Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts

by Rosalind Northcote

The Tamar and the Tavy

'Tavy creeps upon
The western vales of fertile Albion;
Here dashes roughly on an aged rock,
That his intended passage doth up-lock;...
Here digs a cave at some high mountain's foot,
There undermines an oak, tears up his root:...
As (woo'd by May's delights) I have been borne
To take the kind air of a wistful morn
Near Tavy's voiceful stream (to whom I owe
More strains than from my pipe can ever flow).
Here have I heard a sweet bird never lin[7]
To chide the river for his clam'rous din;...
So numberless the songsters are that sing
In the sweet groves of that too-careless spring...
Among the rest a shepherd (though but young,
Yet hearten'd to his pipe), with all the skill
His few years could, began to fit his quill.
By Tavy's speedy stream he fed his flock,
Where when he sat to sport him on a rock,
The water-nymphs would often come unto him,
And for a dance with many gay gifts woo him.
Now posies of this flower, and then of that;
Now with fine shells, then with a rushy hat,
With coral or red stones brought from the deep
To make him bracelets, or to mark his sheep.'

W. Browne: Britannia's Pastorals.

Tavistock is a quiet little 'ancient borough,' which at the first glance from the hill to the north-west suggests the early-Victorian word 'embowered,' for it looks as if the rudiments of the town had arisen in the midst of a large wood. The town lies chiefly in a hollow, and the trees that cover the sides surround and encroach upon the streets in the pleasantest way, and their foliage, the hills on every side, and the rushing Tavy through the midst, give an un-townlike air that is charming. But to imagine, from this rustic and very still look, that the place lacked history, would be to make a great mistake. On the contrary, its history starts in such very early days that only a few scattered relics remain to show the wave of human life that passed over the country.

Between A.D. 240 and the latter half of the sixth century, the Irish made many invasions, overran the South and West of England, and settled colonies in parts of Devon and Cornwall, more especially along their northern coasts. Mr Baring-Gould, in a most interesting paper, sketches out the various descents and settlements, and traces them by their stone monuments and by the names of the Irish saints that they left in churches and villages and holy wells. Some of the invaders established themselves near Tavistock, and tokens of them have been found in the neighbourhood in the shape of three stones bearing inscriptions—one in Ogham characters. The stones are now in the Vicarage garden. 'On one, which is over seven feet high, occurs a name, probably of a Sept or tribe in Kerry, where several stones inscribed with the same name are found. On the third are the words: "Dobunii Fabri fili Enabarri...." Dobun was a faber, or smith. In Celtic organizations every tuatha, or tribe, had its chief smith.... Dobunii ... is the Latin for the genitive Douvinias, also a Kerry name.... Here, then, we have written and engraven in stone for our learning the record of an Irish settlement from Kerry in the neighbourhood of Tavistock.'

Mr Baring-Gould further mentions briefly the different tribes and peoples that have invaded and possessed themselves of the land, to be in turn conquered by new-comers, and the eventual, amalgamation of races, and quotes Professor Sullivan to the discomfiture of those who rhapsodize over the 'pure Celt' in Great Britain or Ireland—for, after all, it was Irish colonists and conquerors who 'gave their name to Scotland, and at one time occupied the coast of Wales and 'West Domnonia.'

Professor Sullivan writes: 'The Irish tenants of to-day are composed of the descendants of Firbolgs and other British and Belgic races; Milesians ... Gauls, Norwegians, Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Normans, and English.... This is a fact which should be remembered by those who theorize over the qualities of the "pure Celt," whoever they may be.' There are many amateurs whose views would be less tedious if they could be convinced by Professor Sullivan.

The memory of one Irish saint clung for centuries to Tavistock, for the abbey was dedicated jointly to St Mary the Holy Virgin, and to St Rumon, an Irish missionary who came over to Cornwall. The abbey has unfortunately been totally destroyed, and various buildings now stand on its site. The old chapter-house was pulled down by a certain Saunders, 'of barbarous memory,' 'to make way for a modern house now called the Bedford Hotel.' The refectory is used as a Unitarian chapel, and still keeps its fine pinnacled porch. A ruined tower covered with ivy, called Betsy Grimbal's Tower (a young woman was supposed to have been murdered in it), stands in grounds close by, and the other chief fragments still to be seen are the monks' still-house, a little bit of the abbey church wall, and the remains of a battlemented wall following the line of the river. The north gateway is the most perfect remnant and that has been restored. Of the religious houses in the Diocese of Exeter this monastery was the most important, and it eclipsed them all by 'the extent, convenience, and magnificence of its buildings.' Orgar, Earl of Devon, founded it in 961, and Ordulph, his son, completed it on such a grand scale, that there was room for one thousand inhabitants.

The abbey had only stood for about thirty years, when a frightful blow fell: the Danes burst upon the country, harrying it with fire and sword. They landed in Cornwall, and here Egbert hastened with his army and defeated them at Hingston Down; but a great horde broke away, and crossing the border descended on Tavistock, where the inhabitants in a body rose to meet them and a terrible battle was fought. Its deadly nature is summed up with great directness in an old jingle:

'The blood which flowed down West Street
Would heave a stone a pound weight.'