SALCOMBE CASTLE.
And that’s true enough, as Kingsbridge has discovered. Meanwhile, Salcombe remains a place which may not inaptly be compared with a lobster pot or a beetle-trap. It is not difficult to enter, but it is difficult to leave, unless you are prepared to hoof it, as many a commercial traveller knows.
Touch is kept with the outer world by means of an omnibus to Kingsbridge and by a steamer plying up and down the river; and sometimes the Kingsbridge Packet voyages out to sea, and comes at last to a safe haven in Plymouth Barbican after having casually taken ground on a mud-bank or two down the river. The Kingsbridge Packet is not precisely a liner, and is indeed a cargo-boat which does not even disdain potatoes and live sheep.
SALCOMBE CHURCH.
“Kingsbridge River” is altogether a misnomer. It is a five-mile long inlet of the sea, with numerous subsidiary creeks winding between the hills. The scenery is rendered comparatively desolate by the lack of woods, and it is of a peculiar solitude. Kingsbridge town itself sits at the head of the creek, and is a thriving little place. The villages of Charleton, Frogmore, and South Pool stand on their respective creeks.
Salcombe is not a little proud of its literary association with Froude, who entertained Tennyson at his residence, Woodcot, toward the close of their respective careers, and it is a cherished article of faith that the Poet Laureate here received the inspiration of his “Crossing the Bar.” Froude himself sleeps in the cemetery on the hill-top, where his epitaph may be read with interest:—
In Memory of
James Anthony Froude, M.A.,
Regius Professor of
Modern History, Oxford.
Son of the Rev. R. H. Froude,
late Archdeacon of Totnes.
Born at Dartington
April 23, 1818,
Died at Salcombe,
October 20, 1894.
KINGSBRIDGE.