“Thy orchards gemmed with milk-white bloom,
Thy whispering woodlands, grateful gloom,
Thy tower, whose fair proportions rise,
’Mid the green trees, to summer skies—
“Viewed thus afar, by one just fled
From the vast city’s restless tread,
He well might deem, when gazing here,
His footsteps pressed some lovelier sphere.”
Both Combmartin and Martinhoe—Martin’s vale and Martin’s hill—received their name from one of William the Conqueror’s ablest lieutenants, Martin of Tours.
The horrible murder which gave rise to the traditional couplet,
“If anyone asketh who killed thee,
Say ’twas the Doones of Bagworthy,”
is located by Blackmore in the parish of Martinhoe, and he subjoins the following note: “The story is strictly true; and true it is that the country-people rose, to a man, at this dastard cruelty, and did what the Government failed to do.” The term “strictly” seems to imply that Blackmore had been informed by some authority that Martinhoe was the place of the tragedy, and that murder was aggravated by abduction. On both these points the account in Lorna Doone is at variance with Mr Cooper’s version (quoted on p. 144), which mentions Exford as the scene of the butchery, and altogether omits the other incident. Of course, there may have been different versions floating about.
Past Lee Bay and Wooda Bay, both sweetly sylvan, the pilgrim fares to the Valley of Rocks and Lynton.
ENVOY
The most expeditious mode of returning from the precipices and cascades of Lynton is by means of the light railway to Barnstaple. The conscientious pilgrim, however, will not quit the neighbourhood without visiting Parracombe, which ought to be, in a peculiar sense, his Mecca. In the prologue, reasons have been advanced, which need not be repeated, why this is the case, and although our course has been a devious one, it will now be recognised that there was method in the madness. The spot which must have been to Blackmore the most sacred of all—except, perhaps, Teddington Churchyard, where his wife slept her last sleep—was surely Parracombe—the home of his race; and here I propose to take leave of the reader. The local traffic being small, trains do not stop at Parracombe all the year round, but at any time this courtesy will be extended to passengers desiring it.
The manor of Parracombe was formerly in the hands of the St Albans (or Albyns) family, joined by Blackmore (Maid of Sker, chapter lxvi.) with the Tracys and Bassets, as among the most distinguished in North Devon. About a century and a half ago their lands were sold, principally to yeomen who farmed the soil; and, as we have seen, the Blackmores belonged to this category. A representative of the clan still owns Court Place and Church Town farms; and Mr H. R. Blackmore, proprietor of the “Fox and Goose,” can claim to be second cousin of the novelist.