A Book of the West. Volume I Devon

"No time for going round by the road," said Parson Jack; "we will ride to my church across country, and so save a couple of miles."

Off they rode. The curate presently remarked, "How bare of trees your estate is," as they crossed lands belonging to Russell. "Ah!" responded the sportsman "the hounds eat 'em." Coming to a stiff gate, Russell, with his hand in his pocket, cleared it like a bird, but looking round, he saw the curate on the other side crawling over the gate, and crying out in piteous tones, "It won't open."

"Not it," was the reply, "and if you can't jump a gate like that, I'm sure you can't preach a sermon. Good-bye."

But he was not only a mighty hunter, he was also an excellent parish priest and a fine preacher, though not always depending on his own sermons. He was ordered to preach at one of Bishop Phillpotts' visitations. His sermon was good, and at the consequent dinner the Bishop complimented him in almost exaggerated terms for "his splendid sermon." Russell knew that the Bishop when most oily was most dangerous, and suspected that he had recognised the sermon, so, as always, ready, he said in returning thanks, "As to the sermon, my lord, I quite agree with you. I have ever considered it as one of Barrow's best." Needless to say, the Bishop collapsed.

I can cap that with another anecdote.

The late Dr. Cornish, of Ottery S. Mary, was pompous and patronising. A curate under him, recently ordained, preached his first sermon. In the vestry the vicar, swelling out, said, "For a beginner it was not wholly bad." "Ah, Doctor, I must not take any credit to myself. It is one of Bishop Andrews' finest discourses." Needless to say that Doctor Cornish's stomach went in.

There have not been many conspicuous lights from Blundell's. Perhaps the most famous of them is the present Archbishop of Canterbury.

The school has passed through many vicissitudes. By a Chancery decision in 1846 all boarders were swept away and the school reduced to seventeen boys. £10,000 were put into the lawyers' pockets in defending the suit, whereby the school was reduced well-nigh to bankruptcy. By another decision of the courts and at the cost of another £10,000, boarders were restored, and new buildings were erected. The old school has been altered into private dwellings.

Near Tiverton is Washfield, where there is a very fine Jacobean screen with the arms of James I. upon it, and in the north aisle those of Charles as Prince of Wales. It deserves a study. In this church the old parish orchestra still performs on Sunday, or did so till recently. There is here a curious church-house with an oriel window.

Outside the churchyard was buried a squire of the parish, so wicked that he was denied a place in consecrated ground. Three times were Acts of Parliament passed to enable either sale of property or the management to be taken from successive squires as one after another was mad. Worth House has now passed away from the family of that name, which has died out in the male line.

In 1810 much public interest was excited by a report of spiritual manifestations at Sampford Peverell, five miles from Tiverton, and the Rev. C. Colton published an account of them. They consisted of the usual rappings, dealing of heavy blows, and the throwing about the room of heavy articles. That these were produced by some cunning servant-maid cannot be doubted. Mr. Colton, who vouched for the truth of the phenomena, did not bear a good character; he ended his days by suicide, after having been "unfrocked," and his last years spent in gambling-houses.

That these tricks were at one time not unfrequently resorted to is probable. The Germans give them as the work of a Poltergeist. In my own neighbourhood, in or about 1852, a precisely similar exhibition took place. Stones, cups, pans flew about a room, and strange knockings were heard. Many people went to witness them, and came away convinced that they were the work of spirits; especially was it so with one yeoman, whose hat was knocked off his head by the spirit. My father investigated the matter, and came to the conclusion that the whole was contrived by a girl of low intelligence but of much cunning. It is now, with the advance of education, persons of a superior grade who are the dupes of spirit-mediums. Education will not give brains, but it will varnish emptiness.

At Tiverton lived, till a few years ago, "Old Snow," a rather famous "white witch," to whom many persons had recourse, among others a farmer who was a churchwarden and a well-to-do man. I knew him well, and in 1889 believed him to be a doomed man, with a hacking cough, worn to a shred, and bent by weakness. Having consulted all the prominent doctors in the south of the county, he went in desperation to "Old Snow." What the white witch did to him I cannot say, but I can testify he was a changed man from that day, and is at present a robust, hale man, looking good for another twenty or thirty years.

In an article I wrote on "White Witches" for the Daily Graphic I mentioned this case. Some days after I met the farmer. "Why," said he, "you have put me in the papers." "So I have," I answered, "but what I told was literally true." "True – aye," he said, "every bit. Old Snow cured me when the faculty gave me up. How he did it, neither you nor I know."

The white witch is an institution that has not been killed by board schools in the West, nor, as far as can be judged from the favour in which he is still regarded, is he likely to die. A witch is generally supposed to be the feminine of wizard, but in the West of England "witch" is of common gender, and those in highest repute are men. Their trade consists in prescribing for the sick, in informing those who have been "overlooked" whose evil eye has influenced them for ill, where lost articles are to be found, and how spells cast on their cattle are to be broken.

A white witch is one who repudiates utterly having any traffic with the Evil One. His or her knowledge is derived from other sources – what, not specified. I had for many years as a tenant in one of my cottages a woman who was much consulted as a white witch. She is now dead, and her decease is a matter of outspoken regret.

The village inn frequently had guests staying there to undergo a course of "blessing" from this woman. She was an ill-favoured person, with a wall-eye, and one eye higher in her head than the other. She was bent, heavy-featured, and stoutly built. A worthy woman, scrupulously neat in her person, and who kept her cottage in beautiful order. She certainly believed in her own powers, and as certainly performed very remarkable cures, which it was not possible to deny, though they might be explained. For instance, in the hayfield in a parish four miles distant as the crow flies, eight by road, a young man cut his leg with the scythe, and the blood spurted out. At once the farmer dipped the man's handkerchief in the blood, mounted one of his men on a horse, and sent him galloping to the white witch, who took the kerchief, blessed it, and simultaneously four miles off as the crow flies, the blood was stanched. The son of the largest farmer in the place, a man who is worth his thousands, was suffering from glandular ulcerations in the neck. The village doctor attended him and did him no good. He consulted the principal medical man in the nearest market town, also to no advantage. Time passed and he was no better; he gave up consulting doctors, who sent him in bills and left him rather worse than when they began on him. At last he went to the white witch. Whether she "struck" his glands or prescribed some herbs I cannot say, but what I do know is that within a month the young man was perfectly well.

The woman, who was my tenant, was no conscious impostor, of that I am convinced. What her secret was she would not communicate, but most earnestly did she deprecate any communication with evil spirits. Not only did the village innkeeper derive a certain revenue from patients lodging in his house to be under treatment by her, but the postmen of the neighbourhood also earned their crumbs by carrying kerchiefs blessed by her to sufferers within their districts. It was no uncommon sight to see a walking postman careering along with arms extended holding a kerchief in each hand, fluttering as he walked. It is held that the blessing is drawn out of the material if it be folded, put in a pocket, and handled other than most gingerly between finger and thumb.

When among the educated, the cultivated classes, we find belief in faith-healing, and so-called "Christian Science," is it to be wondered at that in classes lower down in the scale there should be credulous persons who not only believe in white witches, but believe in their own powers as white witches?

It is the same as in the Lourdes miracles; the imagination acts on the nervous system, and that stimulates the body to throw off disease. That is the true secret.

I cannot doubt but that in many cases herbs are employed that have been sadly neglected ever since our doctors have gone in for mineral medicines. The latter act violently, but the herbs slowly, and, in many instances, more surely.

However, in the majority of cases the white witches are mere impostors, and may do much harm, as in that I will now record, which took place three years ago only. I shall, for obvious reasons, not give the true names, nor indicate the locality.

A cattle dealer in 1896 had a daughter, who two years previously had been a victim to influenza. This had affected her head and produced profound melancholy. As doctors proved unavailing, the man went to Exeter and consulted a white witch there. According to his statement the witch showed him the face of a neighbour, Mrs. Thomas, in a glass of water, and told him that his daughter was "overlooked" by the person he saw. The white witch further informed him that the individual who had "ill wished" his daughter passed his door every day, but had hitherto never entered it, but that on the following Saturday she would do so. The cattle dealer returned home, and, sure enough, next ensuing Saturday Mrs. Thomas entered his house and asked if he would take of her a little meat she had to spare, as she had been killing a pig.

Next night the Thomases' house was set on fire. It was thatched, and six persons slept under the thatch. By the merest chance Mr. Thomas woke in the night, and hearing a strange sound went outside his house to see what was the matter, and found his roof in flames. He had barely time to rouse and bring forth his wife and family before the roof fell in.

It was ascertained by the police that the thatch had been deliberately fired. The incendiary had struck two matches, which had failed, and in drawing the matches from his pocket had dropped two halfpenny stamps. He had climbed on to a hedge to effect his object, and the third match had ignited the thatch. But it was never ascertained who had done the deed.

A few years ago I wrote the little account of "Devonshire White Witches" for the Daily Graphic already referred to. This brought down on me a copious shower of letters from all parts of England, entreating me to furnish the addresses of some of our white witches, as the correspondents had found it profitless and expensive to apply to medical practitioners, and they were anxious to try the cures of these conscious or unconscious impostors.

Tiverton parish was ecclesiastically divided into four quarters, each under an independent rector, and all co-equally regnant in the parish church. The arrangement was not happy – and led to constant ruffles and conflict of opinion. The condition was so unsatisfactory that the late Bishop of Exeter and present Archbishop carried an Act to alter it.

Tiverton is a seat of machine-lace manufacture, introduced by Mr. John Heathcoat in 1816.

Lace is said to have been brought into France by Mary de Medici from Venice; and the making of this beautiful work of art rapidly spread and took root in the Low Countries. Refugees from Flanders brought it into England, when they settled at Cranfield, in Bedfordshire. The lace made was Brussels point; the network was formed by bone bobbins on a pillow, which held the threads, and the sprigs were worked with a needle.

The introduction of machinery told heavily on the commoner and coarser lace-making.

In the reign of George II., or about a hundred and fifty years after the introduction of the first knitting machines, many additions and improvements were made in them, and the so-called "tickler," guided by mere accident, was now applied for the first time to the manufacture of lace. This attempt was succeeded by a "point-net" machine, an invention that was nearly, but not entirely, successful.

In 1768 a watchmaker, named Hammond, applied the stocking-frame to the manufacture of lace, but it worked slowly and without accuracy. Attempts were made in various parts of the kingdom to make fishing-nets by machinery, and a workman discovered, by observing a child at play, the secret of the "bobbin and carriage," which was first applied to the manufacture of fishing-nets. It was not, however, till 1809 that Mr. Heathcoat patented his machine, which combined the discoveries of the past with immense improvements of his own.

The point-net frame had been invented in the early years of the century. Attempts were made to produce a twist mesh. Heathcoat divided the warp threads and put them on a beam, apart from the transverse threads, which latter he wound upon thin bobbins, and arranged them so that they could pass around and amongst the former.

This machine was, however, complex, having twenty-four motions to the series for twisting the mesh, and four for the pins to secure the twist when unravelling, but after the expiration of the patent it was simplified so as to require only six, with two motions to prevent the unravelment.

The introduction of mechanism threatening the manufacture at home provoked grave riots in the counties of Nottingham, Derby, and Leicester, headed by a weaver named Ludd, who gave his name to the riots. The man himself was really insane. Troops of men went about breaking machines and intimidating workers in the factories. William Horsfall, a Marsden manufacturer, they murdered. This was in 1813. Although peremptory punishment fell on the rioters, still insecurity to life and property continued for some years, and induced Mr. Heathcoat to transfer his frames to and start as a manufacturer in Tiverton in 1816, and abandon his factory at Loughborough. He brought with him as a foreman Mr. Asher, who had been shot at and wounded in the back of his head by the rioters. This transfer was so much loss to Loughborough and gain to Tiverton, and that not temporary, but lasting, for what was begun in 1816 is continued to this day in full vigour, finding employment for 1400 hands and 130 children. John Heathcoat's only child and daughter married a solicitor named Amory, and their son was made a baronet by Mr. Gladstone in 1874, a well-deserved honour, as, but for the introduction of the lace manufacture, Tiverton would have sunk to the position of a stagnant county town.

The Exe valley below Tiverton presents pleasant scenery, but nothing fine. An excursion should be made to Cullompton in the Culm (Welsh cûll, Gael. caol, narrow, slender) valley to see the interesting church with its fine restored screen in all the splendour of colour. Cullompton had the wit to preserve and cherish what Tiverton cast away. Uffculme has also a screen; near this is Bradfield House, a rare treasury of old oak carving. Culmstock has a stone screen, which has stupidly been converted into a reredos.

Holcombe Rogus is a very fine specimen of an Elizabethan house and hall. In the church is some beautiful cinque-cento carved screenwork to the manorial pew.

At Bickleigh was born Bampfylde Moore Carew in 1693. His father was the rector, and the son was educated at Blundell's School at Tiverton, where he showed considerable ability. He and other boys kept a pack of hounds, and as these, with Carew and others behind them, once gave chase to a deer strayed from Exmoor over standing corn, so much damage was done that the farmers complained.

Bampfylde Moore Carew was too great a coward to wait and take his whipping. He ran away from school, and sheltered among some gipsies. He contracted such a love for their vagrant life, and such satisfaction in getting their applause for thefts that manifested low cunning, that nothing would induce him to abandon their mode of life and return to civilisation. At one time he postured as a non-juring parson who had been forced to leave his rectory, and preyed on the sympathy of the Jacobite gentry. Then learning from a newspaper that a cargo of Quakers bound for Philadelphia had been wrecked on the Irish coast, he disguised himself as a Friend, and traded on the charity of the Quakers by representing himself as one of those who had been rescued from the sea.

He was elected King of the Beggars on the death of Clause Patch, who had reigned previously over the mendicants. At last he was arrested, tried at the quarter sessions at Exeter, and transported to Maryland, where he was sold to a planter, and as he tried to escape an iron collar was riveted about his neck. He again escaped; this time succeeded in getting among the Indians, who relieved him of his collar. He stole a canoe from his benefactors, and got on board a vessel sailing for England. What became of him is not known, but he is thought to have died in obscurity in 1770, aged 77, but where buried is unknown. The fellow was a worthless rogue, without a redeeming quality in him.

The Bampton Fair is an institution that should not be passed by unsought by the visitor to North Devon, if he be a lover of horseflesh or a student of mankind. He will see there choice specimens alike of Exmoor ponies and of North Devon farmers, and will catch many a waft of the broadest dialect of the borders of Somerset and Devon.

A writer in S. Paul's Magazine, December 12th, 1896, says: —

"As a dead-alive, archæologically interesting place, the Devon Bampton on the Exe is a more or less desirable centre for the angler and the hunting man, but ordinarily, in the eyes of the unsporting, sane person, it is a useful hole to strive to avoid.

"Bampton Fair, however, is a celebration once to be seen by every woman or man who has eyes, ears, and nose for novelty. Such lowing of oxen, bleating of sheep, and assemblage of agrestics and congregation of ponies! The side shows are naught. Who cares for gingerbread, pasties, cockles, fairings, tipsy yokels, trolloping hussies, and other attributes of Bœotia let loose? The play's the thing – that is, the pony exhibition. Nijni Novgorod is all very well – quite unique in its way; Rugby, Barnet, and Brampton Brian fairs are things apart. But Bampton Fair is absolutely sui generis. Exmoor ponies throng the streets, flood the pavements, overflow the houses, pervade the place. Wild as hawks, active and lissom as goats, cajoled from the moors and tactfully manœuvred when penned, these indigenous quadrupeds will leap or escalade lofty barriers in a standing jump, or a cat-like scramble, whilst the very 'suckers' have to be cajoled with all the Dædalian adroitness with which the Irish pig has to be induced to go whither it would not."

The great sale of ponies formerly took place at Simonsbath, but it was moved to Bampton in 1850, and is held on the last Thursday in October.

"Seventy years ago," said a bailiff, "there were only five men and a woman and a little girl on Exmoor, and that little girl was my mother. She drew beer at Simonsbath public-house. There were a rough lot of customers then, I promise you."

The moor was the property of the Crown, and it was leased in part to Sir Thomas Dyke Acland since 1818, and was used for the rearing of ponies and the summering of sheep.

There was a good deal of horse stealing in the early days of this century. In spite of the severe laws on this sort of theft, and of the Acland brand of the anchor, a good many ponies were spirited away by the shepherds and disposed of in Wiltshire. The Acland breed is pure, and can only be obtained from the Baronet. All the rest are the result of crossing. Sir Thomas moved his stock away from Exmoor to the Winsford Hills, and left only a dozen mare ponies to preserve the line, when the father of the late Sir Frederick Knight rented 10,000 acres of the moor and added 6000 subsequently.

"An after-dinner conversation led Mr. Knight to consider the great pony question in all its bearings. The party met at Sir Joseph Banks's, the eminent naturalist. They discussed the merits of the Dongola horse, which had been described as an Arab of sixteen hands and peculiar to the regions round Nubia. Sir Joseph proposed to the party to get some of the breed, and accordingly Lords Headly, Morton, and Dundas, and Mr. Knight then and there gave him a joint £1000 cheque as a deposit for the expenses. The English consul in Egypt was applied to, and in due course the horses and mares which he sent bore out Bruce's description to the letter. In addition to their height, they were rather Roman-nosed, with a very fine texture of skin, well chiselled under the jowl, and as clean-winded as all their race. About ten or twelve arrived, and Mr. Knight was so pleased with them that he bought Lord Headly's share. His two sires and three mares were then brought to Simonsbath, where he had established a stud of seven or eight thoroughbred mares and thirty half-breeds of the coaching Cleveland sort.

"The first cross knocked out the Roman nose as completely as the Leicester destroys the Exmoor horn, but the buffy stood true to its colour, and thus the type was never quite lost. The half Dongolas did wonderfully well with the West Somerset, which often came to Exmoor to draw for a fox, and they managed to get down the difficult hills so well, and crossed the brooks so close up with the hounds, that the vocation of the white-clad guides on chase days gradually fell into disuse."[12 - Condensed from "The Exmoor Ponies," by "Druid," in The Sporting Magazine, October, 1860.]