A Book of the West. Volume I Devon

The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe,
With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below,
For half of their fleet to the right, and half to the left were seen,
And the little Revenge ran on thro' the long sea-lane between."

The fight began at three o'clock in the afternoon and continued all that evening. The San Philip, having received the lower tier of the Revenge, charged with cross-bar shot, was to some extent disabled, and shifted her quarters. Repeated attempts made to board the English vessel were repulsed. All that August night the fight continued, the stars shining overhead, but eclipsed by the clouds of smoke from the cannon. Ship after ship came in upon the Revenge, so that she was continuously engaged with two mighty galleons, one on each side, and with the enemy boarding her on both. Before morning fifteen men-of-war had been engaged with her, but all in vain; some had been sunk, the rest repulsed.

"And the rest, they came aboard us, and they fought us hand to hand,
For a dozen times they came with their pikes and musqeteers,
And a dozen times we shook 'em off, as a dog that shakes his ears,
When he leaps from the water to land."

All the powder at length in the Revenge was spent, all her pikes were broken, forty out of her hundred men were killed, and a great number of the rest wounded.

Sir Richard, though badly hurt early in the battle, never forsook the deck till an hour before midnight, and was then shot through the body while his wounds were being dressed, and again in the head, and his surgeon was killed while attending on him. The masts were lying over the side, the rigging cut or broken, the upper work all shot in pieces, and the ship herself, unable to move, was settling slowly in the sea, the vast fleet of the Spaniards lying round her in a ring, like dogs round a dying lion and wary of approaching him in his last dying agony. Sir Richard, seeing it was past hope, having fought for fifteen hours, ordered the master-gunner to sink the ship; but this was a heroic sacrifice that the common seamen opposed. Two Spanish ships had gone down, above fifteen hundred men had been killed, and the Spanish admiral could not induce any of the rest of the fleet to board the Revenge again, as they feared lest Sir Richard should blow himself and them up.

Sir Richard was lying disabled below, and too weak and wounded to contest with those who opposed the sinking of the vessel. The captain now entered into parley with the Spanish admiral, and succeeded in obtaining for conditions that all their lives should be saved, the crew sent to England, and the officers ransomed. Sir Richard was now removed to the ship of Don Alfonso Barsano, the Spanish admiral, and there died, saying in Spanish: —

"Here die I, Richard Granville, with a joyful and quiet mind, for that I have ended my life as a true soldier ought to do that hath fought for his country, queen, religion, and honour: whereby my soul most joyfully departeth out of this body, and shall always leave behind it an everlasting fame of a valiant and true soldier that hath done his duty as he was bound to do."

Froude well says: —[17 - Forgotten Worthies.]

"Such was the fight at Flores in that August, 1591, without its equal in such of the annals of mankind as the thing which we call history has preserved to us. At the time England and all the world rang with it. It struck a deeper terror, though it was but the action of a single ship, into the hearts of the Spanish people, it dealt a more deadly blow upon their fame and naval strength, than the destruction of the Armada itself, and in the direct results which arose from it it was scarcely less disastrous to them. Hardly, as it seems to us, if the most glorious actions which are set like jewels in the history of mankind are weighed one against the other in the balance, hardly will those three hundred Spartans, who in the summer morning sat combing their long hair for death in the passes of Thermopylæ, have earned a more lofty estimate for themselves than this one crew of modern Englishmen. After the action there ensued a tempest so terrible as was never seen or heard the like before. A fleet of merchantmen joined the armada immediately after the battle, forming in all one hundred and forty sail; and of these one hundred and forty, only thirty-two ever saw Spanish harbour; the rest all foundered or were lost on the Azores. The men-of-war had been so shattered by shot as to be unable to carry sail; and the Revenge herself, disdaining to survive her commander, or as if to complete his own last baffled purpose, like Samson, buried herself and her two hundred prize crew under the rocks of St. Michael's."

Bideford is the starting-point for the north coast of Devon, from the mouth of the Torridge to the Cornish border, and thence to Bude.

The beauty of this coast is almost unrivalled, equalled only by that from Ilfracombe to Minehead.

Clovelly, with the Hobby Drive, is something to be seen, and one's education is incomplete without it.

And one can combine archæology with the quest of beauty, if a visit to Clovelly be combined with one to the "Dykes," sadly mutilated by roads cut through the embankments. Nevertheless, sufficient remains of Clovelly Dykes to make it a fair representative of a British king's Dun. Beyond Clovelly, somewhat spoiled by being a place of resort, but always maintaining much picturesqueness, is Hartland, the settlement of S. Nectan, reputed son, but probably grandson, of King Brychan of Brecknock. He is represented in a niche on the tower. His name is Irish; Nectans were not uncommon in the Green Isle.

Very little is known of S. Nectan. He is said to have been killed, his head cut off – not improbably by the chief at Clovelly Dykes, who cannot have relished having the country overrun and appropriated by a horde of half Irish half Welsh adventurers. And this took place precisely at the time when the Irish grip on Britain was relaxing.

A stone was marked with his blood where he was killed. He got up and carried his head to where now stands the church. But "they all did it." These Celtic saints had a remarkable faculty for not only losing their heads, but finding them again.

There is a grand screen painted and gilt in the church.

At Hartland Point, the promontory of Hercules of the ancients, is a lighthouse. When the wind is from the west the Atlantic thunders and foams on one side of the headland, whilst on the other in the bay the sea lies glassy, and reflects the purple-red slaty cliffs. The point rises 300 feet out of the sea, and was probably at one time occupied by a cliff-castle. A visit to Hartland Quay reveals the most extraordinary contortions in the slate rock. The cliffs are sombre, the strata thrust up at right angles to the sea, and over them foam streamlets that discharge themselves into the ocean.

Hartland Abbey was founded by Gytha, the wife of Earl Godwin, and mother of Harold, in honour of S. Nectan, who, she believed, had come to the assistance of her husband in a storm and saved him from shipwreck – as if a true Celtic saint would put out his little finger to help a Saxon! But there was unquestionably a monastery here long before – from the sixth century, when S. Nectan settled on this wild headland.

The large parish was at one time studded with chapels, but these have all disappeared, or been converted into barns. The church is two miles from the village of Hartland.

A walk along the cliffs may be carried to Wellcombe, another foundation of S. Nectan, where is his holy well, recently repaired. The church contains a screen earlier in character than is usually found. There were interesting bench-ends with very curious heads. At the "restoration" a few of the ends were plastered against the screen, and their unique heads sawn away so as to make them fit the place into which they were thrust, but never designed to occupy. Their places were taken by mean deal benches. I suppose as the patron, S. Nectan, lost his head, these chief ornaments of the church were doomed to the same fate.

Wellcombe Mouth is worth a visit; a narrow glen descending to the sea, which here rages against precipitous cliffs.

Another excursion from Bideford should be made to Wear Gifford, where is one of the finest oak-roofed halls in England.

The mansion stands on a slope, rising gently from the meadows near the Torridge, yet rears itself into the semblance of a stronghold by a scarped terrace, which extends along the south front.

Half concealed in luxuriant vegetation, on the right is the embattled gateway tower, still one of the entrances. In approaching the house we see two projecting gables, and between them is the entrance and the hall, the latter with its massive chimney.

From the entrance the broad oak staircase, having a handsome balustrade, is ascended. The walls are hung with tapestry. On reaching the minstrels' gallery an excellent view is obtained of the superb roof, "one of the most ornate and tasteful specimens of Perpendicular woodwork to be met with in England. Every portion is carved with the spirit and stroke of the true artist; and the multiplied enrichments seen in detail from our elevated position quite surprise the spectator."[18 - Ashworth: "The Ancient Manor House of Wear Gifford," in Trans. of the Exeter Diocesan Architect. Soc., vol. vi., 1852.]

Elaborately carved wainscot panelling surrounds the walls, covering about ten feet in height. It is adorned with heraldic shields, and opposite the fireplace are the arms of Henry VII.

This small, perfect, and beautiful specimen of an old English mansion was the cradle of one of the best of Devonshire families, the Giffards, a branch of which was at Brightley. The last of the Wear Gifford stock conveyed the estate and mansion with his daughter and heiress to the Fortescues. But the Giffard race is by no means extinct, it is now well represented by the Earl of Halsbury.

Note. – Book on Bideford: —

Granville (R.), History of Bideford. Bideford, 1883.

CHAPTER X.

DARTMOOR AND ITS ANTIQUITIES

Geological structure of Dartmoor – Granite – "Clitters" – Building with granite – The bogs – The rivers – Rock basins – Logan stones – Kaoline deposits – Hut circles – Cooking-stones – Pottery – Pounds – Grimspound – Position of women in early times – Approximate period to which the relics belong – The cromlech – The kistvaen – The stone circle – The stone row – The menhir – Cairns – Modes of interment among the pagan Irish – Stone crosses – Tinners' burrows and stream works – Blowing-houses.

The great irregular tableland of Dartmoor, an upheaval of granite over a thousand feet above the sea, and in places attaining to above two thousand, occupies two hundred and twenty-five square miles of country. Of that, however, less than one half is the "Forest" and belongs to the Duchy of Cornwall. Around the forest are the commons belonging to the parishes contiguous to the moor.

The moor is almost throughout of granite. At the outskirts, indeed, gabbro and trap exist, that have been forced up at the points where the granite has burst through the slate, and these later uprushes of molten matter have greatly altered the granite in contact with them, and have produced an elvan.

The most extraordinary difference in kinds and composition exists throughout the granitic area. Some granite is very coarse, full of what are locally called "horse-teeth," crystals of felspar, other is finely grained. Some is black with schorl, some, as that of Mill Tor, white as statuary marble. Granite was not well stirred before it was protruded to the surface. The constituents of granite are quartz, felspar, and mica; the latter sometimes white, at others usually black and glistering. The felspar may be recognised as being a dead white. The black shining matter found near where are veins of tin, is schorl.

It is the opinion of modern geologists that the granite never saw daylight till cold and consolidated, and that granite when in fusion and erupted to the surface resolves itself into trap. The pressure of superincumbent beds prevented perfect fusion. In its altered condition when perfectly fused it may be seen in Whit Tor, near Mary Tavy.

But, it may be asked, what has become of the beds that overlay the granite? They have been washed away. In Exmoor we do not meet with the granite. It had heaved the slates, but not sufficiently to so dislocate them as to enable the rains and floods to carry them away and reveal the granite below. If Dartmoor granite could but have retained its covering matter, the region would have been indeed mountainous. In Shavercombe, a lateral valley of the upper Plym, may be seen traces of the original coverlet of slate, much altered by heat.

The granite looks as though stratified, but this is deceptive. It is so unequally mixed that some flakes or layers are harder and more resistant to atmospheric forces than are others, and where the granite is soft it gives way, presenting a laminated appearance. Moreover, the granite is full of joints. Where these joints are vertical and numerous, there the rocky masses break into fragments. Bellever Tor is a good instance. This imposing mass looks as though, when rising out of the Flood, it had shaken itself, like a poodle, to dry itself, and in so doing had shaken itself to bits. Lustleigh Cleave is another instance. Every tor is surrounded by a "clitter" (Welsh clechir), and these clitters are due to the disintegration of the granite in horizontal beds, and then on account of their joints horizontal and diagonal, falling into confused heaps. Where the joints are not numerous and not close together, there the rocks cohere and form tors. In many, as Vixen Tor and Mis Tor, the pseudo-bedding lines are very distinct. Where the soft beds are infrequent, there the granite forms great cake-like blocks as in Hey Tor. The tors are, in fact, the more solid cores as yet not overthrown by natural agencies. Such a core is Bowerman's Nose, and around it is the "clitter" of rock that once encased it.

Granite is very pervious to water, as everyone knows who lives in a house built of it by modern architect and masons.

The ancients were not such fools as we take them to have been. They did condescend to consider the capabilities and the disadvantages of their building material before employing it. The "old men," when they constructed a wall of granite, always gave it two faces, and filled in with rubble between. By this means the rain did not drive through, although they did not employ mortar; and the ancient tenement houses on the moor are dry as snuff. But the modern architect insists on having the walls built throughout with lime, in courses, and the rain enters by these as by aqueducts. Then, to remedy the evil, the whole face of the house is tarred over or cemented, with what result to the prospect may well be conceived. The granite, though pervious, is so to a very limited extent when compared with limestone, and through a granite country there are no springs that issue from subterranean reservoirs. All the rain that falls on the surface runs off superficially, but not all at once, for on the granite lie enormous beds of peat, the growth and decomposition of moor plants through vast ages. These beds of peat are like sponges; they absorb the rain, retain it, and slowly give it up during the summer. In limestone districts the making of a river goes on within the bowels of the mountain, but in a granite district it takes place on its outside. Remove the beds of turf and peat, and there will be torrents after a shower, and then dry torrent beds.

To north and south of the equator of the moor lie vast tracts of bog in which the rivers are nursed, and without which they could not be. No visitor can realise what Dartmoor really is in the economy of nature as the mother of the Devonshire rivers till he has visited either Cranmere Pool, or the ridge on the south, where are the meres from which spring the Avon, the Erme, the Yealm, and the Plym.

The granite being of unequal hardness, its constituent crystals become separated by the action of the weather into an incoherent gravel, which in Cornwall is called growan. The process may be seen in full activity on any tor. Sometimes water lodges on a slab, and finding a soft spot begins to decompose it; then, when this is the case, the wind swirls the water about, and with it the grit is spun round and round, and this continues the work of disintegration, and finally a rock basin is produced.

Of these rock basins some fine samples exist: that on Caistor Rock has had to be railed round, to prevent sheep from falling in and being drowned. Mis Tor has another, the Devil's Frying-pan. There are plenty of them to be seen in all conditions, from the rude beginning to the complete bowl.

At one time it was supposed that they were Druidical vessels employed for lustration, and archæologists talked long and learnedly concerning them. But what is quite certain is that they were produced by Nature unassisted.

When a hard bed of granite lies on one that is very soft, the latter becomes disintegrated and eaten completely away. The hard bed is left either balanced on one point or more, or else has its centre of gravity so placed as to precipitate it from its position. Plenty of rocks may be seen in all these conditions. If it should chance that a rock remains poised on one point, then possibly a little pressure at one end of the slab will set it in motion. This, then, is known as a logan, or rocking stone, which antiquaries of old pronounced to have been employed by the Druids as oracles, or for purpose of divination. All this was bred out of the phantasy of the antiquaries. There is absolutely not a particle of evidence to show that they were supposed to be mysterious, or were employed in any rites, and it is also absolutely certain that they were formed by the hand of Nature alone.

There are many logan rocks on Dartmoor. One is on Black Tor, near Princetown. It is instructive, as it not only shows the process of weathering which made it what it is, but it has on top of it a rock basin that decants by a lip over the edge of the stone when the latter is made to vibrate.

The "Nutcracker" stone near Amicombe Hill above the West Ockment rolls in a high wind like a boat that is anchored. There were two very fine logans on Staple Tor above Merivale Bridge, but quarrymen wantonly destroyed the whole of one of the steeples, together with the finest logan on Dartmoor that was on it. The other remains. On Rippon Tor is one, another in Lustleigh Cleave.