The Water gate also was taken down at nearly the same time, and this has also been preserved in a sketch in Lysons’ book. This gate was of astonishing beauty and lightness.
A sketch of Plymouth harbour has been preserved in a chart drawn by some engineer of the reign of Henry VIII., and still extant in the British Museum. The bird’s-eye view represents some four churches, with plenty of gabled houses, and the necessary number of lookers-on from men-of-war.
There are many other towns in Devonshire that contain subject matter for our work, such as Tiverton on the Exe, and Tavistock, so beautifully situated on the banks of the Tavy. Tavistock once gloried in a fine old Abbey, and much of the present town is built out of the spoils of this venerable pile, of which some remains yet stand, and it was also the birthplace of Sir Francis Drake.
Clovelly is one of the most picturesque villages in England. The street resembles a winding staircase, each house representing a step.
“Long lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm,
And in this chasm are foam and yellow sands;
Beyond, red roofs about a narrow wharf
In cluster; then a mouldered church; and higher
A long street climbs to one tall-towered mill.
And high in heaven behind it a gray down
With Danish barrows; and a hazel wood,
By autumn nutters haunted, flourishes
Green in a cuplike hollow of the down.”
This description of the village in Enoch Arden has commonly been said to refer to Clovelly.
Often the towns and villages here receive their names from rivers, for Devonshire has the honour of a watershed of its own, of which Cranmere pool, high up in Dartmoor, is the centre; thus Axminster is named from having a minster on the Axe, and Axmouth from being the town situated at the mouth of that river. The Dart, of course, gives the name of Dartmouth, and the Exe, Exeter and Exmouth; and perhaps it is not commonly known that Mr. Speaker Addington derived his title from the river Sid, which runs past his property, and suggested the name of Sydmouth to the original founder of the family.
It is perhaps hardly too much to say that Wells is the most picturesque city in England. The series of houses called Vicar’s Close is connected with the cathedral by a gallery, over an arched gateway across the street. “This gallery is approached on each side by a flight of steps, from which there is a very fine and unique entrance into the chapter-room. Unlike any other chapter-room in England, the floor of this is raised several feet above the level of the cathedral on a vaulted room. The design and construction of this chapter-house, with its connecting staircase and gallery, are entitled to the especial admiration of the architect;” so writes Britton, and he further adds, in admiration of the structure, “We see that the architects of the Middle Ages were unrestrained by precedent, and exercised their imagination and judgment in producing novelties.”
The “Vicar’s Close” is a long court of ancient houses built in the fourteenth century, and retaining many of their original features; at one end is a noble entrance gateway, and at the other the chapel and chaplain’s dwelling. All these have been engraved in Britton’s Cathedral Antiquities and Picturesque Antiquities of English Cities. Each house has a tall graceful chimney rising through the eaves of the roof, and is provided with a small garden in front. These shafts have armorial bearings of the see—and of the executors of Bishop Beckington, who finished the “Close.” Their names were Swan and Sugar, and in the spirit of the age, a swan and a loaf of sugar have been sculptured. This singular scene has no rival in England, and nowhere can mediæval domestic architecture be so well studied. The combinations of chimneys and gables, buttresses and traceried windows, is really astonishing to any one who sees it for the first time.
Wells, according to Camden, was so called from its numerous springs, and now bright clear water runs through the various streets of the city, which take their rise from wells in the Bishop’s garden, these wells form a moat or lake of incomparable beauty. The engraving gives only a partial idea of the scene, as each step unfolds some new delight. There is an embattled wall with bastion towers, enclosing perhaps fifteen acres, which is surrounded by a broad moat, and on the north side the palace is approached by a bridge and baronial gatehouse. Ralph de Salopia was the builder of this wall, and a great benefactor to the see and palace. He it was who drew up statutes for the government of Vicar’s