Braunton Burrows are best explored by setting forth from Braunton village as for Barnstaple; but, when some little distance out, turning to the right, over the Vellator railway crossing, and the little river, or creek, called the Caen. Thenceforward, the way is clear enough for those who are content to follow the creek to its junction with the estuary of the Taw, and so along the sands, past the ship that forms the port of Barnstaple hospital, to the lighthouse. But the true inwardness of the Burrows is only to be found by continuing straight on past the level crossing, and so into a lane that finally turns to the left and then loses itself in loose sand.
BRAUNTON BURROWS.
There is a world of desolation in Braunton Burrows, and he who would thus come, overland, to the queer lighthouse that is perched at the seaward end of the estuary of the river Taw, must needs quest doubtfully and with some physical discomfort, before reaching that point where the waste of shifting sand slopes down to the waves. Just as no one becomes irreclaimably wicked in one plunge, but descends irretrievably by a series of slight moral lapses, so does the unwary traveller come by degrees into the baffling sand-wreaths of the Burrows. A good riverside road from Braunton village by degrees becomes an indifferent road; then, ceasing to be a road of any kind, becomes a more and more sandy lane, which, in its turn, insensibly degenerates to a track, and—there you are! You must not, however, imagine this sandy waste to be without its own peculiar beauties, or barren of vegetation. The winds have blown the immense accumulation of shifting sand into fantastic hummocks and weird hollows, where the dry surface is ribbed by their eddies, just as the retreating tide ribs the wet sand of the shore; but here and there coarse grasses have taken root and achieved the seemingly impossible task of anchoring the elusive substance: crowning the ridges with a wan growth; and in some sheltered hollows, where the wind comes scouring with less insistence, there are nurseries of pretty wild flowers which, although the unskilled explorer knows it not, are botanical treasures, some of them sought almost vainly elsewhere. Mats and patches of candytuft form exquisite carpetings, the wild pansy blooms abundantly, and in July, beautiful above all else, the intense blue of borage competes vigorously with the yellow-brown of the sand. It has been affirmed that eight hundred varieties of wild flowers are found here, including the rare Asperugo procumbens and Teucrium scordium; while near the quaint lighthouse the curious will discover the mud-rush (Isolepis holoschænus), and a bad smell.
Near the lighthouse! There’s the rub. To reach that goal is a matter of considerable difficulty; for, amid the labyrinth of hillocks and dales of sand, it cannot be seen afar off, and to come to it in anything like a straight course is, therefore, impossible. I know not which, among the inevitably uncomfortable and arduous circumstances of this enterprise, is the most distressing time. To wander here in rain, or in the bitter blast, must certainly be terrible; but no less terrible, in its own particular way, is it to explore this wilderness on some blazing hot day of August. The hollows are stifling, the sand everywhere soft and yielding, and in unexpected places lurk those “pockets,” or holes filled with yet more yielding sand, that, equally with the rabbit-runs, give the place the name of “Burrows.” Into these unsuspected places you may easily sink suddenly up to the knee of one leg, while the other remains on the surface. This sandy waste is, therefore, not without its dangers.
The lighthouse that guides mariners safely into the Taw—or “Barnstaple River,” as sailors prefer to call it—is an odd structure; not so ferociously ugly as every writer who has mentioned it would lead the stranger to believe. It has character. No one, for instance, would be in the least likely to confuse it with any other lighthouse; and that is a great point. Nowadays, when the Trinity House builds a new lighthouse, it is as exactly like the last in general appearance as that was like its predecessor. Now Braunton lighthouse is a very old affair, that came into being when a considerable amount of individuality survived. It stands here, sturdily performing in its secular way what the neighbouring St. Ann’s Chapel did for sailors as a religious duty, long, long ago. Some few scanty remains of that little oratory and lighthouse combined were to be found, some years since, but they have now disappeared. The chapel measured fourteen feet six inches, by twelve feet. Neighbouring farmers requisitioned its stones so freely that what was left, even a century ago, was little more than a ground-plan.
BRAUNTON LIGHTHOUSE.
The existing lighthouse looks like the design of some one who set out to build an ordinary, four-square dwelling, and then conceived the idea of placing a tower on its roof; and this tower, tapering towards the lantern and carefully hung with slates, is strongly shored up with metal-sheathed timbers, lest the stormy winds that blow pretty constantly in winter overturn it. The lighthouse-man, who spends his summer days gasping for air on the shady side, holds the infrequent stranger in converse as long as possible, and does not appear altogether contented with his existence on a spot where, he says, you cannot bear to sit down on the sands in summer, for the heat, which is strong enough to almost scorch your breeks, to say nothing of your person, and in winter dare hardly put your nose out o’ doors, on account of the cold. He will illustrate for you the especial dangers of this point, against which the lighthouse is placed here to guard, and will explain that, on account of the shifting, sandy bar of the river, there are two lights provided: the fixed one on his tower, and another, low down, on a movable white- and black-striped box on rails. This is moved backwards and forwards, according to the movement of the bar, so that ships entering the river and keeping their course safely, shall get the two lights aligned.
The way between Braunton and the approach to Barnstaple, at Pilton, is uninteresting. The road runs for the most part out of sight of the river and the sea. Only one thing attracts the wayfarer’s attention; and that for its singularity, rather than for any intrinsic beauty. This object, beside the road, and so close to it that the wayfarer cannot fail to notice the queer, would-be Gothic battlements, is Heanton Court, now a farmhouse; the “Narnton Court” of Blackmore’s “Maid of Sker.”