Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts

by Rosalind Northcote

'Hoe! Hoe! who lyes here?
'Tis I, the goode erle of Devonshire,
With Mabill, my wyfe, to mee full dere,
Wee lyved togeather fyfty fyve yere.
That wee spent wee had;
That wee lefte wee loste;
That wee gave, wee have.'

The church is a fine Perpendicular building, and has a high embattled tower, with slender crocketed pinnacles springing sixteen feet above the summit. The roof is battlemented, and the tracery in the windows is graceful. On either side of the chancel stands an altar-tomb—that on the north side being in memory of John Waldron, on the south of George Slee, both benefactors to the town in having founded almshouses. The sides of the tombs are boldly and curiously sculptured, being covered with raised devices, and a deeply lettered inscription is engraved in the top of each. A picture of St Peter being delivered by the angel from prison, painted by Richard Cosway, hangs over a north doorway. Cosway was born in Tiverton, and the letter that accompanied his gift expressed good feeling and his warm affection for his native town.

The most distinctive feature of the church is the very decorative 'Greenway' chapel. John Greenway was a rich wool-merchant of Tiverton, and on the walls of the chapel was inscribed this couplet:

'To the honour of St. Christopher, St. Blaze, and St. Anne,
This chapel of John Greenwaye was began.'

It is interesting to note, of the three saints to whom the chapel was dedicated, that St Christopher was the patron of mariners and one of the 'sea-saints,' St Blaze the special patron of wool-combers; while St Anne particularly presides over riches. An old distich runs:

'Saint Anne gives wealth and living great to such as love her most,
And is a perfite finder-out of things that have beene lost.'

So that the help of all three was peculiarly necessary to make John Greenway a prosperous man!

The chapel is late Perpendicular, and it is most elaborately carved and decorated. The roof is covered with different kinds of ornamentation, and the cornice bears the arms of Greenway, of the Drapers' Company, and other devices. Along the corbel line are carved scenes from the Bible, beneath is a sea of gentle ripples, with several large ships in full sail upon it, and above and beside the windows is a multitude of different designs—merchants' marks, animals, roses, anchors, horses and men; and a very delightful ape sits on a projecting pedestal, close to the porch. The porch is extremely elaborate, both within and without. On the frieze are six panels, each carved with a different Scriptural subject, separated from one another by single figures. Over the porch are the arms of the Courtenays, and above them an emblem and more carving, besides two large niches, now empty, at each side of the door. Inside the porch, over the door leading into the church, is a carving of the Assumption, and the roof is richly carved with merchants' marks and other ciphers and designs on little shields. The roof inside the chapel is also carved; and in the floor is a brass engraved with the figures of the merchant and his wife—he in a long fur-edged robe, and she wearing embroidered draperies and jewels, and a pomander ball hanging on one of the long ends of her girdle.

It is interesting to hear that in this church Mendelssohn's Wedding March was first played at a wedding. The 'Midsummer Night's Dream' music had just been published as a pianoforte duet, when Mr Samuel Reay, of Tiverton, made an arrangement of it for the organ, and the first marriage at which the march was played was that of Mr Tom Daniel and Miss Dorothea Carew, in June, 1847.

Tiverton was famed in early days for its trade in wool. It is supposed that woollen goods were first manufactured here towards the end of the fourteenth century, and at the beginning of the sixteenth several merchants of the town were making ventures far and wide. Baizes, plain cloths, and kerseys were the most important of the manufactures, and there was some commerce in these with Spain. Traffic in woollen goods was now very brisk in different parts of the country, and during the reign of Henry VIII special statutes were enacted 'affecting cloths called white straits of Devon, and Devonshire kerseys called dozens.' In Elizabeth's reign trade prospered here as elsewhere; but later friction arose on the question of imports. The manufacturers on more than one occasion tried to introduce Irish worsted to weave into cloth, and this was met by the most violent opposition from the wool-combers, who believed that it would take away their work, although it was explained that their work depended on making serge for Dutch markets, for which the Irish worsted could not be used. The wool-combers had at different times various causes for complaint, and these they vented in riots so serious that (about 1749) the authorities asked for the protection of some troops, who were accordingly sent to Tiverton, and, on a fresh uproar not long after their arrival, were called out to quell the mob. Towards the latter half of the eighteenth century the woollen trade languished; but in the first quarter of the nineteenth century a new business sprang up—that of producing machine-made lace and tulle.