From the North Foreland to Penzance

by Clive Holland

So in order that the town might not in the future fall an entirely unresisting victim to “pirates” and marauders, bulwarks of timber and rubble were thrown up, the proper maintenance of which devolved upon the two parishes jointly.

The life of Teignmouth during the next century was probably much as that of other small coast towns of Devon, where the harbour, however suitable for trade and commercial growth, had unfortunately insufficient depth of water to permit of the entrance of vessels of any very considerable tonnage. Indeed, it is probably owing to this deficiency—and to the fact that in former times there were few means of adequately deepening or keeping harbours and harbour mouths clear, that Teignmouth, admirably situated as it is as a port and for commerce, has never risen to any great commercial eminence.

In the past its chief industries were fishing, fish curing, and salt making; and in pursuit of these it took its uneventful course. Leland casts an informing eye over the place during the marvellous journey which he undertook, and crystallized in his Itinerary, reaching Teignmouth sometime during the thirties of the sixteenth century. Of the place he says, referring to the ground upon which East Teignmouth is built and the “Den” stands, “The Est-Point of the Haven is callid the Poles ... a low sandy Ground other cast out by the Spring of Sands out of the Teign or els throuen up from the Shores by rage of Wynd and Water, and thys Sand occupieth now a greate Quantitie of Ground bytwene Teignmouth Towne, where the Grounde mounteth and Teignmouth Haven.”

Leland goes on to say that “ther be two Tounes at this Point of the Haven by name of Teignmouth, one hard joining the other;” and also states that at the date he writes the houses at West Teignmouth on “the peace of Sanddy Ground afore spoken of ther caullid the Dene” had not been built many years. Leland’s name the Dene (meaning a dune or bank) being a much more comprehensible one than its present form Den.

The stories of the destruction of the towns “by the Danes, and of late Tymes by the Frenchmen” were doubtless told to the indefatigable traveller and diarist. But, as is so often the case with him, Leland is not entirely accurate, and is at fault in referring to East Teignmouth as Teignmouth Regis.

During the years immediately succeeding his visit the place seems to have declined, rather slowly, but nevertheless surely, and a century or so later we find a well-known writer describing it as having been formerly considerably more resorted to and held in higher esteem. This same authority appears to have accepted the tradition of the Danish landing and wholesale slaughter of the unfortunate inhabitants in its entirety, for he ascribes the colour of the cliffs—which forms so striking a feature of local scenery—to the bloodshed which traditionally took place. He writes in pursuance of this theory that it is in memory of the Danes’ atrocious massacre that the cliff is so “exceedingly red”; and adds that at the memory of the crimes the place “doth seem thereat again full fresh to bleed.”

The inhabitants at the time of this later historian would seem to have become slothful as their town declined. Perhaps the one circumstance may be traced to the other. At any rate we are told that at the time the country was in the throes of Civil War, and Royalists and Roundheads were marching and countermarching around Exeter, the inhabitants discontinued their practice of keeping the bulwarks and defences of the harbour and town in repair, which led to the promulgation of an order from Exeter calling upon them to fulfil their duty.

Then for fully a century history is silent as to the progress or doings of the town and its people. The veil which so often at that time obscured the history of the smaller and more secluded places on the south and west coasts, seems to have also enwrapped Teignmouth. And it was not lifted until the last decade of the seventeenth century, when the town again became the theatre of stirring scenes.

In those days the ports and sea-coast towns of the West were most of them not only undefended in the sense of not possessing fortifications, but were “out of touch” with the rest of the world to such an extent that they presented great temptations for attack to England’s enemies who were neither weak nor few. In a word, for a hostile force to effect a landing seemed to be the easiest thing in the world. Both the Duke of Monmouth in 1685, and William of Orange, after the Revolution, three years later, had done this with ease. It is, therefore, perhaps little to be wondered at that the banished King James II and his adherents in England should, without much difficulty, have persuaded Louis XIV to attempt a landing on behalf of the Stuart cause, upon the almost defenceless Devon coast. Louis had no love for England or for Protestant William, and also probably was anxious to unburden himself of James II, who promised to become a perpetual pensioner and trouble so long as he was in France, or rather, one might perhaps say, out of England. So when James II, relying upon the representations of his adherents in England, succeeded in persuading the French King that the English people were longing for his return, and would give him an enthusiastic welcome, Louis prepared a fleet for invasion in support of the Jacobite cause. In pursuance of this design Admiral de Tourville set sail, and made his way with his squadron up Channel, to fight the combined Dutch and English fleets.

Owing no doubt to the fact that the affairs of this country were still in an unsettled state, William and Mary of Orange not being as yet firmly established on the Throne, and a large number of the people still favouring the Stuarts, the English fleet detached itself and allowed the Dutch single-handed to engage De Tourville, who succeeded in crushing them. The result of this action, fought on June 30, 1690, was to place the south, and especially the badly defended south-west coast, at the mercy of the French admiral and his fleet, and to bring well within the bounds of possibility the invasion that his expedition was intended to accomplish. But the spirit of the West Country was aroused, and the fighting blood of the old sea-dogs of Devon asserted itself. So when De Tourville and his fleet of warships and galleys, which had been brought up from the Mediterranean for the purpose of the projected invasion, appeared off the coast, something had already been done towards defence by the summoning of the militia and country folk. One can imagine that the appearance of the lumbering galleys—and the tales that were rife of the life of the slaves who manned them—had not a little to do with the zeal with which the people of the West set about to put their defences in order.