Lynton and Lynmouth

C ONTE NTS CH APTE R D E NS - RE I . VO III ME E II . S O LIT RARY ASS OCIATIONS A STAP LE III . B RN I V . LYNTON LY T con tinu e d U TIS U Y AND T N ON " ) , CO N B R , NOR H WARD P ORLOCK AN D EXMOOR IN SOME RS E T U D VIII . L N Y T E A S LD F AD IX . H L ST TRONG HO S O TR ITION L IST OF IL L US TRA TIONS LE E BAY BOS SINGTON HILL BUNKE RY BEACON THE D OONE VALLE Y W DY AY AND DUTY P I T WE ST LY T OO B O N , N ON ’ THE SHE P HE RD S COTTAGE : DOONE VALLEY LYNMOUTH BAY AND F ORELAND THE VALLE Y OF ROCKS ’ HEDD ON S M UT EA LY T O H , N R N ON AS TLE K LY T C ROC , N ON DUTY POINT THE MOORS NEAR BRE NDON TWO GATE S HA E ST M EXM RV OON , OOR THE DOONE VALLEY IN WINTER ’ LYNTON : THE D EVIL S CHEES ERING B UNKE RY BE ACON F ROM HORNER WOOD S LY NTON AND LY NMOUTH C H A P T E R I D E VONS H IRE H T E original Celtic name for Devonshire , the name used by the Britons whom Caesar found D fn ain t here when he landed , was probably y , ” of Du mn on ia or for a Latinized form it , ” Damn o ia Diod oru s S icu lu s n , was used by when writing of the province Of Devon and D . S O Cornwall in the third century A . that the name by which the men o f Devon Call their country is the name by which those ancient men called it who erected the stone menhirs on - Dartmoor , and built the great earth camp Of D or Clovelly ykes , the smaller bold strong Oi C On e ct u rall hold Countisbury . At least , j y t o this is so , and it is pleasant believe it , for it D Of own D links the evon our day, the evon of rich valleys and windy moors , the land Of Of ni streams and orchards , bleak , mag ficent cliff - a of and rock gu rded bay, shaded comb o and B LYNTON AND LYNMOUTH ll suave , fair vi ages , in an unbroken tradition of name and habitation with the men Of tha t s ilent and vanished race . E Up and down the length of ngland , from ’ E n d the Land s to the Northumbrian dales , lie the traces of these far - Off peoples whose very names are faint guesses preserved only in f the traditions o local speech . Strangely and suddenly we come upon the evidence Of their life and death : here a circle Of stones on a barren moor or bleak hilltop , there a handful of pot sherds or a flint arrowhead ; sometimes , indeed , Of though rarely, the bones their very bodies , laid aside in earth - barrows or stone coffins for Of this unknown length years . And there the most u n re fle ct ive among us feels a sudden awe and wonder at the momentary vision Of the profound antiquity Of this land in which for we live , and a few moments all desires and aims seem futile in face Of this immemorial past . fe m Only for a w oments , though , and then we ” step from the Druid Circle , or turn away of from the barrow, and the current our every day life takes u s up on ce more . M i . yself , I agree w th Westcote Westcote is a charming Old gentlema n of King James the ’ First s time , who wrote a book called A View ” Of t e r Devonshire in L63O. In Chap I he discusses the ancient name of Devonshire much 2 DEVONSHIRE as I have done , but because in the seventeenth century you must have a Latin or a Greek at t o your elbow give you respectability as a writer , he brings forward a formidable array Of au “ t horit ie s - P t ole mee u s S olin u s P l his t or , y y , and iod oru s icu lu s had D . S But , having them make their bow before the read“er , he remarks that all these gentlemen lived far remoted from D t o evonshire , and were therefore li“able error t ran s m1s s 10 n Of m m in the “na es ; for , in y ” opinion , says he , those that declare the first names of strange countries fa r remoted are as the poor which wear their garments all bepatched and pieced , whereof the pieces that are added are much more in quantity Of cloth as than the garment before , when it w first made . As an example Of this error he instances the O f name Peru . When the Spaniards had con M quered exico , and were purposing to proceed i farther , the r commander , in his manner , de ma n d e d of one Of the natives he met withal h o a s w at the c untry w named , who answered , P ’ eru , by which name it is known unto this n day , which in his language was , I know o t ’ what you say . E ven more fantastic is the etymologic a l f n f r a origin O A daluzia , o the poor countrym n Of this story , when addressed by the conquering r r as s e e Moor , merely ema ked surlily to his , g 3 LYNTON AND LYNMOUTH or own u up Luzia , in his tong e , An d o Luzia which was taken by the Moor in has v remarkable good faith , and e er after been the name of that province . Westcote himself inclines to the origin De ” Of diu "or Di) Avon , the country waters , t being the Cel ic for God , and avon the nl word for river "which it certai y is) , and the whole name agreeing with the character Of the Of country , which is a land many waters , both great rivers and small streams . But he goes on to Observe tolerantly that each man may as think he chooses , even to deriving the word D - Of Devonshire from ane shire , the shire the it o t o a Danes , though is kn wn h ve had its name d E before ever the first Dane lan ed in ngland , l t e h and there seem“s to be i tle lik lihood , t ere fore , but only a sympathie in letters . He concludes his discussion by the couplet : To n o man a m I s o mu ch t hrall ” s e ar he S e a e t t ru t in ll TO w p k h h a . An d with this tolerant and unpedantic frame Of mind I am in hearty accord . a s R But if C e ar and the omans , who for several E centuries had a station at xeter , their great ” n E xe camp o the , called the wide province ” D a mn on ia Of Devon and Cornwall , what did the Ph oenicians call it when the y trade d M d Cornish tin along the e iterranean , and even, 4 DEVONSHIRE s it is aid , into remote Africa , and ran their e M gall ys into the little bay Of Combe artin , to la de with the sil ver and lead which can still e be min d there , and which they may have Old Of carried to the buried palaces Knossos , to be fashioned into amulets and trinkets by those Cretans who built the dancing - flo or Of Ar iadne and t he maze Of the Minotaur That is a question that we cannot answer ; all the busy speech Of all those peoples is silent ; only Old - the mine workings remain , and the sacked of o and buried palaces Crete , and a Ph enician - ingot mould fished up in Plymouth Harbour , ’ h a s and fitting , so tis said , an ingot which Af been found in Central rica . Of R With the coming the omans comes , as a e lways , a little light , for they were a shr wd li and mighty people , who ked their house set a n or in order , and tabulated d recorded and an ize d or e rl g , and have left traces Of their d i n o n of ess the face the land , and the speech Of the people , and the laws Of the nations in three . D a mn on ia continents They subdued , and held E it from their armed camp at xeter , where R oman coins , pottery , brick , and inscriptions are found abundantly . Perhaps also they held and transformed several Of the great earth own camps for their uses , such as the Clovelly or Dykes the escarpments at Ilfracombe , built or by the Britons some earlier people . But 5 LYNTON AND LYNMOUTH the Romans do not appear to have settled in Devonshire as they did in E ast Anglia and the Midlands ; I believe there are few traces Of their E dwellings , villas , roads , or baths , beyond xeter in the West . When their ru l e weakened and declined in nl D amn on ia the fifth century, certai y would be on e of the first provinces over which in their jurisdiction waned , because Of its accessibility , its deep wooded valleys , the wastes E D Of xmoor and artmoor , and the danger Of its coasts ; and we may well suppose that the Old Celtic traditions and customs continued here R but little modified by the oman occupation .

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