Let us stroll through the town in search of adventures. Naturally, our steps will be directed, in the first instance, to the parish church, of which the inhabitants are extremely proud. Well, it is handsome, very handsome—sumptuous, if you like—but the interior is nearly all brand-new. As to that, however, there are exceptions, and I will undertake to affirm that the amazing gargoyle on the north side of the chancel arch, albeit there are gargoyles on the Town Hall and gargoyles on the “George,” is not of our time. Apparently, it is the face of a craftsman, and, quite possibly, that of the master-builder of the church. The pulpit also is ancient; the four evangelists’ flattened countenances and noses sadly out of repair proclaim a reckoning with time. The font is ancient and goodly. The tower is a fine one, as is also that of Northmolton; but if you would see what North Devon can show in the shape of church towers, away to Chittlehampton. There is a local proverb: “Southmolton for strength; Chittlehampton for beauty,” and tradition states that the tower of the fane of St Heriswitha was erected by a pupil of the man that built Southmolton tower.
For my own part, I find Southmolton churchyard, with its walled and paved avenues, more stimulating than the church. The margins of four banks were, it appears, planted with lime-trees in 1735-6, and twenty-five years later the New Walk was adorned with similar trees. These in 1866 were rooted up by a “fanatical iconoclast,” but others took their place, and so there is at present not much occasion to find fault.
I remember one September evening standing in this churchyard and talking to that worthy man, the sexton, when he mentioned to me casually that it was the scene of a desperate battle. Particulars he had none to give, and for the nonce I had forgotten my history book, so we stood and gazed in silence, with a sense of vague respect and profound mystery, at the home of the dead, on which the shades of evening were rapidly falling. Too late to enlighten him, I recalled the abortive rising of the Cavaliers in 1655, when Sir Joseph Wagstaffe, aided and abetted by a couple of Wiltshire squires, Hugh Groves and John Penruddock, and a force of loyal Cornishmen, proclaimed Prince Charles king at Southmolton, after a rather discreditable fiasco at Southampton. Cromwell’s troops were soon on their traces, and in a bloody fight, mainly in the churchyard, the Royalists were hopelessly defeated. Wagstaffe and a few of his officers escaped by jumping their horses over the north-west portion of the churchyard wall (on which some forty years ago a lime-house was built), and, crossing Exmoor, arrived at Bridgewater. Groves and Penruddock, with twenty others, were captured and conducted to the castle at Exeter, where they were arraigned for high treason, found guilty, and executed. The leaders were beheaded and the rest hanged, the drawing and quartering, ordinarily a feature in such ceremonies, being omitted.
Comedy, as well as tragedy, may claim Southmolton churchyard for her own, for here Bampfylde Moore Carew, the famous King of the Gipsies, wreaked dire vengeance on the local bellman, who had insulted him, by appearing in the likeness of Infernal Majesty, and chasing the affrighted officer among the tombs. The fact that the ghost of an old gentleman not long deceased was reputed to walk the churchyard probably made this characteristic revenge more easy.
A ruinous building, to which no stranger uninitiated would direct more than a passing glance, stands back from the road on Factory Hill. Once it was a celebrated academy, at which nearly all the youth of Southmolton, and doubtless many boys of the neighbouring parishes, received their education. In this now abandoned seat of learning there were two departments—an English school and a Latin school—for which there were separate halls. The place wears a horrible appearance of neglect and desecration, but some of the old fittings yet remain, and when I inspected it, there were even some loose forms amongst the miscellaneous lumber. The founder was one Hugh Squier, a lesser Peter Blundell, who left injunctions that his portrait should be hung in what is now the sitting-room of a cottage, but was then, no doubt, the master’s house, and that there, as if he were bodily present, his trustees should dine once a year. The portrait has been removed to the Town Hall. There is also a beautiful miniature of Squier attached to the mayor’s chain of office, which is probably at his worship’s.
Southmolton has been a great place for poets, the best of them being perhaps Richard Manley, a journeyman saddler, who died in 1832. The following lines are taken from a poem after Gray, entitled Recollections of Schoolboy Days, and supposed to be written in front of Squier’s Free School, where the author had been taught reading, writing, and arithmetic:—
“Ah! it was there, where yon green trees are bending,
And waving gently to the sunny air,
Where schoolboys dally, anxiously contending
For empty honours in their sports—’twas there
Young life to me with hope and joy was beaming;
Its sun in brightness rose, in sweetness set;
And childhood’s happy hours were spent in dreaming
Of future bliss and happier moments yet:
And now those dreams are vanisht and forsaken
By childhood’s hopes: to manhood I awaken.”
Personally, I must confess, I should not have appreciated the pathos of the scholastic derelict but for my good friend, the late Mayor of Southmolton, who offered his services as cicerone. Mr Kingdon was formerly associated with the firm of Crosse, Day, and Crosse, solicitors, and he recollects Blackmore coming into their office, his object being to look over some documents relating to the Manor of Oare. On leaving, he complained that he had not found much to the purpose; but Mr Kingdon is not so sure.
Speaking of Mayors—and we must not forget that Master Paramore was a high member of the town council (see Lorna Doone, chapter xii.)—the chief magistrate of Southmolton is noted for the splendour of his official retinue—doubtless a legacy from the days when corporations were wont to insist more than they do now on outward show and ceremony. Mr Mills, a local historian, gives an excellent account of the old style, founded in part on his own recollections:
“The Bailiff’s livery is a coat and vest of cerulean colour, with red facings, velveteen breeches, and a gold-laced, three-cornered hat. This functionary formerly, as part of his livery, wore red stockings, but on the appointment of Mr Philip Widgery about sixty years ago (1892), he besought the Corporation to provide him with gaiters—alleging as a reason that his legs were the same shape as German flutes. His petition was granted, and he and his successors have had their legs encased in drab gaiters. The Sergeants at Mace have three-cornered hats and ample blue cloaks—both hats and cloaks being trimmed with gold lace.