The Somerset Coast

by Charles G. Harper

KILVE; THE CHANTRY.

In these latter days, now that many townsfolk on holiday seek quiet, secluded spots, there are few among the rustic cottages of Kilve that do not house visitors, and nowadays the Priory farm is in summer as much a boarding-house as farmstead; while amateur geologists may be found at low water on the “delightful,” if muddy, shore, searching for “St. Keyna’s serpents”; or, in other words, ammonites, which, with other fossils, abound in the blue lias clay. They are “St. Keyna’s serpents,” because the saint, coming to Somerset, transformed all the snakes of these parts into stone!

Kilve, in common with other villages situated on this part of the Somerset shore, indulges in a curious kind of sport: that of “hunting the conger.” It is in the autumn that the unfortunate conger-eel is taken unawares, through the low tides that then generally prevail. The conger, known here as the “glatt,” is the big brother of the ordinary sand-eel, who is dug out of the foreshore, all round our coasts. He lives in the blue lias mud hereabouts, generally beneath the boulders that are sprinkled about the shore like currants in a bun; and is clever enough, in the ordinary way, to have his home well below low-water mark. But the treacherous spring-tides are the undoing of him; laying bare perhaps a hundred and sixty feet more of mud than usual. At such times a large proportion of the rustic population anywhere near the shore assembles and proceeds to the muddy or sandy flats, accompanied by fox-terriers and other dogs, and armed with stout six or eight-feet-long sticks, cut from the hedges and sharpened at one end to a chisel-like edge. If there be by any chance a belated visitor in those October days when hunting the glatt is usually in full swing he is apt to imagine the simple villagers are trying to take a rise out of his ignorance of country life, when, in answer to his questions, they tell him they are off hunting conger-eels—and with dogs! But it is simple truth. Hunting the wild red deer on Exmoor is the aristocratic sport of this countryside, and hunting the conger is the democratic; and where in a purely inland district your sporting rustic may keep his lurcher, here the rural sportsman values his terrier or spaniel in proportion to his merits as “a good fish dog.”

There is not that smartness among the pursuers of the glatt which is the mark of the hunting-field in the chase of the fox or the deer, and renders a fox-hunt or a meet of staghounds so spectacular a sight. Smart clothes are not the proper equipment of the glatt-hunter, whose hunting chiefly consists in wading, ankle-deep, through the mud, heaving up huge boulders, and mud-whacking after the wriggling, writhing congers, while the dogs rush frantically among the crowd, scraping holes in the mud and essaying the not very easy task of seizing the slippery fish. In fact, the oldest clothes are not too bad for this sport; and the spectacle of a company of such sportsmen as these, properly habited for the occasion, is rather that of an assemblage of scarecrows than that of a number of self-respecting members of the community. That this precaution of wearing the oldest possible garments is not an excess of caution becomes abundantly evident at the conclusion of a rousing day’s sport, when the mud has been flying in proportion to the enthusiasm of the chase, and every one has become abundantly splashed, from top to toe. The congers, or “glatts,” captured on these occasions scale, as a rule, about four or five pounds, but occasionally run to twenty pounds.

Over the meadows by church-path from Kilve to East Quantoxhead, is a pleasant stroll, bringing you into the village by the old watermill and the village pond. Not, mark you, an ordinary village pond with muddy margin and half-submerged old superannuated pails and the like discarded objects long past use, but a crystal-clear lakelet, with stone and turf parapet, well-stocked with trout—and the fishing preserved too, members of that branch of the Luttrell family living in the adjoining manor-house coming down occasionally to cast a fly. This is not angling in such public circumstances as might be supposed, for the village is very small and retired, and few strangers find their way hither. Indeed, things here are so little conventional that you enter the churchyard through a farmyard.

Church and manor-house stand side by side, both built of the local blue-grey limestone. In the chancel of the little aisleless church, stands a Luttrell altar-tomb of alabaster, inscribed to Hugh Luttrell, 1522, and his son, Andrew, 1538, with shields displaying their arms and those of the Wyndhams and other families with whom they have intermarried.

ST. AUDRIES.

The large, square-shaped manor-house adjoining is the ancient home of the Luttrells, who were seated here at East Quantoxhead long centuries before they acquired the greater estates of Dunster and Minehead; being descended on the distaff side from that Ralph Paganel who held this and other manors from William the Conqueror.

The tall, ugly masonry retaining-wall that fringes the hollow road for a long distance as you come uphill from East to West Quantoxhead, is that of St. Audries, the park of Sir Alexander Acland Hood. Where this ends, on the hilltop, the lovely park, sloping down to the seashore, is disclosed, like a dream of beauty. West Quantoxhead and St. Audries are convertible terms, the parish church being dedicated to St. Etheldreda, popularly known in mediæval times as “St. Audrey.” The mansion in the park, the rectory, the post-office, and a few scattered cottages constitute all the village. The church itself is modern, having been built by Sir Peregrine Acland Hood in 1857. It is far better, architecturally, than the mere date of it would suggest; doubtless because the architect relied more upon the traditional local style than on his own initiative. Although having stood for over half a century, the church looks astonishingly new. The mansion itself, a happy combination of stateliness and domestic comfort, and built of red brick and stone, is glimpsed romantically between the fine clumps of trees with which the park is studded; and in a cleft you note the blue sea—for the Severn Sea is not so muddy and so dun-coloured under sunny conditions as some would have us suppose. Down on the beach, where a waterfall plunges boldly over the cliffs of curiously stratified rock, the Somerset coast proves itself again to be more picturesque than it is generally allowed to be. The Devon and Somerset staghounds sometimes meet on the lawn, in front of St. Audries House, as the Quantock pack were used to do.