“When water workes in broaken wharfe
At first erected were,
And Beavis Bulmer wth his Art
The waters ’gan to reare,
Dispercéd I in earth did lye
Since all beginnings old,
In place cal’d Comb, wher Martin longe
Had hydd me in his molde,
I did no service on the earth,
Nor no man set me free,
Till Bulmer by his skill and charge
Did frame me this to be.”
Floods again drowned the works, and although a report was presented to Parliament in 1659, and other timid attempts made, nothing was accomplished until 1796. Operations were continued for six years, and over nine thousand tons of ore sent to South Wales, for smelting. In 1813, and on to 1817, more ore was mined, but the cost exceeding the value of the silver obtained, the enterprise was again discontinued. In 1833 a company was formed, with a capital of £30,000, and the works were once more reopened. About half this sum was spent in sinking new shafts, and in machinery, but some very good lodes were discovered, and three dividends were paid out of profits. But eventually the shares were rigged up to a high premium on the Stock Exchange, and those who were well informed of the likelihood that the lode would not prove a lasting one got out at a profit, while credulous purchasers were left to witness the prosperity of the undertaking speedily melt away. By 1850, the last chapter of silver-mining at Combemartin was ended. The miners’ rubbish-heaps still remain, and even at the present day the urchins paddling in the bay at low-water occasionally discover fragments of ore.
Hemp-growing and the manufacture of shoe-makers’ thread were also industries carried on very extensively in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; but Combemartin has long been looked down upon as an abjectly poor place, and only its great church and the surrounding scenery save it from being passed by in contempt by the writers of guide-books. Combemartin church tower, indeed, finds mention in a North Devon folk-rhyme, in which it is placed, for due admiration, with those of Berrynarbor and Hartland:
“Hartland for length,
Berrynarbor for strength,
And Combemartin for beauty.”
COMBEMARTIN CHURCH.
It is a tall grey tower, in four stages, rising with some considerable impressiveness over an Early English and Perpendicular building that has long been but ill cared for. The interior discloses chancel with nave and north aisle only, the roofs of that waggon-headed type usual in the West of England; the walls daubed with a light blue wash. A fine fifteenth-century carved wooden rood-screen, in a much worn condition, has been shamefully used in the past, the frieze having been filled in with plaster in 1727, according to the date inscribed on the work. The initials, “J. P., T. H.,” probably those of the churchwardens who perpetrated the outrage, prove that, so far from being ashamed of themselves they even took pride in their work. A number of interesting bench-ends remain, among them a delightfully carved little lizard, who, unfortunately, has lost his head.
Some queer inscriptions in the churchyard, whose like, now that education penetrates every nook and corner, will no longer be perpetrated, arouse a passing smile: among them this extraordinary effort:—
Here Lyeth
IoHan Ash, she died in september
J668
loe here I slepe in dust till christ my deare
And Sweet Redeemer in the clouds Appeare