Buckfast Abbey, after having been given over to the wreckers, has been purchased by French Benedictines, expelled from France in 1882, and they are carefully rebuilding the abbey on its old lines, following all the details as turned up among the ruins. The foundations of the church have been uncovered, and show that it was of great size. It was pulled down in 1806, and the materials employed in the construction of a factory.
Staverton Church is deserving a visit because of its superb screen, that has been most carefully restored. It exhibits a screen complete in all its parts, a thing very rare. Most of these lack what was their crowning glory, the upper member. Indeed there is but one completely intact in the county—Atherington, if we except the stone screen at Exeter.
There are other screens in the neighbourhood; that of Buckland has on it some unexplained paintings.
The Celt was never a builder. His churches were rude to the last degree of rudeness. But what he delighted in was wattle-work, interlacing osiers into the most intricate and beautiful and varied designs. We may conjecture that our Celtic forefathers did not concern themselves much about the stonework of their churches, and concentrated all their efforts on a screen dividing chancel from nave, which with platting and interweaving they made into a miracle of loveliness. And this direction given to decoration hung on in Devon and Cornwall, and resulted in the glorious screens. For them, to contain them, the shells were built. Everything was sacrificed to them, and when they are swept away what remains is nakedness, disproportion, and desolation.
Of the excursions in the neighbourhood of Ashburton to scenes of loveliness I will say but little. Yet let me recommend one of singular beauty—it is called Dr. Blackall's Drive. The Tavistock road is taken till the Dart is passed at New Bridge, then after a steep ascent the highway is abandoned before Pound Gate is reached, and a turf drive runs above the Dart commanding its gorge, the Holne coppice, and Benjie Tor, and the high road is rejoined between Bell Tor and Sharp Tor. This excursion may be combined with a drive through Holne Chase, if taken on a day when the latter is open to the public.
Holne Chase, however, should be seen from both sides of the Dart, as the aspects are very different on the two sides.
Hembury and Holne Chase camps are both fine, and deserve investigation. They commanded and defended the entrance to the moor from this side. Widecombe has been spoken of under the head of Moreton.
Bovey should be visited, with its fine church and screen and painted and gilt stone pulpit, and with the Bovey Heathfield potteries.
Bovey was one of the manors of the De Tracy who was a principal hand in the murder of Thomas à Becket, and it is to this ambitious and turbulent prelate that the church is dedicated. The story goes that William de Tracy built the church at Bovey as penance for his part in the murder; but the church constructed by him was burnt about 1300, and was rebuilt in the Perpendicular style. The story was diligently propagated that De Tracy died on his way to the Holy Land, in a frenzy, tearing his flesh off his bones with his teeth and nails, and shrieking, "Mercy, Thomas, mercy!" But, as a matter of fact, no judgment of God fell on the murderers. Within four years after the murder, De Tracy was justiciary of Normandy. The present Lord Wemyss and Lord Sudeley are his lineal descendants. The pedigree, contrary to all received opinions on the subject of "judgments" on sacrilege, exhibits the very singular instance of an estate descending for upwards of seven hundred years in the male line of the same family. Fitzurse, another of the murderers, went to Ireland, and became the ancestor of the McMahon family.