A NATION'S 
 HERITAGE 
 
 H. D. 
 RAWNSLEY
 
 A NATION'S HERITAGE
 
 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 H. D. RAWNSLEY 
 
 Canon of Carlisle, Chaplain to the King 
 
 LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. 
 RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. i
 
 First published in 1920 
 
 (All rights resented)
 
 DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY 
 
 OF THE FIRST DUKE OF WESTMINSTER, 
 
 OF MISS OCTAVIA HILL, AND OF SIR ROBERT HUNTER, 
 
 WITHOUT WHOSE HELP THE NATIONAL TRUST 
 
 FOR PLACES OF HISTORIC INTEREST AND 
 
 NATURAL BEAUTY WOULD NOT 
 
 EASILY HAVE COME 
 
 INTO BEING 
 
 1051197
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 THIS record of a summer tour to our 
 National Trust possessions in the West of 
 England has been made in the hope that 
 it may interest and be of use to future visitors, 
 and that it may serve to stimulate lovers of their 
 country to acquire in future years, for the lasting 
 benefit of the nation, other such delightful sites 
 and scenes. 
 
 I am much indebted to my wife's assistance 
 in preparing this simple chronicle, and to Mr. 
 Hamer for his kindly help. 
 
 H. D. RAWNSLEY, 
 Hon. Secretary of the National Trust. 
 
 ALLAN BANK, GRASMERE, 
 June 1918.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 DINAS OLEU, BARMOUTH . . . . -13 
 
 MINCHINHAMPTON COMMON . . . . .27 
 
 KYMIN HILL, MONMOUTH . . . . . 38 
 
 WESTBURY COLLEGE . , . . . .46 
 
 THE LEIGH WOODS, BRISTOL . . . -S3 
 
 TOR HILL, WELLS , . . . . . 59 
 
 THE CHEDDAR GORGE . . . . -65 
 
 MUCHELNEY PRIEST'S HOUSE, AND HARRINGTON COURT . 74 
 
 NETHER STOWEY, COLERIDGE'S COTTAGE . . . .90 
 
 THE HOLNICOTE ESTATE, EXMOOR . . . . IOO 
 WINSFORD HILL AND TARR STEPS .... log 
 
 MORTE POINT . . . . . . .119 
 
 BARRAS HEADLAND, AND OLD POST-OFFICE, TINTAGEL . 131 
 
 APPENDIX- 
 ARCHITECT'S REPORT ON OLD POST-OFFICE, TINTAGEL 158
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING PA;E 
 ROUND HOUSE, KYMIN HILL . . . -44 
 
 WESTBURY COLLEGE GATE-HOUSE . . . .50 
 
 LEIGH WOODS. . . . . . .56 
 
 PRIEST'S HOUSE, MUCHELXEY . . . -74 
 
 HARRINGTON' COURT . . . . . .86 
 
 COLERIDGE'S COTTAGE, NETHER STOWEY . . .94 
 
 THE HORNER WOODS, EXMOOR . . . .104 
 
 OLD POST-OFFICE, TINTAGEL .... 150 
 
 (By kind permission of Mr. Frith)
 
 A Nation's Heritage 
 
 DINAS OLEU, BARMOUTH 
 
 THE traveller who would see Barmouth, or 
 Bermo, as the old inhabitants still call it, 
 an abbreviation of the word Aber-maw 
 or mouth of the Mawddach, should visit it in 
 the last week in May or first week in June. 
 The little grey town beneath the cliff is not 
 yet overflowing with visitors, and he will not 
 be troubled by litter on his visit to the famous 
 Panorama Walk. Even if there were no interest- 
 ing National Trust possession at the end of his 
 journey he would be well repaid by the marvel of 
 the landscape as he passes down the estuary from 
 Dolgelly. Leaving Dolgelly station we may see 
 Hengwrt in the woodland to the right, the home 
 that for the latter part of her life was the retreat 
 of that tireless worker, Miss Frances Power 
 Cobbe. As the train stops at Penmaenpool we 
 can view a square mile of sandy flat, covered 
 with short sea grass and carpeted with myriads 
 
 13
 
 14 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 of shell-pink thrift flowers. If the tide is flooding 
 in, this same pink and green carpet is interlaced 
 with glittering pools of water that seem as if 
 some giant writer of hieroglyphs had been at 
 work with blue paint. If the tide is out we 
 shall find rainbow-coloured sands, en-isled by 
 grey-blue water with herons standing like silver 
 sickles in the sun, and companies of white gulls 
 that jewel the fringes of the tideway. Elder 
 flower is white in the woods, golden flags are 
 bright in the marshy meadows, the wild roses 
 fill the thickets with their fairy beauty. 
 
 The train stops at Arthog 1 , whose woods slope 
 upward to grey-green pastures and sunny sky. 
 Again the level flats are carpeted with thrift ; 
 another stop is made at a little junction, the 
 train roars over the viaduct, which sprawls like a 
 great millipede across the estuary mouth. This 
 viaduct is not unknown in song, for Charles 
 Tennyson Turner, the elder brother of the 
 Laureate, who was on a visit to Barmouth at 
 the time of its opening, chronicled the event 
 in one of his exquisite sonnets. 
 
 We run in, right under the rocky cliff on 
 which the town is built, and are astonished at 
 the extraordinary wealth of dark red valerian 
 which clothes the debris heaps, climbs the cliff 
 ledges, and fills the little lodging-house gardens. 
 We may be pardoned, as we pull up at the
 
 DINAS OLEU, BARMOUTH 15 
 
 station and note the ugliness of modern Bar- 
 mouth, for wishing the sea had never retired, 
 as it has retired, and given site for the erection 
 of these rows of unlovely shops and lodging- 
 houses. For in the days when the sea came 
 right up to the main street, and when the river 
 ran north as far as the railway station, Barmouth 
 must have been one of the most beautiful fishing 
 villages imaginable. The fishermen's cottages 
 climbed up the face of the rock and perched 
 themselves on what would seem such narrow 
 ledges as would hardly enable them to find foot- 
 hold. Steep steps, often cut in the rock itself, 
 or narrow, twisty passages led from one rock 
 to another. The cottages themselves, built of 
 the grey rock on which they nestled, melted 
 harmoniously into their background one on the 
 top of another with entrances at different levels. 
 The dwellers might seem doomed to the penance, 
 as Pennant tells us, of seeing down the chimney 
 of the subjacent neighbours. 
 
 But each had something else to look at. Front 
 no place on earth could these rough rock- 
 dwellers have finer view of sea or sky, of glorious 
 glimpse of the mountains, their changing lights 
 and shadows, on either side of the broad estuary ; 
 from nowhere else could they behold such 
 marvellous sunsets, from nowhere else better feel 
 warm sunshine and sea-scented air. Picturesque
 
 16 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 beyond words were and are those curious little 
 eyries with the rock breaking out about them, 
 into lichen crags overgrown with heather and 
 gorse*; snug even in days of storm, when the 
 rain lashes the windows and howls down the 
 chimneys, these cottages have ever clung bravely 
 to the breast of the rock and have rarely suffered 
 from the elements. 
 
 There is only one house in Barmouth of 
 historic interest, and that is by the harbour quay, 
 a house still called Ty-gwyn-yn, or the White 
 House, Bermo, of which the rude and ancient 
 doorway is proof of its antiquity. This old build- 
 ing is said to have been erected by Gruffydd 
 Fychan of Cors-y-gedol, who gave shelter in it 
 to Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, and to his 
 ward, Henry Richmond, afterwards Henry VII, 
 whilst they were planning the invasion of 
 England some time between the years 1460 and 
 
 1485- 
 
 This is not the only note of antiquity, for the 
 road that comes down the estuary from Dolgelly 
 was probably built by the Romans, who made 
 a chain of forts to guard it. The remains of 
 one of these is still visible on the mountain 
 side, in close proximity to a British fort near 
 Llanbedwr. 
 
 The little Early-English church of Llanaber, 
 the parish' church of Barmouth 1 , a mile north of 
 
 fi
 
 DINAS OLEU, BARMOUTH IT 
 
 the town, contains within its walls an interesting 
 sepulchral stone discovered in the sand between 
 Barmouth and the church, upon which is the 
 inscription, " Calixtus monedo Regis," which may 
 mean " Calixtus, King of Mona," or " Calixtus, 
 King of the Mountain." 
 
 The main feature of the immediate surround- 
 ings of the town is the gorse-clad steep of Dinas 
 Oleu, with its sunburnt grasses contrasting with 
 the vivid fern and rocky outcrop, and made 
 beautiful on its lower slopes by witch-elms and 
 long-limbed beeches, whose tall smooth trunks 
 stand out white as the rocks shine white upon 
 the cliff side. 
 
 Whether the cliff obtained its name from 1 the 
 whiteness of rock, or in olden days from some 
 beacon which shone out at night-time to guide 
 the fishermen to the haven, is unknown ; but a 
 " Fortress of Light " it is to all who, with heavy 
 hearts in this dark and cloudy day of war, pass 
 up by its many paths of access to the sunshine 
 and the glory of the seascape as seen therefrom. 
 
 I do not know any cliff with such fellside 
 beauty so easily accessible from a village town, 
 and happy are the inhabitants who have this 
 recreation ground sealed to their use for ever. 
 Climb up the sloping path at the back of the 
 Cors-y-gedol Hotel, and in five minutes you will 
 be above the town and the happy shouts of 
 
 2
 
 18 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 children below, while the murmur and scent 
 of the " infinite sea " fill the air. 
 
 Unbeautiful as Barmouth itself is, at least 
 from this height one must admit that the 
 architect has added one object of great beauty 
 to the scene in the building upon its terrace, 
 deep-carved into the bosom of the hill, the church 
 of St. John, with its grey stone tower and red 
 sandstone coigns and window tracery the one 
 modern building that lends dignity to the 
 neighbourhood, the gift of Mrs. Perrin. 
 
 Passing upward till we gain one of the main 
 means of access to the famous Panorama Walk, 
 we come upon the terraced gardens and high 
 uplifted house of Tyn-y-fynnon, which seems to 
 take us back to Italy as we look at its quaint 
 steps and its architectural substructures. Here 
 dwelt, till her death in 1917, Fannie Talbot, the 
 mother of the remarkable artist Quartus Talbot, 
 and gifted friend of John Ruskin, Frances Power 
 Cobbe, and Francesca Alexander. With her 
 wisdom she was the constant counsellor and 
 friend of the Barmouth people, rich and poor ; 
 public spirited as she was generous, it was she 
 who, in 1874, having learned of Mr. Ruskin's 
 newly formed Guild of St. George, which he 
 had set on foot in 1871, for the salvation of 
 England, offered him twelve or thirteen of the 
 cottages on the steep immediately below her
 
 DINAS OLEU, BARMOUTH 19 
 
 house. In a letter of acceptance, dated Herne 
 Hill, 1874, Ruskin writes: "The ground and 
 houses which you offer me are exactly the kind 
 of property I most wish to obtain for St. 
 George's company. I accept them at once with 
 very glad thanks and will endeavour soon to 
 come to see them and thank you and your son 
 in person. No cottagers shall be disturbed, but 
 in quiet and slow ways assisted as each may 
 deserve or wish to better their own houses in 
 sanitary and comfortable points. My principle 
 is to work with the minutest possible touches but 
 with steady end in view, and by developing as I 
 can the energy of the people I want to help." 
 
 It was whilst I was staying in her hospitable 
 house, in the year 1895, that Mrs. Talbot 
 determined to present the cliff adjacent to her 
 garden to the National Trust, and as it is the 
 first property the National Trust ever received 
 it is worth while telling the story of how it 
 came about. I was in correspondence with 
 Home and Birkett, solicitors, who had sent me, 
 at Sir Robert Hunter's request, the proposed 
 articles of association of the Trust, which was 
 then being formed. Mrs. Talbot had a natural 
 love for law, and she desired to look through the 
 papers. At the end she said : " I am so grateful 
 for this chance, for I perceive your National 
 Trust will be of the greatest use to me. I
 
 20 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 have long wanted to secure to the public for ever 
 the enjoyment of Dinas Oleu, but I wish to 
 put it into the custody of some society that will 
 never vulgarize it, or prevent wild Nature from 
 having its own way ; I have no objection to 
 grassy paths or to stone seats in proper places, 
 but I wish to avoid the abomination of asphalt 
 paths and the cast-iron seats of serpent design 
 which disfigure so largely our public parks, and 
 it appears to me that your association has been 
 born in the nick of time to be my friend. If your 
 Trust will accept it, Dinas Oleu shall be yours 
 so soon as lawyers can make arrangements." 
 
 As soon as the transfer to the Trust had 
 been carried through, a rough panel giving the 
 history of the transaction was carved upon a 
 rock midway up the steep which runs as follows : 
 
 " THE UPPER PART OF THIS CLIFF 
 
 DINAS OLEU 
 (THE FORTRESS OF LIGHT) 
 
 ENCLOSED BY THE WALLS ON THE N.E. 
 AND BY THE ROADWAY FROM GATE TO GATE ON 
 
 THE SOUTH AND WEST, WAS IN MARCH 1895 
 GIVEN BY MRS. C. T. TALBOT OF TYN-Y-FFYNON TO 
 
 THE NATIONAL TRUST 
 FOR PLACES OF HISTORIC INTEREST 
 
 OR NATURAL BEAUTY 
 
 To BE KEPT AND GUARDED FOR THE ENJOYMENT 
 OF THE PEOPLE OF BARMOUTH FOR EVER."
 
 DINAS OLEU, BARMOUTH 21 
 
 The house of the donor, Tyn-y-ffynon, adjoins 
 the National Trust property, and having right 
 to wander into its garden ground we climbed 
 from the little grass terrace ringed with fuschias 
 and escalonia by intricate paths from ledge to 
 ledge with tiny garden plots of flowers and 
 vegetables carefully tended, up and up towards 
 the ivy -grown crags and grey wall that bound 
 the garden to the east. 
 
 In sheltered little hazel copses birds sang 
 about their nests. Suddenly I was aware, in a 
 hidden woodland recess which gave wide prospect 
 of the grey sea, of a slab of rock overgrown 
 with little Alpine pinks, on which was engraved 
 under his name and the dates of his birth and 
 death the following inscription : 
 
 Ci git un Semeur qui 
 Sema jusqu'au tombeau 
 Le Vrai, le Bien, le Beau 
 
 avec idolatrie 
 A travers mille combats, 
 De la plume et des bras 
 Tels travaux en ce monde 
 
 ne se compensent pas. 
 
 And I knew that I was standing by the 
 self -chosen grave of a friend of the late Mrs. 
 Talbot, a philosopher and social reformer, who, 
 driven into exile by the enmity of the French 
 priests, had here found asylum. Known to all
 
 22 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 the literati of Francfe in his time, here he was 
 honoured by the friendship of Dean Stanley and 
 John Ruskin. A true follower of St. Francis 
 here he tilled the little rocky led'ges above his 
 home and tamed the birds, cared for all wild 
 flowers, and friend of all the people went in and 
 out of their homes with active ministry of 
 benevolence. He dwelt in one of the tiny, 
 cottages of the Guild of St. George, and it is 
 remembered that Ruskin, in conversation with 
 him, said : " These things which I am but now 
 discovering and trying to teach, you knew and 
 taught when I was a child." 
 
 The last time Ruskin saw him M. Guyard 
 was ill, and the English Professor went up to 
 his bedroom to bid him farewell. After some 
 talk they parted, Ruskin affectionately bending 
 down to kiss the French Reformer, so one in 
 soul, so different in circumstance, and thus they 
 parted, not to meet in this world again. 
 
 I mention M. Guyard's tomb because it speaks 
 such volumes for the wide-minded outlook and 
 generosity of the lady of Tyn-y-ffynon, who, 
 herself a social reformer, first befriended Ruskin 
 in his Guild of St. George and endowed the 
 National Trust with its first possession. 
 
 From her garden gate we gained access to 
 the wild ground above her home, all fern and 
 foxglove, and were glad to think as we climbed
 
 DINAS OLEU, BARMOUTH 23 
 
 to the mountain top that our freedom of foot 
 there was the direct result of the enjoyment the 
 public had on Dinas Oleu. For when this 
 property came into the market the Town Council 
 of Barmouth purchased it to enable the people 
 to have the same pleasure there as they had on 
 the cliff slope below. 
 
 Thence we took an easy walk by a pleasant 
 field path and road to the Panorama Walk, as 
 it is called, and blessed are they who have such 
 marvellous sight of mountain, sea and estuary 
 as is therefrom obtained. The tide was turning 
 and slowly making islands of the rainbow sands 
 beneath, till rainbow sand became rainbow water- 
 flood, and the irridescent water turned meander- 
 ing rills to rivers, and slowly filled the estuary 
 from shore to shore with silver light. I could not 
 help remembering that Alfred Tennyson had once 
 wandered here. Writing to Emily Selwood, who 
 afterwards became his wife, in 1839, he says : 
 " Barmouth is a good deal prettier place than 
 Aberystwyth. With its flats and shore, a 
 sea with breakers looking Mablethorpelike [he 
 never forgot the Lincolnshire coast] and sand 
 hills, and close behind them huge crags, and 
 a long estuary with cloud-capped hills which 
 range up as far as Dolgelly with Cader Idris on 
 one side." 
 
 But I mention Tennyson in connection with
 
 24 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 this Panorama Walk, because it was on a 
 certain glorious evening after heavy rain that he 
 described the sense of peace which entered his 
 soul as he gazed towards the sunset and the sea. 
 And in this time of war there is no finer medicine 
 for the mind than to be able to stand above 
 the Barmouth estuary on a Junetide evening, 
 and feel the truth of the lines in In Memoriam 
 that this scene inspired. 
 
 Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, 
 That rollest from the gorgeous gloom 
 Of evening over brake and bloom 
 
 And meadow, slowly breathing bare 
 
 The round of space, and rapt below 
 Thro' all the dewy tassell'd wood, 
 And shadowing down the horned flood 
 
 In ripples, fan my brows and blow 
 
 The fever from my cheek, and sigh 
 The full new life that feeds thy breath 
 Thro'out my frame, till Doubt and Death 
 
 111 brethren, let the fancy fly. 
 
 We returned to Dinas Oleu, and after passing 
 the inscribed rock for fifty yards or so, came 
 to a rough stone recessed seat which, without 
 being unsightly, gave shelter from the wind to 
 those who sat there. We have reason to 
 remember that seat. It was after school hours, 
 and there was gathered there a group of children
 
 DINAS OLEU, BARMOUTH 25 
 
 as spectators of the dancing of one of their 
 number, with ribbons cross-gartered on her bare 
 legs and an ivy chaplet on her head. We asked 
 who taught her to dance? And the children 
 answered : " No one, but she has taught herself. 
 She knows many dances." 
 
 " Dance for us, then," we said, and at once 
 the child with most graceful gesture of arms 
 and legs danced a song, which she called " The 
 song of the flowers," singing as she danced some 
 simple Welsh melody. 
 
 AVe noticed that above the seat was a slight 
 receding terrace. Two other children wearing 
 chaplets of flowers came up the steep path, and 
 at once scrambled up to this terrace, and for a 
 moment were hidden from view. When they 
 emerged they had doffed their ragged petticoats 
 and appeared with short skirts and bare legs. 
 "That is our dressing-room," they explained; 
 and they pointed to a rude notice, scribbled with 
 chalk upon a black board, with a Welsh disregard 
 of gender, " He who goes up without leave will 
 be sent home." 
 
 Four children joined hands and danced a 
 pretty dance. Then a dark, handsome girl, 
 selecting a smooth slab of stone, began a dance 
 of the Scotch -reel type. Another child appeared 
 with her hands full of foxgloves, which she dis- 
 tributed to the dancers who waved them as they
 
 26 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 danced. " Sword flowers " they called them. 
 We asked why, and they pulled the petals apart 
 to show us the pistils, with their heads like 
 little golden hatchets. 
 
 The sunlit sea came rolling in over golden 
 sands to the beach, and the evening glow turned 
 the cliff ledges of the " Fortress of Light " into 
 shining silver. But t':e sense of sunshine of 
 soul, which these lit ie dancing children im- 
 parted to the whole scene made us feel that, when 
 the sun dipped beneath the horizon and the whole 
 land darkened towards the stars, this gift to 
 the nation, with its memories of happy child life, 
 would shine on still.
 
 MINCHINHAMPTON COMMON 
 
 WE were standing with the Dean in the 
 noble chapter -house in Gloucester 
 Cathedral. "Here," said he, "the 
 King and his counsellors decided upon the com- 
 pilation of Domesday Book." " To-morrow," 
 we said, " we are going to visit a property of 
 the National Trust whose title-deeds reach right 
 back to that book of Doom." 
 
 So on the morrow we set forth' in a bitter 
 north-east wind, trusting that the sun would yet 
 assert itself, and passing by the Great Western 
 Railway by Haresfield, Stonehouse, and Stroud, 
 with the Frome river on one side of us and 
 peeps of the Severn canal on the other, with 
 sight of frequent mills and little village clusters 
 on the hill-slopes above us, we arrived at 
 Brimscombe. Leaving the train we crossed the 
 little river, turned sharply to our right through 
 a lush meadow, passed a hairpin factory, and 
 so gained a road that, deep -hewn by centuries 
 of travel and storm, led us up a long steep 
 hill towards the tableland, two miles away, of 
 
 27
 
 28 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 Minchinhampton, the " Enderby Flat " of John 
 Halifax. 
 
 The sun refused to shine upon us, but in the 
 deep trough of the roadway we were out of the 
 wind, and we were interested by the beauty of 
 the gnarled roots of the trees stretching weirdly 
 down for soil and food, and cheered by the 
 " Herb Robert " cranesbill which, together with 
 little round-leaved cranesbill, glowed in scarlet 
 tufts from the banks and grey stone walls we 
 passed. We came to a place where three roads 
 met, and for lack of sign-post had to go some 
 way to the left to a cottage to inquire our way. 
 The garden was gay with blue campanula, and 
 we learned that we were on the wrong track 
 and must retrace our steps and take the other 
 road for the " Blue Boys." 
 
 In half a mile or more we reached what once 
 was a famous coaching inn, and is now a sub- 
 stantial farmhouse, interesting for its mullioned 
 windows and air of Elizabethan time. The 
 farmer directed us to Tom Long's Post, gaining 
 which we should be on the common, and could 
 make our way to the Old Lodge Inn. We inquired 
 the meaning of " Tom Long's Post." He 
 murmured something about a highwayman, but 
 added he was " too busy for history." So we 
 made our way unsatisfied as far as " Tom Long " 
 went, but gladdened with the sight of glorious
 
 MINCHINHAMPTON COMMON 29 
 
 beech trees upon level sward, and sight, too, 
 of the fine brown truncated tower of 
 Minchinhampton church. We passed into the 
 little brown town, with its ancient market house, 
 its quaint roof, and many mullioned windows, and 
 made our way to the church; learned that at 
 one time it had boasted a steeple but this had 
 fallen in a storm, saw at a glance that it had 
 been savagely restored at the worst time, i.e. 
 1842, and much of its interest swept away for 
 ever. 
 
 But it had had a great history. There was 
 probably a church here in Saxon times, and 
 the priest in Minchinhampton was mentioned in 
 Domesday Book. Its altar was dedicated by 
 Walter de Maidenstone in July, 1315. The 
 restorers had destroyed much of the Norman 
 work, and many old Norman windows. They 
 had also destroyed all the fourteenth -century 
 work and reduced the length of the chancel. 
 It was only by the exertions of a Dr. 
 Dalton, F.S.A., that the beautiful wheel window 
 in the south transept was saved. In the recesses 
 of the south wall of the transept we saw stone 
 coffins, with recumbent figures upon them, of Sir 
 Peter Delamere and his wife, the knight cross- 
 legged, the lady with padded hair and wearing 
 long pointed sleeves. These monuments were 
 probably erected between 1292 and 1308. We 

 
 80 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 were told that the vengeance of heaven fell 
 upon the Philistine restorers of the church, for 
 the removal and careless reburial of many bodies 
 at the time brought a kind of Black Death 
 upon the village. 
 
 We have seldom seen anything more pictur- 
 esque than the sexton's house adjacent to the 
 well-kept churchyard of to-day, and we left 
 Minchinhampton village with a sense not only of 
 the beauty and comfort of its buildings, but of 
 its ancient history : for through Minchinhampton, 
 ages before the time of the Saxon priest, there 
 had flowed the life and forcefulness of Rome. 
 The great Roman military road that passed from 
 Chester to Gloucester ran hither, and Vespasian, 
 the future Emperor, who was then a lieutenant 
 under Aulus Plautius, must have passed this way 
 in command of his legion. 
 
 .We made our way to Tom Long's Post, where 
 seven roads meet, and felt ourselves at home at 
 sight of the notice-board and byelaws of the 
 National Trust, or so much of them as could 
 be read, for wind and Weather had played havoc 
 with the printing. We were now upon a high 
 tableland 1,600 feet above sea-level. 
 
 Here the greatness of this Minchinhampton 
 plateau made itself felt. It seemed limitless as 
 it was treeless, and we remembered that in the 
 days it was taken from Goda and given by the
 
 MINCHINHAMPTON COMMON 31 
 
 Norman Conqueror to Queen Matilda's Convent 
 of the Holy Trinity at Caen, the March of 
 Minchinhampton, as described in Domesday Book, 
 included Rodborough, and extended to 4,940 
 acres, of which 3,488 were cultivated, 1,440 
 were woodland, and the rest pasture-land, spoken 
 of as twenty meadows. A good deal of land 
 must have gone out of cultivation since those 
 days, for the common is now 500 acres in 
 extent. 
 
 But it is doubtful if the full population on and 
 about the existing common was given, for we 
 learn from Domesday Book that there were then 
 in the Minchinhampton Manor only 32 villeins 
 or small farms, 10 bondmen and freemen, 10 
 servi or labourers, and one priest. 
 
 As we made our way on to this limitless 
 expanse of breezy pasture -land, the sullen sun 
 shone out, and' I felt, as it were, transported to 
 the great marsh of Lincolnshire, for herds of 
 cattle were feeding here, there droves of horses 
 were pasturing, their foals at their feet ; and 
 just as in " the wide enormous marsh " the few 
 farms that exist, were hidden in groves of trees 
 against the wind and seemed dark islands of 
 shadow in an emerald sea. 
 
 What a breezy upland it is ! Have the golfers 
 at yonder " Old Lodge " ever played in more 
 exhilarating air, or with wider prospect? people
 
 32 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 ask where is Minchinhampton Cormnon? We 
 answer, this sparsely-wooded plateau of the 
 Cotswolds stands 1,600 feet above sea-level, is 
 bounded on the north by the little river Frome 
 and the Golden valley up which our train brought 
 us to-day; on the south it is bounded by Avening 
 brook, on the east by the parish of Sapperton, 
 and on the west by the parish of Rodborough. 
 
 By its height it dwarfs the girdle of hills by 
 which it is surrounded, but it overlooks the valley 
 of the Severn to the Welsh hills on one side, and 
 on the other gives sight of the long range of 
 the Wiltshire Downs. From a point near the 
 reservoir the Crook of Severn and Hay Hill 
 can be seen, and the Sugar Loaf hill by 
 Abergavenny stands up distinct on a clear day. 
 
 Above our heads the lark sings; at our feet 
 the close-cropped grass is redolent of thyme and 
 golden with yellow rock-rose. It is to-day as 
 peaceful a scene as could well be imagined. 
 Yet if there were no war raging, we could not 
 forget war. For as we left the Park, as it is 
 called, the great beech-studded open pleasure- 
 ground near Minchinhampton village, to make 
 our way to Tom Long's Post, we noticed huge 
 ramparts across the plain, which told us of 
 " far-off things and battles long ago." We can 
 dismiss the tradition that Alfred fought his battle 
 of Ethendune here, but we cannot forget that
 
 MINCHINHAMPTON COMMON 38 
 
 hereabout, in 628, Penda, King of Mercia, fought 
 a bloody fight against his two rebellious sons, 
 Cynegills and Cwichelm, and whether those 
 ramparts we saw in mid-plain to the left of the 
 long white road we came by, are burial mounds 
 or defences against the foe, there they stand 
 to-day as monuments of war in historic times. 
 
 But this Minchinhampton Common takes us 
 back to prehistoric days. There are upon its 
 outskirts remains of the pit dwellers of a 
 vanished race. There are remarkable tumuli and 
 monuments of neolithic man. One of these is 
 the Long Stone, near Gatcombe Lodge entrance, 
 which, when opened, showed a stone chamber in 
 which a skeleton sat in the position his sorrowing 
 friends had placed him long centuries ago. 
 There is also in Gatcombe parish a good example 
 of a crowned barrow a barrow with a huge 
 stone upon its summit, that used to stand upright, 
 and was called " The Tingle Stone." 
 
 We make our way to the "Old Lodge," as 
 the inn is called, that is, the rendezvous of the 
 Minchinhampton Golf Club. It has an ancient 
 history. Here of old probably stood the hunting 
 lodge to which one of our royal Henrys used 
 to come for hunting the deer in the great wood- 
 lands that then filled the valleys round Minchin- 
 hampton Common. The first mention of the 
 existing old lodge is in a deed of conveyance 
 
 3
 
 34 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 from Lord Windsor to Samuel Sheppard and 
 his son, dated May 28, 1656. It was this same 
 Sheppard who was probably the first planter of 
 the Green Park, near Minchinhampton village, 
 with beech and oak. 
 
 The latest visit of Royalty to this old inn was 
 when Charles I, during the siege of Gloucester, 
 on his way from Matson House to Oxford, rested 
 here and played a game of bowls with members 
 of his retinue on what was up to late times a 
 famous bowling-geen in a yew-tree-circled garth 
 close by the house. For his sake it is worth 
 while going to see the bowling-green, and as 
 one looks round upon the rough green and the 
 somewhat dilapidated bowlers' shed, one can feel 
 how heavy the hand of man is upon this ancient 
 pleasure-ground. But golf -greens are kept in 
 order, and old men and young 1 men, who have 
 come back wounded from the war, may both 
 forget the sorrow of this Armageddon in the 
 great stretch of breezy Minchinhampton Common. 
 That the club before the war was going 
 strong is plain from the names of winners of 
 champion cups, both of men and women, that are 
 inscribed upon the walls since its institution in 
 1890. The garden of the golf -house shows 
 signs of war-time, but careless of all the sorrow 
 of this dark day the white single peonies blossom 
 in beauty and in joy.
 
 MINCHINHAMPTON COMMON 35 
 
 We rested in the little bar parlour and par- 
 took of such hospitality as war-time rations 
 allowed us. Then walked back to Tom Long's 
 Post, in order to reach Brimscombe Halt in time 
 for the train to take us to Stroud. 
 
 We turned out of our way thither to visit what 
 is known as Whitefield's Tump, Tump being, as 
 I surmise, the modern English form of tumulus. 
 It stands not far from the roadside to Gloucester, 
 beyond the reservoir, and is just visible from 
 the Club House. Writing in March 1743, 
 Whitefield tells us : "I rode to Stroud and 
 preached to about 12,000 people in Mr. G.'s 
 field, and at about six in the evening to a like 
 number on Hampton Common. After this went 
 to Hampton and held a general Love-feast, and 
 went to bed about midnight very cheerful and 
 happy." 
 
 We had special interest in visiting the Tump 
 to-day, for we had started out on our expedi- 
 tion from the Old Bell Inn at Gloucester, which 
 was in former days the home of George White- 
 field's father. The abominable mobbing and 
 abuse of Whitefield and his friend, Mr. Adams, 
 is a dark blot on the scutcheon of Minchin- 
 hampton, and Whitefield narrowly escaped the 
 fate of his friend, who for preaching the 
 Gospel was thrown into a stagnant skin-pit 
 at the tannery, and dragged through the dirty
 
 36 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 runnel and filth of noisome things, down the 
 street. 
 
 But who can help at this distance of time 
 admiring the spirit of the devout man who, after 
 this savage treatment at the hands of the mob, 
 quietly returned to his home, betook himself to 
 prayer, and exhorted his friends to rejoice with 
 him in suffering for the cause of the Gospel? 
 
 We made our way thence down the long white 
 shining road through Burleigh into the Golden 
 valley. We noticed the picturesqueness of the 
 cottages built of the cream-coloured native stone, 
 some roofed with thatch, the majority with tiles, 
 which had weathered into red-brown. We were 
 struck, too, with the apparent populousness of 
 the whole vale. Villages climbed the heights, 
 quarries shone in the sun; and the mills in the 
 vale, all of them on a small scale, seemed not 
 to detract from its beauty, but rather to strike 
 a chord of industrial life that was being led 
 under favourable conditions of sun and air and 
 country surroundings. 
 
 Ere we descended to the Halt, we took a 
 backward view of this wonderful common, and 
 rejoiced to think that there had ever been in 
 the past a sturdy determination on the part of 
 the commoners to resist encroachment. In 1832 
 a court leet meeting resolved to send peremptory 
 notice to all and sundry; who had made such en-
 
 MINCHINHAMPTON COMMON 37 
 
 croachments, and since that time many had been 
 the regulations made for the preservation of the 
 common. Finally, by deed dated April 7, 1913, 
 Major Ricardo, the Lord of the March, relin- 
 quished all his rights over the common, and 
 transferred them for the sum of 1,200 to the 
 National Trust. The good of that transfer is 
 already apparent in the fact that quarrying for 
 stone upon the common has been stopped, and in 
 future its preservation in pristine beauty is 
 assured.
 
 KYMIN HILL, MONMOUTH 
 
 THE swifts were screaming high in sunny 
 air as we turned our backs on Gloucester 
 for Monmouth and Kymin Hill. We 
 passed through a land of orchards and rush- 
 green corn to Ross, there changed trains, and 
 soon found ourselves on the banks of the Wye 
 en route for Symon's Yat. Wooded hills began 
 to grow up on either side of us. The cressed 
 isles of snow-white water-crowfoot gave us 
 the impression of winter snow in summer 
 flood. 
 
 Arrived at the station of May Hill, we crossed 
 the bridge to take a photograph of the Kymin, 
 with the bridge in the foreground, then recro.ss.ed 
 it. Haymakers were busy on one side of the 
 road, and on the other side, beneath the shade of 
 poplars, the sheep shearers were at work, not 
 with the picturesque shears as we see them at 
 clippings at the northern fellside farms, but with 
 an unpicturesque and whizzing machine. We 
 turned to the left up the main road for Coalford 
 
 38
 
 KYMIN HILL, MONMOUTH 89 
 
 and Gloucester, and in a couple of hundred yards 
 began to ascend by a delightful hazel -bo wered 
 path which led to an open meadow, and thence 
 turned steeply toward the Kymin Hill; a fine 
 view was obtained from this meadow of the pink 
 and white town, with its blue-grey roofs and 
 single town spire beyond the gleaming Wye. 
 Thence to the right we made our way up a 
 good cart road, passing one or two cottages 
 covered with roses, whose gardens were gay with 
 valerian and pansies, missed the near path up 
 the hill by reason of an entire lack of guide- 
 posts, and eventually leaving the main cart track 
 went through another woodland path till we 
 regained the cart road which turned sharply to 
 the left beneath the shadow of fine beech trees. 
 We passed another house and eventually arrived 
 at a gate through which we entered a wood, and 
 again, more by luck than by direction, found a 
 path which led steeply up to the white tower on 
 the top of the Kymin, which stands in nine acres 
 of ground purchased by the National Trust in 
 1902 for the sum of 300. 
 
 It was about three-quarters of an hour's slow 
 climb from the town, with endless variety of 
 view, and the surprise of the open grass plateau 
 which we gained, with its wind-blown Scotch 
 firs and its comely sycamores, well rewarded 
 us for the ascent. From near the tower where
 
 40 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 dwells the custodian, though we were somewhat 
 troubled by the fact that seedling sycamores and 
 badly grown oak trees shut out the main view, 
 we were able to obtain at a small opening a 
 fine panorama. Away to the north, beyond the 
 town and beyond the wooded ridge called White 
 Hill, we saw the blue Sugar Loaf of Abergavenny, 
 and to the left, in the farthest distance, the long 
 back of the Little Mountain. To the right of 
 the Sugar Loaf was seen the Skerridge, or the 
 " Hill rent in twain." Farther to the right, but 
 nearer and just across the vale, was seen the 
 Buck Holt woodland, and more to the right still 
 the hill called Little Do ward. 
 
 Tranquil as the panorama was, a note of war 
 was sounded by the rose-pink newly-ploughed 
 lands high upon the ridge of the Buck Holt hill. 
 But we forgot the sound of war in the singing 
 of the garden warbler and willow wren. Then 
 we turned from the view and made our way 
 to what looked like a summer-house, or walled 
 enclosure, to the east, and there again the sound 
 of " unhappy far-off things and battles long 
 ago " asserted itself. For this summer-house 
 was in memory, as the inscription tells us, of the 
 glorious deeds of the British navy more than 
 one hundred years ago. The inscription runs 
 as follows :
 
 KYMIN HILL, MONMOUTH 41 
 
 " THIS NAVAL TEMPLE 
 
 WAS ERECTED AUG. I, l8oO, 
 
 TO PERPETUATE THE NAMES OF THOSE 
 
 NOBLE ADMIRALS 
 
 WHO DISTINGUISHED THEMSELVES BY THEIR 
 
 GLORIOUS VICTORIES FOR ENGLAND 
 
 IN THE LAST AND PRESENT WARS 
 
 AND IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO 
 
 HER GRACE THE DUCHESS OF BEAUFORT 
 
 DAUGHTER OF 
 ADMIRAL BOSCAWEN." 
 
 The abominable habit of the scribblers who 
 visit Kymin Hill have rendered the inscription 
 almost illegible. One would have thought that 
 we, who owe so much to our navy, should at 
 any rate have been shamed into abstention from 
 such desecration, and the sooner the scribblers' 
 work is painted out the better. The summer- 
 house roof which runs right round is in sad 
 disrepair, and the seats have by horse-play been 
 partially destroyed not to the disadvantage of 
 certain cattle that were thereby enabled to shelter 
 from the sun. They, at least, were setting an 
 example to humankind, for they were enjoying" 
 the cool and rest, and not doing indignities to 
 their surroundings . 
 
 One could not help the hope that whatever 
 else conies of this war, more care of this 
 singularly interesting naval memorial will result. 
 When one remembers the names that are on
 
 42 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 the cornice that surmounts the roof, and that on 
 the weather-boarding beneath the eaves there are 
 inscribed the names and dates of the principal 
 naval victories achieved by such heroic seamen 
 as Nelson, Vincent, Boscawen, Thompson, 
 Rodney, Hawke, Bridport, Mitchell, Keith, Hood, 
 Howe, Duncan, Warren, Bell, and Cornwallis, 
 one asks oneself if any more singularly appro- 
 priate memorial to our great captains and 
 admirals was ever dedicated, or reared in a more 
 suitable place ; for here this Naval Temple, as 
 it is called, a very temple of the winds, stands 
 up on the Kymin plateau with fair view on a 
 clear day of eight counties, and no single man 
 or woman, boy or girl from those eight counties 
 who shall chance to visit this little summer- 
 house, if only they know the history of the 
 glorious naval past, but will be inspired and 
 thankful for British courage and seamanship. 
 The little shrine is so dilapidated that it might 
 be well worth while to consider the replacing 
 of it more permanently, with its historic names 
 in more durable material than painted wood, as 
 a memorial, not only to these great sea captains, 
 but to the brave seamen of Monmouthshire who 
 have given their lives for their country in this 
 present great war. But failing this, as soon as 
 this war is over the National Trust and the Local 
 Committee should, I think, take steps to renew
 
 KYMIN HILL, MONMOUTH 43 
 
 the names and to rebuild the wooden verandah. 
 If at the same time the coppice wood near by 
 is sufficiently thinned to allow of an outlook 
 over the surrounding country-side, visitors would 
 be able better to realize the scene as Nelson saw 
 it, when, as we gather from the Morning 
 Chronicle of August 26, 1802, a distinguished 
 company, according to a promise given to the 
 Mayor of Monmouth, assembled here to inspect 
 the lately erected Naval Temple. We read that 
 on that occasion the " Hero of the Nile, accom- 
 panied by Lord and Lady Hamilton, Dr. Nelson, 
 and other friends on Wednesday sennight, after 
 passing the day with Mr. Wells, set off in a 
 carriage-and-four for Kymin pavilion, where they 
 were received with enthusiasm and by a dis- 
 charge of cannon, the military band playing the 
 National Anthem, Rule Britannia, and other 
 national and martial airs. After breakfasting 
 in the banquetting room, they proceeded to the 
 Naval Temple, which his Lordship surveyed with 
 great attention, and then walked through Bealieu 
 grove. When they had surveyed the delightful 
 scene, with which they expressed the highest 
 gratification, the whole party, to satisfy public 
 curiosity, walked back to Monmouth, receiving 
 as they passed the grateful applause of all ranks 
 of people, who seemed to vie with each other 
 in the ardour of their expression of joy."
 
 44 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 The history of the Kymin Round House, in 
 which Nelson banquetted that day, is as follows : 
 At the end of the eighteenth century a small 
 dining club was formed by the residents of 
 Monmouth. They dined out of doors on summer 
 evenings in some beautiful place in the neigh- 
 bourhood. It chanced that on one evening, in 
 the summer of 1793, they elected to meet for 
 their dinner picnic on the summit of the Kymin, 
 and so pleased were they with the place that 
 they resolved to repeat their experience in the 
 following week. This led to a weekly dinner 
 there, and when the autumn drew on they decided 
 to build on the Kymin height a permanent dining 
 place. Accordingly the following year they 
 raised a public subscription and erected the 
 present round house, so planning the building 
 that every window should command a view of 
 some special natural picture. Six years later, 
 in honour of Nelson and the British Navy, they 
 built the Naval Temple hard by. 
 
 We descended to the roadway by a new route, 
 which led us by several interesting little cottage 
 dwellings, by narrow pathways through hazel 
 thickets, to the bridge and town, visited the Shire 
 Hall with its statue of Harry of Monmouth, 
 whose victory of Agincourt is commemorated by 
 the name of Agincourt Street, and were much 
 interested in the striking bronze statue to one
 
 KYMIN HILL, MONMOUTH 45 
 
 of our first aviators, Rolls, who stands before the 
 hall clad in airman's suit, and holding a model 
 of an aeroplane in his hand. Thence we pro- 
 ceeded to the beautiful thirteenth-century bridge 
 over the Monnow, with its picturesque fortress- 
 gateway and the little Norman church and 
 exquisite market cross at the farther end of the 
 bridge. We returned by a short cut to the 
 station through the cattle market, over a wide 
 meadow, a veritable field of the cloth of gold 
 on account of its dandelions, and before reaching 
 the bridge over the Wye, that beneath a cloud- 
 less sky ran a stream of cobalt -blue dappled 
 with white islands of water-crowfoot, we paused 
 to watch some parent swans and their cygnets 
 beside their nest on one of these islets of milk- 
 white blossom in mid stream ; and so giving 
 a last long look to the Kymin Hill, with thanks 
 to the National Trust for having secured that 
 magnificent view-point, we took train and 
 returned to Gloucester.
 
 WESTBURY COLLEGE 
 
 ON the left bank of the little River Trym, 
 whose waters are now for the most part 
 hidden in a culvert beneath the main 
 street of the village of Westbury, stand the 
 remains of one of the most interesting foundations 
 in the West of England, a Benedictine Priory 
 that afterwards became a college of Augustinian 
 Canons. 
 
 Before Bristol was, Westbury College existed. 
 More than a thousand years ago, the site of 
 Westbury College is mentioned in MSS. still 
 extant. Off a, the King of the Mercians, gave 
 the land on which the monastery was afterwards 
 built, in the year 797, and in the year 803 it 
 was a well-endowed monastery under the Abbot 
 Freothomund. 
 
 It was probably the centre, whether as a house 
 of old English priests or as a Benedictine 
 monastery, from which monasticism spread 
 through Mercia and East Anglia. All that now 
 remains is the rectangular battlemented gate- 
 house, with beautiful ribbed vaulting bearing 
 
 46
 
 47 
 
 Bishop Carpenter's arms on one of the bosses in 
 its lowest chamber ; with a circular stairway which 
 formerly gave access to a chamber on each of 
 the three stories and which now leads to the roof 
 at the top, where still remains the ancient though 
 undated bell. In addition there still exist two 
 cupolaed corner towers, the one at the east angle, 
 the other at the south-east, and the enclosing 
 wall to the south by the side of the Trym. 
 
 It is more than probable that the burning 
 down of the village by Prince Rupert, when on 
 Monday, July 24, 1643, he went on his way to 
 Bristol, was the result of his realizing that 
 with the important towers and ramparts this 
 Westbury College might be made a stronghold 
 by the Parliamentary forces. It was in ruins 
 in 1680, and was in the possession between 
 1676 and 1697 of a Mr. Lane, and thereafter 
 passed through various hands, including those 
 of Byron's friend, John Carr Hobhouse. The 
 gate-tower probably owes its preservation to the 
 fact that its basement and the adjacent room 
 were used in later times as a blacksmith's shop. 
 Standing upon the tower roof, we look across 
 the village street, above the red roofs of cottages, 
 to the venerable minster of the college, now 
 the parish church a church which existed for 
 more than three hundred years before the history 
 of any other church in the neighbourhood begins,
 
 48 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 and more than seven centuries before Bristol 
 possessed a cathedral of its own. 
 
 It is probable that the original building of 
 the ninth century was of wood, and though 
 almost certainly rebuilt in Norman times, no trace 
 of this church remains to us. It was recon- 
 structed in the fifteenth century, and the college 
 was then built on the four sides of an oblong 
 court or cloister, partially surrounded by strong 
 walls and towers, and partially protected by the 
 River Trym, which on two sides formed a moat. 
 
 The great Bristol merchant, William Canynges, 
 describes himself as Clerk, Dean of the Collegiate 
 Church and College of the Holy Trinity of 
 Westbury upon Trym. He left money for a 
 Mass to be said in the minster church of 
 Westbury, and for conducting his body after- 
 wards to the church at Redcliff for burial by 
 the altar of St. Catherine. 1 
 
 Westbury, sometimes called Westminster, was 
 an important ecclesiastical centre in the ninth 
 century, when the outlying hollow, which after- 
 wards became Bristol, was an uninhabitable 
 swamp. John Carpenter, whose body rests in 
 the chancel of the church, was one of the Bishops 
 of Worcester who often presided here in person, 
 for by Ethelric's bequest this monastery, at that 
 
 1 Cf. Saturday Review, No. 1223, p. 427, April 5, 
 1879, for good account of Westbury, by Mr. Taylor.
 
 WESTBURY COLLEGE 49 
 
 time half secular, and a retreat for women and 
 priests and warriors, came into the possession 
 of the see of Worcester. 
 
 The signature of Oswald, the reformer, as 
 Bishop, first occurs in the year 961, and he 
 planted a colony of twelve monks from Fleury, 
 in this sequestered valley, with a certain 
 Germanus, mature in wisdom, though young in 
 years, to be its head, and hither Oswald often 
 came for rest and refreshment of soul. 
 
 So delighted was Edgar the King with the 
 example of the devout community here under 
 Germanus and Ednoth, who was praepositor of 
 the household, and afterwards Bishop of Dor- 
 chester, that he directed forty -seven monasteries 
 to be constituted after the same type. At 
 Oswald's death the monastery fell into decay, 
 and was devastated, we are told, by " perverse 
 and piratical sons of the Devil." Wulstan, 
 second Bishop of .Worcester, restored the 
 monastery in 1093. Samson the Norman, who 
 was consecrated by Anselm at St. Paul's as 
 Bishop of Worcester in 1096, deposed the monks 
 of Westbury, and filled their places with 
 seculars ; but Theulf, the next Bishop, ejected 
 the married clerks, and restored the Benedictine 
 regulars. Edward I, June 10, 1290, was present 
 at a trial of the Bishop of Worcester, who wished 
 to annex the best livings in his diocese to the 
 
 4
 
 50 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 convent. The end of it was that the monks 
 were left in possession of Westbury for a time, 
 but the Bishop eventually gained his point, and 
 the monastery became a college, with Dean and 
 Canons, and so continued to the Dissolution. 
 
 Bishop Carpenter rebuilt and enlarged the 
 fabric, and surrounded it with a turreted wall 
 in the manner of a castle. He died in 1476 
 at Worcester, and was buried on the south side 
 of the high altar in the minster church of 
 Westbury. A curious fresco was discovered some 
 years ago near the place of his entombment in 
 the crypt, representing his funeral procession 
 from Worcester to Westbury. It is worth while 
 to remember that John Wycliff was a Canon of 
 Westbury College in 1375. 
 
 At the Dissolution, the manor of Westbury, 
 including the college grounds, was granted to 
 Sir Ralph Sadler. It was he who removed in 
 troublous times the charters, writings and 
 muniments of the college to Standon. Many 
 of these are undiscovered, but two are in good 
 preservation, the letters patent of Henry VIII 
 and Edward VI, and are in the safe keeping 
 of Lady Smyth of Ashton Court. 
 
 Standing on this fifteenth-century gate-house 
 roof, a book of very ancient history is open 
 before us. We can see Offa, the King of the 
 Mercians, in consultation with his friend Abbot
 
 WESTUURY COLLEGE GATE-HOUSE.
 
 WESTBURY COLLEGE 51 
 
 Freothomund about the building of the monastery 
 in the year 797. 
 
 We can, in fancy, behold Germanus, mature 
 in wisdom, though young in years, with his 
 twelve monks of Fleury at his side, giving 
 welcome at the monastery gate to Bishop Oswald, 
 the reformer, in the year 961. Edgar the King, 
 as a visitor here, is so impressed with the devotion 
 of the community, that ere he leaves the village 
 he is determined that other monasteries of the 
 same type shall be built throughout the kingdom. 
 We can see the Benedictine monks driven 
 from their beloved home by Samson, Bishop of 
 Worcester, in 1096, to make way for seculars, 
 and brought back again with great joy in their 
 hearts by Theulf, the succeeding Bishop. 
 
 But as we gaze down upon the village church 
 from our position of vantage, we are most 
 impressed by the two funeral scenes which 
 come before us. One is the dust-stained pro- 
 cession of pilgrim mourners who have come all 
 the way from Worcester to bear the body of 
 their friend Bishop Carpenter, the builder of 
 this gate-house tower, to his last resting-place in 
 the parish church. The other is the funeral that 
 is leaving the church accompanied not only by 
 the inhabitants of the village but by the leading 
 merchants of Bristol as escort, to show honour 
 to the Dean of Westbury, the master-merchant
 
 52 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 of Bristol, William Canynges, whose body is 
 to be borne with all pomp and circumstance to 
 the beautiful church of St. Mary Redcliff, beside 
 the Avon, in the city of which he was so great 
 a benefactor. 
 
 As we dream of the past, we feel we owe a 
 debt of gratitude to the Local Trustees, who in 
 1892 acquired this gate-house and took steps to 
 have it made weather-proof, and who handed 
 it over in the year 1907 to the National Trust.
 
 THE LEIGH WOODS 
 
 EVERYONE has heard of the famous 
 Nightingale Valley, and the Leigh woods 
 above the Avon, that lie just across the 
 Suspension Bridge opposite Clifton down. The 
 nightingales, since the war began, have deserted 
 their ancient haunt, but the memory of their song, 
 as I heard it forty years ago, was in my ears as I 
 crossed the bridge on a bright June day to be 
 welcomed by a member of the Leigh Woods Com- 
 mittee, who gave me in charge of the ranger, and 
 bade him show me all those eighty acres of wood- 
 land paradise, of sunny glade and shady path, of 
 present beauty and past history, which are hence- 
 forth the permanent possession of the people. 
 
 The history of the acquisition of this pleasaunce 
 is worth recording. It chanced that the owner 
 of Burwalls, the house within the walls or rampart 
 of the ancient Burrow camp, closely adjacent to 
 the Suspension Bridge, was the chairman of the 
 Leigh Woods Trust Committee. He found that 
 most of the land available for building, on the 
 west of the main road through the woodland, 
 was quickly taken up, and there were so many 
 inquiries for sites on the east of the road, that 
 dominates the slopes to the River Avon, that 
 
 58
 
 54 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 unless this wood could be bought up at once for 
 the use of the public, there would soon be no more 
 wander-ground for the people in the vicinity ; 
 and so with admirable foresight and generosity 
 Mr. George Wills purchased the whole remain- 
 ing eighty acres, which contain within them the 
 famous Stokesleigh camp, and under conditions 
 of management by a local committee, presented 
 it to the National Trust. 
 
 His kindness did not stop there. He gave an 
 endowment to meet the annual expenses of the 
 upkeep, built a model rest-house and shelter, 
 combined with a cottage for the ranger, with 
 facility for visitors to obtain hot water for 
 their teapots, a fountain of cold water for 
 children, and possibility of escape from bad 
 weather for people overtaken by rainstorms. 
 
 His committee went to work with a will to see 
 that certain glades were opened up, and that 
 certain tree planting should at once be done. At 
 least 1,200 of such trees indigenous to the neigh- 
 bourhood have already been planted. It is true 
 that a good deal remains to be done in clearing 
 undergrowth, and cutting out useless trees to give 
 a chance of sun and air to others, but the 
 committee's motto is, " Go slowly." 
 
 I walked on with the ranger over half a mile 
 of curving main road, stopping from time to time 
 to look down into the fascinating depths of 
 Nightingale Valley that sloped, a verdurous
 
 THE LEIGH WOODS 55 
 
 ravine, towards the Avon. The happy voices of 
 children came up to me from far below. We 
 entered the main woodland path beyond the 
 Nightingale Valley, and heard, as we passed 
 through welcome shadow, the song of the garden 
 warbler and chaffinch, the wood wren and willow 
 wren, and occasionally the mild, mellow " crush " 
 of the woodpigeon's note, which was jarred by 
 the screaming of the jay. 
 
 We came to a large open glade of short grass, 
 and noticed that rough tree trunks had been 
 sawn into suitable lengths, and placed in position 
 between picturesque clumps of birch trees for 
 seats. Several groups of people were sitting in 
 clusters at their tea beneath the shade. The 
 ranger took me to his cottage, which commands 
 a full view of the glade, and showed me with no 
 little pride the kitchen garden he had redeemed 
 from the wilderness, showed me also the ample 
 verandah, with its friendly clock face, and spoke 
 of the litter nuisance which caused him, as it 
 causes all lovers of recreation grounds, consider- 
 able trouble. 
 
 " I was at work," said he, " from six till twelve 
 last Sunday morning, cleaning up after Saturday's 
 holiday." 
 
 We fell to talk about this litter curse. He 
 agreed with me that the only hope for a better 
 mind and practice in these matters is to enlist 
 the sympathy of schoolmaster and schoolmistress
 
 56 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 in the elementary and secondary schools, and thus 
 get a healthy public opinion against the selfish- 
 ness of litter-making nursed amongst the scholars 
 of the rising generation. I mentioned that in 
 Cumberland we had, through the education 
 authority, sent a leaflet on this subject to all 
 schools, which I knew had in many instances 
 been used by the teachers, with good effect, as 
 the text for a talk against litter-making. 
 
 We turned to the more difficult question of 
 flower-picking. He naively said : " Well, I 
 don't hold with rooting up plants, for that is a 
 shameful, silly thing to do, but flower-picking 
 is in a child's blood, and nothing will stop it at 
 least that's my way of thinking about it," and I 
 was compelled to agree with him. 
 
 But I learned that Leigh woods had suffered, 
 as other possessions of the National Trust have 
 suffered, by what I dare to call the crime of 
 thievish up-rooting of flowers for private posses- 
 sion, and we agreed that if an offender was caught 
 red-handed, only a police court summons and a 
 fine would serve as a deterrent. 
 
 We walked forward by a well-defined path- 
 way, till we reached the first of the three ramparts 
 that in early British times were raised to defend 
 the holders of Stokesleigh camp against the 
 enemy. What a " strength " this great camp 
 must have been, when, to prevent the crossing 
 of the ford of the Avon at low-tide, this encamp-
 
 LEIGH WOODS.
 
 THE LEIGH WOODS 57 
 
 merit acted in concert with the Burrow walls camp 
 to safeguard the whole country, this side the 
 river, from invasion. 
 
 Much clearing had been done, but I could not 
 help the wish that more might be accomplished, 
 so as to open up to public view the mighty triple 
 ramparts of the camp. We proceeded then to 
 an open glade on the edge of the cliff above the 
 Avon, and gained therefrom a superb view of 
 the river and the opposite cliffs, gorgeous in red 
 and yellow and white rock, with patches of 
 verdure here and there upon their rugged fronts ; 
 and we dreamed of the days when Sebastian Cabot 
 with his Bristol and Bridgwater crew, in the year 
 1497, sailed down the river below us on his great 
 voyage of discovery, while people from the cliff 
 edge of the down, waved him their farewells 
 and breathed their prayers for his safe return. 
 
 As we looked across to the city we saw, rose- 
 red in the light from the west, a stately tower, 
 that told us that Cabot's memory was still fresh 
 in mind. Thence, returning by a circuitous route, 
 we examined some of the ancient wall, which 
 possibly Roman soldiers at a later time had made 
 tp strengthen the British camp they occupied, 
 and noted the sketch plan upon a tree hard by, 
 which had been carefully prepared to give the 
 visitor information. 
 
 We passed homeward towards the glade we 
 had first entered, through a remarkable birch-
 
 58 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 tree grove, which by judicious thinning had 
 been opened up to reveal its beauty. So with 
 farewell to our guide we went back to the town 
 well content. 
 
 Next day it was our privilege to wander over 
 the same ground with the donor, and, as often 
 happens, a second visit more than ever impressed 
 us with the wild beauty and delight of this 
 national possession. 
 
 It was evident from what he said that the 
 local committee was determined to keep the 
 woodland in a natural state. Never to plant 
 foreign trees, but to add from time to time to its 
 beauty by the planting of guelder-rose, wild 
 cherry, rowans, and such flowering trees as were 
 indigenous. I had heard of the small-leaved 
 lime as being in existence there, but I found 
 no example of it. 
 
 It was a great gain to have had a talk with 
 this kindly man, whose large-hearted generosity 
 had endowed Bristol and Clifton with such a 
 recreation ground, and we came away fervently 
 wishing that all who have it in their power to 
 add thus to the health and real wealth of Merrie 
 England, would follow a good example. 
 
 NOTE. Since this was written, Mr. P. Napier Miles, 
 of King's Weston, has presented to the Trust ninety 
 acres of his beautiful park, including a golf course, at 
 Shirehampton, overlooking the river Avon. Visitors to 
 Bristol should make a point ot seeing this.
 
 TOR HILL, WELLS 
 
 WITHIN half a mile of the market-place 
 of Wells, to the south-east of the 
 Cathedral and Bishop's Palace, rises 
 a wooded hill, through which a steep path passes 
 upward to a level plateau of grass surrounded 
 by trees the beginning of an upland ridge on 
 which is situated the Wells golf course. There 
 is probably no more frequented track to high 
 ground near the city than this woodland, but 
 till the National Trust obtained possession of 
 the wood and the grassy plateau above it the 
 public had no right of access, or leave to wander, 
 and though there is a large recreation ground 
 by the side of the Bishop's barn, there was 
 no place to which people could go for a quiet 
 ramble, and to obtain a glorious view of the 
 surrounding country. In 1914 these nineteen 
 and a half acres of wood and grass land were 
 purchased for 500, mainly contributed by 
 residents in the locality. 
 
 Leaving the market-place, with its interesting 
 well, the gift of Bishop Beckington in the middle 
 
 59
 
 60 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 of the fifteenth century, we pass under his noble 
 gateway, and keeping the Bishop's Palace moat 
 on our left hand, turn with it under the lime- 
 tree avenue along two sides of the moat, the 
 legacy of Ralph of Shrewbury, 1340, beautiful 
 to-day with its flotilla of white swans and grey 
 cygnets, and vocal with the chirrick of the coot. 
 At the extreme end of the second side of the 
 moat, we cross the road which leads to Shepton 
 Mallet, into an adjacent lane, then get over a 
 stone stile in a wall on our right hand and climb 
 the pathway. 
 
 At first we are disappointed by all view of 
 the Cathedral being shut out by tree growth, 
 but we notice numberless tracks which all tend 
 steeply upward through the wood, and led by 
 this sign we eventually come to a seat, high- 
 perched on a platform of concrete, which gives a 
 full view of the Cathedral. 
 
 It is impossible as we sit, with this grand pile 
 of buildings before us, not to recall the historic 
 past. Here it is probable that Ina, King of 
 Wessex, was first attracted to found a home for 
 his seculars by the wells of St. Andrew ; hither 
 certainly came Eadward the Elder, the warrior 
 son of Alfred the Great, after the peace of 
 Wedmore, when the diocese of Sherborne was 
 divided and the Sumor-saetas had a Bishop of 
 their own, and determined that here the Bishop
 
 TOR HILL, WELLS 61 
 
 should have his stool, and here probably built a 
 little pre- Norman church at the beginning of 
 the tenth century. It is pretty certain that 
 Aethelm, a Glastonbury monk, who lived between 
 904 and 914, was the first Bishop. It was not 
 till 1138 that Robert of Lewes, first Bishop of 
 Bath and Wells, began his Norman Church on 
 a larger scale. Of that church nothing now 
 remains but the font in the Cathedral. 
 
 The magnificent pile which stands up before 
 us now, was largely the work of Reginald de 
 Bohun, 1174 to 1191,*; of Jocelin, the signer 
 of Magna Chartat; of William Bittern ; of 
 Robert Barnett, 1275-; of William de Marcia, 
 who completed Bittern's chapter-house wallstj of 
 Dean Godelee, who in 1319 finished the chapter- 
 house and began the Lady chapel ; of Bishop 
 Ralph of Shrewsbury, who finished the Bishop's 
 Palace begun by Jocelin, and who rebuilt the 
 central tower, 1329-13630; of Bishop Harewell, 
 died 1326, who was responsible for the south- 
 western tower*; of Bishop Budworth, who 
 finished the north-western tower*} Bishop Beck- 
 ington, who recast the Vicar's close, and gave 
 the city its beautiful gates, and Dean 
 Grimthorpe, who built the Deanery. 
 
 But others should be remembered here. 
 William Laud may have climbed this hill, and 
 Thomas Ken, most brave and most holy of
 
 62 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 Bishops, may have wandered in this woodland. 
 If the spirits of the great dead could return 
 to walk the meadows or wander on Tor Hill, 
 there are none who would more gladly return 
 than those two brothers, who loved their native 
 place as they loved their life, Jocelyn and his 
 brother Hugh, who afterwards became Bishop 
 of Lincoln. These men gave of their love and 
 of their substance, to the making beautiful the 
 great house of God beside the seven wells. 
 
 As we look down on the splendid work of these 
 builders of old time, we cannot help the feeling 
 that some special Providence has guarded St. 
 Andrew's Wells, and brought it about that the 
 Psalmist's prayer should be answered : " Pros- 
 per thou the work of our hands upon us, O prosper 
 thou our handiwork." 
 
 Through this opening in the wood, framed 
 magnificently for us by the ruddy stems of some 
 Scotch firs, we gain an unforgettable view of 
 the stately Cathedral and conventual buildings. 
 It is much to be hoped that in future years a 
 proper path, instead of this multiplication of 
 scramblers' tracks, will be made to this view- 
 point ; otherwise considerable damage will be 
 done to the wood itself, and the public will find 
 it increasingly difficult to obtain foothold as they 
 pass upward. 
 
 Rejoining the main path by which we enter
 
 TOR HILL, WELLS 63 
 
 the wood, we come at last to the plateau, of 
 which the tenant, to prevent his sheep straying, 
 appears to have ignored the need of access to 
 the upland from the wood, and has incontinently 
 placed a stout post in the gap between the 
 original stone stile and the wooden fence. We 
 surmounted the obstacle, found ourselves in a 
 breezy meadow of short-cropped grass, yellow 
 rock roses everywhere covering the ground, and 
 made our way to the single bench that is placed 
 in mid field for the comfort of visitors. There- 
 from, though the whole of the town and 
 Cathedral was hidden from view by the fringe of 
 trees, to the westward the magnificent tower of 
 St. Cuthbert's church was seen to stand up nobly 
 in middle distance. On our right hand the 
 wooded Pen Hill led the eye along from east to 
 west. Far off in the north was seen the blue- 
 grey hill of Brent Knoll, and coming south our 
 eyes rested for a moment on Hay Hill, then were 
 carried west to the blue Quantocks, and ranging 
 farther south, were for the moment riveted by 
 the conical height, with its dark tower, of the 
 Glastonbury Tor. The loveliness of that vale 
 of Avalon was accentuated to-day by the many 
 shadows and flying sunlight upon the fertile 
 plain, and memories of that ancient home of 
 sacred and Arthurian legend crowded upon us. 
 We made our way home through a breach
 
 64 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 in the boundary wall in the wood, and hoped that 
 in time to come a proper pathway through this 
 upper part of the wood might be formed, to lead 
 us through the dog -mercury -covered ground 
 and the glittering woodland, back to the 
 shining moat and the city of St. Andrew's Wells.
 
 THE CHEDDAR GORGE 
 
 ON a cool day in mid June, in which 
 sunshine followed sharp bursts of rain 
 and cloud-shadows moved over the 
 Cheddar vale and gave a sense of restlessness 
 to the whole landscape, we left the little cathedral 
 town by the wells of St. Andrew, a sanctuary 
 of historic association and repose and could not 
 help recalling the lines in which Wordsworth 
 summed up his impressions of Grasmere 
 
 Made for itself and happy in itself, 
 Perfect contentment, Unity entire. 
 
 We bade adieu to Jocelyn and Reginald's 
 masterpiece, adieu to the most magnificent Gothic 
 church tower in the west country, that of St. 
 Cuthbert's, and took train for the Cheddar gorge. 
 
 We passed through an undulating country filled 
 with corn, grass, and orchards alas ! for the 
 most part this year fruitless by railway cuttings, 
 red with valerian or white with ox-eye daisies, 
 passed two or three villages, whose yellow- 
 washed walls and red-brown roof tiles gave a 
 
 5 65
 
 66 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 sense of comfort and happiness to the scene, much 
 regretting that these warm tiles were gradually 
 giving way to blue slate, and found ourselves 
 speeding past Wookey and its paper mills, Lodge 
 Hill without a village, Draycott, whose elder 
 blossom and wild rose were in full bloom, and saw 
 shining whitely under the hill, near the entrance 
 of the gorge, Paris Tower, as it is called, and 
 knew that Cheddar station was near. 
 
 A pleasant walk of ten minutes took us to 
 the heart of the little village and its magnifi- 
 cent fourteenth-century church tower, with the 
 Annunciation beneath two canopies on its western 
 side, and its St. Andrew high uplifted in canopy 
 on its eastern face. Then, after pausing for a 
 moment at the market cross, the lower part of 
 whose shaft and stone steps is roofed in by an 
 octagonal building of stone, we turned to the left 
 and went northward through the picturesque 
 village, till we heard the water singing beside 
 us, and knew that it was not improbable that 
 this little singer had in ancient times been the 
 giant power that had cleft the Cheddar cliffs and 
 made it possible for man to-day to pass slowly 
 through the lime-stone precipices to the upland 
 beyond. 
 
 As we neared the entrance to the gorge our 
 minds were distressed beyond measure by the 
 advertisements advocating visits to the rival caves.
 
 THE CHEDDAR GORGE 67 
 
 Cox was clearly the man who held the key to 
 stalactite secrets. Gough was the man who kept 
 in his cavern-treasury echoes of 80,000 years 
 ago, and the skull and bones of a prehistoric 
 troglodite. To judge by photographs of the skull 
 of the old cave-dweller, dentists were not needed 
 in those days. It was a great relief to turn from 
 this touting for custom to the beautiful sheet of 
 water, the sound of whose fall at the weir into the 
 garden of the Cliff hostelry filled the air, but 
 whose shining surface, here and there white with 
 water-crowfoot, gave back so much of reflection 
 of white cloud and garden beauty as to rebuke 
 us by its generosity, its motto clearly being " To 
 give is better than to get." 
 
 This sheet of water, with its garden ground, 
 its poplar trees, and its cottages, each bowered 
 in roses or gay with " bridal wreath," is the 
 picturesque feature of the entrance to the gorge, 
 and when we see how badly treated it has been 
 by the throwing into it of potsherds and broken 
 china, we cannot but fear that in a few years' 
 time its beauty will be entirely lost to inhabitants 
 and visitors by being enclosed with some huge 
 protective wall, for the Bristol Water Company 
 has lately obtained power over it by Act of 
 Parliament by a purchase not only of the water- 
 pool, but of the Cliff Hotel and its grounds close 
 by; and though they agreed not to take water
 
 68 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 from this emergency source if less than three 
 million gallons of water are passing down to 
 the village, they probably have also obtained 
 powers to protect by any means they choose 
 their fountain head, with certain loss to the 
 amenity of the approach to the gorge. 
 
 High up above the cottages, on the left hand 
 as we neared the gateway of the gorge, lay 
 couchant the huge lion-rock. The beauty of tree 
 growth on the right hand, filled with the song of 
 the willow warbler, the fresh green leafage in 
 contrast with the grey cliff behind was delight- 
 ful, and it was with real sense of relief we found 
 ourselves away from all the busy life of the 
 village, in the calm tranquillity of the great 
 precipices high above us. 
 
 The jackdaws, it is true, clamoured from the 
 clefts, but no other sound broke the silence, which 
 seemed to grow as we passed upward, and we 
 were soon opposite the debris heaps that mark 
 the work of the steam stone-breaker, that as 
 late as 1912 was doing its best, in the interests 
 of road metal contracts, to destroy the beauty 
 of the northern cliff at this point. We could 
 not help contrasting the peace and quiet of to-day 
 with the clatter and clang of the quarry that 
 distressed us when we last visited the gorge. 
 
 The work of a week or two on these spoil 
 heaps would, if the terrace slope was sown down
 
 THE CHEDDAR GORGE 69 
 
 with grass, heal the wound the quarrymen have 
 left behind them. At the end of the war this 
 might be possible, and if valerian seed were 
 scattered amongst the broken rocks hard by, all 
 trace of the mischief of man would be obliterated. 
 The history of the acquisition of seventy acres 
 of these Cheddar cliffs, including the quarry, 
 which were purchased in 1909 for the sum of 
 1,100, raised by public subscription, is as 
 follows. By reason of the quarrying which was 
 going forward to the destruction of the beauty 
 of the cliffs at this point a circular letter was 
 addressed by the National Trust to the public 
 authorities in the locality. The Somersetshire 
 County Council showed its sympathy by passing a 
 resolution regretting the damage done, and urging 
 the importance in the national interest of pre- 
 serving the unique beauty of the gorge as far 
 as possible. Other public bodies, including the 
 Cheddar Parish Council, followed suit, but it 
 was not until 1908 that an opportunity arose 
 of buying the property on which the chief quarry 
 was situated. The National Trust then put them- 
 selves in communication with Mr. Walter Long, 
 who owns the higher portion of the gorge on the 
 same side, and they also wrote to Lord Bath, who 
 is the owner of the high crags on the opposite 
 side of the gorge, and obtained from both 
 of them a friendly hearing. Without pledging
 
 70 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 themselves for the future to refuse quarrying 
 elsewhere, they intimated that they did not 
 contemplate opening quarries on any part of the 
 gorge which they owned, and encouraged by this 
 correspondence the National Trust set to work 
 to obtain the requisite money for the purchase. 
 Large contracts for stone had been entered into 
 which could not be broken, but it was arranged 
 that these should be fulfilled from loose stones 
 already fallen, and no further blasting was 
 allowed to take place. These contracts ended in 
 1912. 
 
 We walked up the gorge, and felt its grandeur 
 grow upon us. Not since we visited the back 
 side of the Monte dei Fiori at Varese, had we 
 seen such limestone buttresses and pinnacles as 
 we saw below the Winding Rock and the Castle 
 Rocks at Cheddar. The beauty of the bastion 
 cliffs was enhanced by the fact that both Winding 
 Rock and pinnacles are set in a curve which 
 gives the most extraordinary play of light and 
 shadow. Tier upon tier the mighty bastions rise, 
 clothed here with ivy, there plumed with the 
 foliage of ash and seedling birch, and wherever 
 turf could obtain a foothold it jewelled the great 
 castle -keeps with inset of emerald. Solemnly 
 silent and stern at the base, their upper 
 parapets were filled with the sound of daws ; 
 and the wings of ravens, as they sailed out
 
 THE CHEDDAR GORGE 71 
 
 poised in mid-air, sent down their tiny dappling 
 shadows. 
 
 Quite the most remarkable point of view in 
 the whole walk was when, suddenly turning a 
 corner, the pinnacles, like miniature Aiguilles 
 Dru, rose out of velvet-dark shadow into blazing 
 sunlight. By easy gradient and on a perfect 
 roadway we walked still farther up the gorge, 
 and now the sternness of the pass gave way to 
 hanging woods on the one side, and grassy fell- 
 side pasture on the other, that went by easy 
 slope to blue heaven, and was dotted here and 
 there by hazel and thorn-tree growth. We 
 recognized at once the difference of altitude by 
 the fact that thorn trees long out of flower in 
 the valley were still blossoming here. 
 
 We had virtually reached the summit of the 
 pass, when we noticed a gap in the wall that 
 had once been a gateway, which gave access 
 on the right hand, by a very steep path, to the 
 heart of a pine wood, and feeling sure if we 
 could pass through that wood and gain open 
 country at the top we should obtain a magnifi- 
 cent panoramic view of the Cheddar valley and 
 seaward plain, we clomb up through a wood 
 that in the wind was full of the sound of the 
 sea, and in twenty minutes reached the open 
 country beyond. 
 
 Away to the south-west stood up the conical
 
 72 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 hill with its tower of Glastonbury Tor, the plain 
 of corn and grass rolled into the blue-grey 
 distance of the Quantock hills. But for mag- 
 nificent bursts of rain we should have seen the 
 Bristol Channel. The plateau inland on both 
 sides of the gorge, dotted here and there with 
 single farm buildings, showed that the plough 
 in this time of war had been busy in unexpected 
 places. Back through the wood into the gorge, 
 from cold wind into sunny quiet we came ; 
 so downward, the wonder of the cliffs growing 
 all the way, we descended to the village, and 
 as we passed the silent quarry we could not 
 help being thankful that the National Trust had 
 been enabled to prevent threatened destruction 
 by the stone-getters, and that Lord Bath, who 
 was the owner of the cliffs on the mountain 
 side of the gorge, had consented to refuse 
 permission for quarrying, and so was the pro- 
 tector of the noble gorge for all who should ever 
 visit it. 
 
 We had some time on our hands before the 
 train left and were enabled to visit the stalactite 
 cavern. The slowness of the growth of the 
 stalactites was instanced by the fact that one 
 stalactite, which eighty years ago was not more 
 than one-eighth of an inch from joining itself 
 to the stalagmite that was meeting it from below, 
 had not yet joined up ; and the second impres-
 
 THE CHEDDAR GORGE 73 
 
 sion we came away with was the beauty of the 
 variety of colour of the stalactites, some leaden 
 black, some rust-red, others veined with blue, 
 others in close proximity purest white. 
 
 Tune was also allowed us to visit the very 
 interesting parish church. The beauty of some 
 of the stone and wood carving, and ancient four- 
 teenth-century glass, the Jacobean font cover, 
 and the Jacobean altar table in a side chapel 
 were worth remembering, and with a farewell 
 look at the village cross, we turned our backs 
 upon a characteristic Somersetshire village. 

 
 MUCHELNEY AND HARRINGTON COURT 
 
 THE war had made it almost impossible 
 for us to see Muchelney and Barrington 
 Court by railway, and as we were not 
 g,oing merely for our own pleasure but on business 
 in connection with the National Trust, and must 
 get to Langport station for Bridgwater, we took 
 car from Wells for a cross-country journey. 
 
 We went through the village of Polsham, our 
 eyes constantly attracted to the pyramidal hill 
 of Tor, with its dark tower, the landmark for 
 twenty miles round Tor, with its sad memories 
 of the cruel murder of the Abbot Whyting and 
 his brother monks, after their mock trial at 
 Wells, by command of the commissioners of 
 Henry VIII ; and as we neared Glastonbury, 
 upon our right hand, we saw the meadows where 
 in old time lay the mere where the lake-dwellers 
 built their huts upon rafts of wattle, teased their 
 wool with bone combs, made their black pottery, 
 hammered out their rude iron implements of 
 war, fashioned their beautiful bronze bowls, made 
 
 74
 
 MUCHELNEY 75 
 
 their stone sinkers for the nets, and hollowed 
 out solid trees into their rough canoes. 
 
 On a day like this, with the sun pouring down 
 upon the orchards, with the air filled with 
 fragrance from the elder-flower, the towering 
 elms right and left of us tall domes of sunshine, 
 we could well understand how the wounded 
 Arthur determined to make his way hither : 
 
 Where falls not hail, nor rain, nor any snow, 
 
 Nor ever wind blows loudly, 
 
 Where he might heal him of his grievous wound. 
 
 We passed the beautiful church of St. John 
 Baptist, with its open parapet and flying 
 pinnacles, entered the street of picturesque 
 houses that led us toward the market cross, 
 saw the famous George Inn, which since Abbot 
 Selwood's time, in 1490, has entertained pilgrims 
 to the shrine of Joseph of Arimathea, noted the 
 coats of arms and entablatures and its mullioned 
 windows, saw, next to the George Hotel, the 
 famous Hall of Justice, or Tribunal, with its 
 large bay window, which once in its emblazoned 
 panes bore the arms of the Abbot of Glastonbury 
 and the King of England, and thence away to 
 the left, gained the Abbey portal. 
 
 Nothing could exceed the sense of peaceful 
 orderliness of the whole Abbey grounds. We 
 rejoiced to think that henceforth every stone will
 
 76 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 be cared for, and we must needs congratulate 
 the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Dr. Kennion, on 
 his having raised the necessary 30,000 for the 
 purchase of the ruins, in 1907, when they came 
 into the market. 
 
 I had seen St. Joseph's Chapel some years 
 ago, but could not have believed it was the same 
 building that I gazed upon to-day. The ivy 
 had all been removed, the ruinous walls had 
 been repaired, the crypt and well, filled probably 
 of old with water from the Chalice well, had been 
 cleared out, and the stone steps that gave access 
 to it replaced. We were able to get a clear 
 idea of the beauty of the Norman building, 
 supposed to have been erected in the time of 
 Henry II, one of the best specimens remaining 
 of the transition style from Norman to early 
 English. It was with some difficulty we tore 
 ourselves away from the delight of the north 
 doorway, and the view of the six windows with 
 their compartments of rich zigzag arches, whose 
 spandrils were adorned with roses and crescents 
 and stars. 
 
 A little to the south-west rose up above the 
 orchard trees the most perfect remains of an 
 Abbot's kitchen that exist in Britain, but we 
 turned our backs upon them and made for the 
 Abbey proper, astonished by what must have 
 been the size of the original building, and its
 
 MUCHELNEY 77 
 
 height as evidenced by the still standing abut- 
 ments of the tower arch. We walked over the 
 turf-clad choir towards what must have been 
 the high altar, and remembered that tradition 
 tells us that here, before this high altar, by 
 the side of his Queen Guinevere, was laid to 
 rest King Arthur. 
 
 How many other kings' and abbots' dust is 
 mingled beneath the sod we cannot know, but 
 at least the Kings Edmund, Edgar, and Edmund 
 Ironsides were entombed here, and we feel that 
 we are indeed on sacred and historic ground. 
 Here Alfwold the Thane, ages before this central 
 shrine of British Christendom was erected, had 
 his wattled house. 
 
 Passing eastward we saw the ground-plan of 
 the famous Edgar Chapel, which Mr. Bond, to 
 whom we are so greatly indebted for his work 
 on the Abbey remains, has marked out per- 
 manently ; and though we may smile at his 
 quaint conversation with the spirits of the 
 Ancient Abbey Builders, and may have our doubts 
 as to the date of the mediaeval English writing 
 and the monkish Latin spoken, by which these 
 same spirits appear to have communicated their 
 information to him, as recorded in his book The 
 Gate of Remembrance, we must at any rate believe 
 in his bona-fides, and thank him for his earnest- 
 ness of pursuit and his conscientious labour. To
 
 78 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 those who believe that the men who have passed 
 away remember with constant affection their old 
 homes and the work of their hands upon earth, 
 his book will have peopled the Abbey grounds 
 with such characters as Camillus Thesiger ; 
 Ibericus, the treasure bringer ; Johannes Lory, 
 the master-mason ; Peter Lightfoot, the clock 
 giver ; Abbot Bere ; and the child of nature, 
 Johannes de Glaston, who loved this place as 
 a dog loves his master, and we can only hope 
 that when the war ends his archaeological efforts 
 may be continued. To Mr. Caroe also we owe 
 great thanks for his work of strengthening and 
 preserving such parts of the building as remain 
 to us. 
 
 Leaving the Abbey grounds, we left our hearts 
 behind us, for we who had come from the north 
 felt that in old days relics of our northern saints 
 were here held in highest honour. Something 
 of Aiden, Bede, Benedict-Biscop, and Cuthbert 
 were here treasured, and the white arm of St. 
 Oswald, in whose memory the Grasmere children 
 still bear their rushes to St. Oswald's Church, 
 was long time here preserved. 
 
 We visited the museum hard by, much inter- 
 ested in the lake-dwellers' relics there, and the 
 fragments of Roman and Samian pottery, and 
 last, but not least, the interesting drawings that 
 reconstruct for us the probable aspect of the
 
 MUCHELNEY 79 
 
 lake-dwellers' settlement. So wonderfully pre- 
 servative was the peat in which these objects 
 were buried, that I was informed by one present 
 at the excavation that the glossy green upon 
 a beetle's wing, buried all these centuries, was 
 as bright when found as if the creature were 
 alive . 
 
 Leaving the town, we bore a little to the right 
 with Weary-all Hill above us on our left Weary- 
 all, with its memories of Joseph of Arimathea 
 and his thorn tree, of St. Patrick and his last 
 resting-place ; and so on through avenues of 
 elms, and hedgerows filled with wild roses and 
 traveller's joy, through Street and Somerton, 
 towards Langport, much interested in an old 
 market building and mullioned windows of houses 
 near by. 
 
 We pulled up short of Langport station to 
 visit the far-famed Kelway Nurseries, and went 
 through acres of peonies, flowering in the long 
 grasses under the chequered shadow of orchards. 
 It was explained to us that these peonies delight 
 and blossom longer in this comparative shade, and 
 we turned away a little saddened to think that 
 the war has called away one hundred and fifty 
 men from these nurseries, and has turned a 
 perfectly ordered garden into a semi -wilderness. 
 
 We were allowed view of prize delphiniums, 
 which were just being packed for the Royal
 
 80 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 Horticultural Show, in London. Wonderful 
 shades, from brightest blue to darkest purple, 
 and every conceivable blend of these colours, 
 some white-eyed, some dark-eyed, miracles of 
 gentian blue, and grey flushed with pink. 
 
 Thence we left for Muchelney, passing through 
 acres of roses by way of Huish Episcopi. The 
 tall tower of the parish church, with its beautiful 
 pierced stone grilles or panels to allow of light 
 to the belfry, all gilded over with yellow lichen, 
 is a vision not to be forgotten, so on by roads 
 flanked on either side with pollarded willows in 
 their bright summer dress, we made our way to 
 Muchelney. 
 
 We pulled up at the pretty village cross, 
 with Muchelney church on one side of the road 
 and opposite it the fourteenth-century priest's 
 house that we had come to see. It is impossible 
 to describe the beauty of the flowery setting 
 of that old house so snugly thatched,, or to 
 speak too highly of its careful restoration since 
 it came into the hands of the National Trust. 
 
 The garden enclosure in front of the house 
 was to-day rilled with colour. Blue anchusa, 
 red valerian, yellow coreopsis seemed to run 
 riot for exuberance of joy. 
 
 Lifting the pretty iron latch of the old oak 
 door beneath its mullioned arch, we were 
 welcomed by the present tenant, who at once
 
 MUCHELNEY 81 
 
 showed us all over the house. On the left was 
 the kitchen, on the right was what was originally 
 the refectory formerly open to the roof, now 
 ceiled for a bedroom above, whose chief features 
 were the fine perpendicular windows. Through 
 the refectory was the priest's room, and from 
 it went up a stairway, to what was his bedchamber 
 above. A passage from the front door, dividing 
 the kitchen from these rooms, ran through the 
 house to another mullioned doorway which led to 
 a small garden behind. All that one could wish 
 for in any future improvements, was the opening 
 up of some of the windows to give more light 
 to the sitting-room below, and further ventilation 
 by opening more of the leaded lights of both 
 the sitting-room and bedroom windows. 
 
 We came away feeling very grateful to the 
 Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings 
 for having, at the instance of the National Trust, 
 carried out the repairs with such judgment for 
 the small sum of 200. When through the 
 kind offices of the Vicar of the parish, the Rev. 
 Joseph Stubbs, the National Trust obtained this 
 house in 1911, it was in a most dilapidated con- 
 dition, and the back wall was about to fall. The 
 house was only secured just in time to save it. 
 
 As we sat on the steps of the old village 
 cross, and looked at the little fourteenth-century 
 house of the priests secular, we could go back 
 
 6
 
 82 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 in dream to the time when this village was so 
 surrounded by water-meadows and the marshes 
 of the Parratt, as to be called, what its name 
 implies, the Great or Muckle Island. 
 
 It was because of the security given by these 
 marshes that Athelstan founded his abbey south- 
 east of the parish church of to-day, of which 
 some of the domestic buildings, now the Abbey 
 Farm, alone remain. With the ordinance of 
 Walter, Bishop of Bath and Wells, dated 
 December, 1308, in mind, we could not help 
 feeling in this time of war that if Sir Richard 
 Baldewyne of Mertok, Vicar of the parish church 
 of Muchelney, could come back to his humble 
 dwelling, he would find himself at one with all 
 of his parishioners who are now enduring war 
 rations, and would probably be able to share 
 a large amount of his bread and ale with 
 members of his flock to their much satisfaction ; 
 for by that ordinance the Bishop decreed that the 
 Vicar and his successors should daily receive, 
 from the cellarer of the convent, a monk's bread 
 of the weight of sixty shillings, and two gallons 
 of ale of the best conventual ale ; and from 
 the kitchen a dish of fresh meat on Sundays 
 and on Tuesdays, and a dish of eggs or fish on 
 the other days of the week at the cook's 
 pleasure. 
 
 We, with our meatless days, should be in
 
 MUCHELNEY 83 
 
 sympathy with him, and many of us who have to 
 pay fourpence apiece for our eggs, would envy 
 him not a little when on Holy Friday and Easter 
 Day all the bread, eggs, and other oblations that 
 came to the cross were handed over to the Vicar 
 as his perquisites. 
 
 We were unable to see the church, which was 
 locked up, but before we left Muchelney we 
 rambled into the farmyard attached to the Abbey 
 Farm, and learnt from its master, who was very 
 busy housing hay, which strapping wenches with 
 their carts delivered to him, that what originally 
 he believed was used as part of the kitchen 
 and the refectory for the Abbot, was now his 
 apple and cider storehouse. 
 
 The light buttresses of that building, with 
 their strange hoods, the fine carving and entabla- 
 ture of the walls, the exquisite effect of shadow 
 and sun, and the picturesque grouping of the 
 various angles and recesses of the substantial 
 pile that remains, were full of beauty, and we 
 envied the farm folk who dwelt in such noble 
 surroundings. 
 
 Then off we went through willowy lanes by 
 Dray ton and Hamb ridge, villages of thatched 
 roofs with portugal laurels in flower, gardens of 
 straight clipped yews, and houses bowered with 
 roses, till turning up what seemed a by-lane 
 beneath o'ershadowing elms, we found ourselves
 
 84 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 in the picturesque village of Harrington-; and 
 passing through the village, with its almost 
 miniature cottages, and a church with octagon 
 tower rising out of a cruciform body, came in 
 sight first of the substantial Georgian stables, 
 and then of the Elizabethan house of Barring- 
 ton Court beyond, with its striking twisted finials 
 and chimneys. A nearer view made us realize 
 the beauty of its narrow gables and many- 
 mullioned windows, and pulling up at the side 
 doorway, with its comparatively modern porch, 
 built by a Mr. Petre in exquisite harmony with 
 the rest of the building, we asked for admittance. 
 It was an unfortunate moment, for it was the 
 dinner hour at the farm, and Mr. Jacobs, the 
 farmer, who, short-handed, was working long 
 hours, could not of course be kept from his 
 dinner. We therefore went round to the front 
 of the house to gain some idea of its magnifi- 
 cence, and were not a little distressed to find 
 that the two deodars planted before the house, 
 in the deep recess made by its outjutting wings, 
 were rapidly growing in such a way as to hide 
 some of its chief beauty. 
 
 It was impossible to gain a full idea of the 
 extent of the house without getting some 
 distance from it, by passing across the rough 
 meadow in front. The farther we went from 
 it, the more the " Glory of Somerset," as it has
 
 MUCHELNEY 85 
 
 been called, grew upon us. We saw at once, 
 as was fitting in the time of Elizabeth, that the 
 house had been built in the form of the letter 
 E. The angle buttresses of the wings and 
 porch rose up to twisted terminals. These 
 ended in cupola-like tops. The gable ends were 
 finished with like terminals, and all the chimneys 
 were twisted and gave great lightness and attrac- 
 tion to the building. Light and grace were its 
 marked features. The mullioned windows, with 
 arched heads and water-tables above, were all 
 in keeping with the best Tudor architecture. The 
 porch had a fine Tudor arch with rooms above it 
 and gables on either hand. 
 
 One could not help wondering how it was 
 possible such a splendid pile had ever been 
 erected in a position from which little out- 
 look was attainable, for the view was bounded by 
 the featureless slope of the near hill, and the 
 absence of large timber was not compensated 
 for by the great orchards that stretched away 
 from one end of the house. Those orchards 
 reminded us that one of the chief assets of the 
 tenant is the possibility of cider-making. How 
 good that cider was we were soon to know, for 
 Mr. Jacobs, with true yeoman courtesy, sent out 
 to beg us rest in the front porch, and with the 
 message also sent a jug of his own excellent 
 liquor.
 
 86 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 The lady of the house soon appeared to show 
 us over it, and entering the great hall we found 
 its floor filled to overflowing with barrels of the 
 local beverage. We went from room to room, 
 troubled beyond measure by evidence of the 
 thoughtless gutting of the house by former 
 owners. What panelling remained was for the 
 most part of painted deal. The oak staircase 
 and oak panellings and balustrading of the stair- 
 case had all been removed. We owe it to the 
 care of the National Trust, advised by the Society 
 for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, that the 
 roofing timbers and ceiling rafters are now sound, 
 and at least one fire-place concealed by brick- 
 work and plaster has been uncovered. 
 
 We noticed as we went through the house the 
 enormous amount of space used for passages, 
 and the comparatively small number of living- 
 rooms. A good insight into Elizabethan ways 
 was gained by our visit to the huge open garrets, 
 with little recesses for cubicles to accommodate 
 the servants, which ran from end to end of the 
 house. We were not astonished to hear that 
 at one time five hundred Parliamentary soldiers 
 were accommodated in this attic. The only 
 creatures accommodated there now are the owls, 
 and though the windows have been built up to 
 prevent their easy entrance, they still find their 
 way thither, and as our hostess told us, make a
 
 < I
 
 MUCHELNEY 87 
 
 noise at night as if people were shuffling about 
 and dragging weights over the rough boarding. 
 
 Gutted and destroyed inside as it is, the 
 interior of the house still contains a little fine 
 plaster work and some fairly good eighteenth- 
 century panelling, but its exterior, built of the 
 finely coloured Ham Hill stone, remains a very 
 beautiful example of a sixteenth-century country 
 residence. There is some uncertainty about its 
 history, but it is thought that it was built by 
 Henry, Lord Daubeny, whom Henry VIII created 
 first Earl of Bridgwater. It afterwards came 
 into possession of the families of Clifton, Phelips, 
 and Strode. 
 
 But for bad company, one would have wished 
 to have been here on the great occasion when 
 James, Duke of Monmouth, was making his 
 pseudo-royal progress through Somersetshire, and 
 was guest here within a few months of the Battle 
 of Sedgemoor, with its end to all his dreams 
 of English kingship. 
 
 The history of how Barrington Court came 
 into the hands of the Trust is as follows : In 
 1904 it was in the market, and together with 
 220 acres of land was purchasable for 10,500. 
 Towards this sum the late Miss Woodward, who 
 at that time wished her gift to be anonymous, 
 contributed 10,000, subject to the payment of 
 its interest during two lives, on the condition
 
 88 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 that the Trust would raise another 1,500 to 
 complete the purchase, and to put the house 
 into such repair as would preserve it weather- 
 proof and free from possibility of further decay. 
 This the Trust agreed to do, because it felt 
 that, for all lovers of architecture, such a unique 
 example of an Elizabethan country residence ought 
 not to be allowed to pass away. The money 
 was therefore raised by public subscription, and 
 in 1907 this stately home of England became 
 its property. 
 
 The Trust is fortunate in having for its tenant 
 a member of the family which for a hundred years 
 past has farmed the Barrington Court farm and 
 dwelt in the house. Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs take a 
 natural pride in the preservation of their old 
 home and in doing the honours to visitors. 
 
 We turned away from Barrington Court with 
 real regret and many back ward -looking glances, 
 and can only hope that the time may come when 
 some one with a real love of architecture and a 
 long pocket may be able to replace the oaken 
 beauty of the interior and make the house, what 
 it should never have ceased to be, the dignified 
 home of a country gentleman. 
 
 Our next visit was to the Quantock home of 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge. For contrast nothing 
 could be greater. Here a magnificent country 
 palace, there a tiny cottage. But to get there
 
 MUCHELNEY 89 
 
 we must needs drive to Langport station, and 
 thence, skirting the Sedgemoor battlefield, now 
 quiet, marshy, meadow land, with acres of osiers 
 for the basket-makers of England, and so by way 
 of Athelney, with its echoes of Alfred's time and 
 Alfred's battle-ground, to Durston or Thorston 
 with memory of the Viking age, to Bridgwater, 
 from whence on the morrow we could start for 
 Nether Stowey.
 
 NETHER STOWEY 
 
 'T^TTE left the ancient town of Bridgwater, 
 \ \ I that received its charter from the hands 
 * * of King John in 1 200, left the noble 
 and life-like bronze statue by Pomeroy of the 
 great sea admiral, Robert Blake, who was born 
 in this town in the year 1598 in the little Tudor 
 house that is still standing, with some regret that 
 it was impossible to identify the historic inn in 
 which de Quincey first met and made friends with 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge ; but we did not leave 
 the town until we had first made acquaintance, 
 by passing down George Street into Dampiet 
 Street, of the plain red Unitarian chapel, with 
 its shell-shaped hooded porch, in which the philo- 
 sopher and poet had often preached between 
 the years 1797 and 1800, when, as a new 
 building, it replaced the old Unitarian chapel 
 which was first built here in 1688. 
 
 We left behind the tall spired church, whose 
 altar-piece preserves to-day a remarkable paint- 
 ing of the " Descent from the Cross," attributed 
 to Murillo, which was taken from a Spanish 
 
 90
 
 NETHER STOWEY 91 
 
 privateer by a British man -o' -war at the end of 
 the eighteenth century a church well worth visit- 
 ing, if only for sight of the Jacobean pulpit and 
 the fine carving of the town councillors' pew, 
 and for its open hammer -beam roof. 
 
 We passed westward through a pleasant 
 suburb, whose gardens were filled with lavender 
 and roses, gained an open country of rolling 
 grass and corn fields, made beautiful by elm 
 trees, and passing Cannington, with its red sand- 
 stone tower, its substantial Queen Anne type of 
 house, and its picturesque yellow-washed cottages, 
 we were soon aware of the sloping Quantock 
 ridge ahead of us, fern-clad and pine-clad, with 
 here and there coral-pink blotches on its side 
 of arable land. 
 
 The colour of the soil became more pro- 
 nounced as we went forward, till the road itself 
 became a veritable way of roses. Who can 
 describe the beauty of the hedgerows, fragrant 
 with privet and honeysuckle, and filled with 
 angelica, meadowsweet, and rue, wild roses, red 
 sorrel, and gay with pink campion? After four 
 miles of this beauty we turned sharply to the 
 right, and soon found ourselves entering the 
 village of Nether Stowey, went by the little church 
 with its quaint angular turret, the great retaining 
 wall of the court-house and its parapet of yew, 
 with quaint Queen Anne pleasure house high
 
 92 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 uplifted at the angle. This court-house in old 
 days was the seat of Alfred the Spaniard, and 
 the families of de Chandos and Audley, and its 
 high wall, it is believed, was built for protection 
 against the Parliamentarians. Tradition has it 
 that in time of civil war many of the local gentry 
 sent their valuables to be guarded by this great 
 wall. We went by some fine Scotch firs into the 
 village a village of the dead so far as human 
 life was concerned, for nothing was stirring in 
 the street. We passed the clock tower, which now 
 takes the place of the old market cross, and 
 pulled up at the unpretentious little house, that 
 a few years ago ceased to be a public house of 
 call, under the title of " The Coleridge Cottage 
 Inn," and which has become a national monument 
 to the genius of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 
 
 This cottage was first obtained on lease for a 
 term of fifteen years, with option of purchase for 
 600 at the end of the lease, through the energy 
 of a local committee of which Mr. Greswell 
 the Rector of Doddington, Mr. Ernest Coleridge, 
 Mr. Dykes Campbell, and Mr. St. Barbe Gold- 
 smith were lessees. In 1906, two years before 
 the lease ran out, Professor Knight visited Nether 
 Stowey, and determined that what had been done 
 for Wordsworth at Grasmere, should be done for 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge at Nether Stowey. 
 
 He re-organized the scheme and formed a
 
 NETHER STOWEY 98 
 
 committee, consisting of the Earl of Crewe, the 
 Right Hon. Sir James Bryce, the Right Hon. 
 Sir Edward Fry, Canon Beeching, Canon 
 Rawnsley, Mr. G. W. Prothero, Mr. J. H. 
 Etherington Smith, the Rev. W. Greswell, and 
 Mr. Ernest Hartley Coleridge, and with the help 
 of Mr. Frederick Harrison, and with a contribu- 
 tion of 200, given to the fund by Mr. Carnegie, 
 and of 50 granted by the National Trust, he 
 was enabled to purchase the property in 1908, 
 and to transfer it to the National Trust in the 
 following year. 
 
 It has been restored with admirable care. The 
 outside, covered with cream-coloured rough-cast, 
 is already becoming draped with creepers. A 
 well-designed tablet of sandstone as an inset in 
 the wall, which was placed there as early as 
 1893, and became incentive to the leasing of 
 the cottage, bears within a sculptured laurel 
 wreath the words : 
 
 " HERE SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE MADE HIS HOME 
 1797-1800." 
 
 We entered the house, and were welcomed by 
 the present tenants, who showed us on the right 
 hand a room which was the living-room of those 
 days, and is now a picture gallery of Samuel 
 Taylor Coleridge and his friends. The bookcase 
 is filled with the biographies of the poet. The
 
 94 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 table, chairs and couch were those of his time. 
 We could not help feeling how entirely analogous 
 to the Town End cottage at Grasmere was this 
 lowly dwelling, where plain living and high think- 
 ing went so well together, and where, as Richard 
 Reynell tells us, Coleridge's life was " happy 
 without superfluities." In this little six-roomed 
 house, four at the front and two at the back 
 for the other rooms are a later addition Coleridge 
 not only dwelt, but entertained his friends. How 
 often in this simple parlour had William and 
 Dorothy Wordsworth held high discourse with 
 the philosopher? What pleasant converse had 
 Charles Lloyd and Thomas Poole and Charles 
 Lamb with him in those halcyon days of 
 Coleridge's early married life, when, as he him- 
 self writes, he found " Nature looking at him 
 with a thousand looks of beauty, and speaking 
 to him in a thousand melodies of love." 
 
 We lingered some time in the little room, which 
 contains so many portraits of the poet, and 
 wondered why it was there was no picture of his 
 wife or either of his two sons, Hartley and 
 Derwent. Then passing upstairs we saw the 
 little rough oaken- floored attic bedroom of the 
 poet, that took our thoughts back again to 
 the humble bedchamber of Wordsworth at the 
 Town End cottage. Thence into the tiny room 
 opposite, that heard Sarah Coleridge's earliest
 
 NETHER STOWEY 95 
 
 cry, and descending, entered the drawing-room 
 of the tenant of to-day, in which, as Coleridge 
 has left on record, he waited so anxiously to 
 hear of the birth of that darling child of his 
 heart, who grew up to be such an accomplished 
 and beautiful woman. 
 
 We went into the garden at the back of the 
 house, with fine view of the Castle mound tower- 
 ing above it, of which no stone remains to tell 
 us of its ancient Norman splendour, and gained 
 a peep at the gable end of Tom Poole's house, 
 from which, in Coleridge's time, ran a pathway 
 so often traversed by the friends. Away hi the 
 direction of the Castle mound we noted a cluster 
 of limes, which may have been that " lime tree 
 bower," which once gave shelter to the unwilling 
 prisoner, the poet, and which he immortalized on 
 the day when, through some injury to his foot, he 
 was unable to accompany Wordsworth and 
 Dorothy, Tom Poole and Charles Lamb in their 
 stroll on to the Quantock heights. 
 
 We observed a large bay tree growing near 
 the house to remind us that here a poet had had 
 his habitation, then entered a little annexe, 
 which it is hoped will some day be used as a 
 village library. 
 
 An enthusiast for the memory of Tom Poole, 
 who is living, as his father lived before him, at 
 the farmhouse on the hill called Hock Pit, in
 
 96 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 the centre of the farm lands on which Tom 
 Poole made so many agricultural experiments, 
 had kindly come down to call on us, and now 
 conducted us through bowery lanes of holly and 
 privet up to his interesting house, to which in the 
 old days Tom Poole was such a constant visitor 
 to see his bailiff and talk over farm matters. 
 On our way thither our friend showed us several 
 iron hinges on the field gates which still bear 
 the initials T.P. 
 
 The beauty of the garden ground of the old 
 house, filled to-day with roses, was enhanced 
 by a magnificent oak tree, which was still a king 
 of the forest, although owing to the sheer weight 
 of foliage two fine branches had been torn from 
 it last year. 
 
 For the moment we forgot Tom Poole in our 
 interest in the account of the experiments made 
 in the breeding of red deer in captivity by our 
 host, who is an ardent naturalist. The antlers 
 of the deer, which for twenty years he had 
 experimented upon with different kinds of food- 
 stuffs, were very remarkable in their variety of 
 shape and size. The result of giving various 
 foods to the deer bone meal, linseed cake, etc. 
 had produced antlers which approximated in shape 
 and size to the antlers of young elks. He 
 kindly showed us the way to the main road for 
 Alfoxton, for the Nether Stowey cottage and 
 Alfoxton are inextricably bound together.
 
 NETHER STOWEY 97 
 
 Away we went, skirting the fern and gorse- 
 clad slope of the Quantocks, with their wind-blown 
 sentinel Scotch firs black against the blue-grey 
 sky on our left, with meadow land and corn lands 
 sloping down to the grey Bristol Channel, where, 
 like a great granite whale, the Flat Holme Island 
 lay in shadow. Turning sharply to the left at 
 the Plough Inn at Holford, we passed picturesque 
 houses with thatched roof, and gardens filled with 
 white stocks and scarlet geraniums, crossed the 
 glen down which so often Dorothy and Words- 
 worth had wandered, and through which mur- 
 mured the brook that inspired both poets with 
 the determination to write a poem " On Man and 
 Nature and Society." So far as Coleridge was 
 concerned this poem remained unwritten, but the 
 idea was crystallized later by Wordsworth in his 
 series of the Duddon Sonnets. 
 
 We had reached the entrance of the long drive 
 up to Alfoxton through the woodland, and we 
 remembered that there stood in Wordsworth's 
 day, on the unenclosed bit of common to the left 
 of the gate, the little cottage in which dwelt, 
 by his dog-pound, the original of Wordsworth's 
 " Simon Lee," the huntsman. More than a 
 hundred years have passed, but the doings of 
 that wonderful running huntsman, Christopher 
 Treachey or Tricky, as he was called, who 
 followed the hounds with a light jumping-pole, 
 
 7
 
 98 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 by which he cleared the banks and ditches, are 
 still held in memory. 
 
 We entered a woodland, left to grow wild and 
 filled with grey-trunked holly trees and spindling 
 oak and ash, made our way for nearly a mile 
 over a rutty and neglected road, to the gate that 
 opened on the grassy meadow, finely timbered 
 and sloping upward to the sky, in which stood the 
 substantial Georgian mansion that had once been 
 let to Wordsworth and his sister for the nominal 
 rent of 23 a year. 
 
 No one was living there to-day, for the tenants 
 had removed to Nether Stowey. The garden at 
 the back of the house, of large potentialities., 
 was beginning to show signs of neglect, but with 
 its rambling roses and well-stocked borders 
 proved that loving care had been spent upon it 
 in the past. A hideous auricaria stood almost 
 black against the grey house, the only blot in 
 the garden. Going to the front of the house 
 and ascending the grassy slope, with its fine oak 
 trees, we obtained magnificent view of the Bristol 
 Channel, and realized how constantly the beauty 
 of that moving tide must have woven itself into 
 the dreams of delight with which the poet and 
 his " dear, dear sister " wandered in this seques- 
 tered woodland paradise. We may regret 
 that owing to the unfortunate visit of John 
 Thelwall, a well-known reformer, Wordsworth as
 
 NETHER STOWEY 99 
 
 suspect of revolutionary ideas was driven from 
 this happy haunt of the Muses, but at any rate 
 the Lake country was the gainer, and dwellers 
 at Grasmere may rejoice. 
 
 We returned by the road that so often had 
 been traversed by those " three friends with one 
 soul," as Coleridge described them, and stopped 
 again at the Nether Stowey cottage, which had 
 been such a fountain head of English poesy, for 
 there at least twelve of Coleridge's poems were 
 written ; there " The Nightingale " and " The 
 Lime Tree Bower " found their poet ; there the 
 first part of " Christabel " was written ; there 
 the " Rime of the Ancient Mariner " was first 
 chanted, and there the music of " Fears in 
 Solitude," with its touching allusion to his wife 
 and his babe, was hammered out upon the anvil 
 of his thought a poem that in this year of world- 
 wide war must find an echo in every patriot's 
 heart.
 
 THE HOLNICOTE ESTATE 
 
 SIR THOMAS ACLAND was from home, but 
 he had kindly arranged that his agent 
 should show us round the great property of 
 10,000 acres on Exmoor that with the con- 
 currence of his heirs, he had leased as a gift to 
 the National Trust for a period of 550 years. 
 On a cool June morning, bright after heavy 
 rain, we found ourselves glad to escape from 
 the tourist atmosphere of Minehead, and walking 
 through crystal air, scented with honeysuckle, 
 up the long incline that leads out of Minehead 
 towards Porlock. 
 
 From the moment we left the town we knew 
 that we were on the property of our national 
 benefactor, for the new Post-Office at Minehead 
 had been built on the borders of his estate. 
 We knew also that his land was on the sea- 
 board from the end of North Hill to Porlock. 
 After a walk of four and a half miles we came 
 to a cluster of picturesque cottages. " Is this 
 
 Holnicote village? " we asked. " It baint nothing 
 
 100
 
 THE HOLNICOTE ESTATE 101 
 
 to call a village," said a sturdy Somersetshire 
 peasant, " but they do hereabout call it Budleigh 
 Hill, and that out there be Holnicote church, 
 and the entrance to squire's place is 50 yards 
 farther on." 
 
 Opposite the entrance to Holnicote we knew 
 stood the white house of the agent, but 
 immediately adjacent to it was so delightful a 
 shepherd's cottage, with its pleasant porch and 
 brown tiled dormer windows, its garden filled with 
 white lupins and purple veronicas, that we paused 
 some time before asking for admittance at the 
 agent's house. 
 
 We found him with the plan of the estate 
 open, and learned from it at once that the 
 property leased to the National Trust consisted 
 of three separate areas. (i) North Hill, 
 Holnicote, Combe, and Selworthy Wood on the 
 seaward side of the vale. (2) The Horner 
 valley and woods, reaching up to the famous 
 Cloutsham farm beneath Dunkery ; with a great 
 stretch of moorland to Stoke Pero on one hand, 
 and on the other the slopes of Dunkery and the 
 moorland, dropping down to the cultivated farm- 
 lands above Luccombe village. (3) The region 
 of Exmoor known as Winsford Hill, with its 
 tumuli of Warn Barrows, its interesting Long 
 Stone memorial of the family of Caractacus, its 
 ancient British bridge called Tarr Steps, over the
 
 102 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 Barle, and its pony-breeding farm of modern 
 days at Old Ashway. 
 
 " I think," said the agent, " the best way 
 to get a general idea of the property in this 
 neighbourhood will be to take ponies and visit 
 the North Hill first, then cross the valley by 
 Allerford, and pass up the Homer vale to 
 Cloutsham. The roads are steep, and we shall 
 probably not go at more than a walking pace, 
 but we shall be able to do the round in four 
 and a half hours." 
 
 We gladly assented. The ponies arrived, and 
 away we went to Budleigh Hill. Then turning 
 from the main road due north, we ascended by 
 a steep lane that allowed us sight of the most 
 picturesque cottages we had seen, with their tall 
 cylindrical chimneys, and their gable ends set at 
 many angles, all marvellously thatched, snug and 
 happy in their garden grounds. We saw many 
 houses that day upon the Holnicote estate, and 
 not one of them, whether roofed with the brown 
 Bridgwater or Staffordshire tiling, or thatched 
 with local straw, but made us feel that an artist 
 had planned it and would wish to have the chance 
 of drawing it. 
 
 It was clear that the Lord of the Manor 
 cared not only for the lives of his tenants, but 
 for the beauty of their surroundings. We could 
 not help thinking that the thatched roofing of
 
 THE HOLNICOTE ESTATE 108 
 
 his own Holnicote, which we saw later in the 
 day, was but a sign of his sympathy with the 
 dwellers in "huts where poor men lie." 
 
 On our right hand stood Selworthy church and 
 vicarage, and close to the roadway the buttressed 
 walls of an old fourteenth -century tithe-barn shut 
 the view. Upward we went towards the open 
 moorland, saw the memorial hut in which Lady 
 Acland delights to enjoy the mountain air, and 
 above it the Bury Castle or earthwork of the 
 aboriginal British times. Away at the head of 
 the Combe, still black from the fire that took 
 place there last year, we saw such a sight of 
 foxglove multitude as we had never before beheld. 
 The grass had been burnt here, and the result 
 of the fire was this magnificent display of fox- 
 glove beauty. We went on through fern and 
 heather till we reached the upper down, covered 
 with broom and fescue-grass that shimmered in 
 the wind. Tough feeding this, and only the older 
 sheep can tackle it. Gulls wheeled overhead, 
 and higher still we went northward toward the 
 sea. 
 
 Going forward still farther, we came to the 
 boundary of the National Trust estate, the East 
 and West Myne farmland enclosures. We did 
 not descend to the cliff edge, which here falls 
 precipitously to the sea, but we got a fine view 
 of Bossington Ball, which is part of the National
 
 104 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 Trust property to the west, with the Countisbury 
 foreland beyond. Then turning backward, we 
 made our way through moorland heather towards 
 Selworthy Wood, getting a noble view of the 
 Holnicote vale, with the green wooded Horner 
 valley passing up into the folds of the hills 
 beyond it, and Luccombe Hill, reaching up to 
 Cloutsham Ball, beneath the top of Dunkery 
 Beacon. 
 
 The National Trust property, we knew, stopped 
 short of the top of the Dunkery Beacon, which 
 is the commanding feature to the south ; but 
 we knew also that whilst we were now on a 
 stretch of National Trust property of North Hill, 
 which extended to 1,500 acres, there on Luccombe 
 Hill and Cloutsham was acreage which, includ- 
 ing the Horner valley and stretching as far as 
 Stoke Pero, must include something like 5,000 
 acres more. 
 
 We passed steeply down the Holnicote glen 
 through Selworthy Forest, filled with silver fir, 
 spruce, Douglas pine, and Scotch fir, chestnuts, 
 and Wellingtonia, planted by the grandfather of 
 the present owner, and apparently left almost 
 untouched by the woodman's axe ever since they 
 were planted. Carefully made grassy rides 
 passed off left and right of the main track. We 
 were told that in this single wood alone these 
 paths extended for a stretch of twenty-six miles,
 
 THE HOLNICOTE ESTATE 105 
 
 and when we saw their number we could well 
 believe it. What delightful wander-ground on 
 a hot summer day would this cool woodland 
 give to far-off generations ! 
 
 We dropped down a thousand feet to a little 
 lane bowered to heaven by hazels, and thence 
 along to Allerford, and could hardly pass through 
 the ford for the beauty of the cottage and its 
 ample porch, under which access was given to the 
 hump-backed narrow stone bridge beside the 
 ford. All the houses were covered with roses, and 
 garden grounds were gay with stocks and snap- 
 dragons. We gained the elm- shadowed main 
 road to Porlock, then turned sharply to the left 
 up the Homer lane, which led us by picturesque 
 cottages to the entrance of the Horner valley, 
 and wound up this valley by the side of a stream 
 for a mile. 
 
 We have seen many wooded valleys, but 
 nothing more beautiful than this Horner vale. 
 The peculiar feature of the woodland seemed 
 the walnut trees, and my friend pointed out to 
 me the slits in the bark of these trees, made by 
 the frost two winters ago, that must have gone 
 near to killing them. Fortunately they survived, 
 and the scent of their foliage in the hot sunshine 
 filled the air. 
 
 At the end of a mile or so we crossed the 
 stream, and turning in the direction of Cloutsham
 
 106 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 began so steep an ascent that we were forced 
 to dismount and lead our horses. We gained 
 the top of the ascent and looked down on Priest's 
 Wood and Priest's Way, Parson's Wood and 
 East-water**; then, turning backward, saw the 
 glorious woodland of the Homer valley stream- 
 ing down from the far hills, and the Prickslade 
 and Stoke Pero combes in flood of shadowy 
 emerald. At last we reached that famous hunt- 
 ing centre, the Cloutsham farm. Burnt down 
 two years ago, it has been rebuilt with admirable 
 taste, and though we missed the old oak panelling, 
 we found it panelled throughout with cedar and 
 walnut from the estate, and still in the kitchen, 
 with its huge open fire-place, stood the old settle 
 and the Tudor table that had shown hospitality 
 to the multitude of huntsmen who have rested 
 here. 
 
 How many generations of hunting men must 
 have followed the stag in this neighbourhood ! 
 Long before William the Conqueror determined 
 that this Exmoor should be one of his five royal 
 forests in Somersetshire, the Saxon Kings hunted 
 here, and as far as the stag-hunting goes we 
 know that from the time of King John onward 
 there were foresters who had grants of the 
 custody of Exmoor on condition that they looked 
 after the hunting. Thus in the thirty-fifth year 
 of Edward I, we find a Walter Baron holding
 
 THE HOLNICOTE ESTATE 107 
 
 certain lands and tenements in the village of 
 Holnicote, of the King, for the service of hang- 
 ing on a certain forked tree stags which died 
 of the murrain in the King's forest of Exmoor. 
 
 The present pack of staghounds are the suc- 
 cessors of one which Hugh Pollard, ranger of 
 Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Elizabeth, 
 kept at Simon's Bath in the year 1593. 
 
 After visiting byres and spacious stables 
 arranged for hospitality for hound and horse, we 
 had a good look at Dunkery hill across the 
 valley, not a little astonished to find that agricul- 
 ture had crept so far up the sides of a hill whose 
 name implies that our British forefathers had 
 little dreams of growing rye there, for Dunkery 
 means, in British tongue, " the rough hill." 
 
 We turned for home through Sideway Wood 
 to the open moorland and Webber's Post. The 
 moor was in part still black from the fire that 
 consumed its heather and gorse a year or two 
 ago. We noted as we went the great love of 
 the Acland family for this part of the property, 
 as evidenced by the names given to the various 
 pathways intersecting it. Here was " The Boy's 
 Path over Dunkery "*; there " His Honour's 
 Path." Here, again, " Cabinet Path," and here 
 " Lady Acland's Path," names given to com- 
 memorate some event in the history of the family 
 in modern times, or some peculiar care that
 
 108 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 some member of the family has for this or that 
 moorland walk. Down through Scotch fir planta- 
 tions self-sown, we dropped, the Luccombe church 
 and village shining below us among pleasant 
 fields of corn, pasture land, and orchards, and 
 so on by Crooked Horn Lane, walled up to 
 heaven by holly and hazel, till we reached the 
 meadows of Holnicote, and passing the quaint 
 thatched house standing cloistered by ilex and 
 oak, dismounted at the stables. Then tQ the 
 agent's house to rest till the motor omnibus 
 should take us back to Minehead. It was with 
 no little joy that we remembered how the pleasure 
 of this excursion would in future be shared by 
 wanderers from all parts of the world, and we 
 could not but thank heaven for the generosity 
 which had inspired this gift to the nation.
 
 WINSFORD HILL 
 
 OUR visit to Winsford Hill had been fixed 
 for the next day. The agent called for 
 us in his Belsize car at eleven o'clock, 
 and we drove through the brickmaking hamlet 
 of Alcombe, and thence, with a magnificent view 
 of Dunster Castle ahead of us, entered the quaint 
 town of the de Bohuns and the Luttrells, with 
 memories of Roman camp, Saxon palace and 
 Norman castle. We went by the curious 
 octagonal yarn-house, and turning to the right, 
 passed by houses of overhanging stories and 
 beautiful gables, left the magnificent church 
 standing above the hollow archway of the stocks, 
 and went forward into the valley of the Avril, 
 with the huge down, Grabhurst, sloping to 
 its woodland beneath. Through Timberscombe, 
 then southward, by the great white farm of 
 Bickham with its lordly chimneys, standing in 
 meadow lands as rich in pasture as any in this 
 country-side ; over the pink-red roadway, whose 
 surface had been terribly punished by timber 
 wagons ; till climbing a long hill, with Cutcombe 
 
 109
 
 110 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 church above us, we reached the summit of the 
 water-shed at Wheddon's Cross, and thence 
 descended for nearly four miles with the Quarme 
 river below us, left the main road and turned 
 sharply westward and pulled up at that most 
 picturesque of thatched public houses, the Royal 
 Oak at Winsford. 
 
 The whole village would delight an artist's 
 soul the ford, the crookbacked bridge, the steep, 
 rocky way to the church, the houses perched 
 above us at all angles, beautiful with their home- 
 like look of sunny welcome, and gay with their 
 peaceful garden plots. Entering the church we 
 noted the decoration, a royal coat of arms of 
 James I's reign on the north wall, with its quaint 
 quotation from Holy Writ, saw the Norman font, 
 and the ironwork that looked of Norman time 
 upon the main doorway. Thence returning to 
 the car, we splashed through the ford, and began 
 a long ascent through hedgerows, filled with fox- 
 glove and honeysuckle, to Comer's Gate, mar- 
 velling what would happen if by ill-luck we 
 should chance to meet either cart or carriage. 
 
 At Comer's Gate we entered the National 
 Trust estate, and drove along the central high- 
 way that runs for three miles over a treeless 
 moor of heather, mixed with bright green whortle- 
 berry and young bracken. We were on high 
 ground, 1,100 feet above sea-level. Away to
 
 WINSFORD HILL 111 
 
 the south-west lifted Dunkery Beacon. What 
 astonished us most was that, on the high swelling 
 uplands right and left of us, the ground was 
 covered with promise of future harvest patches 
 of green corn, striped here and there with other 
 patches of golden charlock, whilst out of the 
 hedgerows stood up trees almost of forest growth. 
 
 I expressed doubts as to the wisdom of plough- 
 ing on such high ground, but my friend assured 
 me it was a favourable season, and the harvest 
 would be gathered. " After all," he said, " we 
 are, in this war time, returning to old ways here- 
 about, for the early Celtic inhabitants of this 
 country-side tilled a large part of Winsford Hill," 
 and as he spoke he pointed out the ancient banks 
 with which they had enclosed the cultivated fields 
 so many centuries ago. 
 
 No grouse are found here, but the black game 
 breed and flourish. After passing along for a 
 couple of miles in this magnificent air we came 
 to the cross-roads that lead respectively to 
 Cutcombe and down to Tarr or Torr Steps. 
 
 We were attracted by a little stone pent-house, 
 solitary on the moorland, and left the car to 
 inspect the famous " Long Stone," as it is called. 
 This stone, which leans much out of the perpen- 
 dicular, is of hard, slaty rock, 3 feet 7 inches 
 high and 14 inches wide. Its inscription com- 
 memorates either the nephew of Caractacus or,
 
 112 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 as is more probable, one of the missioner 
 Cambrian saints of old time, St. Carantacus, 
 whom Leyland tells us was held in honour as 
 Patron Saint at Carhampton, and the fact that 
 this inscribed stone stands in the hundred of 
 Carhampton makes this seem probable. 
 
 It is certainly very remarkable how all along 
 this coast the Cambrian saints have left their 
 mark. Thus, for example, the church of Porlock 
 is dedicated to St. Dobritius, who, tradition says, 
 married King Arthur to his Queen Guinevere, 
 and died in 523. At Culbone we find St. 
 Columbanus commemorated, and the name of St. 
 Donatus is preserved at two places on the coast. 
 At Watchet stands the church made famous by 
 the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which is 
 dedicated to St. Decumanus. Here though Pro- 
 fessor Rhys read the letters on the inscribed 
 stone as " Caraticus epus," the first letter N of 
 the last word being lost by the flaking of the 
 stone, Mr. Greswell favours the reading of 
 " Carantacus," the N being elided, and only 
 suggested by a single mark above. Whatever 
 be the history of this stone, we cannot be too 
 thankful that it should be so cared for and pro- 
 tected from weather and destruction as it is now. 
 
 For here on Winsford Hill we are back in a 
 very ancient historic past. Mounsey Castle, a 
 British encampment, is not far away. Down
 
 WINSFORD HILL 118 
 
 in the hollow lies the most interesting prehistoric 
 bridge, Torr or Tarr Steps, that exists in 
 Somersetshire ; and as we stand by this stone 
 of Caranticus we can go back in fancy to a 
 time when as yet the name of Christ had not 
 been heard in this wild upland. 
 
 There is reason to believe that the folk who 
 made their rude enclosures for tilth hereabout, 
 and raised their earthworks for defence, were 
 the Belgic Celts, who settled on these seaward 
 moorlands, sea-moor-scetas, who came here about 
 350 B.C. They gave the names, that still exist, 
 to Dunkery, to Cutcombe, to Dulverton and 
 Dunster, they were never defeated by Roman 
 or Dane, and even when Athelstan made the 
 land English, in the year 926, and drove many 
 of the inhabitants beyond the Tamar, they still 
 clung to the higher grounds, and have left behind 
 them, in the colour of the hair and in the dark 
 eyes of the farm folk of the district, ineffaceable 
 racial characteristics that tell us they are Belgic 
 Celts still. 
 
 Leaving the " Long Stone," we went down 
 swiftly from the upland and made our way by 
 Liskham farm, to Tarr or Torr Steps, by one of 
 the steepest and worst metalled roads a motor- 
 car was ever driven over. The silence of the 
 moorland was changed for the singing of birds. 
 The blackbird fluted, and the garden warbler 
 
 8
 
 114 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 thrilled the air with his ecstasy. As we went 
 we saw on the opposite side of the valley a 
 drove of Exmoor ponies, and determined to visit 
 the pony farm on our return journey. We had 
 heard much of the wonder of the prehistoric 
 Tarr Steps, and were not disappointed. Across 
 the silver-shining Barle the long-vanished race 
 had determined to build, not only for futurity, 
 but in such a manner as to defy all rage of flood 
 that the Barle could fling against it. They laid 
 their rough piers four feet above the ordinary 
 summer level of the stream, and protected these 
 piers with sloping fender stones. Then, with 
 exquisite nicety, they poised upon these piers 
 huge slabs of grey rock, the biggest 8 feet 
 long by 5 feet wide. They used no mortar, 
 but they must have had very accurate know- 
 ledge of weight and the power of resistance 
 of weight against the rushing water-flood. These 
 stones remain just as they were placed, probably 
 more than two thousand two hundred years ago, 
 though the river in winter time has been known 
 to rise 4 feet above the bridge. 
 
 One does not know which to wonder at most : 
 the accurate laying of the stones, which reminds 
 one of the exquisite craft of pyramid builders, 
 or the labour by which these great weights were 
 conveyed hither ; for Sir Thomas Acland told me 
 that each of these stones must have been brought
 
 WINSFORD HILL 115 
 
 from a distance of not less than twenty miles. 
 The postman came across as we were studying 
 them. " Who do you think built this bridge? " 
 I asked. 
 
 " Well," said he, " we can't rightly tell, but 
 they do say that it was ' the old fellow.' I have 
 had to cross her many a time when the water 
 has been over her, and I could scarcely keep my 
 feet. It is very dangerous crossing then." 
 
 Some happy children passed along. Where 
 were they going to? " To Tarr Steps' farm, sir." 
 " And how is it you are not at school? " " We 
 have got a half -holiday, sir, for the shearing." 
 
 How beautiful that reach of the Barle is, as 
 the river, broadening out for the ford, passes 
 under the bridge and rustles through the forget- 
 me-nots into the gloom of the alder grove beyond, 
 and how many centuries of use and joy this work 
 of prehistoric man has been to all the pastoral 
 and pilgrim life that has flowed together to this 
 solitude from past ages I 
 
 We ascended the steep hill from the ford with 
 difficulty, and made our way to Old Ashway 
 farm, in which for generations the Acland family 
 have reared their pure-blooded drove of Exmoor 
 ponies. The master of the house was away, but 
 his only daughter, a pure Celt, with her raven- 
 black hair and dark eyes, gave us courteous 
 welcome, and learning that we wished to see the
 
 116 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 ponies, who for all we knew might be at the 
 back-of-beyond, she ran off to hail a lad to 
 help her, and in a few moments two of the ponies 
 used to the work of rounding up the rest, came 
 scampering down to the farmyard, and made 
 straight for their stalls. Whilst the lad was 
 siaddling them she went to the house, and Diana 
 of the Moor, after making a dramatically quick 
 change, reappeared in riding kit of khaki coat 
 and breeches, red cap and stock whip in hand, and 
 in another moment was mounted and we saw 
 her flashing up the hill, she and the pony as 
 one, and while she disappeared from sight the 
 lad went off on his pony in another direction. 
 We waited ten minutes or so, and a drove of 
 twenty delicate-limbed creatures, with mealy 
 muzzles, rushed down on to the meadow beside the 
 farm, and drew up short to gaze at the strangers. 
 I noticed that on the ham of each pony was the 
 indelible Acland mark for pure breed, an anchor, 
 and I ascertained that the average number of 
 foals each year is about forty ; that of these 
 about twenty are kept, as up to standard in size 
 and colour, for three or four years, but the rest 
 are sold as suckers. 
 
 The great fair of the year, at which all Exmoor 
 ponies are sold, takes place at Bampton on the 
 third Thursday in October, when by use im- 
 memorial the whole main street is given up to a
 
 WINSFORD HILL 117 
 
 ramping, trampling multitude. The shutters are 
 put up and the whole place during the time of 
 sale is pandemonium. But every Exmoor pony 
 that goes there finds a buyer, the bulk of them 
 being destined for pit ponies, for which they are 
 in constant demand. 
 
 It was a little sorrowful to think that these 
 bright-eyed creatures, such embodiments of the 
 spirits of the moorland, should be allowed so 
 short a time in the sun and wind upon their 
 native uplands. 
 
 " But you would like to see the foals? " said 
 the daughter of the farm. 
 
 We assented, and away she and the boy flew, 
 and again we waited till we saw, careering over 
 the hill in the distance, the lithe forms with 
 foals at heel ; and presently the drove came 
 thundering down to the farm ; and there, whilst 
 a couple of stallions engaged in familiar combat, 
 bit and pawed at each other like pugilists, the 
 mothers and their foals stood unconcerned and 
 gave us fair view. 
 
 Then the clever show-woman cracked her whip, 
 and away they sped into the distance, and were 
 seen no more. We thanked her and bade adieu 
 to Old Ashway, wondering at her skill in horse- 
 manship. Back we went up Winsford Hill to 
 the cross-roads, and turning to the right made 
 our way down to the old British ford town by 

 
 118 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 the river's bend, Dulverton of to-day, by a road 
 protected from the wind by huge hedges of hollies 
 and hazel. 
 
 There we rested and took tea, while heavy 
 rain flushed the village street and drove all 
 passers-by to shelter. The rain partially ceased, 
 and homeward we went up the beautiful valley 
 of the Exe, where rich woodland draped the hill- 
 sides and sloped to lush meadow lands, whose 
 hedgerows were purple with agrimony and fox- 
 gloves. So on by Wheddon Cross and Timbers- 
 combe to Dunster. There we pulled up to see 
 the beautifully restored rood-screen, and the fine 
 alabaster monuments of the Luttrell family, and 
 could not help congratulating the restorers for 
 the love and care with which they had done their 
 work. We reached Minehead with imperishable 
 memories of the National Trust property of 
 Winsford Hill.
 
 MORTE POINT 
 
 WE were anxious to visit Morte Point, 
 between Ilfracombe and Barnstaple, 
 on the Devonshire coast. Fifty-two 
 acres of that beautiful headland were given to 
 the National Trust in 1909, in memory of her 
 parents, the late Sir Alexander and Lady 
 Chichester, by Miss Chichester. By her wish 
 this gift to the public was to be called Morte 
 Point Memorial Park. 
 
 It is no easy matter, even in the times of 
 piping peace, to journey hither from Minehead ; 
 in time of war the expedition is " linked sweetness 
 long drawn out," and owing to waste of time 
 upon the journey at Taunton and Barnstaple less 
 sweet than long. But it was pleasant to find 
 oneself at Dulverton, and to pass through the 
 rolling country that fringes Exmoor. At Barn- 
 staple we had time to visit the famous bridge 
 over the Tor, and to see the tidal river rushing 
 up with yellow foam through the arches. It 
 
 seemed a great pity to us that when the good 
 
 no
 
 120 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 people of Barnstaple felt it necessary to widen 
 the bridge by a footway on either side of it, they 
 should have allowed so mean an iron fence by 
 way of parapet to be used. If a light stone 
 parapet had been impossible a solid oaken fence, 
 or wrought iron railing would have been pre- 
 ferable. 
 
 We made our way thence by the pleasant 
 village of St. Brannock, Braunton of to-day, 
 up the steep incline to Morthoe station. Leaving 
 the train we felt at once the exhilaration of the 
 sunny sea air, and dropped swiftly down to 
 Woollacombe Bay. A glorious tide with the wind 
 behind it was lacing the sands with foam. From 
 Baggy Point to the south, round to the Morte 
 headland northward, the great sea-horses ramped 
 and foamed, and as we walked the shining sands 
 the blue sea was suddenly changed to ridge upon 
 ridge of silver whiteness, which, as the waves 
 neared the shore, spread themselves out in flat 
 scallops of foam, that seemed to caress the sands 
 and float backward reluctantly to the sea, leav- 
 ing long shining mirrors for the white clouds, 
 and for the soft green rushy dunes of Challa- 
 combe. Far as the eye could see, the fume and 
 spume of the incoming tide flickered and made 
 a mirage in the sunlight. The happy voices of 
 indefatigable children mixed with the sound of 
 the sea. There is no paradise for these little
 
 MORTE POINT 121 
 
 ones on the North Devon coast so safe, so 
 spacious, with such potentiality of pleasure. 
 
 Far out to sea Lundy Island lay like a cloud, 
 that as the sun sank appeared a purple bar 
 against the horizon, and from the gates of the 
 dying day came promise of a brilliant to-morrow. 
 
 But the day was long in dying, and after the 
 sun had set on this the longest day of the year, 
 the horizon was lit up by a band of coral pink, 
 which, while the sea lay softly grey, flushed the 
 wet sands to magic rose and gave us back at 
 our feet its far-off beauty. 
 
 The promise was not belied, and next morn- 
 ing found us on our way to Morte Point, with the 
 sun and wind upon our faces and a cloudless blue 
 sky overhead. We went by such hedges of 
 purple-spiked and honey-scented veronica as we 
 had never seen, reached in half an hour Morthoe 
 and the ascent to its ancient church. After 
 passing the Castle Rock hotel, though there was 
 no notice to tell us that this was the way to 
 Morte Point, we might have descended to the 
 grassy path along the sea front, and so gained 
 the headland direct by a short cut, but we went 
 forward to see the ancient church of St. Mary 
 Magdalene, Morthoe, with its memory of the 
 murderer of Thomas a Becket haunting us. 
 Tradition tells us that this old church with two 
 others, Martinhoe and Trentishoe, were founded
 
 122 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 by Sir William Tracy one of the four knights 
 who murdered Thomas a Becket in expiation of 
 his deed, whilst he dwelt in retirement at the old 
 Barton farm above Woollacombe Bay, his penance 
 being " to make bundles of the sand and binds or 
 wisps of the same." His body is supposed to be 
 buried in the aisle of this church he built, but 
 this is very unlikely, for he died in Italy, leaving 
 behind him a name unblessed in this neighbour- 
 hood, but not unpitied ; for if anything goes 
 wrong with an unfortunate person a local proverb 
 says, " Wind and weather are still against him 
 like Sir William Tracy." 
 
 We went on by the Wesleyan chapel to the 
 church. It was a great relief after passing the 
 modern incongruous architecture of red-brick 
 shops and lodgings to find the old white farm 
 buildings and cottages of old-time Morthoe. The 
 low square tower of the church, substantially built, 
 gained beauty on the northern side from the 
 golden lichens on its string courses. The quaint 
 carving of the instruments of the Passion and 
 other emblems on the oaken seat-ends were 
 interesting, as also was the cornice in the porch, 
 probably a fragment of an ancient rood screen. 
 The altar tomb of a Tracy in the south transept 
 is a composite tomb of two very different dates. 
 The table-top of the tomb is a thick slab of 
 porphyry-coloured moor-stone, wider at the head
 
 MORTE POINT 123 
 
 than at the foot, probably of the twelfth century. 
 It has been much damaged, but still one can 
 clearly see incised the figure of a robed priest 
 holding a chalice in his hands. The inscription 
 in Lombardic characters is Norman-French, and 
 has been restored to read thus : 
 
 " Syr Wiliame de Tracy git ici, Deu del alme eyt 
 mercy." 
 
 But the substructure on which the tomb rests 
 is of free-stone, elaborately carved in bold relief, 
 on one side three shields of arms with the figures 
 of St. Catherine and St. Mary Magdalene, in 
 honour of whom a chantry was founded in this 
 church by William Tracy, Rector of Morthoe, 
 1322. At the end of the tomb is represented a 
 crucifixion, and on the south side a series of 
 panels of the Decorated period when the chantry 
 was built. It is clear, therefore, that two inter- 
 ments are commemorated here of two William 
 Tracys one belonging to the twelfth century and 
 the other to the fourteenth. 
 
 We returned from the church downhill, to the 
 Wesleyan chapel, thence, where a sign-post points 
 the way, we entered a path through rough pasture, 
 made interesting by dodder-covered gorse and 
 heather, and patches of sheep's-bit-scabious and 
 pink thrift, which led us down to a quiet hollow 
 where the parishioners of Morthoe now find
 
 124 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 burial. The wall which surrounds this God's 
 Acre had been carefully planted on its inner 
 side with golden aucuba, which gave a sense of 
 kindly shelter, without the bareness and austerity 
 of the naked wall which so often disfigures 
 modern cemeteries. 
 
 The names of Lee and Bere, so characteristic 
 of these Devon sea-coast villages, were inscribed 
 upon the headstones, and one only regretted that 
 instead of using native rock, which would have 
 harmonized with the surroundings, there was an 
 evident desire on the part of surviving relatives 
 to use the perishable " glorified chalk " white 
 marble for memorials of the dead. 
 
 Going on through one or two rough meadows 
 we found ourselves at the boundary wall of the 
 National Trust property which runs across the 
 headland. On either side of the iron gates that 
 gave admittance were two large pilasters of 
 masonry. On these were incised, on grey granite 
 panels and somewhat difficult to read, the 
 following inscription on the left, the words : 
 
 " MORTE POINT MEMORIAL PARK," 
 
 and on the right-hand pilaster, in Latin, and 
 therefore not to be understanded of the people : 
 
 " Hie ager in usum civium dedicatus et ea causa 
 curatoribus mandatus est ut Alexandri Palmer Bruce
 
 MORTE POINT 125 
 
 Chichester Baronetti, de villa Arlingtoniensi, et 
 Rosalae Ameliae uxoris ejus memoria in Perpetuum 
 curaretur. 
 
 MDCCCCIX." 
 
 We followed the sheep-nibbled turf path that 
 leads to the new way made round the northern 
 side of the headland by the generous donor, so 
 well engineered that invalids in their bath-chairs 
 can pass along it. Thence we ascended to the top 
 of the headland, and gained a view of the grey 
 rocks of Bull Point, with the white lighthouse 
 surmounting it, beyond the jagged Rockham Bay, 
 and on the southern side saw the full curve of 
 Woollacombe Bay, shining like a golden sickle 
 edged with silver, to the blue sea away to Baggy 
 Point, while Hartland Point stretched out silver- 
 grey in the sea mist farther to the south. Shore- 
 ward the grassy dunes sloped up to the tilth and 
 rough pasture land of Challacombe. In the 
 immediate foreground, as we looked seaward, the 
 breakers were white upon the sharp-toothed rocks 
 of Morte Stone, that stone of death for so many 
 a passing ship in time of fog and storm. 
 
 Nothing astonished us more than the beauty of 
 the colour of the ragged rocks that each day feel 
 the tide. They shone in the sun like gold, while 
 nearer to the land those above high tide stood 
 up like mighty spearheads, steel colour and silver- 
 grey.
 
 126 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 We turned for home by the old road track on 
 the southern side of Morte Point, by which the 
 carts used to come for builder's stone, and sitting 
 on one of the rough seats provided for the public 
 in the sunshine we fell to talk with an old 
 parishioner, himself a mason, who is now doing 
 duty with his telescope as coastguard sub- 
 stitute. He had seen in his lifetime at least 
 twenty wrecks upon that fatal Morte Stone. " No 
 chance for them if they touch that stone, for our 
 rocket lines cannot reach them. It is a different 
 thing in the bay. I have helped to save many 
 lives with the line and rocket there." 
 
 The old fellow had been for more than twenty 
 years sexton of the parish church, and speaking 
 of it he said : " It is a pity we have no records 
 left." And then he retold us the story of the 
 murderer of Thomas a Becket, and of the found- 
 ing of the three churches by way of expiation. 
 
 "It's a pity," he said, " that monument in 
 the church has been spoilt. When I was a lad 
 I remember the carpenters used it for a bench 
 and knocked it about a deal. But I've seen that 
 tomb opened, sir, with my own eyes. It was 
 in 1857 as it was opened." 
 
 " What was in it? " I asked. 
 
 " Well, there was a lot of bones and big- 
 headed nails, same as might have been used for 
 his coffin, but there was no skull."
 
 MORTE POINT 127 
 
 I said : " That is curious, for skulls, or 
 especially the jawbone, are nearly always found." 
 
 " There was no head in that coffin, that's all 
 I know about it," he said. 
 
 We had a talk about the war, and I asked if 
 there was much trouble in the bay with 
 submarines. " Well, there's a deal of mine- 
 sweeping going on," he said, " and a great mine 
 was washed ashore not long ago ; and sometimes 
 we hear the ships firing, but what they're firing 
 at of course we don't know." 
 
 We left him with his telescope, vainly endea- 
 vouring to find Clovelly for us-; but the sea haze 
 was against him, and the last thing he told us 
 was that he had been present as ringer at the 
 ringing of the bells at the new church on Lundy 
 Island, which had been put up in memory of 
 Mrs. Heaven by members of the family, who 
 until lately were owners of the island. 
 
 As we looked out west to Lundy and saw the 
 mine -sweepers at work between us and that old 
 island of Hurcelea, which Ptolemy knew, we 
 remembered how in old time the Danish sea 
 pirates had made it one of their strongholds for 
 descent upon this Devonshire coast, and we could 
 not help the thought that with their wolfish sub- 
 marines the Germans were less to be held in 
 honour than the daring men who, in Alfred's 
 reign, landed at Appledore, with their twenty-
 
 128 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 three ships under Hubba, and lost their raven 
 flag to Odun, Earl of Devon. 
 
 We bade the old coastguard adieu, to take 
 our way homeward by the lower path that leads 
 to the National Trust boundary-wall, and sur- 
 mounting the stone stile noticed the National 
 Trust Byelaws riveted against the wall, winter 
 storms having wrecked the notice-posts both here 
 and at the main entrance. We crossed pleasant 
 meadows to the modern village of Morte, then 
 struck up by a very steep ascent to the main 
 road close to the Castle Rock hotel, and could 
 not help regretting that whoever had engineered 
 this path in the interests of the public, seeing 
 that it was one of the two main entrances to the 
 Morte Point, had omitted steps to make it con- 
 venient for foot passengers. 
 
 So home to Woollacombe above a beach that 
 had undergone a change in a few short hours. 
 The blue water and the silver lines of breakers 
 possessed the shore, and were foaming upon the 
 black jagged rocks and the indented bays beneath 
 us ; creatures in strange apparel men and women 
 came bare-legged up the road from their sea- 
 bath. This one like an Arab sheikh in his white 
 burnous, that one like a mermaid fairy in a 
 pantomime ; and still the sun showered its bounty 
 on purple hedges of veronica and clouds dropped 
 us purple shadows on to a rainbow sea. We
 
 MORTE POINT 129 
 
 could not help remembering the words of our 
 old friend on the Morte Point : " Taking it all in 
 all, there ain't a better place in North Devon for 
 folk as has nothing to do but to come and enjoy 
 theirselves." 
 
 In the afternoon I returned to Morte to visit 
 a possible cromlech of which guide-book 
 writers and local historians seem blissfully 
 ignorant, and of which I only heard by chance 
 from a former resident. For future visitors it 
 would be well to say that to find this cromlech 
 one must pass by the little Morthoe cemetery, as 
 before described, as if one were going to Morte 
 Point. Turn in at the first black gate beyond 
 it, pass along a path for twenty yards, then 
 strike due north to the right and make for the 
 ridge. 
 
 The cromlech will be found just over the ridge 
 in full view of Bull Point. It is impossible to say 
 by what power this huge stone was ever placed 
 in position. It may surmount the little burial 
 cairn in which some British or Viking chieftain 
 was once buried, probably in a sitting posture ; 
 but it is possible that the whole structure was 
 once covered with earth, which centuries of storm 
 have washed away, and the large stone which 
 closed the burial cairn has long been dragged 
 out of place and lies hard by. I said British or 
 Viking, but remembering the home of the Norse- 
 
 9
 
 130 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 man, and that this cromlech looks due north, 
 it is not impossible that this records a Northern 
 chieftain's place of sepulture. It is certainly 
 one of the most interesting prehistoric monuments 
 in North Devon, if it is a cromlech.
 
 BARRAS HEADLAND AND THE OLD 
 POST-OFFICE, TINTAGEL 
 
 "T'TTTE had determined to visit the most 
 
 \ \l southerly of our possessions on the 
 
 western coast, Barras Headland, at 
 
 Tintagel, fifteen acres of which were obtained 
 
 from the Earl of Wharncliffe in 1897 for the 
 
 sum of 502. 
 
 It was not much more than sixty miles as 
 the crow flies, but railways in this part of Devon 
 and Cornwall are not laid as the crow flies, and 
 it meant a long inland journey to Yeoford, and 
 then back by Okehampton to Launceston 
 and Camelford. The exigencies of the war had 
 lengthened the journey, and we knew that start- 
 ing at nine o'clock in the morning we should not 
 reach Tintagel till seven. 
 
 But the war was a blessing in disguise, for 
 it enabled us to see an interesting little town en 
 route, for we had to wait at Okehampton for 
 four hours. We ran down the incline to Barn- 
 staple, saw the estuary in full flood, and noted 
 the bundles of Barnstaple baskets which crowded 
 the platform. This basket-making, with certain 
 
 131
 
 182 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 Barnstaple ware, are staple industries of the 
 place in peace time. To-day the manufacture 
 of aeroplanes, and the building of ferro -concrete 
 barges overshadow them in importance. The 
 country between Barnstaple and Yeoford consisted 
 mainly of meadows covered with yellow iris, which 
 passed up into rich arable land and pasturage. 
 
 After a considerable delay at Yeoford, we 
 jogged on to Okehampton through rolling country 
 of farm and orchard and got into conversation 
 with a typical Devonshire farmer and his good 
 wife, who in decent black were bound to Oke- 
 hampton for the funeral of a friend who had 
 met a tragic death at his own sheep- shearing. 
 He had gone to superintend the supplying of 
 oil to the engine used for the shearing machine, 
 apparently had turned his back for a moment 
 upon the flywheel, when by the wind of the wheel 
 his coat was drawn in, and in a moment he was 
 whirled from the ground and killed. The farm 
 body had some strong things to say about the 
 Food Controller. She had plenty of milk, but 
 was not allowed to sell a pennyworth of it with- 
 out a permit ; plenty of butter, but little market 
 for it owing to the rationing 1 . 
 
 At Okehampton we saw below us the grey 
 little town in the prettily wooded vale of the two 
 Ock rivers, and descending for three-quarters 
 of a mile to the main street we could not help
 
 BARRAS HEADLAND 183 
 
 thinking that Charles Kingsley must either have 
 had a much worse luncheon than we had at the 
 " White Hart," or was suffering from toothache, 
 when he described it as " an ugly dirty and 
 stupid town, with which fallen man by some 
 strange perversity has chosen to defile one of 
 the loveliest sites in the pleasant land of Devon." 
 
 It is true that the picturesque buildings of 
 old Devon do not here exist, but of the cleanliness 
 of the town there can be no doubt. To-day it 
 enjoys a picturesque recreation ground in the 
 park, given to it by a Mr. Sydney Simmons, 
 and no one who walks up to the parish church, 
 or who visits the ruins of the Okehampton Castle, 
 which have been very carefully excavated by the 
 same public benefactor, but must feel that the 
 Okehampton of to-day does not merit Kingsley's 
 criticism. 
 
 We heard the funeral bell tolling at the little 
 chapel of ease of St. James, at the end of the 
 High Street, which has nothing of interest except 
 its fourteenth-century tower, and talking with 
 the bellringer learned that the custom of Oke- 
 hampton when any person died was to ring five 
 times, five as tellers both for men and women 
 alike, and then to toll the age of the deceased. 
 
 The crowd of mourners grew as we walked 
 with them up the steep pebbled pathway beneath 
 the lime trees towards the church upon the height,
 
 134 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 a church that was built in the middle of last 
 century to replace the old church which had been 
 burnt to the ground. We left the lime-tree 
 shade and entered a remarkable beech avenue, 
 which led for nearly a quarter of a mile straight 
 up beneath high banks surmounted by the beech 
 trees to the lych gate. There seemed to be 
 nothing of great interest in the church, but the 
 churchyard will ever be remembered as filled 
 with the worst type of sepulchral monuments 
 such a contrast to the beautifully incised small 
 headstones of date 1648 to 1690, which now do 
 duty as paving stones of the churchyard path. 
 
 Presently, as we watched, the beech-tree 
 avenue was filled with a dark crowd, and the 
 hearse and mourning coaches, preceded by six 
 Devonshire horsemen as outriders. I found 
 afterwards that these were to be the " bearers " 
 of the coffin, and that it was the custom hereabout 
 to show respect by thus riding at the head of 
 the procession. It certainly added considerable 
 dignity to the sad cortege. 
 
 The view from the churchyard over the valley, 
 with the great Oaklands wood beyond, was very 
 striking. We descended the hill to visit the 
 Castle, and were well repaid. Here, about half 
 a mile from the town, in the exquisitely wooded 
 valley of the West Ock, in a commanding posi- 
 tion, was built before 1086 a castle which was
 
 BARRAS HEADLAND 135 
 
 then held by Baldwin de Brionis, the sheriff. In 
 the twelfth century domestic buildings were added 
 to the great keep, and at the end of the thirteenth 
 century the principal northern block, with its early 
 English chapel, its lodge, its guard rooms, its 
 refectory, and its kitchen, were probably erected. 
 Passing through the barbican and mounting to 
 the gate at the north-east, the whole plan of 
 the later castle was apparent. 
 
 What interested us particularly was the pre- 
 servation of the ovens in situ beyond the kitchen. 
 The size of these ovens made us realize the 
 number of mouths that the owner of a castle had 
 to feed in mediaeval days. We ascended thence 
 to the northern keep, and obtained a fine view 
 over the blue range of Exmoor to the north, and 
 though the trees block the outlook to the south, 
 we saw something of the beauty of the Ock Valley 
 to the west. 
 
 The excavation has been done with great care, 
 and with the aid of the admirable little plan to 
 be obtained at the lodge it is possible to recon- 
 struct the old home of the de Rivers and 
 Courtenay families. 
 
 We crossed the stream and took a short cut 
 to the station, and began our last stage of railway 
 journey to Tintagel. This was full of interest, 
 for we passed over very high ground, which gave 
 us view on the one hand of the grey-green moor-
 
 186 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 land that rose up to Dartmoor's highest ridge, 
 and on the other hand of the rich plain that 
 stretched away to the north, like a painted carpet 
 broidered with the coming fruitage of the year, 
 away to the deep blue distance of Exmoor. We 
 saw St. Michael's church on Brent Tor, a lonely 
 landmark to the south, but our eyes ever turned 
 towards the north, and the landscape made us 
 dream of the weald of Kent from One Tree Hill, 
 or the blue distance of the Borderland as seen 
 from Naworth. 
 
 Launceston was reached and Cornwall was 
 won ; the brown, round tower of the ruined castle 
 standing above us among the trees on the left 
 hand. We passed on to Camelford with its associ- 
 ations, as some say, of that last great battle in 
 the west, of which the chronicler writes : " Never 
 was there a more dolefuller battle in no Christian 
 land," where Arthur was mortally wounded, and 
 all his knights save two were slain, for " ever 
 they fought still till it was nigh night, and by 
 that time was there a hundred thousand laid 
 dead upon the down . . . ' Jesu, mercy,' said King 
 Arthur, ' where are all my noble knights become, 
 alas ! that I should ever see this doleful day, 
 for now I am come unto mine end 1 ' With this 
 romance in mind we started on our five miles' 
 drive, at first over an uninteresting upland, then 
 downhill by banks walled up to heaven, through
 
 BARRAS HEADLAND 137 
 
 the debris of old slate quarries whose rocks, 
 filled with furze and bracken, and beauty of their 
 own. We left Trebarwith on our left, ascended 
 a steep hill by picturesque cottages, and entered 
 upon a rolling plain of com and grass. We saw 
 in the distance the old church of St. Materiana, 
 which we knew was near our journey's goal, then 
 entered that ancient village of Trevena, which 
 would never have been called Tintagel but for 
 the wish of the postal authorities, who appar- 
 ently were quite unconscious that the word only 
 applied to a single rock on the coast, and 
 cared little about accuracy in matters of local 
 topography. 
 
 We passed the Wharncliffe Arms, now closed, 
 with the old preaching cross safely guarded 
 on the green in front of the house, glad to 
 think that so interesting a Christian monu- 
 ment of the ninth century should have been 
 rescued from its use as a gate-post and here 
 preserved. It stands about four feet high, and 
 tells us by Romano -Gothic character in Latin 
 that Aelnat made this cross for his soul, and on 
 the obverse records the names of the four 
 evangelists. 
 
 We drove by the old post-office, an ancient 
 fourteenth-century building of very remarkable 
 character, saw other crooked-roofed cottages that 
 seemed to be of the same period, then entered
 
 188 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 the modern world of New Tintagel, and in a 
 few minutes arrived at the most romantically 
 placed fortress-like hotel, that stands high- 
 perched above the Barras Headland. 
 
 We went to rest that night with the sea on 
 three sides of us, still gleaming from the long 
 afterglow, and woke to find the whole land bathed 
 in that glittering, dazzling sunshine which seems 
 almost a peculiarity of the Cornish coast. Down 
 to the Barras Headland we strolled, its short turf 
 scorched by the sun where the rock came near 
 the surface, but for the rest green with soft 
 grass, enamelled with great patches of thyme 
 such as I had never seen, and golden with 
 anthyllis. 
 
 The Headland, owned by the Trust, may 
 roughly be divided into three parts, a horn-shaped 
 hill to the north-east covered with gorse, an 
 extensive slope of grass which narrows to a 
 depression, and then a rise to the naked rock 
 which forms the end of the promontory. Its 
 cliffs go sheer to the sea, and on the southern 
 side form one horn of the far-famed Arthur's 
 Cove, beneath Tintagel Castle. 
 
 That old miner, the sea, has hollowed this cliff 
 into mighty caverns, from which, when tides are 
 high, come bellowings unutterable, as if the rocks 
 were groaning and travailing in pain. All view 
 of the sea to the south is blocked by the Castle
 
 BARRAS HEADLAND 189 
 
 rock, except just over the narrow isthmus between 
 the mainland and the castle, where a glimpse 
 of sapphire blue tells us how nearly the waters 
 of Rocky Cove and Arthur's Cove meet. 
 
 Beyond the cove, on the landward side, is seen 
 the steep roadway that leads up to the village 
 inland ; a path from where we stand drops down 
 to the cove. By the side of that path stands 
 a stone, of grey Borrodale slate, which bears the 
 following inscription : 
 
 THIS HEADLAND 
 
 THE PROPERTY OF THE NATIONAL 
 
 TRUST FOR PLACES OF HISTORIC 
 
 INTEREST AND NATURAL BEAUTY 
 
 WAS PURCHASED IN 1896 BY PUBLIC 
 
 SUBSCRIPTION FOR THE USE AND 
 
 ENJOYMENT OF THE NATION. 
 
 " Hard by was great Tintagel's table round 
 And there of old the flower of Arthur's knights 
 Made fair beginning of a nobler time." 
 
 Those who descend that path must be im- 
 pressed by the way in which the remains of the 
 twelfth-century castle, with the keep high up upon 
 the mainland, and the ruinous courtyard with 
 gateway and battlemented walls on Arthur's 
 rock opposite, grow up and strike the beholder 
 with a sense of their absolute impregnability in 
 olden time. For in that olden time there was 
 probably nothing but a drawbridge, where now,
 
 140 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 through fall of cliffs, is a narrow isthmus be- 
 tween the island rock and the mainland castle. 
 It was called in Domesday Book the Castle of 
 the Chain, i.e. drawbridge. Geoffrey of Mon- 
 mouth, Bishop of 'St. Asaph in the year 1152, 
 who wrote his romantic history of King Arthur, 
 describes it thus : " It is situated upon the sea 
 and on every side surrounded by it, and there is 
 but one entrance into it, and that through a 
 straight rock which three men shall be able to 
 defend against the whole Power of the Kingdom." 
 Leland, writing sixty years later, speaks of it as a 
 " notable fortress and almost situ loci inexpug- 
 nabile." Sir Richard Grenville, when making his 
 survey for Queen Elizabeth at the time of the 
 Armada, tells us that the " drawbridge which 
 had been in existence in living memory was now 
 gone by reason that the seas have undermined 
 and fretted out some part of the works whereon 
 the bridge stood." He tells us that in his time 
 it was a " ruinat place, though capable of 
 repair," and from a little print, now in the British 
 Museum, by Norden, of about the year 1600, it 
 is plain that at this time the great gateway on 
 the mainland, the keep, and lower court were 
 more or less entire. 
 
 The " fretting of the sea," spoken of by Sir 
 Richard Grenville, goes on apace. It was only 
 two years ago that a small landslip occurred on
 
 BARRAS HEADLAND 141 
 
 the Castle rock immediately above the cavern 
 at the cove, and discovered a British burial- 
 place, with cinerary pottery and fragments of 
 bones and remains of what seemed to be an oaken 
 coffin. It is certain that such burial would not 
 have taken place so near the edge of the cliff, and 
 so proves that since British times portions of 
 the cliff have been washed away. 
 
 To-day the cove is filled with merry children 
 gathering in the spoils of war. Five weeks ago 
 a French ship, laden with a Spanish cargo, was 
 submarined off the bay, and every tide brings 
 in, among its flotsam and jetsam, oranges and 
 onions, Barcelona nuts and walnuts these latter, 
 though the salt water has robbed them of their 
 lustre, are treasure- trove for the children. 
 
 .We re -ascend Barras Headland and gain a view 
 of coast line in the north. The black rocks 
 named " The Sisters," in the near foreground, 
 seem only one rock from this point of view, and 
 stand up off the near promontory of Willa Park. 
 Beyond is Bossiney Head and the pyramidal 
 mass of Long Island. Short Island lies beyond 
 it, and farther again is seen the Meachard Rock 
 and Boscastle. Then the eye follows the long 
 stretch of mainland to Hartland Point. The 
 time to see this view is late evening, when the 
 island rocks off the coast shine out separate 
 and clear, and seem like great ships of stone 
 moored off their rocky harbourage.
 
 142 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 It is worth while to descend to the little stream 
 and pass through the gorse to the north-easterly 
 knoll, as from that point there is a fair view of 
 the National Trust possession. And what a 
 possession it is for the people who come here 
 for rest and the salt sea air and sunshine I For 
 we are really on enchanted ground. Below us 
 lies the cove where Merlin and Bleys, the two 
 magicians, paced the shore on that stormy night 
 when Uther Pendragon died in his castle -hold, 
 with lamentation that he was heirless. There, as 
 Tennyson has sung for us, upon the waters they 
 saw 
 
 "a ship, the shape thereof 
 A dragon wing'd, and all from stem to stern 
 Bright with a shining people on the decks 
 And gone as soon as seen. And then the two 
 Dropt to the cove and watch'd the great sea fall 
 Wave after wave, each mightier than the last, 
 Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep 
 And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged 
 Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame : 
 And down the wave, and in the flame was borne 
 A naked babe, and rode to Merlin's feet 
 Who stoop't and caught the babe and cried, " The 
 
 King! 
 Here is an heir for Uther ! " 
 
 Whether at Dozmare Pool beneath Row Tor, 
 four miles to the east of Camelford, as some 
 say, or whether in some pool nearer the sea 
 Sir Bedivere flung Excalibur at the third bidding
 
 BARRAS HEADLAND 143 
 
 of the King, who was feeling his wound grow 
 cold, we know not. Malory tells us Sir Bedivere 
 " bound the gyrdyl about the hyltes and then 
 he threw the swerde as farre into the water as 
 he myght, and there came an arme and an hande 
 aboue the water and mette it, and caught it and 
 so shoke it thryse and braundysshed, and then 
 vanysshed awaye the hande wyth the swerde in 
 the water. So syr Bedivere came ageyn to the 
 Kyng and tolde hym what he sawe. ' Alas,' sayd 
 the Kyng, ' helpe me hens for I drede me I have 
 taryed ouer longe.' Than syr Bedivere toke 
 the Kyng upon his backe and so wente wyth 
 hym to that water syde." 
 
 Where was that " water syde? " He was 
 bound for the island valley of Avilion, where he 
 would heal him of his grievous wound. Up 
 channel as far as Bridgwater he must needs be 
 borne. Is it not allowable to suppose that, from 
 this cove that saw his miraculous birth, beneath 
 the Castle rock that nursed him to manhood and 
 kinghood, he who came " from out the boundless 
 deep " should turn again home? Wherever the 
 scene is laid let Tennyson tell the story. 
 
 Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge 
 Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern 
 Beneath them ; and descending they were ware 
 That all the decks were dense with stately forms 
 Black stoled, black hooded, like a dream by these
 
 144 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 Three Queens with crowns of gold and from them 
 
 rose 
 
 A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars 
 And, as it were one voice, an agony 
 Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills 
 All night in a waste land, where no one comes 
 Or hath come since the making of the world. 
 Then murmured Arthur, " Place me in the barge," 
 And to the barge they came. Then those three 
 
 Queens 
 
 Put forth their hands and took the King and wept. 
 But she, that rose the tallest of them all 
 And fairest, laid his head upon her lap, 
 And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands 
 And call'd him by his name, complaining loud, 
 And dropping bitter tears against his brow 
 Striped with dark blood ; for all his face was white 
 And colourless, and like the wither'd moon 
 Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east ; 
 
 Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere 
 " Ah my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go ? 
 
 For now I see the true old times are dead 
 When every morning brought a noble chance 
 And every chance brought out a noble knight. 
 
 And I the last go forth companionless 
 
 And the days darken round me, and the years 
 
 Among new men, strange faces, other minds." 
 
 And slowly answered Arthur from the barge 
 
 " The old order changeth, yielding place to new 
 
 And God fulfils himself in many ways, 
 
 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
 
 BARRAS HEADLAND 145 
 
 Comfort thyself : what comfort is in me ? 
 
 I have lived my life, and that which I have done 
 
 May He within Himself make pure ! but thou 
 
 If thou shouldst never see my face again 
 
 Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by 
 
 prayer 
 
 Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice 
 Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
 For what are men better than sheep or goats 
 That nourish a blind life within the brain 
 If knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
 Both for themselves and those who call them friends ? 
 For so the whole round earth is every way 
 Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 
 But now farewell. I am going a long way 
 With these thou seest if indeed I go 
 (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) 
 To the island valley of Avilion ; 
 Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow 
 Nor ever wind blows loudly ; but it lies 
 Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns 
 And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea, 
 Where I will heal me of my grievous wound." 
 So said he, and the barge with oar and sail 
 Moved from the brink, as some full-breasted swan 
 That, fluting a wild carol ere her death 
 Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood 
 With swarthy webs ..." 
 
 It is quite true that not a single stone of the 
 ruined castle, either on the mainland or island, 
 dates back beyond the twelfth century, but it 
 was so noted a stronghold that Richard, Earl of 
 Cornwall, could in 1245 give asylum here to his 
 
 10
 
 146 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 nephew David, Prince of Wales, then in rebellion 
 against the King ; and at a later time John de 
 Northampton, who, it is said, has left behind 
 him the altar stone in the ruined chapel worked 
 with his own hands, was imprisoned here for 
 life in 1385 for his unruly mayoralty. Later 
 still Thomas, Earl of Warwick, in 1397, was a 
 prisoner here : but all these facts run risk of 
 being forgotten in the romance of that much 
 earlier Arthurian time. Nevertheless, we are free 
 to reconstruct the stately castle building and 
 the island chapel of St. Juliot, in which, as 
 late as the end of the fourteenth century, with 
 some magnificence and ritual, worship was main- 
 tained. That this was so we know from a 
 warrant, issued by Richard II in 1388 to John 
 Slegh, the King's butler, keeper of the King's 
 Castle at Tintagel, " for the price of vestments 
 of a rich silk of a red and blue colour, consisting 
 of a chesable, two albs, two scarfs, two maniples, 
 two frontlets, to wit one with the images of the 
 Blessed Mary and St John, and one a covering 
 for the body, one pulpit cloth, and two curtains 
 valued at ten marks." And we know that in 
 1483 Richard III appointed John Leicroft 
 chaplain of his free chapel of Dyndagell. 
 
 We can see, as we look across from B arras 
 Headland, the same sea gate in the wall which 
 Sir Richard Grenville described to Elizabeth,
 
 BARRAS HEADLAND 147 
 
 standing above the landing place where he said 
 that four or five " of the greatest sort of ships 
 may with most windes ride, and land anie 
 companie of men." 
 
 But all these things pass away from us, as 
 of minor interest, when we go back in thought to 
 those British times when the inhabitants hereabout 
 dwelt in their barrows at Willa Park, at Bossiney, 
 at Trevale Bury, Titchbarrow, and Cundaldon- 
 barrow, and owned King Arthur as their lord. 
 As we look up to the little white path that leads 
 to what was once the bridge, between the island 
 and the mainland, we may see Uther Pendragon 
 and Merlin pass up to Gaulois' castle hold. We 
 may think of Gaulois' widowed Queen, Ingraine, 
 so misled by enchantment as to " believe Uther 
 was her liege lord ".; we may dream of Arthur's 
 upbringing on this seabound rock by the gentle 
 Ector, of the meeting of the knights in after 
 years about the round table, of Tristram's shame- 
 ful wooing of Iseult the Queen, of Merlin's death 
 and burial outside the chapel walls, " in a rich 
 sepulchre," shown by an old priest to Lancelot 
 and Gawaine, who tells them, " In this sepulchre 
 was placed the body of Merlin, but never might 
 it be set inside the chapel, wherefore perforce it 
 remaineth outside, and know of very truth that 
 the body lieth not within the sepulchre, for as 
 soon as it was set therein it was taken out and 
 snatched away."
 
 148 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 And wandering on his rocky island home, we 
 think of Arthur, filling his boyish hands with 
 the same thrift and white bladder-campion we 
 ourselves gather to-day, may feel the great sea 
 with its restlessness, appeal to the restless spirit 
 in the boy for far adventure. For him, as for 
 us, the lark sang, and the seabirds, like souls in 
 pain, cried about the rocks below. For him, as 
 for us, the sunset made a path of gold upon the 
 grey waters to the west, and the golden galleons of 
 evening cloud called his soul to worlds beyond. 
 
 Entering the little chapel we can believe that 
 here, in some earlier building, Arthur knelt in 
 prayer, and visiting the well of water, crystal 
 clear, on the southern side of the headland, ever 
 rising from some far inland source up in the 
 rock, may drink of the water that perhaps gave 
 comfort to the parched lips of the wounded King, 
 and thank God that another well of water, 
 springing up to Eternal Life, rose through the 
 Spiritual Rock to give his knightly soul daily 
 refreshment and strength for the work of his 
 hands and heart. 
 
 But Arthur has never left his island home. 
 As we gaze, a chough flies by to his haunt upon 
 the cliff edge, and Arthur, so the fishermen here- 
 about fable, has come again. 
 
 It is an interesting village, this old village of 
 Trevena that in old days was probably the
 
 BARRAS HEADLAND 149 
 
 nurseling of the ancient borough of Bossiney, 
 which boasts a charter from the time of Richard, 
 Duke of Cornwall, and which had for its few farm- 
 steads the right to return two members of Par- 
 liament, till the Reform Act was passed. At one 
 time it boasted Sir Francis Drake as its repre- 
 sentative, and elected mayors from 1551 to 1832 
 with mayoral seal and mace, which still exist. 
 But the village probably grew up beneath the 
 shelter of the twelfth-century castle, and the 
 Norman church, with its stone altar bearing con- 
 secration crosses upon it, and its very inter- 
 esting font. A Roman milestone, within the 
 church, strikes a note of pre- Norman times. The 
 church stands in lonely dignity upon the cliff, 
 a sea-mark for many miles, and is dedicated 
 to St. Materiana or St. Madryn, which suggest 
 a pre- Norman consecration ; and, Celtic perhaps 
 in origin, it takes us back to mediaeval days by 
 reason of the remains of a stone bench round 
 the south transept where the old people sat while 
 the young people stood during worship. 
 
 Here and there in the village are a few of 
 the old Cornish houses of early times, with their 
 hummocked roofs, their pleasant porches, and 
 every available crevice giving root-hold to stone- 
 crop or valerian. But whether old or modern, 
 the cottage of Trevena is made delightful by 
 its tiny wall-enclosed garden plot, green with
 
 150 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 turf and gay with flowers. The most interesting 
 building in the village is the fourteenth-century 
 manor house, formerly the post-office, which 
 stands almost opposite the present post-office. It 
 attracts attention at once by the extreme beauty 
 of light and shade upon its uneven roof of grey- 
 green slates, tufted with golden saxifrage and 
 moss. Its front is broken by an ample porch, 
 a hooded window and projecting gable, and on 
 the left of the main porch, by the lean-to roof 
 which shelters the oven. 
 
 We enter the little forecourt garden, gay with 
 valerian and flowering mallow, and see through 
 the house to a little garden paradise beyond, 
 a blaze of rose-red valerian to-day. We are 
 welcomed by a grey-eyed old Cornish body, who 
 graciously tells us that the owner of the cottage, 
 a Miss Johns, will be very glad if we care to 
 walk through it. " You can go upstairs and 
 downstairs, or wherever you will, and you had 
 better step this way to the bedroom." 
 
 It was furnished very simply, with good old 
 cottage furniture, and going upstairs to a second 
 bedroom we found a four-post bed, and from 
 the stairway were able to look into the main 
 living-room of the house which was open from 
 floor to roof, with a gallery over one end of it. 
 We came down and passed through this main 
 room to a quaint kitchen beyond, from which
 
 BARRAS HEADLAND 151 
 
 a stone staircase leads to the bedroom above, 
 noting the tiny windows to allow of light in out- 
 of-the-way corners, and noting also the old- 
 fashioned ingle and huge oven by its side. We 
 realized then that this cottage, as it is called, 
 was probably the house of a gentleman, who 
 entertained many friends, and served much baked 
 meats in his refectory. He too, like the Norman 
 Vicar of old at this church, seems to have known 
 the worth of pigeon-pie. Still in the vicarage 
 garden stands the old Norman dovecote, and 
 here in this fourteenth-century house is the pigeon 
 loft of ancient time. 
 
 The old housekeeper loved every stick and 
 stone in the place, and spoke of the cottage as 
 of a living thing. " Of course, she be a bit 
 draughty at times, and she makes a deal of dirt 
 from old rafters and what not, and sometimes 
 I say windows should be bigger, but she be 
 a great favourite with the visitors, and them as 
 comes to lodge here in the summer can't say 
 too much about her." 
 
 The property, which has belonged to the 
 National Trust since 1903, subject to the life- 
 interest of Miss Johns, would probably not now 
 be in existence but for her love of old Cornish 
 days. She heard that it was to be sold, to 
 be pulled down for the site of a modem building, 
 and begging the Earl of Wharncliffe 's agent
 
 152 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 not to bid against her she went to the sale. 
 He, a wise man in his generation, refused to 
 give a fancy price for a semi- ruinous building, 
 and Miss Johns thus became the possessor in 
 1893. Unable to put it in repair, she called 
 in the help of the National Trust, who secured 
 the advice of the Society for the Protection of 
 Ancient Buildings, and a well-known architect, 
 Detmar Blow, who with knowledge and skill 
 put the cottage in substantial repair, and pre- 
 served for us its original features, and there is 
 no reason now why the cottage should not stand 
 a monument of fourteenth-century architecture 
 to delight beholders for many generations. 
 
 But the interest of a stay at Tintagel does not 
 consist only in National Trust property and the 
 Arthurian legend. We sojourn here among a 
 grey-eyed, well-mannered and kindly people by 
 the seaside, entirely unspoiled by the parapher- 
 nalia of an ordinary watering-place. Every 
 road that leads from the village takes you at 
 easy distance to some remains of the old British 
 kingdom of Lyonesse, or to some remembrance 
 of early Celtic Christianity. 
 
 Thus, for example, we may visit within a mile 
 the famous circular earthwork at Bossiney, where 
 it is fabled that on midsummer eve Arthur's round 
 table rises from beneath the ground, and is seen 
 for a moment bright as moonlight, while Arthur's
 
 BARRAS HEADLAND 153 
 
 knights in ghostly guise pass round it. We 
 may go to Trevethy farm beyond St. Nectan's 
 glen, and after visiting the holy well of St. 
 Piran, may ask for the key of the waterfall in 
 the wooded vale hard by, and passing down a 
 lane enter the enchanting woodland and walk 
 for the best part of a mile through dappled 
 shadow and sun, the stream singing beside us 
 of old Arthurian times, till we come to a little 
 thatched house of rest, and putting key to door, 
 which gives access to what might be expected 
 to be the garden of the house, find a continuation 
 of the path we came by taking us by zigzag 
 routes to the bottom of St. Nectan's Kieve. The 
 waterfall comes flashing out of cavern darkness 
 from rocks high above us, falls into a basin and 
 flashes again out from beneath an arch of rock 
 into the smooth pool at our feet. Here, so local 
 tradition has it, King Arthur watched his knights 
 kneel, bathe their brows in the cool water, and 
 swear allegiance to the Quest of the San Grail. 
 Accustomed as we are to the crystal mountain 
 streams of the north, it was a disappointment 
 to find how turbid this water was. 
 
 This muddiness may have been only tem- 
 porary, for I found many cattle above the fall, 
 knee-deep in water. Certainly in no more 
 romantic woodland sanctuary could Arthur have 
 bade farewell to his knights.
 
 154 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 But a later memory makes this holy ground, 
 for here, it is said, St. Nectan used to pray in a 
 little chapel above the fall, and call his neigh- 
 bours together to worship, by means of a silver 
 bell, which sounded far out to sea. Feeling 
 death coming upon him, he removed the bell and 
 cast it into a cleft in the rock, and because he 
 had so wished it his friends turned aside the 
 torrent and buried his body, bell and all, in a 
 rocky tomb behind the waterfall. It is a pity 
 that his name has been so maltreated by local 
 parlance. To-day, if one asked the way to St. 
 Nectan's Cove the villager would stare, but if 
 you demand to know the way to St. Knighton's 
 Kieve, he would direct you thither at once. 
 
 To future visitors it is worth while to say 
 that for a lack of proper direction they may 
 easily miss the way to the waterfall. The door 
 which gives access to the only path which leads 
 down to it, seems to be a door into a garden of a 
 little rest house high up above the fall. There 
 is no notice to tell you that this is the door 
 which gives admittance, and it is quite easy to 
 pass it and wander on fruitlessly up the valley. 
 But whether the waterfall is won or not, to all 
 who are a little tired of the treelessness of the 
 coast, there is an added joy in being able to 
 walk for a mile or more, through such perfect 
 woodland beauty as may be found in the vale of 
 rocks, or St. Nectan's glen.
 
 BARRAS HEADLAND 155 
 
 The roadsides themselves are a continual joy 
 to lovers of wild-flower life. The walls, built 
 herring-bone fashion, allow of easy growth of 
 the pink stonecrop and golden saxifrage ; i hart's 
 tongue ferns cluster at their shady bases, blue 
 scabious, rose-coloured campions and foxgloves 
 shine out against grey lichen ; and the thrift, 
 especially on the seaward walls, has for genera- 
 tions become so luxuriant that it falls over in 
 billowy beauty, a wonder to behold ; while the 
 hedgerows are fragrant with bedstraw, honey- 
 suckle, and wild roses. 
 
 As lovers of wild-bird life, we have but to take 
 our stand on the Barras Headland and listen to 
 the sharp, shrill cry of the clough, or watch 
 the falcon swoop on his prey ; while if we take a 
 walk for a mile to the north, by Gullaston Cove 
 to the Willapark Headland, we can sit by the 
 hour and watch the seafowl on " The Sisters " 
 and Lye Rock, and listen to the laughter, the 
 mewing, and the barking of the gulls as they 
 return home from their seafaring labours. Down 
 below, skimming the waters like spirits that can- 
 not rest, the sea-swallows silently pass to and 
 fro. Cormorants are black upon the white ledges 
 above high-water mark, and the gulls star the 
 rough grasses where they make their nests. 
 There is silence, and a huge, grey-backed gull 
 comes floating in, and hated by the whole gull
 
 156 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 colony, the great rock suddenly finds multitud- 
 inous voice of protest. He fares out seaward, 
 and such a chuckling and laughter takes place, 
 that you might imagine the gull colony had a 
 grim sense of humour and delighted in the rebuff 
 he had received. 
 
 I made special inquiry about the Cornish 
 
 chough, and found that though diminished in 
 
 numbers he still clings to his Arthurian haunt ; 
 
 and long may he continue to do so, for none of 
 
 his race is so graceful in shape, so shy of 
 
 manner, so delicate in form, and so swift of flight. 
 
 We miss the warblers, but the bramblings are 
 
 all about us and the song of the lark fills the 
 
 air. But it is not only birds and wild fowl that 
 
 add an interest to our stay. For larger winged 
 
 things, and mightier birds of prey, pass and repass 
 
 all day, and the drone of the biplane and the hum 
 
 of the airship seem never silent. Far in the 
 
 distance a white speck grows into what seems 
 
 a huge flying fish, and as it nears us with its 
 
 great eyes and silver scales, we know that it is 
 
 questing for the enemy submarines, and sending 
 
 messages of cheer or warning to the steamers 
 
 that pass below. So admirable has been the 
 
 patrol on this sector of coast that for a whole 
 
 month no submarine has fired a shot, and it seems 
 
 probable that Admiral Jellicoe's prophecy may 
 
 turn out to be correct, that by August of 1918 
 
 the submarine menace will have been foiled.
 
 BARRAS HEADLAND 157 
 
 The fortress-castle hotel on the cliff above 
 B arras Headland gives one wide prospect of a 
 sea of ever-changing colour with the certainty 
 of marvellous dawns and sunsets, and whether at 
 eventide, on a cloudy day, the sun suddenly re- 
 appears in a flood of light and builds a golden 
 wall in the west for a few moments before it 
 sets, or breaking through the misty veil of the 
 horizon lays a royal pavement of gold from the 
 far distance to the shore ; or on a clear day, 
 collecting all its fire into itself, seems to move to- 
 wards the land, a rosy ball in front of a purple 
 bar of mist, and floating forward, still a perfect 
 orb of fire, plunges beneath the waters leaving 
 in the clear heaven on either side of it the great 
 wings of the night upon a sleeping sea we feel 
 that, however glorious the day has been, more 
 glorious is the night. 
 
 Last, but not least, the guest finds in his host a 
 man whose ancestors have known the land for 
 centuries. Two of them were mayors of Bossiney 
 in the seventeenth century. A man, steeped in 
 Arthurian lore, and caring for the traditions of 
 the place, one too who has not only stocked his 
 hotel with books, but has a good private library 
 of his own, which he is courteously willing to 
 share with those of his visitors who care for such 
 things.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 WE add as an appendix the interesting report 
 of the architect, Mr. Detmar Blow, who was 
 responsible for the work of repair of the old 
 post-office at Tintagel. 
 
 The ancient Manor House, known as the Old Post- 
 Office, at Tintagel, North Cornwall, stands on the 
 south-east side of the village street, on a small green 
 of its own, about half-way between the roads leading 
 to Camelford and King Arthur's Castle. It has of 
 recent years been known as the Old Post-Office, during 
 a time that such business was conducted there. It 
 is a building without doubt in the style of the four- 
 teenth century, as can be seen by the workmanship 
 of the wooden doorway leading to the old kitchen, 
 the entrance porch, and shaping of the main roof 
 covering the hall and its adjoining two rooms ; but 
 Cornwall held to its traditions longer than many 
 other counties, and it is impossible to ascribe a par- 
 ticular date during the fourteenth century to its 
 building, in the absence of documents ; nevertheless 
 it is itself the best written record that can be found 
 of its own particular date, and of the progress and 
 manner of life of the people, and by the upholding 
 of such records the history of our old national life 
 can be preserved. For this reason no attempt has 
 been made, while repairing the building, to replace 
 ancient features with modern copies, but to preserve 
 the building as it stood. The historic architectural 
 value lies not in the stone itself, of which plenty can 
 
 158
 
 APPENDIX 159 
 
 be found as old at the quarry, but in the particular 
 shaping and cutting at a given period. The larger 
 windows, now of wood, would all have been stone 
 mullioned windows at first, similar to the one still re- 
 maining in the gable of the front wall, and the smaller 
 openings cut out of a single stone, such as still exist 
 in the hall and ancient kitchen, which was lighted 
 by four such small apertures, two in either wall ; since 
 then some of the window openings had been enlarged, 
 and at the time of this repair the stonework round 
 the wood casements and sashes showed no traces of 
 what formerly existed in material, shape, or size. 
 In repairing, the sashes were altered for casements 
 for the simple convenience of opening. 
 
 The plan is that of a fourteenth-century manor 
 house not large, but a commodious building. Built 
 principally of stone, entered from the green through 
 a porch, on either side of which is a stone bench, a 
 large hall in the centre, open to the roof, is screened 
 from the outer doorways by a low wall forming a 
 passage way between hall and kitchen. The floors 
 slope in the direction of the hard rock foundation, 
 on which are laid the slate stones of various shapes. 
 The jambs on either side of the hall hearth-fire rise 
 narrow and high, boldly shaped, supporting a large 
 stone overmantel, some eight feet long by four high. 
 None of the original doors remains, but a fine original 
 door-frame, to which the door was hung, leads into 
 the ancient kitchen. For a country where wood was 
 scarce and valuable the oak timbers of the roof are 
 large and strong, and over the hall, black with the 
 smoke of ages, at about every 10 feet an elegant 
 truss supports the rafters. Without the upper end 
 of the hall is the ladies' retiring-room, from which 
 the stone turret stair leads to a bedroom above.
 
 160 A NATION'S HERITAGE 
 
 The porch at this end of the house is a later addition, 
 and for the present convenience of the housekeeper 
 taking care of the building, who now occupies this 
 end of it, the small doorway was made into an ad- 
 joining scullery, formerly a beast hovel. The hall 
 had of late years been divided by a floor some 7 feet 
 above the ground for a bedroom above, but this was 
 of such unsound and temporary construction as to 
 necessitate its removal, which opened the hall to the 
 roof as of old. The small stairway in the ancient 
 kitchen is also a later insertion to a bedroom above, 
 which probably did not originally exist. It has, 
 however, been retained in the present repairs for the 
 extra accommodation of visitors, who contribute to 
 maintain while inhabiting the house ; the small 
 fire-place in this room has been now added. 
 
 During the recent repairs the roof slating and east 
 gable wall, which were in a dangerous condition, were 
 made sound. The construction of the roof sends 
 considerable thrust on to the walls, and two new 
 buttresses had to be built against the back wall, where 
 it bulged out. An adjoining hovel has been made 
 useful as an extra bedroom to avoid additions. No 
 change has been made in the shape of the building 
 or outline of the roof. The new door latches were 
 made by Fletcher Glanville, blacksmith of Bossiney ; 
 the masonry repairs by Samuel John Lang, of Tin- 
 tagel ; the dry walling by Jewel, of Trevalga ; the 
 carpenter work by Thomas Brown and his sons, of 
 Trevalga ; and a well, sunk 40 feet deep, by Chillclott 
 and Bray, of Bossiney, all under the direction of 
 Detmar Blow, at a cost of 300. 
 
 February 23, 1897. 
 
 Printed in Great Britain by 
 UNWIJC BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKINO AND LONDON
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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