Those who have once fallen under the spell of Teignmouth are never likely to be freed from it. You leave, after perhaps the fifth or sixth visit, declaring you have exhausted the place, but you inevitably return, if not next year, in the near future. There is, in fact, something in Teignmouth to please all tastes, and custom never stales it. It enjoys that inestimable advantage in a seaside resort, a tidal estuary; and round by the sandspit, over against the bold red cliff of the Ness, you come from the somewhat artificial front and its pier and its seats for visitors, to the harbour, where the Teign flows out at the ebb and the sea comes swirling in at the flood, across the shifting sand-bar that from time immemorial has afforded a living for Teignmouth pilots and tug-boats, bringing the craft of strange skippers, ignorant of the state of the channel, safely into the haven. There are no seats, or other such concessions to visitors, in the harbour, but there are boats innumerable for sailing or rowing upon the Teign, and in the deep midstream anchorage to one side of the sandbank called “the Salty,” there is generally a tier of foreign barques that have brought deals from Norway, or are to take china-clay to the uttermost parts of the earth. And there are ropes and anchors and much waterside litter, and a fragrant scent of what the sailors call “Stockhollum” tar about the harbour; and if the visitor does not promptly succeed in tripping over the ropes and chains and anchors, why then he is an exceptional visitor indeed. Fragrant sail-lofts look down upon the water, and old superannuated buoys and other buoys that only want a lick of paint, are drawn up on the sand, and from the open windows of sailors’ homes come the voices of parrots, mingled not unmusically with a midstream yo-hoing.
TEIGNMOUTH HARBOUR: LOOKING OUT TO SEA, SHOWING THE NESS AND SHALDON, AND THE MAIN LINE OF THE GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY.
The trade of Teignmouth harbour, after a long period of decay, is in these times looking up, for the South Devon Trading Company has built new quays and sheds, which, like all new things, do not add to the picturesqueness of the spot; but the casual lanes and odd slips remain, with the old quay, and that unconventional inn, “Newbery’s Old Quay Hotel,” that with every flood-tide dabbles its feet in the water, and with every ebb stands once more upon dry ground, much to the amazement and delight of children. Did I not myself once think the “Old Quay” inn the most desirable of all possible homes!
There is a homeliness in the harbour that draws the visitor away from the exotic front, and it is to the harbour he first resorts when he revisits Teignmouth, for it seems almost to welcome him back. There, up stream, is that hoary old landmark, the long bridge that spans the Teign, which is 1,671 feet in length, and was built in 1827, and is the longest wooden bridge in England. “Further on,” as the guide-book says, “are the gas-works.” It is only too true, and they might, with advantage to the scenery, be still further on; but in that case they would not get their coal barged cheaply up to the very walls, which everybody knows to be a greater consideration than the preservation of mere scenic amenities.
Away in the misty distance are the tors of Dartmoor, prominent among them Rippon Tor and Heytor Rocks, grey-bearded—as you know when you have visited them—with sage-green lichen, and altogether very reverend and inscrutable. They seem with a grave benevolence to welcome you back.
THE NESS: ENTRANCE TO THE TEIGN.