A book of the west. Volume 1, Devon

by S. Baring-Gould

The houses of the merchants of Totnes have been sadly tampered with. The requirements of modern trade exact large shop-fronts, and to satisfy the demand of the public to see at a glance what is to be sold within, the venerable houses have been transformed externally, at all events on the ground-floor. But let anyone interested in such things go within and ask to be shown the panelled rooms and plaster ceilings, and he will see much to interest and delight. A peculiarly fine piece of plaster-work is in the parlour of the local bookseller, and if the visitor desires to have his hair cut he can have it done in a chamber of the local barber, where the woodwork is of the sixteenth century.

Totnes preserves its old piazzas, or covered ways in High Street, very much like those of Berne or an Italian city, or, indeed, of the bastides or free cities built by our Edward I. in his duchy of Guyenne, of which Montpazier, Beaumont, St. Foye are notable examples, and seem to show that piazzas were a common feature of English towns and of towns built under English influence in the thirteenth century. The same sort of thing is found at Chester, but not, that I am aware, in any other English towns. If in Italy these covered ways are an advantage, in that it allows those who walk along the streets to look in at the shop windows with comfort when the sun is shining, in Totnes it allows them the same advantage when the rain is falling;

"And the rain it raineth every day."

One unpardonable outrage has been committed at Totnes. There existed in front of the churchyard and in continuation of the piazza, a butter market, which consisted of an enlarged piazza, supported on granite pillars of the beginning of the seventeenth century. The vulgar craving to show off the parish church when so many pounds, shillings, and pence had been spent on its restoration; the fear lest visitors should fail to see that the shopkeepers of Totnes had put their hands into their pockets to do up their church, made them destroy this picturesque and unique feature.

The church itself is a very fine building. It was originally a Norman structure of the eleventh century, but was rebuilt in the thirteenth, and is, as it now stands, a structure of Perpendicular work of the fifteenth century. It is of red sandstone, of a warm and pleasant colour. In the tower are niches containing figures of saints of lighter colour. The church has gone through a restoration more or less satisfactory, or unsatisfactory, at the hands of the late Sir G. Gilbert Scott, who had no feeling for Perpendicular work. It is a stately church; its chief glory is a superb rood-screen of carved stone, erected in 1460, and richly coloured and gilt. This supported a wide gallery that extended over half the chancel, and access to this gallery was obtained by a splendid carved and gilt newel staircase in the chancel. The top of the screen is delicately spread into fan-work, intended to sustain the beam of the gallery. In the so-called restoration of the church the entire gallery was removed, consequently the stair leads to vacancy and the screen supports nothing. Moreover, one of the most striking effects of the church was destroyed. A broad belt of shadow was designed to cross the chancel, behind the screen, throwing up, on one side, the gilded tracery of the screen, and on the other, the flood of light that bathed the sanctuary and altar. All this is gone, and the effect is now absolutely commonplace. There are screens near Totnes of extraordinary richness—at Great Hempston, Ipplepen, Harberton, and Berry Pomeroy—covered with gold and adorned with paintings. But none are perfect. A screen consisted of three parts. The lower was the sustaining arcade, then came the fan-groining to support the gallery, above that, the most splendid feature of all, the gallery back, which consisted of a series of canopied compartments containing paintings representing the gospel story. This still exists in Exeter Cathedral; the uppermost member is also to be seen at Atherington, as has been already stated, but everywhere else it has disappeared.

Formerly there stood a reredos at the east end of the chancel of Grecian design, singularly out of character with the building, but hardly worse than the contemptible concern that has been erected in its place.

At the east end of the church, on the outside, the apprentices of Totnes were wont to sharpen their knives, and the stones are curiously rubbed away in the process.

The registers of Totnes are very early and of great interest, as containing much information concerning the old merchant families and the landed gentry of the neighbourhood with whom they married.

The nearest great manorial house is that of Dartington, which was a mansion of the Hollands, Dukes of Exeter, and now belongs to the Champernownes. It possesses ruins of the splendid hall, of the date of Richard II., whose device, a white hart chained, appears repeated several times. On the opposite side of the river is the most interesting and unique parsonage of Little Hempston, a perfectly untouched building of the fourteenth century, exactly the priest's house of the time of Chaucer. The house consists of a structure occupying four sides of a tiny quadrangle. It has a hall, buttery, kitchen, and solar. Every window, except that of the hall, looks into the little court, which is just twenty feet square, and the rooms accordingly are gloomy. The late John Keble, who was often a visitor at Dartington Parsonage, would, when missing, be found there, dreaming over the life of the parish priest in the Middle Ages.

A very singular circumstance is connected with the old Champernownes of Dartington. Gawaine Champernowne was married to the Lady Roberta, daughter of the Count de Montgomeri, leader of the Huguenots. On account of her misconduct she was divorced in 1582, by Act of Parliament passed for the purpose. However, oddly to relate, no sooner were they divorced than they patched up their quarrel and continued to live together as husband and wife, and had a large family. Happily the eldest son and heir was born before the Act was passed, or in all certainty he would have been illegitimate in the eye of the law. But the two younger sons and three daughters were the issue after the divorce.