Motor Tours in the West Country

by Mrs. Rodolph Stawell

Here, on the very border, there is a long rise and an extremely sharp turn, on the hill where Yarcombe stands. After this winding climb we run down easily through lovely wooded country into the straight, wide street of Honiton. This is a name that rouses deep emotion in every female heart, and to the female ear I will confide the fact that Honiton lace, as made to-day in Honiton, is perhaps more really beautiful than it has ever been; and there is a certain little upper room, not hard to find, where the enthusiast may watch swift fingers and flying bobbins. Except these filmy bramble-leaves and roses there is nothing of interest in Honiton. Sir William Pole summed it up three centuries ago, and his words describe it accurately to this day. “This towne is a very prety towne indifferently well bwilded, and hath his market on the Saterday.”

By the direct road Exeter is only fifteen miles away, but by making quite a short détour we may see the birthplaces of Coleridge and Sir Walter Raleigh, and catch a glimpse of the sea. A mile or two of splendid Roman road, and a shady lane, take us to Ottery St. Mary and its famous church; the church, says Pole, that John Grandison, Bishop of Exeter, “bwilded in imitatinge of ye church of St. Peter’s in Exon, with ye cannons’ howses round about, standinge in a sweete wholsom advanced ground.” He did not actually “bwild” it, however, but rather enlarged it and made it collegiate, and left upon it the marks of that taste for splendour in which he indulged more fully at Exeter. Not only a great part of the fabric itself is his, but the painted reredos and the stone screen and the choir-stalls were his gifts. The pulpit is of a much more modern date; but it is the very same from which Coleridge’s father was in the habit of addressing his congregation in Hebrew, “the authentic language of the Holy Ghost.” The grammar-school in which the poet spent his childhood with his twelve brethren no longer exists; but we may still see the narrow lanes where little Samuel, a visionary already, curvetted on an imaginary horse and slew the enemies of Christendom as represented by the wayside nettle. And here, close at hand, is the little Otter, and the “marge with willows grey” by which he loved to dream.

Long before Coleridge played his warlike games there were horsemen of a sterner sort riding hither and thither through these lanes. Fairfax spent a busy fortnight here, resting his army, “who never stood in more need of it,” but by no means resting himself: visiting the works at Broad Clyst, caring for his dying soldiers, and doing his best to make peace between King and Parliament. “To be general raised him onely to do more, not to be more than others,” said a man who was with him here. Where he lodged I do not know, nor the spot where he was presented with a “fair jewel” in the name of both Houses, in gratitude for the services “he performed for this kingdome at Naseby Battel.” It is certain, however, that a deputation brought it to Ottery, and “tyed it in a blue Ribband and put it about his neck.”

SIDMOUTH.

Sidmouth is only five miles away from Ottery, and lies so prettily between its two headlands that it is worth seeing, though the lanes that lead to it are hilly. It is quite an old place, really. Its prettiness, however, does not at all depend upon its age, but on the ruddy cliffs that bound the bay, and the little brown stream that runs down through the shingle to the sea, and the tiny cascade that glitters in the sun, and the groups of boats that lie upon the beach. Yet, driving through the western part of the town, we see that Sidmouth after all is merely a typical watering-place. Here is the esplanade we know so well, and the row of bathing-boxes, and the shrill-voiced nursemaid with her shriller charge, and the dreaded pierrot. Beyond that western end rises the Peak Hill, and up its steep side lies our way.

It is steep indeed; both steep and very long. Before it is faced the hill-climbing powers of the car should be carefully considered, for the gradient at one point is at least one in five, and is extremely steep for a considerable distance. But from this height the blue bay and red rocks of Sidmouth look very lovely through the trees, and at the top of the hill there are colours enough on a sunny day to repay us for much climbing: pale blue hills and a dark blue sea, and a wide expanse of varying greens, and to the left a red cliff, and to the right, perhaps, a patch of brilliant heather. Very carefully—for the lanes are narrow and steep—we run down the other side of the hill that has just been laboriously climbed, and reach the pretty street of Otterton, with its runnel and little bridges, and thatched cottages, and background of trees. We cross the Otter, and are soon in East Budleigh, the twisting, straggling village near which Sir Walter Raleigh was born.

In the grey church on the knoll above the street we may see the Raleigh arms, and with them the three “horsemen’s rests” that figure in so many shields—the arms of the great Grenvilles. The bench-end that bears them is the first on the left side of the aisle, and was carved early in the sixteenth century, when one of the Raleighs married Honor Grenville. Sir Walter’s mother, we need not doubt, sat in this pew many a time, for the Raleighs lived only a mile away at Hayes Barton. We can find the house quite easily, standing beside a little sloping green: a low, gabled, grey house, with a thatched roof and a gay old-fashioned garden. There have been many changes here, of course, since that sixteenth-century baby first blinked at the world he was destined to explore; but even then this was a humble home for the daughter of the Champernownes, the mother of two great men. For through this heavy oaken door that swings slowly open to admit us has passed not only Walter Raleigh in his nurse’s arms, but also the Eton boy who was his big half-brother, Humphrey Gilbert. Of the life that was lived and the ideals that were taught under the gables of Hayes Barton we may perhaps guess something, not over rashly, from the last words of these two boys when they came to die, each his tragic death. “This,” said Sir Walter with a smile as he felt the axe, “is a sharp medicine that will cure all diseases.” “We are so near Heaven at sea as on land,” said Sir Humphrey as his last storm broke over him.

That Sir Walter loved this house, of which his father was only a tenant, we have good evidence; for when he was a man he tried in vain to buy it. Here, in the room on the left side of the doorway, is a copy of the letter he wrote to Mr. Duke. “I will most willingly give you what so:ever in your conscience you shall deeme it worthe.… You shall not find mee an ill neighbore.… For the naturall disposition I have to that place, being borne in that howse, I had rather seat mysealf ther than any wher else.”