the place is derived from the Saxon word mot or gemot (a “meeting”), and it was probably the seat of the Hundred-mote, or court of judicature, Bampton being the head manor of the hundred.[8] It was also a burgh, or fortified place, and by the laws of King Edgar the Burghmote, or Court of the Borough, was held thrice a year. The parish, it may be observed, is still divided into Borough, East, West, and Petton quarters, and the ancient office of portreeve is yet retained. Some time before Domesday and the Geldroll, the king gave Bampton to Walter de Douay. From Walter’s son, Robert de Baunton, the lordship passed through the Paynells to the Cogans, and from the Cogans to the Bourchiers, Earls of Bath, who, so far as is known, were the last owners of the barony to reside at the castle. The Bourchier knot is to be seen in the church—on the screen and the roof-bosses.
Apart from such rather dry particulars, it is not much that I can tell you of the public annals of Bampton, but one morsel relating to the Bourchier reign you must swallow, if only for its rarity. In May 1607, Walter Yonge, of Colyton, thus wrote in his diary: “There were earthquakes felt in divers parts of this realm, and, namely, at Barnstaple, Tiverton, and Devonshire; also I heard it by one of Bampton credibly reported that there it was felt also. And at Bampton, being four”—Tush, Squire Yonge, it is full seven—“miles from Tiverton, there was a little lake which ran by the space of certain hours, the water whereof was as blue as azure, yet notwithstanding as clear as possible might be. It was seen and testified by many who were eye-witnesses, and reported to me by Mr Twistred, who dwelleth in the same parish, and felt the earthquake.”
Can it be that this “little lake”—good Devonshire for running water—was the shut-up and buried, but by no means dared or dead, Shuttern stream? Perchance it was. Flowing under broad Brook Street, in times of flood he emerges and revenges himself for his confinement, spreading across the roadway, and swamping the sunken cottages, and waxing a lake indeed, in the Biblical acceptation of the term. But the Shuttern was not shut up or buried for many a year after the miracle. He flowed muddily along in open channel, though straitly enclosed by banks and spanned at intervals by bridges—a poor copy of a Venetian canal and a rare playground for the oppidan ducks. Now they have to waddle their way, and a long way it is for some of them, to the Batherum, a few, it may be, tumbling down the hill from Briton Street. And let not Master Printer, in his wisdom, correct to “Britain Street,” as he hath aforetime been moved to do. For “Briton” is the recognised and official spelling, and who is he that he should alter and amend what has been approved by lawful authority?
The Conscript Fathers of the town are greatly exercised at such odious disguisings of the true and proper form, which they rightly decline to sanction or accept. I am with them, heart and soul. Here in Beamdune, in this very street, the ancient Britons—’twas in 614—fought a great fight for freedom against the West Saxons, and there were slain of them forty and two thousand. The present inhabitants are descended from the vanquished, the Britons. You doubt it? Then little you know of their intermarriages. An outsider has no chance. Why even the pedlars and pedlaresses complain of Bampton’s closeness. “They’re no use,” they exclaim, “they deal only with their own people.” You still doubt? Then I renounce you as a heathen man and a publican.[9]
Bampton’s chief boast is its fair, which is held on the last Thursday in October, and attracts thousands of visitors, many of them coming from considerable distances. It is not easy to say precisely why, since there are other places nearer the moor, but for a long succession of years the town has served as the principal mart for the wild Exmoor ponies, deprived of which the fair would no doubt rapidly dwindle. These shaggy little horses—a good number of them mere “suckers”—are sold by auction, and the incidents connected with their coming and going, and their manners in the sale-ring, constitute the “fun of the fair.”
On the last occasion when I travelled to Bampton Fair, my compartment was entered by a gipsy belle with abundance of raven hair in traces, the dark complexion of her race, the regulation earrings and trinkets, and much conversational fluency. She had come up from Exeter on the chance of meeting with some of her people whom she had not seen for several years. That brought to my recollection a prevalent belief that the Romany folk have a septennial reunion, no doubt intended to be cordial and friendly in the extreme. Nevertheless, I can answer for it that the intention is not always fulfilled, for on one fair day two rival tribes fought a pitched battle with blackthorns, etc., in the orchard of the Tiverton Hotel. And the women will fight like the men, and with the men. They are artful beggars. A gipsy matron guided round a youngster of three or four years, with his small legs already encased in trousers, to claim a penny, because on one hand he had little excrescent thumbs. The boy could hold a penny between these thumbs, and, on being given a coin, was told to say “Thank you,” his mother expressing her gratitude with the wish, “May you enjoy the lady you loves!”
It is a safe assumption that no one visits a place of the size of Bampton—at all events, at ordinary times—without having a look at the church. Ten years ago you would have been rewarded with the spectacle of high pews, over the backs of which I can remember feminine eyes taking stock of the congregation. Nose and mouth were not visible, and consequently the fair damsels had somewhat the appearance of hooded Turkish ladies. Now that Bampton Church has been swept and garnished and the arcade straightened—it fell over quite two feet and crushed the timbers in the aisle—the building hardly seems the same, but the most valuable features, to an antiquary, remain untouched.
Entering the chancel from the churchyard, you will find against the north wall fragments of bold and graceful sculpture, with tabernacle work, tracery, shields, the symbol I.H.S., and the Bourchier knot and water bouget, or budget, as it is sometimes written. Perhaps “bucket” may be permissible as a variant, since the bearing, which is in the form of a yoke with two pouches of leather appended to it, was originally intended to represent bags slung on a pole which was carried across the shoulders—an arrangement adopted by the Crusaders for conveying water over the desert. To return to the fragments, they were part of two ancient monuments which, according to the Rev. Bartholomew Davy, formerly stood in the chancel; on their removal, about a hundred years ago, the sides were used to line the wall.
That the monuments covered the remains of Sir John Bourchier, knight, Lord Fitzwarner, created Earl of Bath July 9, 1536, and those of his father, is certain. The will of the former, bearing date October 20, 1535, and proved June 11, 1541, expressly directs that his body shall be buried in the parish church of Bampton, Devon, in the place there where his father lies buried, and that a tomb or stone of marble be made and set over the grave where his body shall be buried, with his picture, arms, and recognisances, and the day and the year engraven and fixed on the same tomb within a year after his decease. During the restoration the workmen discovered under the place where the organ now stands, a vault containing several ridged coffins, believed to be those of members of the Bourchier family, but, as the dates were not taken, this is merely a matter of speculation.