In the porch is an ancient, greatly timeworn chest, with three locks and a slit in the lid, for the reception of “Peter’s Pence” and other contributions. As the chest is about six feet in length and proportionably deep, it is evident that the expectations were not modest. Let us trust the faithful took the hint and contributed accordingly.
And so by delightful lanes to Blue Anchor, where the railway runs along the shore and has a station of that name. Blue Anchor station must in its time have misled many strangers, for where a railway station is, there one expects a town, or village, also. But here is a void, an emptiness, a vacuum. Only a solitary bay is disclosed before the astounded stranger’s gaze. It is a noble bay, it is true, and commands lovely views of the great North Hill at Minehead, with Dunster nestling midway; and the sunsets are magnificent. But railway companies don’t build railway stations merely for the convenience of those few people who would take a journey especially for sake of a view or a sunset; and it certainly seems as though the Great Western expected building developments here, long ago, and was still awaiting them. In short, all there is of Blue Anchor is an old inn of that name, not remotely suggesting a past intimately connected with smuggling, together with a cottage or two.
BLUE ANCHOR.
Unfortunately for the lover of an unspoiled seashore, a formal sea-wall has recently been built, to protect the marshes that here fringe the bay from being drowned. The Somerset County Council built it, at a cost of some £30,000. Let us hope the Luttrells are properly grateful for this public work that so efficiently protects their lands.
CHAPTER XVIII
DUNSTER
The approach to Dunster from Blue Anchor, and through the village of Carhampton, is a progress of pleasure. Turner has left a picture of Dunster from Blue Anchor, but it is not one of his successes, and the reality is far more romantic than his representation. You see before you the Castle of Dunster, on its hill, the eighteenth-century tower of Coneygore, on its own particular eminence, and the great Grabbist Hill, disposing themselves in new groupings as you advance, and realise that England has not much finer to give.
Dunster, with much else in these districts, from Kilve to Minehead, belongs to the Luttrells, whose heraldic shield of a bend sable on a golden field, between six martlets—a “martlet” being a heraldic bird of the swallow species, without feet, unknown to ornithologists—is in consequence frequently to be noticed here. The Luttrell motto is Quaesita marte tuenda arte; that is to say, “What has been gained by force of war should by skill be guarded.” We may here perhaps detect the glimmerings of one of those puns of which the old heralds were so fond, in the similarity in sound between “marte” and “martlet”; but it is not a favourable example.
