Adjoining the widow's cottage was another untenanted, like it consisting of a single apartment on the ground floor. It became necessary to rent this, knock a door through the wall, and combine the cottages. The second room was turned into a workshop, with a carpenter's bench and a chest of tools.
Out of the first art school in the one well-parish grew two others, one in each of the other well-parishes. Coffinswell has but a population of a hundred souls, nevertheless its art school has been frequented by as many as twelve pupils. Sixty is the highest number reached by the three together, which are now combined to maintain an efficient art instructor.
It fell out that a stoneware pottery in the Aller vale was burnt down in 1881, and when reconstructed the proprietor, who had cordially promoted the art classes, resolved on converting what had been a factory of drain and ridge tiles into a terra-cotta manufactory, in which some of the more promising pupils might find employ, and in which the knowledge and dexterity acquired in the class might be turned to practical uses. A single experienced potter was engaged, a gipsy, to start the affair, as there was no local tradition as to the manufacture of crocks upon which to go.
The classes were from the outset for boys and girls together, and though recently there has been a change in this arrangement, the young women coming in the afternoon, and the young men in the evening, this alteration has been made owing to increase of numbers, not in consequence of any rudeness or impropriety, for such there had not been in the ten years of the career of the school. In this case the experience has been precisely the same as that of the mixed schools and colleges of the United States.
There is one thing that a visitor to Torquay is certain to carry away with him if he has made excursions on foot about it—some of its red soil. The roads, in spite of the County Council, are bad, for the material of which they are made is soft. But what a soil it is for flowers and for fruit! Anything and everything will grow there and run wild. Stick a twig into the earth, and it is bound to grow. As for roses and violets, they run riot there. And, taken on the whole, the visitor who has been to Torquay is almost sure to carry away with him something beside the red mud, something quite as adhesive—pleasant memories of the place and its balmy air.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
TOTNES
The legend of Brutus—Derivation of the name—Castle—The charter—Old houses—Piazzas—The church—The screen—Dartington Hall—Little Hempston Rectory—Old gate—Priory—Berry Pomeroy.