Modern times, however, are making themselves felt in other directions. In early days, when the town of Exmouth was merely a longshore settlement called “Pratteshythe,” situated where the docks now are, the mouth of the river was largely obstructed by an immense sandbank stretching from this shore. At some unnamed period this geographical feature of the place changed sides, and has for centuries past been that delightfully wild, nearly two-miles long wilderness, “the Warren,” which extends a sandy arm from Langston Cliff; leaving something less than half-a-mile of fairway at the mouth of Exe. Until quite recently the Warren has remained the haunt of the wild-fowler and the naturalist, but now the red roofs of bungalows are beginning to plentifully dot the wastes; and to play at Robinson Crusoe, with twentieth-century embellishments and more or less luxurious fringes, has become a favourite summer pastime on this once solitary haunt of the heron, the wild duck, and the sea-mew.
The salt estuary of the Exe runs up boldly from Exmouth, a mile broad, past Lympstone; and then, suddenly contracting, reaches Topsham, which was in other days a place of considerable importance, where ships were built and a great deal done in the Newfoundland trade; and in the smuggling trade too. Now the old shipyards are forgotten, and Topsham, which, among other things, was formerly the port of Exeter, is merely a relic, in course of being submerged by Exeter’s suburbs. Yet still odd nooks may be found, with that curious alien air belonging to all such out-of-date seaports, and in shy old houses Topsham is peculiarly rich in old blue-and-white Dutch tiles.
Topsham ceased from being a port when the present Exe Canal was made, in 1827, from Turf up to the very streets of the city: the first ship canal that ever was. It is five miles in length, and thirty feet wide, and it cost £125,000. Anciently, however, the tide flowed the whole way to Exeter, until, in the old high-handed mediæval days, the imperious Isabella de Redvers wrought her vengeance against the city by causing the stream to be dammed with felled trees, thus obstructing the navigation. Doubtless, in their turn, the citizens damned the countess, so far as they safely could, but there the obstruction remained, and thus the still-existing “Countess Weir” came into being.
TOPSHAM.
The enterprising citizens of Exeter cut a small canal, so early as 1554. This was afterwards enlarged, and the present undertaking is the still more enlarged successor of those early waterways. It is a pleasant and clear canal, with none of those evil associations the word “canal” generally implies, and the walk along the broad towing-paths into Exeter yields one of the most striking views of that picturesque city.
EXETER, FROM THE SHIP CANAL.