UNIVERSITY OF CA RIVERSIDE LIBRARY 3 1210 01970 5498 LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE THE SOMERSET COAST WORKS BY CHARLES G. HARPER The Portsmoutll Road, and its Tributaries : JD-day and in Days of Old. The Dover Road : Annals of an Ancient Turnpike. The Bath Road : History, Fashion, and Frivolity on an Old Highway. The Exeter Road : The Story of the West of England Highway. The Great North Road : The Old Mail Road to Scotland. Two Vols. The Norwich Road : An East Anglian Highway. The Holyhead Road: The Mail-Coach Road to Dublin. Two Vols. The Cambridge, Ely, and King's Lynn Road: The Great Fenland Highway. The Newmarket, Bury, Thetford^ and Cromer Road : Sport and History on an East Anglian Turnpike. The Oxford, Gloucester, and Milford Haven Road: The Ready Way to .South Wales. Two Vols. The Brighton Road : Speed, Sport, and History on the Classic Highway. The Hastings Road and the " Happy Springs of Tunbridge." Cycle Rides Round London. A Practical Handbook of Drawing for Modern Methods of Reproduction. Stage Coach and Mail in Days of Yore. Two Vols. " The IngOldsby Country : Literary Landmarks of The Ingoldsby Legends. ' The Hardy Country : Literary Landmarks of the Wessex Novels. The Dorset Coast. The South Devon Coast. The Old Inns of Old England. Two Vols. Love in the Harbour : a Longshore Comedy. Rural Nooks Round London (Middlesex and Surrey). Haunted Houses; Tales of the Supernatural. The Manchester and Glasgow Road ThLs way to Gretna Gieen. Iwo Vols. The North Devon Coast. Half Hours with the Highwaymen. Two Vols. The Autocar Road Book. The Tower of London: Fortress, Palace, and Prison. The Cornish Coast. North. | ^^** ^'"^ ^''''^^- The Cornish Coast. South. J THE SOMERSET COAST CHARLES G. HARPER " Somerset, that pleasant lonJe ^vhich rennith to the Severn Se."—Fuller. London : CHAPMAN iif HALL, Ltd. 1909 PRINTED AND BOUND BY HAZEI.L, WATSON AND VINEY, LD. LONDON AND AYLESBURY. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE INTRODUCTORY I CHAPTER II THE RIVER AVON—CLIFTON SUSPENSION BRIDGE . 6 CHAPTER III abbot's LEIGH TO CLEVEDON I7 CHAPTER IV CLEVEDON—LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS ! COLERIDGE . 25 CHAPTER V CLEVEDON {continued) —literary associations : TENNYSON 32 CHAPTER VI YATTON—CONGRESBURY—WICK ST, LAWRENCE . 45 CHAPTER VII WORSPRING PRIORY—KEWSTOKE .... 56 vi CONTENTS CHAPTER VIII PAGE WESTON-SUPER-MARE • ^7 CHAPTER IX WORLEBURY—WORLE 78 CHAPTER X STEEP HOLM—FLAT HOLM-^UPHILL—BREAN DOWN . 87 CHAPTER XI BLEADON—BREAN—BRENT KNOLL .... 98 CHAPTER XII BURNHAM — HIGHBRIDGE — BAWDRIP — " BATH " BRICKS —THE RIVER PARRET . .Ill CHAPTER XIII BRIDGWATER—ADMIRAL BLAKE—THE MONMOUTH REBELLION 1 26 CHAPTER XIV CANNINGTON—THE QUANTOCKS—NETHER STOWEY, AND THE COLERIDGE CIRCLE .... I39 CHAPTER XV STEART—STOGURSEY—THE FOLK-SPEECH OF ZUM- MERZET — GLATT-HUNTING AT KILVE — ST. AUDRIES 158 — CONTENTS di CHAPTER XVI PAGE WILLITON—ST. DECUMAN'S AND THE WYNDHAMS WATCHET 179 CHAPTER XVII CLEEVE ABBEY—OLD CLEEVE—BLUE ANCHOR . 189 CHAPTER XVIII DUNSTER 206 CHAPTER XIX MINEHEAD, NEW AND OLD—SELWORTHY—THE HORNER 227 CHAPTER XX PORLOCK—BOSSINGTON—PORLOCK WEIR . 247 CHAPTER XXI CULBONE AND ITS REVELS—WHORTLEBERRIES . 260 CHAPTER XXII " " THE LORNA DOONE COUNTRY . 27O CHAPTER XXIII oare — malmsmead — the badgworthy valley —the " doone valley "—glenthorne 286 Index 299 b LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Clifton Bridge X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAOB The Coleridge Cottage, Nether Stowey Nether Stowey . The " Mud Horse " t6i Stolford 163 Stogursey Castle 165 Kilve Church 171 Kilve : The Chantry 173 St. Audries Facing 176 Bench-end, Sampford Brett ; supposed to allude to the Legend of Lady Florence Wyndham 184 Watchet ; Old Town Hall and Lock-up 186 Watchet .... 187 Entrance to Cleeve Abbey . 192 The Refectory, Cleeve Abbey 197 Mysterious Effigy at Old Cleeve 201 Blue Anchor 203 Coneygore Tower, and Road into Minehead 207 Dunster Castle ...... Facing 210 Dunster ; Castle and Yarn Market . Facing 218 Dunster Church, from the South, showing old Alcove in Churchyard Wall for the Stocks . 221 ' Curious Archway, Dunster Church . 223 The " Nunnery," or " High House," Dunster 225 Minehead ....... Facing 228 Seventeenth-Century Mantel, " Luttrell Arms " Inn 230 Quirke's Almshouses . 236 Doorway of the Manor Office . 238 Minehead Church Facing 238 The Manor Office, Minehead 239 Rood-Loft Turret, Minehead 241 The Clock Jack, Minehead Church 243 Lynch Chapel .... 244 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS XI s ^ CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY On confiding to personal friends, journalistic paragraphists, and other Doubting Thomases, professional sceptics, chartered cynics and in- different persons, the important and interesting literary news that a proposal was afloat to write a book on the Somerset Coast, the author was assured with an unanimity as remarkable as it was disconcerting, that there is no coast of Somerset. This singular geographical heresy, although totally unsupported b}' map-makers, who on all maps and charts show a very well-defined sea- it board, seems to be widely distributed ; but is not shared by (among others) the inhabitants of Clevedon, of Watchet (where furious seas have twice within the last few years demolished the harbour), of Weston-super-Mare, Burnham, Mine- I 2 THE SOMERSET COAST head, or Porlock. The people of all these places think they live on the coast ; and it would be really quite absurdly difficult to persuade them that they do not, or that they do not live in Somerset. This singular illusion, that there is no coast of Somerset, is, however, but one among a number of current fallacies, among which may be included the belief that : Essex is a flat county. London is dirty. The virtuous are necessarily happy; The wicked equally of necessity miserable. All Irishmen are witty. Scotsmen cannot see a joke. And so forth. Essex is fiat, and London grimy, only comparatively. Natives of Huntingdon- shire (which is an alternative term for flatness) no doubt think of Essex as a place of hills ; and although London may seem grimy to the eyes of a villager from Devon or Cornwall, it is as a City of light and purity to the Sheffielder, the inhabitants of Newcastle, and the people of other such places of gloom. The coast of Somerset, then, to make a be- ginning with it, opens with the great port and city of Bristol, on the navigable estuary of the river Avon, and ends at Glenthorne, where the North Devon boundary is met. The distance between these two points is sixty miles. Throughout the entire length of this coastline, that of South Wales is more or less clearly visible ; the Bristol Channel being but four and a half miles wide at INTRODUCTORY 3 Avonmouth ; seven and a half miles at Brean Down, by Weston-super-Mare, and fifteen miles at Glenthorne. The foreshore of a great part of this coast is more or less muddy ; the Severn, which you shall find to be a tea or coffee-coloured river, even at Shrewsbury a hundred miles or so up along its course, from the particles of earth held in suspension, depositing much of this, and the even more muddy rivers Avon and Parret contributing a larger proportion. The " Severn Sea," as poetical and imaginative writers style this estuary, known to matter-of-fact geographers as the " Bristol Channel," is therefore apt to be of a grey hue, except under brilliant sunshine. But it would be most unj ust to infer from these remarks, that mud, and only mud, is the cha- racteristic of these sixty miles. Indeed, the Somerset Coast is singularly varied, and has many elements of beauty. Between the noble scene of its opening, where the romantic gorge of the Avon, set with rugged cliffs and delightful woods, is spanned by the airy Suspension Bridge of Clifton, and the wood-clad steeps of Glenthorne, you will find such beautiful places as Portishead and Weston, whose scenery no crowds of vul- garians can spoil ; and Dunster, Minehead, and Porlock, which need no advertisement from this or any other pen. I have purposeh^ omitted Clevedon from the list above, for it does not appeal to me. Mud you have, naked and unashamed, practi- 4 THE SOMERSET COAST cally only at Pill and the outlet of the Avon, and again at Steart and the estuary of the Parret, where those surcharged waters precipitate their unlovely burden. Elsewhere, the purifying sea completely scavenges it away or kindly disguises it. Nay, between Weston and Burnham we have even a long range of sandhills, as pure as the sand-towans of North Cornwall or as the driven snow.* And further, if we turn our attention to the scenery and the churches and castles and ruined abbeys, or to the associations, of this countryside, we shall find it an engaging succession of districts, comparing well with some better-known and more generally appreciated seaboards. A specious air of eternal midsummer and sunshine belongs to the name of Somerset. Camden, writing in the first years of the seven- teenth century, was not too grave an historian and antiquary to notice the fact ; and we find him, accordingly, at considerable pains to disabuse any one likely to be deceived by it. He says, in his great work "Britannia": "Some suppose its name was given it for the mildness and, as it were, svtmmer temperature of its air. But as it may be truly called in summer a summer country, so it has as good right to be called a winter one in winter, when it is for the most part wet, fenny and marshy, to the great inconvenience of travellers. I am more inclined to think it * But this depends largely upon the neighbourhood in which it has been driving. INTRODUCTORY 5 derives from Somerton, anciently the most con- siderable town in the whole country." True, it did ; for Somerton was until the eighth century the capital of the tribe of Britons known as Somersaetas.