The explorer who does not wish to martyr himself on the way from Salterton to Exmouth may be recommended to take steamer, for it is six miles of anti-climax by shore and cliff, and four by uninteresting hard high road, passing the wickednesses of suburban expansion at Littleham, in whose churchyard is the neglected grave of Frances, Viscountess Nelson, who died in 1831, the deeply wronged wife of the naval hero.
A marble monument to her in the church does, however, make some amends for the neglect outside. There, in that interior, are memorials to Peels, relatives of the statesman, and others to those ubiquitous Drakes who, like the Courtenays and recurring decimals, repeat themselves indefinitely.
Leaving Littleham behind, there presently begins the long-drawn approach to Exmouth itself, looking as though all Ladbroke Grove and Putney Hill had moved down, en bloc, for a sea-change. And, oh, how blue and refreshing and lovely looks that peep of the sea over towards Dawlish that you get at the end of this long, hot and dry perspective!
And as you think thus, you remember the pungent saying of Dr. Temple, who once, while still Bishop of Exeter, stood upon the steps of the vicarage of Exmouth and remarked that “Exmouth was a good place to look—from.”
He was absolutely correct, for Exmouth, facing directly into the west, is especially famed for its sunsets. To peruse the local guide-books one might even think Exmouth had entered into arrangements with the solar system for a supply of the best displays.
But there was, as you have already suspected, a sting behind the bishop’s remark. What a waspishness beyond the ordinary these high-placed clerics do develop! The beauties of Exmouth are external, extrinsic, a minus quantity; but it is placed in the loveliest situation at the seaward end of the long and beautiful estuary of the Exe. The beauty of the views across sea and river are unspeakable. To me it is an Avalon, a Gilead, where the balm is; a country in the likeness of the Land of the Blest, you see over there, where the red cliffs dip down in fantastic shapes to the sea, and where the heights of Great Haldon and Mamhead, clothed with clumps of trees of a richness only Devon can show, rise to the glowing sky. I yearn ever to be over yonder in that Land of Heart’s Desire, as the good Christian should yearn for Paradise; and the little hamlets dwarfed by the two miles of water, and even the little trains that seem to go so slowly, trailing their long trails of steam, are things of poetry and romance.
If I were to say that Exmouth was the Margate of Devonshire, I should please neither Exmouth nor Margate; for all Devon does not contain a purely seaside resort of the size of that favourite place in Kent. But it is, like Margate, popular with trippers; it has sands; and is, in short a place where the crowd spends a happy day: the crowd in this instance hailing, as a rule, from no further than Exeter.
Exeter is an interesting city, and its citizens, in their own streets and in their everyday garb are sufficiently amiable, but when Exmouth on Sundays and other holiday-times is overrun with Exeter’s young men, tradesmen’s assistants, clad in the impossible clothes pictured on provincial advertisement boardings, laughing horse-laughs, singing London’s last season’s comic songs, wearing flashy jewellery, and smoking bad cigars, Exeter’s reputation, and Exmouth’s suffer alike. If you can imagine such a curious hybrid as a provincial cockney—the type really exists, although it has not yet been noticed by men of science—you may picture something of Exmouth’s week-end patrons. The provincial cockney, poor thing, imagines himself in the forefront of style, but he is merely a caricature of the London cockney plus his own accent, which, wedded to cockney slang, is peculiarly offensive.
But Exmouth, when its week-end patrons are behind their counters, in their aprons, is a vastly-different place. It is cheap, and has always been, and always will be, but it is at last sloughing off that air of impending bankruptcy that once sat so dolefully upon the scene; and the shops that were once mere apologies are now for the most part real shops, and stocked with articles less than ten years old. Moreover, the tennis lawns and gardens have grown by lapse of time into things of beauty: the lawns becoming something else than bald patches of red earth, and the gardens luxuriant indeed. But cheap railway trips from Exeter, only ten miles distant, by South Western Railway, have determined the character of Exmouth for ever, and grey stucco, only on the outskirts occasionally varied with red brick, or rough-cast, has clothed it in a sad shabbiness until its ninety-nine years building-leases shall have lapsed.