From the lantern tower of the hotel, rising far above the buildings near, and also from some of the windows in the upper floor, is to be obtained a magnificent view of the Sound, with the near Breakwater, and the Eddystone Lighthouse, “far out at sea;” while the grassy slopes of lovely Mount Edgcumbe and its tree-capped heights are seen to rise in front, overhanging the land-locked harbour, called Hamoaze.
[12] The grounds are on Mondays freely open to all comers; but on any day visitors will be admitted to them by application at the Manor Office, Stonehouse, near to the ferry by which passengers are conveyed across. There is, however, a road for carriages; but that implies a drive of twelve miles there and twelve miles back, besides the drive of five or six miles round the Park.
[13] The date of the erection of Maker Church is not known. It was originally dedicated to St. Julian, and there is a well near the church still designated St. Julian’s well.
[14] The name of Cothele is conjectured to be hence derived: coit being a wood in ancient Cornish, and hel a river: the wood by the river, or, in a mixture of British and Old English, the hall in the wood, healle being a hall or manor-house. The name occurs in many very ancient records, temp. Henry III., “William Cothele engages to defend by his body, in duel, the right of Roger de Wanton and Katerine, his wife, to lands in Somerset against William de Deveneys.”
[15] It is now the residence of the Dowager Countess Mount-Edgcumbe, who, we rejoice to know, cherishes every portion of the venerable mansion, with its decorations and contents. It is made thoroughly comfortable, yet without in the slightest degree impairing its “natural” character; scarcely, indeed, displacing a single relic of antiquity, of which every room contains some singular, interesting, and often beautiful, examples. The people are admitted freely to the woods and grounds; and parties visit there nearly every day—a steamboat running daily, in summer, up the Tamar, from Plymouth.
[16] Carew describes the building as “auncient, large, strong, and faire;” he was born in 1555, and wrote before 1600; and would scarcely have described a building as “auncient,” which had been erected only a century before his time. He describes also the chapel as “richly furnished by the devotion of times past.”
[17] At Watcombe, a pretty village two miles from Torquay, there has recently been established a manufactory of works in terra-cotta. They originated in the discovery of clay of remarkable fineness and delicacy, and beauty of colour. The productions issued by the works are of great excellence in design and execution: they are deservedly popular.
[18] For several of the engravings that are introduced into the following papers upon Alnwick Castle we desire to tender our best thanks to his Grace the Duke of Northumberland; they were originally printed in a history of the illustrious family of the Percies, of which a few copies were presented to private friends.
[19] Thus writes one of the Lords Wardens, temp. Eliz.: “God blessed me so well in all my designs as I never made journey in vain, but did what I went for;” i.e., “hanging or heading.”
[20] The name of Alnwick has been variously spelt at different periods. Thus, among other ways, it has been spelt Alnawic, Alnewyke, Alnewyc, Alnewick, Annwik, Annewic, Annewyke, Anwik, Anwick, &c. Formerly it appears to have been pronounced with the Scotch twang, An-ne-wick, as though spelt in three syllables. It is now by all natives of the place called Annick. Aln (the name of the river), like the names of our rivers, hills, and mountains, is Celtic, or ancient British, and was given by one of the earliest tribes settling in Britain; for in Hiberno-Celtic we have Alain, signifying white, bright, or clear. Alnwick (wick being a street, village, or dwelling-place), therefore, is the town on the bright clear river.