Motor Tours in the West Country

by Mrs. Rodolph Stawell

DUNSTER.

It is a very notable church. “The late priory of blake monkes,” says Leland, “stoode yn the rootes of the north-west side of the castelle, and was a celle to Bathe. The hole chirch of the late priory servith now for the paroche chirch. Afore tymes the monkes had the est parte closid up to their use.” Of late years the church has been restored to the form it had aforetimes, with the seats of the prior and monks, and the monastic choir. The very beautiful rood-screen with the canopy of fan-tracery, which was set up in the fifteenth century, forms the entrance to the parish choir: the choir of the monks is reached through the curious arch that is wider below than above—an arrangement made by the brothers themselves to allow room for their processions. Round about the high altar of the priory are monuments of the Luttrells. Thomas Luttrell, whose great Elizabethan memorial is in the south-east chapel, was the father of the man who rebuilt the castle and did so much for Dunster—George Luttrell, who kneels here in effigy; and the slab that now lies under the window of the south aisle once covered the grave of the Lady Elizabeth who, as a widow, bought the manor of Dunster from the widow of Sir John de Mohun. On the north side of the altar is the alabaster figure, though probably not the tomb, of her son Sir Hugh, first Luttrell of Dunster, Great Seneschal of Normandy, Steward of the Household to Queen Joan, a warrior who won much renown in fighting the French and the great Glyndwr and the little Perkin Warbeck. Most of the Mohuns were buried at their abbey of Bruton, but here in the monks’ choir, under a canopy, is the figure of Dame Hawise, wife of the second Sir Reynold de Mohun.

Near the church are some remains of the monastic buildings: the refectory, the prior’s apparently impregnable barn, a couple of archways, and, in the vicarage garden, a lovely thirteenth-century dovecot with a tiled roof and hanging creepers.

Although the “glory of this toun rose by the Moions,” and though the memory of them is everywhere, it is so many centuries since they went away to Cornwall—to Hall near Fowey, and later to Boconnoc—that there are few actual relics of them left. Of the three castles that they built successively upon the hill there remains little more than a gateway of the third, the gateway with the massive door and the mighty knocker of iron. It is just within the main entrance, and strangely enough was built by the husband of Dame Hawise, whose tomb is the only Mohun monument in the church. The castellated gatehouse itself is the work of the first Luttrell of Dunster. His descendants still live in the great red dwelling-house with the martlets of the Luttrells over the door, but by their kindness we are allowed, with a guide, to climb the steep path under the yew-hedge that is sixty feet high; and to see the strange half-tropical plants of the gardens, the cork-tree and the lemon-tree upon the wall; and then to climb still higher to the bowling-green and look out upon the park and the Severn Sea.

This was not always a bowling-green. It was here that the keep stood till great Robert Blake, as formidable on shore as at sea, brought all his batteries against it, and the Parliament finally dismantled it. The whole castle, indeed, would have been ruined if it had not been wanted as a prison for poor Mr. Prynne. Some years earlier, while there was a royalist garrison in the castle, young Prince Charles was sent hither for safety; and here, as elsewhere, tradition has assigned a certain Red Room to him, for no other reason than that it contained a hiding-hole.[18]

There is a real delight, after all our experiences on the rough precipitous hills of Devon, in swinging away from Dunster on a good and level road—the road that is on the whole the best in Somerset. So pleasant is it that some, no doubt, will stoutly refuse to pause or turn aside for many a mile. For others, however, the lure of ancient stones is very strong; and these will leave the highway more than once between Dunster and Taunton. In Washford, for instance, there is a turn to the right that leads in a moment to the Abbey of Cleeve. Here in a rough field stands the gatehouse with the genial motto, Patens porta esto, ulli claudaris honesto, and the statue of the abbey’s patron-saint, and upon the inner side the crucifix and the tablet with the builder’s name, Dovel. Poor William Dovel, last abbot of Cleeve, had a sore heart when he passed out under these pointed arches that he had raised for others, not himself, to use, and saw his own name overhead upon the masonry, and remembered all his loving, futile work upon the walls of his abbey. It was a poor Cistercian house, with a small income and no jewels nor golden chalices to tempt a king; but even trifling sums were acceptable to Henry, and though a thousand marks were offered for “his grasious goodnes,” the abbey was doomed. So William Dovel went forth of this gate, and with him “XVII prystes off very honest lyffe and conversation,” who “kept alwayes grett hospytalyte to the relyffe off the countre.” There is much of Dovel’s work in the buildings of the monastery. As we enter the garth the western cloister is on our left, with Perpendicular windows and mossy roof; facing us are the little pointed windows of the dormitory, and below them the Early English doorway of the vaulted chapter-house. Dovel’s refectory, with timbered roof and carved finials, is reached by a staircase on the southern side of the quadrangle, and behind it in a little garden is a pavement of heraldic tiles, bearing the arms of many benefactors. Of the church hardly anything remains.

GATEHOUSE, CLEEVE ABBEY.

Our good road takes us on, through Williton, to the foot of the Quantocks, with the sea and the distant Welsh shore upon the left. Beyond the railway we bear round to the right and drive below the green and purple slopes of the hills that were loved and often trodden by Coleridge, and Wordsworth, and Hazlitt, the hills on which the writing of the Ancient Mariner was planned. At Crowcombe among the trees there is a tall cross in the village, and a beautiful one in the churchyard, and a porch with fan-tracery. About three miles beyond this we may turn aside for a moment to Combe Florey, and see the old red manor-house of the Floreys with their three flowers over the gateway, and the village where Sydney Smith’s blue pills were a doubtful blessing, and the church where he preached, and the vicarage on the hill, where he tried to impose upon his London visitors by fastening antlers to his donkeys’ heads. It was here that Henry Luttrell spent a day with him. “He had not his usual soup-and-pattie look,” wrote Sydney Smith, “but a sort of apple-pie depression, as if he had been staying with a clergyman.… He was very agreeable, but spoke too lightly, I thought, of veal soup.”[19]