POWDERHAM CASTLE AND COLLUMPTON CHURCH.
Aug. 16.—We quitted Sidmouth, and proceeded through the finest country possible to Exmouth, to see that celebrated spot of beauty. The next morning we crossed the Ex and visited Powderham Castle. Its appearance, noble and antique without, loses all that character from French finery and minute elegance and gay trappings within. The present owner, Lord Courtney, has fitted it up in the true Gallic taste, and every room has the air of being ornamented for a gala. The housekeeper did not let us see half the castle; she only took us to those rooms which the present lord has modernized and fitted up in the sumptuous French taste; the old part of the castle she doubtless thought would disgrace him; forgetting or rather never knowing—that the old part alone was worth a traveller’s curiosity, since the rest might be anticipated by a visit to any celebrated cabinet-maker.
Thence we proceeded to Star Cross to dine; and saw on the opposite coast the house Of Sir Francis Drake, which was built by his famous ancestor. Here we saw a sight that reminded me of the drawings of Webber from the South Sea Isles; women scarce clothed at all, with feet and legs entirely naked, straw bonnets of uncouth Shapes tied on their heads, a sort of man’s jacket on their bodies, and their short coats pinned up in the form of concise trousers, very succinct! and a basket on each arm, strolling along with wide mannish strides to the borders of the river, gathering cockles. They looked, indeed, miserable and savage.
Hence we went, through very beautiful roads, to Exeter. That great old city is too narrow, too populous, too dirty, and too ill-paved, to meet with my applause. Next morning we breakfasted at Collumpton, and visited its church. Here we saw the remains of a once extremely rich gothic structure, though never large. There is all the appearance of its having been the church of an abbey before the Reformation. It is situated in a deep but most fertile vale; its ornaments still retain so much of gilding, painting, and antique splendour, as could never have belonged to a mere country church. The wood carving, too, though in ruins, is most laboriously well done; the roof worked in blue and gold, lighter, but in the style of the royal chapel at St. James’s we were quite surprised to find such a structure in a town so little known or named. One aisle was added by a clothier of the town in the reign of Edward VI.; probably upon its first being used as a protestant and public place of worship. This is still perfect, but very clumsy and inelegant compared with the ancient part. The man, to show he gloried in the honest profession whence he derived wealth for this good purpose, has his arms at one corner, with his name, J. Lane, in gothic characters, and on the opposite corner his image, terribly worked in the wall, with a pair of shears in one hand, so large as to cut across the figure downwards almost obscuring all but his feet. Till the cicerone explained this, I took the idea for a design of Death, placed where most conspicuously he might show himself, ready to cut in two the poor objects that entered the church.