Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts

by Rosalind Northcote

The first little town that the Exe comes to in Devonshire is Bampton, nowadays best known, perhaps, for its pony-fairs, when (so runs one account) 'Exmoor ponies throng the streets, flood the pavements, overflow the houses, pervade the place. Wild as hawks, active and lissom as goats, cajoled from the moors, and tactfully manœuvred when penned, these indigenous quadrupeds will leap or escalade lofty barriers in a standing jump or a cat-like scramble.' Cattle and sheep are less conspicuously for sale at this popular and crowded fair, held on the last Thursday in October.

The first fact recorded of Bampton's history is of such ancient date that it may be hoped the vastness of the achievement has been rounded and filled out during the flight of time; for the historian, with unconscious irony, blandly remarks that here 'Cynegils, first Christian King of the West Saxons,' put twenty thousand (or maybe more) Britons to the sword. He does not mention how Cynegils continued his propagation of the Gospel.

The nave of the church at Bampton is built in the manner most common to this country—that is, early Perpendicular, but the chancel is Decorated. In many of the churches there is some portion of Decorated work. The screen and roof of the church are worth seeing, and in the churchyard are several unusually large and fine old yew-trees, one or two girdled by stone benches. Leaving Bampton, one passes along a green and fertile valley, the fields interrupted at intervals by copses, where thickets of undergrowth and multitudes of young saplings are struggling for the mastery—a picture of prodigal wealth in plants, bushes, and trees.

Seven miles to the south is Tiverton. Tiverton is a small town, but its story is interesting, and incidents cluster round the castle, church, the well-known school, and the former kersies and wool-market, and, besides, it is filled with memories of the melancholy experiences it has passed through—fires, floods, the plague, and at least one siege.

The borough was originally granted by Henry I to his cousin, Richard de Riparis (or de Redvers or Rivers), Earl of Devon, whose descendants possessed it for nearly two centuries, when, the direct line failing, the borough and title passed to a cousin, a Courtenay, in whose family the title still remains.

Richard de Redvers, 'the faithful and beloved counsellor' of Henry I, is supposed to have begun the Castle of Tiverton, and he attached to it 'two parks for pleasure and large and rich demesne for hospitality.' His grandson, William Rivers, was one of the four Earls who carried the silken canopy at the second coronation of King Richard I, after his return from Palestine. William's daughter, Mary, married Robert Courtenay, Baron of Okehampton; and so it was that, when the House of Rivers became extinct in the male line, their possessions passed to the Courtenays, and Mary's great-grandson became first Earl of Devon of the line of the Courtenays.

It is not thought probable that the Castle as it stands contains work older than the fourteenth century. Part of the building of that date remains unaltered, and part has been transformed into a modern house. The old walls are in places covered with ivy, and on the southern side are pierced by one or two pointed windows whose stonework is more or less broken. A round tower at the southeastern angle still looks very solid and undisturbed. At a few yards' distance, on the south of the Castle, stand the ruins of the chapel; the walls of three sides are still standing, although imperfect and partly fallen down, and almost smothered in ivy. Originally this square tower at the south-west angle was joined to the Castle, and two more round towers stood at the northern angles. Near the chapel is a low wall, and looking over it one sees a very steep slope to the river, sixty feet beneath. A wide and deep moat surrounded the Castle on the other sides.

It is said that Tiverton suffered both in the Civil War of 1150 and also in the Wars of the Roses, and though there is little evidence to support this assertion, there can be no doubt that indirectly the town must have been disagreeably affected. For Baldwin de Redvers fortified his castle at Exeter, and it is very likely that retainers from Tiverton were sent to strengthen the garrison; and when the Earl was driven from the country by King Stephen, his servants and their families were probably distressed by want, if not by the sword.

During the Wars of the Roses, three successive Earls of Devon lost their lives, and many of their followers must have fallen too, leaving defenceless widows and children.

The Earls of Devon had many manors, but lived much in their Castle at Tiverton, and some were buried in the adjoining church of St Peter. To the third Earl, known as 'the Good' or 'the Blind' Earl, and his wife a tomb was erected, 'having their effigies of alabaster, sometimes sumptuously gilded.' So writes Risdon, about the year 1630, and adds regretfully, 'Time hath not so much defaced, as men have mangled that magnificent monument.' It has now entirely disappeared. The epitaph it bore was this: