Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts Part 11

KINGSLEY: _Dartside_.

Of all the rivers of Devons.h.i.+re, the Dart claims the first place, both for beauty and for interesting a.s.sociations; and between the lonely wastes about its source on Dartmoor, and the calm, broad reaches above Dartmouth, the scenery is not only always beautiful, but adds the great charm of being beautiful in quite different ways.

Drayton recognises the claim, for in the _Poly-olbion_, speaking of the 'mother of rivers,' Dartmoor, he says:

'From all the other floods that only takes her name And as her eld'st in right the heir of all her fame.'

And a few lines later he makes Dart declaim:

' ... There's not the proudest flood That falls betwixt the Mount and Exmore shall make good Her royalty with mine, with me nor can compare; I challenge anyone to answer me that dare.'

The East Dart rises about a mile south of Cranmere Pool, and at first makes its way through bare bogs, with great black holes gaping open here and there in the peat, tussocks of coa.r.s.e gra.s.s and dry, rustling bents, isolated tufts of heather, and now and again wide s.p.a.ces of waving cotton-gra.s.s. All around is 'an everlasting wash of air' and a sense of s.p.a.ciousness, which it is to be hoped no cynically named 'improvements'

may ever diminish. Westcote comments on the name. 'Of some it is supposed that the river takes name of the swiftness of the current; the like is thought of the river Arrow in Warwicks.h.i.+re, and of the Tygris in Mesopotamia, which among the Persians doth import a shaft.'

There is a saying that 'the river "cries" when there is to be a change of wind. "Us shall have bad weather, maister; I hear the Broadstones a-crying." The Broadstones are boulders of granite lying in the bed of the river. The cry, however, hardly comes from them, but from a piping of the wind, in the twists of the glen through which the turbulent river writhes.'

Many tales on the Moor speak of the amazing swiftness with which a freshet will suddenly swell and sweep down, an overwhelming flood. Only a few years ago a farmer was crossing a very safe ford when he saw the freshet coming, and tried to hurry his horse, but before he could reach the bank the torrent caught his cart and overturned it, and he and his horse were drowned.

'River of Dart, O river of Dart, Every year thou claimest a heart.'

The ominous couplet springs from no misty legend, but from melancholy experience.

The East Dart runs throughout its course in a south-easterly direction, and at Post Bridge just below the road from Moreton Hampstead to Tavistock it is crossed by an old bridge, one of the many rugged witnesses to unwritten history scattered all over Dartmoor. It is a ma.s.sive structure, built of rough granite blocks; the 'table-stones'

that rest on the piers are each about fifteen feet long.

The West Dart rises farther south than the East Dart, and runs almost due south as far as Two Bridges, and then, in many curves to the east--sometimes almost hidden in the depths of the hollow that has been worn between the high bare sides of the valley--till about five miles from Two Bridges it reaches Dartmeet. From the top of a tor close to the point where the two streams meet the effect is rather curious, for sunk deep between the wide barren stretches of moor and desolate tors, broad green ribbons of trees and undergrowth, broken by tufts and uneven edges, mark the course of the rivers till they wind away out of sight.

Their darker green makes them stand out against the sides of the valleys, and they are the only trees in sight. In summer the river is often very low, and then ma.s.ses of great boulders in the river-bed are seen, and some of the biggest are crowned with ferns, high tufts of gra.s.s, or little bushes, with the clearest water streams between them.

The bridge is over the East Dart, above the meeting of the waters, and from just below it is possible to get a charming view of the arches thrown up against a sunlit ma.s.s of s.h.i.+mmering leaves.

From here the Dart runs south almost to Holne, the birthplace of that true lover of Devon, Charles Kingsley. At this point it makes a great loop to the north, flowing among lovely scenery along a steep and narrow valley, where great rocks break through the woods; then curving round in Holne Chase, it turns south again to Holne Bridge, which is crossed by the Ashburton road. The town is about three miles to the east.

Ashburton is one of the old stannary towns, and besides mining, it was known for its trade in woollen goods, especially serges. In fact, 'the seal of the Port-reeve bears a church between a teasel and a saltire, with the sun and moon above.' The teasel was used to raise the nap in making cloth, and was a symbol of that industry, as the sun and moon were symbols of mining. In 1697 the manufacturers felt foreign compet.i.tion so keenly that the Port-reeve, traders, and inhabitants of Ashburton signed a pet.i.tion to Parliament, begging that an Act might be pa.s.sed to discourage the importation of Irish and other foreign woollen goods.

This borough sent members to Parliament from the reign of Edward I, but in time its representation ceased. The privilege was given back to the borough after the Restoration, through the intervention of Sir John Northcote, and was held until Ashburton was disfranchised in 1868.

A few miles farther down the river is Buckfastleigh, a small but very flouris.h.i.+ng town, and one of the very few that still produce the serges and woollen goods for which the county was once famous, in the sixteenth century especially, for then, as Green tells us, 'the broadcloths of the West claimed the palm among the woollen stuffs of England.' The church stands apart on a height overlooking the town, and the tapering spire adds to the effect given by its commanding position. By far the most interesting building here is Buckfast Abbey, founded in the reign of Henry II, on the site of a Benedictine abbey of Saxon days. The place must have been very remote and inaccessible when the Benedictines first settled there, and the Saxon name given in Bishop aelfwold's charter in 1016 was 'Buckfaesten, _i.e._, Deer-fastness,' which would seem to argue that the Abbey was surrounded by thick woods, and was particularly lonely, even for those times. Sable, a crozier in pale, argent, the crook or, surmounted by a buck's head, caboshed of the second, horned gules, were the ancient arms of the Abbey, as they are still, though now impaled with the Clifford arms, by permission of Lord Clifford.

The second colony of monks here were Cistercians, and the monastery became very prosperous and the richest house of that order in the county. King John deposited some of his jewels, gold and silver in their keeping, and in 1297 Edward I visited the Abbey. The Cistercians were great wool-traders, and did much for both trade and agriculture in the districts near them. It has been supposed that the sunken track called the Abbot's Way was used in carrying the wool from the moorland farms belonging to the monastery towards Plymouth and Tavistock. In the thirteenth century the monks showed their interest in trading by joining the 'Gild Merchant' of Totnes. A memorandum on the back of one of the 'members.h.i.+p rolls' in 1236 records an agreement between the burgesses of Totnes and the abbot and convent of Buckfast; that the monks might be able 'to make all their purchases in like manner with the burgesses, the abbot and monks agree to pay twenty-two pence on the Sat.u.r.day before Christmas day.'[4]

[Footnote 4: Transactions of the Devons.h.i.+re a.s.sociation, 1873.]

The buildings at the time of the Dissolution were very large, and there was a fine church, but of these only a Perpendicular tower adjoining the cloisters, and a large t.i.the-barn, are in a state of good preservation at the present day. A modern house was built on the western side of the vanished cloisters, but in 1882 the Abbey was bought for a colony of Benedictine monks from Pierrequivire in Burgundy, who have partly rebuilt the monastery on its ancient lines, and are restoring the Abbey church.

A few miles away to the south-west is Dean Prior, and the living that Herrick held when he poured out his grumbles and complaints about 'dull Devons.h.i.+re.' Herrick was a true c.o.c.kney, and the earliest part of his life was spent in a house in Cheapside. When he grew up, he had the good luck to come into the brilliant and witty company that gathered round Ben Jonson, so it must be allowed that he had an excuse for sometimes thinking that life in an obscure hamlet, two hundred miles from London, was a dreary exile. But, as Mr R. J. King remarks, in spite of all his grievances, he had in him a sense that responded very readily to the pretty customs and observances of the village, that marked, here with a handful of flowers, there with a sheaf of wheat or a branch of holly, the different festivals of the year.

Herrick's poem 'Christmas Eve' refers to a local custom that appealed to him:

'Come, guard this night the Christmas-pie, That the thief, though ne'er so sly, With his flesh-hooks, don't come nigh, To catch it

From him, who all alone sits there, Having his eyes still in his ear, And a deal of mighty fear, To watch it.'

Mr King makes this interesting note on it: 'This custom, so far as I know, is unnoticed by anyone but Herrick.

'A solitary watcher,

'"Having his eyes still in his ear, And a deal of mighty fear,"

guarded the pie through the night before Christmas.

'The pie represented the manger of Bethlehem, and its contents the wise men's offerings. The Devons.h.i.+re "Christmas play" has had a curious fate.

Except, perhaps, in some of the moorland parishes, it has disappeared at home. But the Newfoundland fisheries were long carried on for the most part by sailors from the neighbourhood of Dartmouth and Tor Bay, and Mr Jukes tells us that the streets of St John's at Christmas-time continue to exhibit St George, the Turkish Knight, and all their companions, in full vigour.'

The charm of Herrick's verses on country joys is deepened--to the folk-lorist in particular--by remembering that the rustic ceremonies he commemorates were probably the usual customs observed at Dean Prior in his time. On a hot August evening he may have watched the happy and excited children who are described in the poem 'The Hock-Cart, or Harvest-Home.'

'About the cart, hear how the rout Of rurall youngling raise the shout.

Pressing before, some coming after, These with a shout, and those with laughter.

Some blesse the carte, some kisse the sheaves, Some prank them up with oaken leaves; Some cross the fill-horse, some with great Devotion stroake the home-borne wheat.'

And many lines point to his acquaintance with all kinds of village festivals, as, for instance, those which he addresses to 'Master Endymion Porter.'

'Thy wakes, thy quintels, here them hast, Thy May-poles too, with garlands grac't, Thy morris-dance, thy Whitsun-ale, Thy sheering feast, which never faile, Thy harvest home, thy wa.s.saile bowle, That's tost up after Foxi'th'hole, Thy mummeries, thy twelfth-tide kings, And quenes, thy Christmas revellings, Thy nut-browne mirth, thy russet wit, And no man pays too deare for it.'

('Foxi'th'hole' is a hopping game, in which boys beat each other with gloves.)

Herrick was fortunate in having a kind and hospitable neighbour. Sir Edward Giles was famed for his uprightness and generous disposition, and was looked up to by all the neighbourhood. He succeeded to 'a large park and very handsome house,' whose existence was partly due to the problem of the unemployed that was perplexing the benevolent more than three hundred years ago; for John Giles, 'to the honour of his memory ...

began building of the house, and setting up the walls about his park, in the time of a very great dearth; whereby hundreds of poor men ... were daily fed at his table, who else together with their families in probability would have perished for want.' Sir Edward succeeded immediately to his father, who was 'a good old gentleman,' with a taste for small jokes that must have been sometimes a little tedious. The son had too 'active and vigorous a spirit' to rest 'within the compa.s.s of an island, wherefore ... he travelled beyond the seas,' and in the Low Countries 'trayl'd a pike in her Majesty's service, Queen Elizabeth of glorious memory.' Having carved for himself a high reputation, he came to the court of King James, to find that his fame had preceded him, and he received the honour of knighthood at the time of the King's coronation. This gave the old knight a chance for a little jest, which his son must have found rather exasperating. When he came home, his father received him with all ceremony, though 'more jocularly than seriously ... saluted him with his t.i.tle of Sir Edward Giles at every word, and by all means would place him above him, as one dignified with the more honourable degree; until at length inquiring of him: "Sir Edward, pray tell me," said the old gentleman, "who must discharge the fees and charges of your knighthood and honour?" Being answered, "That he hoped he would be pleased to do that," "Nay, then," says the old gentleman, "come down, Sir Edward Giles, and sit beneath me again, if I am he that must pay for thy honour."' One can imagine his beaming satisfaction over it all!

Among Sir Edward's friends was the 'eminent and pious and learned Divine,' Dr Barnabas Potter, whom he presented with the living of Dean Prior. Herrick and his predecessor were indeed a contrast to one another, for Dr Potter was 'melancholy, lean, and a hard student.' He was afterwards transplanted from his peaceful solitude to Court, where he was appointed Chaplain in Ordinary to Prince Charles, and was known as the Penitential Preacher. Afterwards, when preferred to the bishopric of Carlisle, 'he was commonly called the Puritanical Bishop, and they said of him in the time of king James, that Organs would blow him out of the church, which I do not believe, the rather because he lov'd Vocal Music, and could bear his own part therein.' Altogether, he and the future Merry Monarch must have been very congenial companions.

Going farther south, and still keeping to the west of the river, the traveller comes to Rattery, close to which is Venton House, once owned by the Gibbses. In the reign of Edward III John Gibbs was chosen to undertake important work, for he was called to serve on several Commissions appointed to carry out the King's business in the county.

The most interesting of these Commissions seems to have been the one appointed in 1462, for the purpose of collecting s.h.i.+ps for the King's fleet from those ports--the Commissioners to be responsible for furnis.h.i.+ng them completely, from 'Masters and Mariners' to 'bows and bowstrings, wheat, beans, and ale.'

The members of the family whose doings were the most amusing, though not the most to be admired, were William Gibbs and his son Thomas, who were proceeded against in the Star Chamber by the Chaplain and Curate of Rattre (Rattery) Church. Some ma.n.u.script notes very kindly sent to me by Mr Herbert Gibbs give a good instance of the light-hearted manner in which it was possible to break and make the peace in a country district about the year 1517. The Church of Rattery claimed that William Gibbs owed 21 2s. 8d., and he claimed that the church owed him sixty-three s.h.i.+llings, and, putting into practice the adage that Possession is nine points of the law, he boldly took out of the church 'a yron boxe locked with two lockes,' and helped himself to the money. The complainants brought their case to be tried before the Bishop of Exeter and several justices, but Andrew Hillersdon, son-in-law to William Gibbs, was among them, with the result that the only penalty imposed was to find surety for his good 'aberying' (bearing) of 100 marks. Although this was a very mild verdict, it infuriated the culprit, whose next step was to shear the Church lambs, and carry off '11 youes with their lambs'; and on the Thursday night before the Feast of St. Matthew he, with his son Thomas and many others, did 'then and there ryottusly a.s.semble theym togeders to kyll your said orators, leyin awayte,' and the said 'Thomas Gybbys with a swarde and a bokeler made a sawte' upon John Hals, ' ... so as the said John Hals was in danger of his lyf and toke the church and church yerde for his savegard and kept the same by the s.p.a.ce of two hours.' His enforced vigil had the added bitterness that, according to the complainants, he had had no previous quarrel of any kind with his a.s.sailant. But this demonstration was not enough to satisfy the Gibbses, and the next Sunday they came again to Rattery 'in manner of a new insurrection with twenty-three persons and above,' and with such a fierce aspect that they caused 'great feer and dreed' to their neighbours, who in alarm of worse to come warned 'your said orators ...

to kepe them absent from their said church and from their divine service, and so they dyd.' The complainants now evidently felt that the time for definite action on their part had come, and the case was eventually carried before the 'Lord Cardinall, Chancellor of England,'

but the account of the proceedings does not give his verdict.

Returning to the river, Dartington Hall, the beautiful home of the Champernownes, is soon reached. Dartington was originally the gift of the Conqueror to William de Falaise, and pa.s.sed through the hands of the Lords Audley and of John Holland, Duke of Exeter, half-brother of Richard II, before Sir Arthur Champernowne exchanged for it the lords.h.i.+p of Polslo, and settled here in the reign of Elizabeth. And now, says Westcote, 'it glories in the knightly tribe of Champernowne.' Originally Dartington consisted of two large quadrangles, but one has long been in ruins. The most striking feature is the hall, which is seventy feet long and forty feet wide, and has pointed windows, a huge old fireplace, and a porch with a groined ceiling. This dates from the fourteenth century, and part of the quadrangle, together with the gateway at the south end, is early fourteenth-century work.

The Champernownes are a very ancient and distinguished family, though Prince complains that their 'actions and exploits for the greatest part is devoured by time.' Sir Arthur Champernowne was 'a good soldier and an eminent commander in the Irish wars' of the sixteenth century, and was conspicuous for his zeal and valour. Prince gives an odd little bit of gossip about an heiress of this family. He says she was 'a frolic lady,'

and no unusual epithet could be more descriptive; for the lady 'married William Polglas, within three days after her father's death; and within two days after her husband Polglas's death, she was married again unto John Cergeaux!'

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth Mr Henry Champernowne headed one hundred gentleman volunteers, who, with the Queen's permission, went to help the cause of the 'Protestant Princes' in France; and it is interesting to learn that Sir Walter Raleigh, then seventeen years old, was one of this company.

The Champernownes of Dartington were, however, only a younger branch of the family. The elder branch lived 'in great splendour' at Modbury. A story is told about them of which, perhaps, the most accurate version may be found in Britton and Brayley's 'Beauties of England and Wales': 'Tradition speaks very highly ... of the magnificent manner in which the Champernownes lived, and particularly of their keeping a very fine band of singers and musicians, which band, if report may be credited, was the occasion of the family's ruin, "for that Mr Champernowne taking it on the Thames in the time of Queen Elizabeth, her Majesty was so delighted with the music, that she requested the loan of it for a month; to which Mr Champernowne, aware of the improbability of its ever returning, would not consent, saying that he 'hoped her Majesty would allow him to keep his fancy.' The Queen was so highly exasperated at this refusal, that she found some pretence to sue him at law, and ruin him, by obliging him, in the course of the proceedings, to sell no fewer than nineteen manors." This anecdote, at least the circ.u.mstance of the sale of the nineteen manors about the above period, is in a great degree confirmed by the t.i.tle-deeds of some lands in and about Modbury.'

A very short distance to the south lies the ancient and very picturesque town of Totnes, in which, from the round Norman keep at its crown, to the river winding round the foot of the hill, witnesses to the past are jostling against tokens of the present time.

When Leland journeyed through it, the town already gave the idea of having pa.s.sed its meridian, and his words are clear and concise: 'The Castelle of _Totnes_ standith on the hille North West of the Towne. The Castell waulis and the stronge Dungeon be maintained. The Loggingis of the Castelle be clene in Ruine.'