From the North Foreland to Penzance

by Clive Holland

From these stirring times of great enterprises is but a step to those which came but a year or two later, when out of Plymouth hard by streamed Drake’s little covey of ships on their mission of engaging the vast Armada, which even when Davis and his intrepid companions set forth for their voyaging amid Polar ice and northern seas was a menace that cast a shadow over the national life.

Just as the townsfolk of Dartmouth had crowded to the cliffs at the harbour entrance to see Davis depart on his voyages, and wave him God-speed, so climbed they once again to watch the Armada, which Philip of Spain in his pride had named “Invincible,” “wrecking nought that God Himself was with the English fleet and Lord Howard of Effingham,” go surging up the Channel, flags flying, cannon belching, with “pictures of the Holy Saints, and coats of arms wrought upon their sails”; and the little English ships hanging to them in hot and furious pursuit.

Then came a time of comparative rest for the beautiful little port on the Dart, which, however, as we have before stated, saw some of the storm and stress of the Civil War. With the bold and successful enterprises of Dartmouth privateers during the long war with Napoleon, or with those of equally daring smugglers at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, there is no space to deal in detail. We need only say that the spirit which had formerly actuated the Hawleys, Davises, Hammonds, Clintons, and Vaughans (to mention but a few)—many of whose enterprises are set forth in the State papers—was not now a-lacking when England experienced once more a time of stress and need, and opportunity for personal gain walked in step with patriotism.

The greatness of Dartmouth as a seaport has departed. In the comparative quietude of her streets and alleys one does, however, seem to catch as it were an echo of other and more splendid days. And in the types one meets by the waterside and in the purlieus of the quays the observant can yet trace something of the old seadogs who, adventuring much, went forth in quest of new worlds and new trade routes, or roved the Breton coasts in search of conflict and of plunder. The waters of the harbour are nowadays, however, chiefly ploughed by pleasure craft, white winged yachts in place of the armed sloops and fast sailing craft, once bent on pillage, or commerce with Newfoundland and other far countries.

In the churches—more especially those of St Clement and St Saviour—one finds rich treasures of architecture, and of monuments to men and women citizens of Dartmouth famous in adventure, trade, or philanthrophy. In the former church, which dates from the fourteenth century and was fortified during the Civil War, are numerous memorials, the quaint inscriptions which they many of them bear, setting forth in brief the life history of those they commemorate. But it is the church of St Saviour, set in the middle of the quaint old town, also work of the fourteenth century (and earlier), which is the gem of the place. The exceptionally fine screen is said to be an Armada relic; but whether this is so or not, it is sufficiently beautiful to merit the closest attention and examination. All who go to Dartmouth and visit the church should notice the south side door known as the “Dragon” Door, quaint with wonderful representations of animals, and dating, so it is said, from the fourteenth century or even earlier. In the altar piece, the subject of which is “Christ raising the Widow’s Son,” one has some of the finest of Brockedon’s work, a distinguished son of the Dart born at Totnes. And here, too, as in St Clement’s, sleep many whose names were writ upon the town’s roll of fame in the times when Dartmouth gave of her best in battle and discovery.

Totnes seems so indissolubly linked with Dartmouth in history and adventure, that few who come to the outer port with time on their hands fail, we fancy, to find their way up the beautiful river to that inner port, now decayed ’tis true like the outer, but yet of more than passing interest. Of its antiquity there can be as little doubt as of its picturesqueness; although there are those who scout the theory (or statement) of that none too veracious chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth, that Brutus of Troy landed at Totnes. Which story the devout townsfolk from time out of mind have striven to keep alive by the preservation in the pavement of quaint Fore Street of the stone upon which the princely, world-wide wanderer is said to have rested after his landing.

In the street we have named, near the beautiful old Eastgate, which stands half-way up its steeply climbing roadway, are some of the most architecturally interesting houses of the town. Merchants’ palaces of the time when Totnes was completely environed by its walls, and “its inhabitants, even in times of trouble, could sleep at ease because of its strong defences.” It is from the old Norman keep, built, so ’tis said, by Judhael de Totenais, that one obtains what local folk proudly assert is the finest view in Devon. From it (let the claim pass unchallenged) one does see a prospect of delight, widely stretching and cultivated fields and uplands, with distant plum-hued Dartmoor on the far horizon to the northward. To the south and in front of the lower town is the beautiful reach of the river up which in ancient times came the returned vessels from distant lands, richly laden with the spoil of commerce or pillage which made the Totnes merchants, if not “rich beyond the dreams of avarice,” yet wealthy amongst their peers.

But Totnes of to-day knows little of sea-borne commerce, and is mainly given over to the pursuits of a country town of somewhat indifferent enterprise, with the sole excitements afforded by recurring market days, and the gossip of the incoming folk from the district round about. A sharp enough contrast to the stirring days of old when excitement and adventurous life was the distinguishing feature, and “none could tell what each tide would bring up from the sea. News of loss or gain, of returned or missing ships, of wealth for prosperous merchants or disaster which might make the richest of them poor.”

In the ancient Parish Church of St Mary one has an interesting building dating from the fifteenth century, replacing a thirteenth century edifice which in turn stood on the site of a much earlier Norman church. The beautifully carved screen (said by some authorities to be the finest in Devon), and the registers which date from the middle of the sixteenth century, and contain an astonishing amount of most interesting information regarding the old merchant princes of the Elizabethan and succeeding periods give St Mary’s Church an unusual attractiveness for antiquarians and students.

In its old Guildhall, which is a portion of the old priory of St Mary, granted to the Corporation in the reign of Edward, just behind the church, Totnes possesses a building alive with historic memories of the deepest interest, and containing amongst its deeds and records Rolls of the Guilds from the year 1260, charters of many kings and queens, some of the oldest as clear and almost as fresh as the day on which the pens which wrote them were laid down three or four centuries ago. In its Town Clerks of recent years—especially in Mr Ed Windeatt—Totnes has generally been fortunate in having gentlemen by whom the old records and treasures of the town have been appreciated and carefully preserved. And writers and historians have found their labours much lightened by the excellent manner in which the documents have been collated and arranged.