“Prior to the Municipal Corporations Reform Act, 1834, these three officers always proceeded with the Mayor and other members of the Corporation to the Parish Church every Sunday morning. All the members wore robes; those who had passed the office of Mayor wore scarlet gowns, the other members were robed in black. A posse of the borough constables always preceded this procession, carrying blue staves with the borough arms in gilt letters on the upper end. These staves were about six feet long, and are preserved at the Guildhall. As soon as the second lesson had been read, the four took their staves in their hands, and holding them aloft, marched sedately out of church, to pay visits to the public-houses, in order to see if any person was tippling in them during Divine Service. The first place of call was the ‘Ring of Bells,’ adjacent to the churchyard, where, knowing the exact time their visit would be paid, the landlord had four half-pints of ale in readiness for their delectation as soon as they arrived. A similar visit was next paid to the ‘King’s Arms,’ and similar treatment awaited them there. Generally by the time these two visits had been paid, the congregation at the church had been dismissed, and the vigilant constables retired to their respective homes to preside over the family dinner, and to
say grace, after eating it, as good churchmen should do.”
We are now to travel back three centuries and more, to the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Leaving Southmolton for a time, we set out in the first instance for an ancient manor-house about three miles distant, in the parish of Bishop’s Nympton. In doing so, we pass two old factories, which formerly gave employment to three hundred combers, etc. One of them is now a grist mill, while the other is turned to account as a collar factory, in which a score or two of women imitate the “little busy bee.” As for the men who once worked in the mills, on the break-up of the industry some transferred their services to Mr Vicary, of North Tawton, while others migrated to Yorkshire.
A well-remembered character at Southmolton, Chappie, the parish clerk, was seated as usual at the foot of the pulpit, when the late rector, Mr King, being momentarily at a loss, whispered down to him, “What do they make at the factory?” Chappie replied in an audible tone, “Serge.” Whereupon the preacher resumed, “I am informed,” etc., drawing an illustration from the fabric.
Through winding lanes and some rough fields, which Leland would probably have described as “morisch,” lies the approach to Whitechapel, and were it not for the railway, with its “level crossing,” the spot would be rightly described as sequestered, and such as could hardly be excelled as the scene of a tragedy or perhaps a romance. The house stands on the slope of a green hill, against which its white walls stand pleasantly outlined. It has two courtyards, the inner being entered by a gateway flanked by tall brick pillars surmounted by huge globes. It is said that on this inner platform were mounted cannon—a battery of five pieces of ordnance. About fifty years ago the original mullioned windows were removed by a farmer-tenant, and deposited in a cellar, where they were lately discovered. Some of them have been re-inserted in the right end of the building. In the rear the remains of an old hearth have been found, showing that cooking was carried on outside the house proper. The interior is remarkable for a splendid oak screen. The place is now in thoroughly good hands, but it has naturally suffered from having been so long a farmhouse, the occupiers of which were profoundly indifferent to its contents and history. The present owner, Captain Glossop, when I met him, was bringing taste and energy to bear on the old mansion, although portions of it were beyond repair.
Working backwards, I find that at the beginning of the last century the property was in Chancery, and sold by the order of the Lord Chancellor by public auction. The purchaser was a familiar figure in Southmolton, a Mr Sanger, who occupied Whitechapel till his death. He made it his boast that he cut down and sold enough timber on the estate to pay the whole of the purchase money. At one time the property belonged to an ancestor of Sir John Heathcoat-Amory; and during the Civil Wars it was the residence of Colonel Basset, one of Prince’s “Worthies.” Blackmore clearly remembered this circumstance when he introduced Sir Roger Bassett into his work (Lorna Doone, chapter xlvi.), and allowed him to be victimised by the joint cunning of lawyers and outlaw.
According to Prince, the place was the original home of all the Bassets; and the walls, as they now stand, were built during the reign of Elizabeth by Sir Robert de Basset, on the site of an earlier structure, and in the fashionable shape of an E. A few years later the knight lost his wife, and having had the good fortune to win the heart and hand of Mistress Beaumont of Umberleigh, removed to her mansion, standing where once had stood King Athelstan’s palace. Umberleigh was afterwards the property of John o’ Gaunt, from whom it passed to a relative—a fact to which old doggerel lines bear witness: