The North Devon Coast

by Charles G. Harper

THE VALLEY OF ROCKS.

And so, into the Valley of Rocks. There was a time when every writer who happened upon the Valley of Rocks felt himself obliged to adopt an attitude of awe, and to ransack the dictionary for adjectives to fitly represent the complicated state of mind into which he generally lashed himself. That time has naturally been succeeded by a revulsion of feeling; and there is not a guidebook at the present day which does not apologise for those old transports of feeling, and declare the Valley of Rocks to be really nothing remarkable. But that later attitude is just as absurd as the earlier. The valley is very fine indeed, and its wildness is only impaired by the broad white ribbon of road that runs through it, and will not let you forget that here, too, however craggy and precipitous the piled-up masses of granite on either side, and however remote the feeling, actually the most up-to-date civilisation is very near indeed.

This is what was written of the Valley of Rocks in 1803: “The heights on each side are of a mountainous magnitude, but composed, to all appearances, of loose, unequal masses, which form here and there rude natural columns, and are fantastically arranged along the summits, so as to resemble extensive ruins impending over the pass.”

So far, this is literally true, and the name of Castle Rock, given to one of these stony heights, grimly coroneted with masses of rock, is excellently descriptive. The rocks so closely resemble towers and battlements that the stranger is often deceived into thinking them to be real masonry. A companion rocky hill, isolated midway in the valley, and called “Ragged Jack,” from its notched outline, is almost equally castellated.

It is only when the account already quoted proceeds to dilate upon the “awful vestiges of convulsion and desolation presenting themselves, and inspiring the most sublime ideas,” that we do not quite follow, and we suspect this was the outcome of much competitive writing; each succeeding writer striving to pile phrase upon phrase, very much after the manner in which the rocks of the Valley of Rocks are heaped upon one another.

The “Devil’s Cheese-wring” is the name of one of these curious stony piles, now partly overgrown with ivy. The Valley and the cheese-wring are mentioned in “Lorna Doone,” a romance no one can escape in North Devon, strive though he may; although, really, the Doone Valley and almost every incident of that story, are in, and concerned with, Somerset.

A wind-swept little wood is almost the only sign of vegetation, except the coarse grass, in this wild valley of grey stones; but it is the appalling heat, rather than the wind, which troubles the tourist in his passage, and he is often fain to shelter awhile in the welcome shade of some huge crag; thinking, as he does so, of that eloquent passage in Isaiah, “The shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” And really, the Valley of Rocks is very like the parched, stony land of Palestine, which suggested the phrase.

It is at the close of some sultry summer day that the Valley of Rocks looks its very best. The irradiated sky, throwing into silhouette the great masses of rock, has the effect of magnifying and glorifying them. On such summer evenings, the more youthful among the holiday-makers set out from Lynton, and there, on the rugged hillside of the Castle Rock or Ragged Jack, you may see the white frocks of the girls, looking more than a little like the white-robed figures of those Druids, who, according to old Polwhele, used this place of desolation as a temple, and carved the roughly shaped rock-pillars and granite hollows into “rock idols” and “sacrificial basins.” On the summit of Castle Rock a “white lady” of a different kind may be seen; a curious figure, resembling a woman, formed by a huge slab of rock fallen between two upright masses. The resemblance is sufficiently close to startle strangers coming this way at night.

The road goes under the rugged hills, past the little inlet of Wringcliff Bay, overhung with ferny precipices, to a gate leading into the domain of Lee Abbey. All kinds of wheeled traffic may go through by lodge and gate, except motor vehicles—they are forbidden.