat at
Barnet; and French gold coins found in Blackpool sands are believed to
be relics of the landing there, in 1470, of Warwick and Clarence. But
when in the same year Edward IV visited Exeter, he was so well satisfied
with his reception that he presented the corporation with a sword of
state, which is still carried in processions before the mayor.
The peace of Devonshire in the fifteenth century was further disturbed
by a rising, in 1483, against Richard III; by the march through the
county, in 1497, of an army of Cornishmen who had risen in revolt
against a heavy war-tax, and who were ultimately beaten at Blackheath;
and by the insurrection, also in 1497, of Perkin Warbeck, who claimed
to be the Richard Duke of York usually said to have been murdered in
the Tower, and who made a desperate although vain attack upon Exeter,
when some of his men fought their way into the town, but were driven out
again by the citizens.
About fifty years later, in 1549, there was a widespread and determined
and altogether much more serious rebellion called the "Commotion,"
caused partly by the suppression of the Monasteries, which was greatly
objected to by the poor, and partly by the introduction of the Prayer
Book. The insurgents, who had collected from all parts of the West
Country, and who were led by such men of mark as Pomeroy, Arundel, and
Coffin, laid siege to Exeter and Plymouth, and for a time held the
king's troops helplessly at bay. In the end, however, Lord Russell,
one of the newly-created Lords Lieutenant, aided by German cavalry and
Italian arquebusiers, defeated the rebels with great slaughter in a
series of hotly-contested battles. The vicar of St Thomas in Exeter, who
had encouraged the rising and who was described as very skilled both
with the long-bow and the hand-gun, was hanged "in his Popish apparel"
on the tower of his own church, and his body was left there for four
years.
The reign of Queen Elizabeth has been called the Golden Age of English
History. And among the heroic figures of that stirring time there are
few more striking than the little group of Devonshire men who played so
gallant a part in making England great:--Drake and Hawkyns, the scourges
of Spain; Ralegh, courtier and soldier, sailor and author; Gilbert,
the discoverer of Newfoundland; and Grenville, who at Flores, in the
_Revenge_ of immortal memory, kept at bay a Spanish fleet of fifty-three
sail.
[Illustration: Signatures of Drake and Hawkyns]
The great event of the reign was the defeat of the Armada. And although
Howard of Effingham, the Lord High Admiral, showed himself a skilful and
intrepid sailor, it is Drake whom we always think of first in connection
with the victory. It was Drake whose buccaneering exploits on the
coasts of Spain and her colonies did so much to heighten Philip II's
ambition to humiliate England. It was Drake who, in 1587, dashed into
Cadiz, where the Armada was preparing, and by destroying 100 ships and
vast quantities of stores, delayed for a whole year the sailing of the
expedition. And when at last the Armada had been sighted, it was Drake
who, according to the commonly received tradition, thinking it wiser
to wait until the enemy's fleet had passed Plymouth Sound, and so take
them in the rear, persuaded his fellow-captains to stay and finish that
never-to-be-forgotten game of bowls, before the English ships, lying
ready in the Catwater, should slip their moorings and stand out to sea.
It was Drake who was foremost in the attack. It was Drake who took the
_Capitana_, the flagship of Pedro de Valdez, and brought her, the first
prize of the great victory, into Torbay. And when the English fireships
had scattered the hostile fleet in headlong flight, it was Drake who was
foremost in the chase.
[Illustration: Flagon taken by Drake from the "Capitana" of the Armada
(_In Windsor Castle_)]
[Illustration: Drake's Drum]
Among the relics of Devonshire's greatest hero, carefully treasured
by his descendants at his old home at Buckland Abbey, are his sword
and the famous drum that he carried with him round the world; while at
Nutwell Court are flags that he flew while in command of the _Pelican_,
the miniature of herself given to him by Queen Elizabeth, and other
objects of the greatest historical interest. And among the Royal plate
in Windsor Castle is preserved the noble wine-flagon of bold silver-gilt
_repoussé_ work, standing nearly a yard high, which Drake took from
the _Capitana_ of the Armada and presented to Queen Elizabeth. An
illustration of it, from a photograph taken for this book by command of
the Queen, is here shown for the first time.
[Illustration: The "Mayflower" Stone on Plymouth Quay]
During the retreat to Spain a second Armada vessel, the hospital-ship
_St Peter the Great_, was driven ashore in Hope Cove; and the pulpit
of St James's church, Exeter, and the timber roof of Tiverton School
were, it is believed, made of wood either from this ship or from the
_Capitana_.
It was not until this period that Plymouth came into prominence as a
naval station. A special tax was levied on the pilchard fishery to
provide money for the fortifications, and a leat or water-course was
constructed with the primary object, it is said, of supplying fresh
water for the royal ships.
A memorable event in James I's reign was the sailing of the _Mayflower_.
Preceded by another ship called the _Speedwell_ she set sail from Leyden
in the autumn of 1620, having on board a number of Puritan refugees
bent on finding in North America the religious freedom denied to them
in England. The two vessels having met at Southampton and put into
Dartmouth, were finally driven back by stress of weather into Plymouth,
whence--her consort having proved unseaworthy--the _Mayflower_ alone
continued the voyage, ultimately landing her 101 exiles at Plymouth,
Massachusetts, which, however, had received its name five years before.
In the Civil War between Charles I and the Parliament, few counties saw
more fighting than Devonshire. The fighting consisted, however, not
of pitched battles, but of sieges and attacks on fortified positions;
which, indeed, was characteristic of the whole war, in whatever part of
the country it was waged. Every Devonshire town of importance, a great
number of villages, many castles, manor-houses, and even churches played
a part in the struggle.
As a whole, the towns, with the exception of Exeter, sympathised with
the Parliament, while the rural districts, encouraged by the great
landowners, were mainly for the king. The royal forces were, however,
numerous in Devonshire; Goring's army, in 1642, was 6000 strong; and
although fortune wavered, and although towns were taken and retaken,
there came a time, before the arrival of Fairfax and the New Model Army,
when the royal standard flew from nearly every important town in Devon,
Somerset, and Cornwall. There was one conspicuous exception. The party
of the people never lost its hold on Plymouth, which, at a cost of 8000
lives, or more than the entire population of the town, withstood a
blockade lasting from 1642 to 1646, together with many desperate attacks
by Hopton, Prince Maurice, and the King himself, enduring altogether a
longer siege than any other town in England.
Exeter was early seized for the Parliament, but the majority of the
citizens were Royalists, and the city, which was regarded as one of
the strongest Cavalier holds in the west, was soon retaken by Prince
Maurice. Queen Henrietta was there in 1644, and there King Charles's
youngest daughter, afterwards Duchess of Orleans, was born. When Fairfax
retook the town in 1646 he allowed the garrison to march out with all
the honours of war.
That year saw the final ruin of the Royal cause in the west, and the
dispersal of the only army which, although little better than a mob,
still kept the field for the King.
One of the most important, and at the same time most fiercely-contested
Parliamentary victories, was the storming of the town of Torrington
by Fairfax, at midnight, in the winter of 1646. After the battle, the
church, which had been used by the king's troops (as also was Exeter
cathedral) as a powder-magazine, was blown up, and 200 Royalist
prisoners who had been confined in it and many of their guards were
killed. The loss of Torrington was the death-blow of the Royal cause in
Devon. All that a brave man could do, Hopton did. But the county was
sick of the Royalists and their methods. The people had learnt that
the well-disciplined troops of Fairfax were not mere robbers, like the
ruffians of Grenville and Goring; and after Torrington the Royal army
melted away.
The last place in the county to hold out for the King except Lundy,
where there was no fighting, but which did not surrender until 1647,
was Clifton Castle, or Fort Charles, near Salcombe. After enduring a
blockade and siege of four months, with the trifling loss of one man
killed and one wounded, the besieged were granted the same terms as
the garrisons of Exeter and Barnstaple, and marched out with matches
lighted, drums beating, and colours flying.
After the Battle of Worcester, in 1651, Charles II took refuge for
a time in Devonshire. Four years later there was an attempt at an
insurrection in his favour, known as Penruddock's Rising, and Charles
was proclaimed King at South Molton. The movement was promptly
suppressed, and its leader, Colonel Penruddock, was executed. It is
interesting to remember that, at the Restoration in 1660, Exeter was the
first town in England to acknowledge Charles II, and that he was there
proclaimed King ten days before he landed at Dover. Seven years later,
in 1667, the great Dutch Admiral De Ruyter captured all the shipping in
Torbay.
During the Commonwealth and later, when there was no copper coinage in
this country, many tradesmen all over England struck money of their own,
chiefly in the form of farthings. Nearly 400 varieties of Devonshire
"tokens," as they were called, issued by sixty different towns, are
known. Ninety-one were struck at Exeter alone, which is more than were
issued from any other provincial town except Norwich. At a much later
period shillings and sixpenny tokens of leather were in circulation at
Hartland.
After the Duke of Monmouth landed at Lyme in Dorsetshire, in 1685,
Axminster was the first town that he occupied, and a number of Colyton
men are said to have joined his army. Otherwise the rebellion hardly
touched Devonshire. Yet Judge Jeffreys put to death, at various places
in the county, thirty-seven of the Duke's misguided followers. After the
Battle of Sedgemoor, Wade and other fugitives attempted to escape by sea
from Ilfracombe, but they were obliged to put back, and were caught in
the woods near Lynton.
When, under very different auspices, William of Orange landed at Brixham
on the 5th of November, 1688, he marched to Exeter, as the chief city of
the west. The citizens at first held aloof, but in the end they gave to
the Deliverer their hearty and most valuable support.
Two years later the French admiral Tourville, fresh from his victory
over our fleet off Beachy Head, landed a strong force at Teignmouth, and
sacked and burnt that part of the town which ever since has been known
as French Street.
Both in 1715 and in 1745 the county was suspected of showing sympathy
with the exiled Stuarts. But when in the former year the Duke of Ormond,
with a small party of French soldiers, appeared in a war-ship off
Brixham, expecting to be welcomed by the Devonshire Jacobites, he met
with no encouragement.
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.
[Illustration: Palaeolithic Flint Implement
(_From Kent's Cavern_)]
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.
[Illustration: Dolmen near Drewsteignton]
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.
[Illustration: Palstave of the Bronze Age
(_In Exeter Museum_)]
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.
[Illustration: Fernworthy Circle, near Chagford]
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.
[Illustration: Hurston Stone Alignment]
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.
[Illustration: Triple Stone Row and Circle near Headlands, Dartmoor]
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 ve
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