22. Architecture—(c) Domestic.

Compton Castle

Lydford Castle, now little more than the shell of a square tower, stands on an artificial mound, and is said to have been founded soon after the Conquest. It was a place of great importance in the palmy days of Devonshire tin-mining, when Lydford was one of the chief towns in the county. Here, from a very early period until late in the eighteenth century, was held the Stannary Court, proverbial for its arbitrary methods of procedure; and within the walls was a notorious dungeon, used as the Stannary prison.

Plympton Castle, built by Richard de Redvers, first Earl of Devon, and the scene of fighting in the reigns of Stephen, John, and Charles I, is now quite ruinous. Tiverton Castle, ascribed to the same founder, but reconstructed in the fourteenth century and dismantled after the Civil War, has been partly adapted as a modern house. It sustained a brief siege, of only a few hours' duration, by Fairfax in 1645. A cannon-shot cut the chain of the drawbridge, the bridge fell, and the besiegers, pouring in, were quickly masters of the fortress. The chief ancient features are the great gate, a tower, and the remains of the banqueting hall and the chapel. The scanty remains of Hemyock Castle, two miles east of Culmstock, and not far from the border of Somerset, at first garrisoned for the Parliament, then taken by the Royalists, and finally dismantled by Cromwell, consist oflittle more than the gateway and its covering-towers, which are of flint. Totnes Castle, whose ivy-clad walls of red sandstone look down upon the river Dart, was founded by Judhael, soon after the Conquest, but it has been a ruin since the time of Henry VIII. Of Dartmouth Castle, a very picturesque ruin at the end of a promontory guarding the harbour, the chief remains are a square tower of the time of Edward IV, and a round tower of the reign of Henry VII. The place may still be seen where a chain was drawn across the river to Gomerock Castle, a small fort on the opposite shore, to keep hostile ships from sailing up the Dart. Kingswear Castle, a small thirteenth century building on the same river, the scene of some fighting during the Civil War, has been restored, and is now a private residence. Salcombe or Clifton Castle, on the Kingsbridge estuary, one of Henry VIII's coast defences against the long-expected attack of the Spanish Armada, was the last place on the Devonshire mainland to hold out for Charles I.

The square Morisco fortress on Lundy, whose plain walls now shelter cottages that have been built inside it, is twelfth century work. The scanty ruins of Colcombe Castle near Colyton, supposed to have been destroyed by the Parliamentarians, and the square tower of Gidleigh, not far from Chagford, date, it is believed, from the century following; and the castle of Ilton, two miles north-west of Salcombe, on the Kingsbridge estuary, now used as a farm, was built in the fourteenth century. Of Torrington Castle a few fragments only are left. The castles of Exmouth and Bampton have entirely disappeared;and of Barnstaple Castle, built, it is said, by Athelstan, but ruinous as far back as the reign of Henry VIII, nothing but the site remains.

Powderham Castle, the only one of all these fortresses which has been continuously inhabited since its foundation, stands—from a military point of view—on a poor site, on low ground close to the estuary of the Exe. Its chief charm is in its setting, in its beautiful park and fine timber, especially its magnificent oak-trees. Built in 1325 in the form of a long parallelogram, with six towers, four of which remain intact, while two have been restored, it has been altered and added to by many hands, and is now a vast, irregular pile of buildings. Its present owner is the lineal descendant of its original founder, the Sir Philip Courtenay who, in 1367, was knighted by the Black Prince on the field of Navarete. Successfully held for the King in December, 1645, against Fairfax himself, it was taken by Colonel Hammond in the following January after some sharp fighting, in which the Parliamentary troops, as happened on not a few occasions during the war, seized and fortified the village church.

Scattered up and down over Devonshire are many fine old manor-houses, some of them, in parts at least, very ancient, some with picturesque and striking features, many set in very beautiful surroundings, and others ofinterest for the sake of their historic associations. Such houses are so numerous that only a few of them can here be even lightly touched upon.

An Old Devon Farmhouse Chimney Corner

Not one of the famous houses of Devonshire is entirely, or even in great part, as old as the thirteenth century, although there are several that contain features of that period. Such, for example, is Bowringsleigh, near Kingsbridge, a fine old building, which although mainly Tudor, and containing details of later eras—beautiful Jacobean oak screens and highly-decorated plaster ceilings of the time of William and Mary—has some striking thirteenth century work in it.

At Little Hempstone, near Totnes, is a very interesting and well-preserved pre-Reformation parsonage or priest's residence of the fourteenth century; and Ayshford Court, near Burlescombe, a fine old house now used like the Little Hempstone parsonage as a farm, contains a fourteenth century chapel. Of the same period are the great hall, now dismantled, and the old kitchen and other buildings connected with the mansion of Dartington, which although as a whole a noble example of Elizabethan architecture, was originally erected in the reign of Richard II.

Manor-houses of the fifteenth century are much more numerous. The most remarkable of them—indeed, the finest of all the many great houses in the county, is Wear Gifford, on the Torridge, about 2 ½ miles south of Bideford, a perfect example of an old English manorial residence, built, it is believed, during the reign of Henry VI. Greatly damaged during the Civil War, the house, which stands in a commanding situation with fine timber, especially oak-trees, about it, was for a long period occupied as a farm, and having become much dilapidated, was restored about eighty years ago. It contains many beautiful and interesting details, but the most striking of the original features are the square embattled tower with the fine entrance archway beneath it, and the magnificent hall, rising to the whole height of the building, with richly-decorated oaken panelling and a carved, open, hammer-beam roof which is one of the very finest examples of Perpendicular woodwork in England. Other good specimens of fifteenth century architectureare Wortham, at Lifton, near the border of Cornwall, an almost perfect house of the period; Bradley, near Newton Abbot, a very picturesque building with a fine hall and chapel; and the main fabric of Exeter Guildhall, which was erected in 1464 though the front is Elizabethan.

The noblest Tudor mansion in Devonshire is Holcombe Rogus, in the village of that name, near Burlescombe, about three miles from the border of Somerset. A good deal of the building is a modern restoration, but many details of the time of its foundation, in the reign either of Henry VIII or of Edward VI, still remain. As in the case of Wear Gifford, the most striking features of the house are the very picturesque tower and gate-house, and the great hall—a magnificent room, more than forty feet long, lighted by two great six-light windows. Some of the rooms are finely wainscoted with curiously carved oaken panelling. Adjoining the building is the original "church-house," consisting of kitchen, refectory, and cellar, where parishioners could cook their food and brew their beer, where the poor received their doles, and where the needs of casual wayfarers were relieved.

Another very interesting Tudor mansion, only part of which, however, is now habitable, and is used as a farm, is Cadhay, at Ottery St Mary. The interior of the house has been a good deal altered, but the exterior is much as it was in the days of Queen Elizabeth. Its most remarkable feature is the inner court, round which the house is built, and in each of whose four sides, over an arched Tudor doorway, is a highly-decorated projecting canopiedniche. In these niches are statues of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth.

Another very fine sixteenth century house, containing also some earlier details, is Bradfield, near Uffculme, in which are a beautiful music-room, a fine banqueting-hall with good panelling, a minstrels' gallery, and a richly-carved roof. Altogether, this is one of the best examples of domestic architecture in Devonshire.

Hayes Barton: Sir Walter Ralegh's House

Other interesting and noteworthy houses of the period are Colleton Barton at Chumleigh, Flete House at Holbeton, Hayes Barton at East Budleigh, and Mol's Coffee House in Exeter. Flete has been rebuilt, but it is a fine mansion, whose beauty is much enhanced by its surroundings and its avenue of cedars. Hayes Barton, where Ralegh was born—it was thus he always spelt hisname—and where a table said to have belonged to him is shown, is a rather modern-looking house, plainly built of "cobb"; but its gables, its mullioned windows and its heavy door are characteristic of the time. In Mol's Coffee House, which is one of the sights of Exeter, is an oak-panelled room decorated with the arms of Drake, Ralegh, Monk and others, in which the great Devonshire soldiers and sailors of Armada days were accustomed to meet.

Two particularly interesting seventeenth century mansions are Sydenham House, not far from Tavistock, and Forde House, near Newton Abbot. In the former, which is a specially fine example of the work of the early part of the century, containing also some fourteenth century details, is some very good carved and decorated woodwork, especially in the form of artistic panelling and stately staircases. There are also secret rooms and passages, some of which have been contrived in the thickness of the walls. The house was greatly damaged during the Civil War, when it is said to have been stormed by the troops of the Parliament. At Forde House, which was taken and retaken several times in the struggle between the King and the Commons, the Prince of Orange slept on the first night after his landing at Brixham. Charles I was there twice, in the first year of his reign.

Mol's Coffee House, Exeter

Some good examples of more modern houses are Kingsnympton, in the parish of that name, about four miles from Chumleigh, surrounded by well-wooded grounds, on a commanding eminence looking down on the Taw;Ugbrooke, near Chudleigh, standing in a deer-park of rare beauty, finely timbered, and most picturesquely varied by wood and hill and water, and where Dryden's grove may still be seen; Rousdon, near Axmouth, built of flint faced with Purbeck stone, and considered one of the most magnificent modern mansions in Devon; Saltram House, three miles east-north-east of Plymouth, a stately building in a large and beautiful park; and Bicton House near Budleigh Salterton, whose trees, brought from all parts of the world, and including a wonderful avenue of araucarias, form one of the finest collections of the kind in Europe.

Sydenham House

Other interesting houses are Ashe House near Axminster, the home of the Drake family and the birth-placeof the great Duke of Marlborough, partly burnt down during the Civil War and repaired with stones from the ruins of Newenham Abbey, and now a farmhouse; Great Fulford, in the parish of Dunsford, about eight miles west of Exeter, owned by a family who have held it since the time of Richard I, stormed by Fairfax in 1645; and the residence in Exeter of the Abbots of Buckfast, a good example of mediaeval architecture.

Some very picturesque old half-timbered houses are to be seen in Exeter, especially in High Street, North Street, and South Street; and there are so many in Dartmouth that the town has been called the Chester of Devonshire. Nor should the fine old almshouses of Tiverton and Exeter be forgotten.

Devonshire possesses a great variety of building stone; and the materials employed have naturally varied, as a rule, according to the geological formation of the district. Some of the best houses are of Beer stone. Some, as has been shown, are of flint. Brick, which when of good colour and quality is an excellent material, has been largely employed. Many cottages, and even whole villages, such as Otterton and East Budleigh, are built of "cobb," which is a mixture of clay and straw.

Dartmouth: Old Houses in the High Street

Thatch, which is still used for roofing, although to a less extent than formerly, has in the past been the cause of many disastrous fires. As recently as 1866 more than 100 houses were burnt down in Ottery St Mary. Nearly the whole of Chudleigh was thus destroyed in 1807. Fires in Crediton, in the eighteenth century, destroyed hundreds of houses. Perhaps the town that has sufferedmost severely in this way is Tiverton, where there were very destructive fires in the eighteenth century. One in 1612 consumed almost every house, and in another, in 1598, no fewer than 400 houses were burnt down.

Dartmouth: Newton Village

In prehistoric times Devonshire was crossed by a network of trackways, some of which are to-day broad and well-kept high roads. Others form those proverbially narrow, awkward, and frequently muddy Devonshire lanes which are so characteristic of the county, having become worn in the lapse of ages so deep below the levelof the adjacent country, owing partly to the softness of the ground, and partly to the heavy rainfall, that their high banks, although often very beautiful, completely shut out the view. Others, again, that once served merely to connect one hill-fort with another, have fallen out of use, and are now hardly to be traced.

These roads, probably begun in the Neolithic Period as footpaths, may have been made into tracks for packhorses in the Bronze Age, and more or less adapted for wheeled traffic by the prehistoric users of iron. Packhorses, however, usually or frequently in teams of six, were in common use in the county until the middle of the eighteenth century; and although good roads were made across Dartmoor in 1792 there were parts of that wild district where, before the year 1831, wheeled vehicles were unknown. At the present time the total length of all the roads in Devonshire is only exceeded in the county of Yorkshire.

It is generally believed that no Devonshire road was wholly constructed by the Romans, who probably reached the district by the already existing British coast-road from Dorchester. There are some, however, who think that the Fosse Way joined this road and passed through Exeter, going as far as the river Teign. The Romans made no road beyond this point, at any rate; and here, not far from Newton Abbot, they built over the river a bridge of freestone, on whose foundations the modern structure—the third since then—now rests.

Some ancient roads have been abandoned because of their steepness, or because they have been superseded bymore convenient ways. Such, for example, are the lane from Crockam Bridge over the Teign to Trusham, and the Lichway (i.e. the way of the corpse) along which, before 1260, the dead were carried for burial into Lydford, crossing the river over Willsworthy Steps, a series of eighteen stepping-stones. One of the most remarkable of these old roads was the great central trackway on Dartmoor, leading from Chagford to Tavistock, 10 feet wide, 2 ½ feet deep, and made of rough stones with smaller stones above. Although much of it has been destroyed for the sake of its materials, about 18 miles of it still remain. It was during the seventeenth century that the "Moor-stones"—upright monoliths of granite—were set up to serve as guide-posts for wayfarers during the mists that so often cover the moor. One of the most important highways in Devonshire is the great trunk road from London, which enters the county with the Great Western Railway and accompanies it to Exeter, thence making straight for Plymouth, and passing on into Cornwall.

In common with other English counties Devonshire possesses a number of hamlets whose names end in "ford," a syllable which, in words of Saxon origin, means that an old road there passed through the shallows of a stream or river. Such, to give a few familiar instances, are Chagford, Lydford, and Bideford.

Devonshire canals are short and unimportant. The hilly country is not adapted for them; and such traffic as some of them once enjoyed has been absorbed by the railways. There is, however, a good deal of traffic on the Exeter Canal—constructed in 1566, and thereforeone of the oldest ship canals in England and the first lock-canal in the kingdom—but it is worked at a loss. Most of the Bude Canal has been abandoned, and only two miles of it are now in use. The Grand Western Canal, running ten-and-a-half miles eastward from Tiverton, nearly to the Somerset border—all that was ever made of a waterway intended to reach Taunton—the Stover Canal, two miles in length, and the Hackney Canal, only half-a-mile long, both connected with the river Teign, are all under the control of the Great Western Railway. No Devonshire river is now of much value as a waterway. There is some traffic on some of the estuaries, especially the Teign; and the Tamar is navigable to Gunnislake, a distance of twenty miles.

There are in our county some very old lines of stone-tramway for horse-traction; from Tavistock to Princetown, for example, and from the Heytor quarries to the head of the Stover Canal, but they are no longer in use. Down the former was brought granite to build London Bridge.

The railway from London to Bristol was opened by the Great Western Company in 1841, was continued to Exeter by the Bristol and Exeter Company in 1844, and to Plymouth by the South Devon Company in 1846. Atmospheric pressure was tried for a time between Exeter and Newton Abbot, but it was a failure, and was soon superseded by steam-traction.

Brunel's railways were made on the broad-gauge system with seven feet between the rails, in order togive stability to the trains and to allow of a high rate of speed; and the entire line from London to Plymouth was broad gauge. Most other companies, however, adopted the narrow gauge, in which there is only four feet eight-and-a-half inches between the rails; and owing mainly to the inconvenience of not being able to interchange rolling-stock with other lines, the Great Western Railway Company have converted their whole system to narrow gauge.

Teignmouth: the Coast Line and Sea-wall

The Devonshire railways are now owned by two companies only, the Great Western and the London and South Western. The latter, which enters the county near Axminster, runs to Plymouth, especially serving the south coast to the east of Exmouth, with important branches to Barnstaple and Ilfracombe and to Bude, andwith a continuation into Cornwall. The Great Western Railway enters Devonshire at two points; near Burlescombe, running thence to Plymouth and into Cornwall, and near Venn Cross, for Barnstaple. The Cornish Riviera Express from Paddington, which slips a coach at Reading, and, passing south of Bristol, slips another at Exeter, performs the journey of 225 miles to Plymouth—the longest non-stop run of any train in England—in 7 minutes over 4 hours, which is an average speed of 55 miles an hour.

There are some famous bridges on the Devonshire roads and railways, of which the most remarkable are the Saltash Viaduct, 2240 feet long and 102 feet above high-water mark, built by Brunel across the Tamar; the old stone bridge of 16 arches over the Taw at Barnstaple, originally built in the thirteenth century, but since much altered and widened; the fifteenth century stone bridge of 24 arches over the Torridge at Bideford, also much changed from the days when it was only wide enough for a pack-horse, but always a valuable source of revenue to the town from the money that has, at various times, been left for its maintenance, and has been used to promote education, municipal improvements, charity and other objects; and the wooden bridge over the Teign at Teignmouth, one of the longest of its kind in England. Very different in character are the Lydford Bridge, whose single arch of stone spans the deep gorge of the river, close to the town; and the ancient stone clapper bridges, of which perhaps Post Bridge is the best known, already described in the chapter on antiquities.

In the days of our ancestors the Anglo-Saxons, Devonshire was governed much in the same way as it is governed now. That is to say, while the people had to obey the laws that were drawn up under the direction of the King, they had a great deal of what we now call self-government. Every little group of houses in Devonshire had its own "tun-moot" or village council, which made its own by-laws (from the Danishby, a town) and managed its own affairs. The large divisions of the county called Hundreds—groups of a hundred families—had their more important "hundred-moot"; while the general business of the whole shire was conducted by the "shire-moot," with its two chief officers, the "ealdorman," or earl, for military commander, and the "shire-reeve" for judicial president. The Devonshire shire-moot met twice in the year. These three assemblies may fairly be said to correspond to the Parish Councils, the District Councils, and the County Council of the present time. Our lord-lieutenant corresponds to the ealdorman of other days, and the present sheriff to the ancient shire-reeve.

The division called a Hundred may have been named, as already suggested, because it contained a hundred families. But the present Devonshire Hundreds, of which there are 32, vary a good deal in population. The Hundred of Black Torrington, for example, contains 38 parishes, and the Hundred of Hemyock only three.

The Parish is another ancient institution, and was originally "a township or cluster of houses, to which a single priest ministered, to whom its tithes and ecclesiastical dues were paid." Many of the 516 ecclesiastical parishes or parts of parishes situated wholly or partly within the Ancient Geographical County of Devon fairly correspond to the manors described in Domesday Book; but the whole country was not divided up into parishes until the reign of Edward III. The parishes, again, vary much in size and population. Thus, the parish of Lydford, which includes a large part of Dartmoor, and measures more than 50,000 acres, being the largest parish in England, contains 325 inhabited houses and a population of 2812. The parish of Haccombe, on the other hand, contains three inhabited houses and nine people.

Queen Elizabeth made the parishes areas of taxation, partly, at any rate, to provide funds for the relief of the poor. In modern times, with the idea of taking still better care of the poor, the parishes have been grouped together in Poor Law Unions, of which there are 20 in Devonshire, each provided with a workhouse, which was meant to be a place in which the able-bodied poor might find employment. Now, however, the workhouse is little more than a refuge for the destitute, the idle, and the incapable.

The local government of Saxon times was swept away by the feudal system of the Normans, which transferred the power of making and carrying out laws from the freemen to the lords of the various manors, and was only restored as recently as 1888 and 1894.

The affairs of each parish, since the latter date, have been managed by a Parish Council of from 5 to 15 men or women, elected by the parishioners. District Councils have charge of wide areas, and have larger powers. They are, in particular, the sanitary authorities, and are responsible for the water-supply. The County Council, whose very considerable powers extend to the whole shire, is a small parliament, which can levy rates and borrow money for public works. It manages lunatic asylums and reformatories, keeps roads and bridges in repair, controls the police in conjunction with the Quarter Sessions, appoints coroners and officers of health, and sees that the Acts relating to local government are carried out.

The Devonshire County Council consists of 103 members, of whom 77 are elected every three years by the ratepayers of the various electoral districts; while 26 are aldermen, elected or co-opted by the 77; thirteen of them in one triennial period, to serve for six years, and the other thirteen in the next period, to serve for the same length of time. The Council meets at Exeter, four times in the year. Plymouth, Devonport, and Exeter are called County Boroughs, and their corporations have the powers of a County Council. Ten other towns, Barnstaple, Bideford, Dartmouth, Great Torrington, Honiton, Okehampton, South Molton, Tiverton, Torquay, and Totnes, are called Municipal Boroughs and are governed by a mayor and corporation.

For the administration of justice the county, which is in the Western Circuit, has one court of Quarter Sessions, the Assizes being held at Exeter; while Petty Sessions, presided over by local justices of the peace, are held weekly in 22 towns, to try cases and to punish those who have broken the law.

The Guildhall, Exeter

Ecclesiastical affairs are in the hands of the Bishop of Exeter, the archdeacons of Barnstaple, Exeter, and Totnes, together with numerous deans and other church officials, in addition to the parish clergy.

The County Council appoints a number of Education Committees, who have charge of all Government elementary and secondary schools throughout the county.

Devonshire is divided into eleven Constituencies, of which eight are Parliamentary Divisions, known as those of Honiton, Tiverton, South Molton, Barnstaple, Tavistock, Totnes, Torquay, and Ashburton, each of which returns one member. In addition to these Plymouth and Devonport each return two members and Exeter one, so that the county is represented altogether by thirteen Members of Parliament.

We may recall with pride the fact that, among the Members for Devon, have been some of the most distinguished men who have ever sat in Parliament. Thus, Sir Walter Ralegh sat for the county, Plymouth has been represented by Sir Francis Drake, Sir John Hawkyns, and Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Tavistock by John Pym and Lord John Russell, Barnstaple by Skippon and Lord Exmouth, Okehampton by William Pitt and Lord Rodney, Plympton by Lord Castlereagh and Sir Christopher Wren, Dartmouth by Lord Howe, and Tiverton by Lord Palmerston.

Famous as our county is for its beautiful scenery, its wealth of prehistoric antiquities, and the abundance and variety of its wild life, it is still more renowned for its long Roll of Honour, for the many great and distinguished men who were born in it, or who have been more or less closely associated with it by residence within its borders. There can be little doubt that the foremost man in the whole history of Devon is Sir Francis Drake, the greatest of Elizabethan seamen, the first English circumnavigator of the globe, the terror of every Spanish ship, and the most conspicuous figure in the defeat of the Armada. Born near Tavistock, about 1540, of humble parentage, he early took to the sea, and was only seventeen when he and his kinsman Hawkyns, in the course of a trading-voyage to Guiana, were so ill-treated at a South American Spanish port that, for the rest of his life, Drake's chief aim seems to have been to avenge his injuries by plundering the towns, destroying the shipping, and capturing the treasure-ships of both Spain and Portugal.

Among his greatest exploits were his voyage round the world, between 1577 and 1580—after which, on his return, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth on board his ship theGolden Hind; the ravaging of the West Indies in 1585 and 1586; the destruction in the harbour of Cadiz of ships and stores intended for the invasion ofEngland, by which he delayed for a whole year the sailing of the Armada; and the prominent part he took in the defeat of the Armada itself, when he captured the flagship of Admiral Pedro de Valdez.

Sir Francis Drake

During the comparatively few years he spent on shore Drake constructed the still-existing leat or water-course for bringing drinking-water into Plymouth, and he also represented that town as Member of Parliament.

In 1595 he and Hawkyns set out for the West Indies on what proved to be their last expedition. Misfortune dogged the fleet from the outset. Both commanders died at sea, Hawkyns off Porto Rico, late in 1595, and Drake off Porto Bello, early in 1596.

A greater man in some ways than even Drake himself was the gentle, noble, lovable, gallant Sir Walter Ralegh, a man who won renown in many fields, not only as soldier, sailor, and explorer, as courtier and administrator, but as historian and poet; whose whole life was crowded with adventure and romance, and who is one of the most picturesque figures in the entire range of English History.

Born in 1552, in a house that still stands at Hayes Barton, he was only 17 when he left Oxford to fight for the Huguenots; and from that time, except for brief intervals at Court, and even shorter periods of quiet enjoyment of his property in Ireland, or of his home at Sherborne, or when he was a prisoner in the Tower, the rest of his life was spent in action; now fighting the rebel Desmonds in Ireland, now harrying the ships and towns of Spain and Portugal, now helping in the attack on the Armada, now engaged with his half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert in perilous and fruitless exploration in the far north of America, now attempting to colonise Virginia—an enterprise whose sole result wasthe introduction to this country of tobacco and potatoes—and now sailing up the Orinoco in the vain quest of the fabled golden city of Manoa.

Sir Walter Ralegh

Sir Walter Ralegh's signature

Sir Walter Ralegh and his signature

Elizabeth, whose favour he won by the sacrifice of his cloak, and lost again for a time owing to her jealousyof his passion for one of her Maids of Honour, when he had to spend four years in the Tower, knighted him, gave him vast estates in Ireland, made him captain of the guard, Governor of Jersey, Lord Warden of the Stannaries and Vice-Admiral of Devon and Cornwall. Like Drake, he sat in Parliament; and it was while still in favour with the Queen that he was elected Member for his county.

On the accession of James I, however, Ralegh was charged with joining in the plot on behalf of Arabella Stuart, and was again sent to the Tower. During his long imprisonment there he wrote his most famous work, theHistory of the World, whose learned, eloquent, and philosophic pages proved that his skill was no less with his pen than with his sword. His stirring description of the last fight of theRevengeinspired Tennyson's noble ballad.

Released from prison by James in order that he might once more sail up the Orinoco in search of the mythical treasure-land ruled over by El Dorado, he came back from that most disastrous expedition a broken man. Again committed to the Tower at the instigation of the Spanish Ambassador, he was soon afterwards beheaded on the old charge of treason, dying as he had lived, dignified, noble, and fearless to the last.

Two other heroic figures of the Elizabethan age, worthy to be ranked in the same company with Drake, are his gallant comrade Hawkyns, who was born at Plymouth in 1532, and Grenville the indomitable, the hero of that last fight of theRevenge.

Several other men who were born in our county have distinguished themselves as explorers, or by having helped, by peaceable means, to found our over-seas empire. Such were Davis, the arctic navigator, who was born near Dartmouth about 1550, who left his name in Davis's Straits, and who wroteThe Seaman's Secretsand other works; Sir Humphrey Gilbert, born in 1539 at Dartmouth, distinguished as a soldier in the Irish wars of Elizabeth's reign, but still more as having taken possession of Newfoundland, thus establishing the first British colony; Gate, who with Somers colonised Bermuda in 1611; and Wills, who perished in 1861 with Burke in crossing Australia.

Devonshire has been the native land of many soldiers. Two of the most distinguished, both of whom strongly influenced their country's destiny, and were made dukes as a reward for their services, were Monck and Marlborough. George Monck, born near Torrington in 1608, distinguished himself both by land and sea. He twice defeated the great Dutch admiral Van Tromp; and although severely beaten by de Ruyter he afterwards gained a great victory over him off the North Foreland. At first a Royalist, he joined the parliamentary army after his capture by Fairfax (followed by two years in the Tower) and Cromwell made him governor of Scotland. On the death of the Protector he marched to London, and was the chief instrument in the Restoration of Charles II, who made him Duke of Albemarle.

John Churchill, better known as the Duke of Marlborough, born at Ashe House in 1650, was not only thegreatest general of his time, but one of the ablest military commanders the world has ever seen. His most memorable successes were the four great battles of Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, in which he defeated the long-victorious armies of Louis XIV, then the most powerful monarch on the continent. By this series of victories, followed by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, the peace of Europe was secured for thirty years.

Many great Devonshire men, including some of the earliest who became distinguished, were churchmen or divines, not a few of whom are also famous as authors. Such, for example, was Winfrid, otherwise Saint Boniface, and known as the Apostle of Germany, who, born probably at Crediton in 680, began his career as a Benedictine monk at Exeter, and after spending many years in converting the wild German tribes to Christianity, was appointed archbishop of Mainz, and was afterwards murdered by the Frisians in 755. Such were Leofric, the first bishop of Exeter, Warelwast the builder of the Norman cathedral, Quivil the designer of the magnificent fabric that replaced it, Stapledon and Grandisson his able successors, Reynolds the leading Puritan divine at the Hampton Court Conference of 1604, whose proposal of a new translation of the Bible led to the Authorised Version of 1611, Trelawney, one of the Seven Bishops whose trial and acquittal formed one of the most memorable events of the reign of James II, Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, one of the fathers of English Protestantism, the "Judicious" Hooker,author of theLaws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Barclay, who translated Brant's satiric allegory under the titleThe Shyp of Folys, Prince, author of theWorthies of Devon, Dean Buckland the famous geologist, author ofReliquiae Diluvianae, who died in 1856, and Charles Kingsley, born at Holne in 1819, distinguished as an able and eloquent preacher and as a strenuous worker for the good of mankind, as poet, novelist, and naturalist, author of many books, and especially ofWestward Ho!and theWater Babies, and of the words of many beautiful songs, such as theThree Fishers. Not a native of the county, but Bishop of Exeter in 1551, was Miles Coverdale, whose translation of the Bible appeared in 1535. To him many of the finest phrases in our Authorised Version of 1611 are directly due.

Charles Kingsley

The most distinguished of the many Devonshire men of letters is Coleridge, poet and dreamer, philosopher and critic, who was born at Ottery St Mary in 1772. That, however, was his sole connection with the county. It was chiefly during his three years' residence at Nether Stowey, in Somerset, that the finest of his few masterpieces, especially theAncient Marinerand part ofChristabel, were written. Amongst other authors who were born in Devon may be named Gay, writer of plays, fables, and songs, among them theBeggars' OperaandBlack-eyed Susan; Ford the dramatist; William Browne, the author ofBritannia's Pastorals; Kitto, the deaf compiler of Biblical literature; Merivale the Roman historian; Rowe and Risdon, each of whom wrote books on the county; and Froude the historian, author of many books, and especially of theHistory of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada.

Herrick was not Devonshire born, but it was while he was vicar of Dean Prior, between 1647 and 1674, that he wrote theHesperides, among which are some of the best lyrics in the language. Dryden, again, was a frequent visitor at Lord Clifford's seat at Ugbrooke, and there is a tradition that he there finished his translation of Virgil. It was at Lynton that Shelley wrote part ofQueen Mab. Keats finishedEndymionat Teignmouth. Tennyson wasoften a guest of Froude at Salcombe, and it is said that he had Salcombe Bar in mind when he wrote his last verses,Crossing the Bar.

Distinguished in other ways may be mentioned Blundell, the Tiverton cloth-merchant, who, dying in 1601, left money for the establishment of Blundell's School; Bodley, born at Exeter in 1545, founder of the Bodleian Library at Oxford; John Baring, founder of the great banking-house of Baring Brothers; Babbage, the inventor of the calculating machine; Bidder, the "Calculating Boy," son of a stone-mason of Moreton Hampstead; Cookworthy, the originator of Plymouth china; and Newcomen, a Dartmouth ironmonger, whose improvement on the atmospheric steam-engine of Savery, also a Devonshire man, was used early in the eighteenth century for pumping water out of mines.

Blundell's School, Tiverton

Devonshire has been specially remarkable for its artists, of whom the most distinguished were Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great portrait-painter, born at Plympton in 1723; Cosway, who painted exquisite miniatures; Samuel Prout, the famous architectural painter, and Skinner Prout his nephew; Eastlake, the great painter of figures, and the author of books on art; and Hilliard the goldsmith of Queen Elizabeth.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Two very famous Devonshire houses are those of Courtenay and Carew. There is said to be hardly aparish in all Devon in which a Courtenay did not hold land. Courtenays followed the King to many wars. One tilted with Francis I at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Three were at Navarete with the Black Prince. Three died during the Wars of the Roses, either in battle or on the scaffold. Of the house of Carew, one was at Cressy and another at Agincourt. One was knighted on the field of Bosworth, one was at Flodden, and one, while fighting the French, was blown up with theMary Rose.

(The figures in brackets after each name give the population of the parish in 1901, from the official returns, and those at the end of each paragraph are references to the pages in the text.)

Appledore(2625). A small sea-port at the mouth of the Torridge, wrongly supposed, through confusion with an Appledore in Kent, to have been the landing-place of Hubba the Dane. (pp.27,61,130,131.)

Ashburton(2628). A market-town on the Yeo, eight miles south-west of Newton Abbot, one of the Stannary Towns, with some manufacture of cloth. A good centre for Dartmoor, and with a fine church and other old buildings. Near it are Holne Chase and the Buckland Woods, with very beautiful scenery. (pp.46,112,118,120,151,173,212.)

Axminster(2906). Close to the border of Dorset, high above the Axe. Interesting for the history of its church, founded in 755, and endowed by Athelstan after his victory over the Danes. The manufacture of Axminster carpets was discontinued here in 1835. (pp.114,150,153,168,170,199,206.)

Axmouth(643). A pretty village in a combe in rugged chalk cliffs, near the mouth of the Axe. The coast here has been much altered by landslips. (pp.66,199.)

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