Clovelly
The harbour is very small, but on a cliff-bound, dangerous coast it is one of the very few between Bideford and Padstow. Clovelly's great herring fishery used to be famous, but it is not now so large as it used to be.
Above the village, the beautiful park of Clovelly Court lies along the cliffs, looking over the wide distances of Bideford Bay; and on a fine day the Welsh coast may be seen. Inland, great forest trees tower above a miniature forest of bracken, and at the opening of a glade one may catch glimpses of the deer appearing and vanishing again.
The Carys were in very ancient days settled at St Giles-in-the-Heath, but a branch of them came to Clovelly in the reign of Richard II. They were of the same race as the Carys of Torre Abbey, and the family of whom Lord Falkland is the head. John Cary, who acquired the property, was a distinguished character. As a Judge, 'he scattered the rays of justice about him, with great splendour.' He was called to show firmness and loyalty under the most trying circumstances, but, 'true as steel ... the greatest dangers could not affright him from his duty and loyalty to his distressed master Richard II, unto whom he faithfully adhered when most others had forsaken him.' When the King had been deposed, 'this reverend Judge, unable and unwilling to bow like a willow with every blast of wind, did freely and confidently speak his mind.' So faithfully did he maintain King Richard's cause that, when Henry IV came to the throne, the Judge was banished the kingdom, and his goods and lands were confiscated. These, Sir Robert Cary, his son, recovered literally at the point of the sword, for a 'certain Knight-errand of Arragon,' of great skill in feats of arms, 'arrived here in England, where he challenged any man of his rank and quality.' Sir Robert accepted the challenge, and a 'long and doubtful combat was waged in Smithfield, London.' In the end the 'presumptious Arrogonoise' was vanquished, and Henry V, to whom Sir Robert's gallantry appealed, restored him 'a good part of his father's lands,' and granted him leave to bear 'in a field silver, on a bend sable, three white roses,' the arms of the conquered knight—the arms that the Carys still bear. The Clovelly branch of the family is now extinct.
A little to the south of Clovelly, and on high ground, are Clovelly Dykes, the remains of an old camp, sometimes called British and sometimes Roman. It is large and circular, and the position was strengthened by three great trenches, about eighteen feet deep and three hundred feet long, which lie around it. The camp commands the only old road in the surrounding country.
About seven or eight miles to the west is the grand headland of Hartland Point. It is a narrow ridge that rises precipitously three hundred and fifty feet above the water, projects far out into the sea, and abruptly ends the coast-line to the west. The coast is very fine, but also most dangerous, and the cliffs, cleft here and there by great chasms, fall sheer down to needle-points of hard black slate rock jutting out into the sea.
The name of Herty Point, as it used to be called, was originally, says Camden, 'Hercules's promontory,' and this title has given rise to 'a very formal story that Hercules came into Britain and killed I know not what giants.' Here Camden pauses in his description of the place, to consider whether there ever was a Hercules at all, and, if so, whether there were not really forty-three Hercules; and if this was not so, whether Hercules was perhaps 'a mere fiction to denote the strength of human prudence,' or, again, possibly a myth personifying the sun, and his labours the signs of the zodiac, 'which the sun runs through yearly.' On the whole, he decides that, at any rate, Hercules never came to Britain, but the name might have been given to the point by the Greeks 'out of vanity,' because 'they dedicated everything they found magnificent in any place to the glory of Hercules.'
Four miles south-east of the headland lies Hartland town. It has been briefly described as 'a very quiet street of grey stone cottages and whitewashed houses on a high and windy tableland.' Close by is Hartland Abbey, founded, according to tradition, by Githa, the wife of Earl Godwin, and mother of Harold II, in honour of St Nectan; for she 'highly reverenced the man, and verily believed that through his merits her husband had escaped shipwreck in a dangerous tempest.' In the reign of Henry II, leave was given to Oliver de Dynant to change the community of secular canons into regular canons of St. Augustine's order, and to found a monastery for them. But between the successors of the founder and the canons matters did not always run smoothly; in fact, on one occasion, about a hundred years later, they actually came to blows in the church, as is made clear by an entry in the register of Bishop Bronescombe, for it records that the bishop had reconciled the church, 'which had been polluted by an effusion of blood in an affray between Oliver de Dinham and the canons.'
After the Dissolution the Abbey was bestowed by the King upon the Sergeant of his cellar, a man named Abbott. Parts of the Abbey remained unaltered and in good repair till the end of the eighteenth century, when, in building the present house, the unfortunate taste of the period destroyed the hall, which was over seventy feet long, and a portion of the cloisters, which were then still perfect. Parts of them, however, are still standing. The cloisters had been rebuilt at a very early date, for Dr. Oliver quotes an inscription which was over one of the arches that shows them to be the work of the Abbot John of Exeter, who resigned in 1329. Bishop Stapledon had found many defects in the structure of the Abbey, when he made his visitation in 1319, and had ordered them to be at once remedied. During the alterations made about one hundred and twenty years ago, the monument of a Knight Hospitaller was found, and within the last few years small pieces of carved stone have been dug up—amongst others, a Madonna's head with traces of blue and gold still upon it; a monk kneeling, and a knight and lady hand in hand. The Abbey is now the property of Sir Lewis Stucley.
Nearer the shore, and on high ground, is the church of St Nectan, whose tall pinnacled tower is a landmark to sailors. The tower is Perpendicular, but most of the church is late Decorated, and the north side has a Norman doorway. The great feature is the very beautiful screen which stretches across the whole church; but the cradle roofs are good, and there is other carving. On the pulpit is the figure of a goat with tusks, and the puzzling inscription, 'God save King James. Fines.' The Norman font is curiously sculptured with grotesque faces that look down on to equally quaint faces on the pedestal—an allegory in stone which Mr Hawker of Morwenstow interpreted as the righteous looking down on the wicked.