[CHAPTER VI.]
CREDITON
Red stone and red cob—Cob walls—The river Creedy—Birthplace of S. Boniface—See of Crediton—The Church—Kirton serge—Apple orchards and cider-making—Francémass—Apple the basis of many jams—Song of the apple trees—The picking of apples—"Griggles"—Saluting the apple trees—The apple-crusher—Pomage—The cider-press—Apple cheese—Cider-matching—Racking—Cider for rheumatism—A Cornish cider song—John Davy—Seats near Crediton—Elizabeth Buller and Frances Tuckfield—The Coplestone—The North Devon savages—Lapford—Churches round Crediton—Rev. S. Rowe.
A curious, sleepy place, the houses like the great church built of red sandstone, where not of the red clay or cob. But in the latter case the cob is whitewashed. No house can be conceived more warm and cosy than that built of cob, especially when thatched. It is warm in winter and cool in summer, and I have known labourers bitterly bewail their fate in being transferred from an old fifteenth or sixteenth century cob cottage into a newly-built stone edifice of the most approved style. As they said, it was like going out of warm life into a cold grave.
The art of building with cob is nearly extinct. Clay is kneaded up with straw by the feet, and then put on the rising walls that are enclosed in a framework of boards, but this latter is not always necessary as the clay is consistent enough to hold together, and all that is required is to shave it down as the wall rises in height. Such cob walls for garden fruit are incomparable. They retain the warmth of the sun and give it out through the night, and when protected on top by slates or thatch will last for centuries. But let their top be exposed, and they dissolve in the rain and flake away with the frost. They have, however, their compensating disadvantage—they harbour vermin.
Crediton takes its name from the Creedy river that flows near the town. The river is designated (Crwydr) from its straggling character, crumbling its banks away at every flood and changing its course. At a very early period the Saxons had succeeded in establishing a settlement here, a tun, and here Wynfrith, better known as S. Boniface, was born in 680. Willibald, a priest of Mainz who wrote his life, tells us that his father was a great householder, and of "eorl-kind," or noble birth. He loved his son Wynfrith above all his other children, and for a long time withheld his consent to his embracing the monastic life. During a serious illness, however, when death seemed near at hand, he relented, and Wynfrith was sent to school at Exeter. Thence he moved to Nutschelle, where he assumed the name of Boniface. At the age of thirty he was ordained. King Ina, of the West Saxons, honoured him with his confidence, and he might have risen to a high office in his native land, but other aspirations had taken possession of his soul. No stories were listened to at his time in the Anglo-Saxon monasteries with greater avidity than those connected with the adventurous mission of Archbishop Willibrord among the heathen Frisians, and Boniface longed to join the noble band beyond the sea. The abbot opposed his design, but Boniface was obstinate, and with three brethren left Nutschelle for London; there they took ship and landed in Frisia in 716. But the time was unpropitious, and he was forced to return to Nutschelle.
A COBB COTTAGE, SHEEPWASH
Next year he went to Rome, and then the Pope urged him to establish papal authority in Germany, which had been converted by Celtic missionaries, who had their own independent ways, that were not at all relished at Rome. Boniface, who hated the Celts and all their usages, eagerly undertook the task, and he went into Thuringia. He did a double work. He converted, or attempted to convert, the heathen, and he ripped up and undid what had been done independently by the Irish missionaries. In his old age he resumed his attempt to carry the Gospel into Frisia, and was there killed, A.D. 755.