From the North Foreland to Penzance

by Clive Holland

Brixham is but a short half hour’s sail in a good breeze from Torquay. It is a picturesque (if somewhat “fishy”) little town with the houses set West Country-wise, in the sides of a chine, and the principal street, known as Fore Street, descending steeply to the harbour itself. Like Torquay, Brixham was originally an agricultural village, which, as time went on, gradually crept down to the water’s edge, until its foundations were almost set in the sea, the result being that its inhabitants in time abandoned the tilling of the soil for the harvest of the sea. Nowadays these number nearly nine thousand, most of whom are fisherfolk, or in some way connected with the fishing industry. The Brixham trawling fleet has been painted so often, that it must be perfectly familiar to most readers. Of its picturesque charm for both brush and camera, there can be little question. In the little harbour, which unfortunately for yachting folk is dry at low water, there is no room for the upwards of two hundred and fifty trawlers which, with their graceful lines and red-brown sails, form such paintable groups at their moorings in the outer harbour, just off the Victoria Breakwater, where they are obliged to lie.

Brixham was anciently a manor in the possession of the Pomeroys of Berry Pomeroy, but on its sale at the end of the seventeenth century was split up into a number of small lots, not a few of which were acquired by the more wealthy farmers, merchants, and fisherfolk. These portions were, as time went on, subdivided and split up again either by sale or other means, till at the present time the ancient manor is held by some two hundred persons, all of whom are known as Quay Lords or Quay Ladies, according to their sex.

Brixham men are “characters.” Centuries of traffic upon the great waters has given them those features and idiosyncrasies which usually distinguish fisherfolk and seamen at large. But to these must be added a certain element of swaggering independence, which has doubtless come down to them from ancestors engaged in periodical struggles with the French privateers, and the hardy race of smugglers for which the coast was notorious less than a century ago.

The town is just one of those irregularly built picturesque congregations of houses—few of them large—which one finds in the West Country, where the water runs up into the land, and a fishing industry has been created. Many of the buildings have little flights of steps running up to them, rendered necessary by the different levels at which dwellings are placed even in the same street; whilst the fish cellars are everywhere, and the odour of fish is triumphant over the fresh winds from the sea, as well as the perfumed breezes which sometimes fall upon the town from the heights of Guzzle Down.

There are other industries, however, besides the capture of fish (“the best fish along the coast,” as all Brixham men asseverate with unnecessary strength of language), for there is boat building on a considerable scale, net making, and not a few of the womenfolk of the place are employed in knitting the heavy woollen jerseys which seem the staple garments of the fishermen of the coasts.

Though much of the history of Brixham is obscure, the town has, nevertheless, played an important part in at least two events of historical importance. It was into Brixham that the Elizabethan sea-dog, Sir Francis Drake, sent the first of the galleons captured from Spain when the Armada was skurrying up Channel amid the constant boom of cannon and the smoke of burning vessels, with the bull dogs of Drake, Howard, and Hawkins hanging on its flanks. And it was in Brixham fishing boats (the name of one, the Roebuck, has come down to us), of whose fleetness Drake had doubtless heard, that he sent the priceless powder taken from the galleon’s magazine to the English ships, which were keeping up that eight days’ running fight, July 21–29, 1588, upon the ultimate result of which the fate of England depended.

It was to Brixham, just a hundred and one years later, that William of Orange came, when, on the morning of the fifth of November, 1688, his fleet appeared in the offing off the coasts of Devon. A contemporary account tells us how the morning was foggy, with a thick sea haze, but that later in the day (as though for a good omen) “the sun dissipated the fog, insomuch that it proved a very pleasant day.”

One can imagine how the country folk from far and wide came flocking to the capes and headlands of the Devon shore, straining their eyes to catch a glimpse of the coming ships. Some, we learn from the same diarist, thought the fleet was French, “because they saw divers white flags, but the standard of the Prince, the motto of which was ‘For the Protestant religion and liberty,’ soon undeceived them.” Then the fleet entered Torbay, and coming off Brixham, the Prince’s barge was lowered, and he was rowed ashore amid scenes of enthusiasm and the sound of cannon; for we are told, “the Admiral of Rotterdam gave divers guns at his landing.”

The Prince, his guards, and sundry lords were speedily ashore and received a warm welcome.

It would appear, however, to be a mere legendary story which tells us that he stopped the weigh of his barge when still some distance from the shore, and called out to the people who stood waiting on the quay, “If I am welcome, come and carry me to land,” and that thereupon a little man plunged into the water and carried William on his back; at any rate, it finds no place in the authority we have quoted, who appears to have been a keen and accurate observer, unlikely to omit an incident of such importance.