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10. Princess Gardens and Royal Terrace Gardens Listing 50. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/15, Aug 30, 1894, Local Board (). Harbour Committee, 1892-1895. 11. H.J.Lethbridge, Torquay & . The Making of a 51. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/15, July 26, 1893, Torquay Local Board Modern Resort, Chichester, 2003, p. 53. Harbour Committee, 1892-1895. 12. Berry, p. 223. 52. www..gov.uk/index/news/rockwalk/ 13. Ellis, p. 339. rockwalkarchive.htm. 14. W.White, White’s . A Reprint of History, Gazeteer and 53. Ellis, p. 382. Directory of Devonshire, 1850, , 1968, p. 447. 54. Princess Gardens And Royal Terrace Gardens Listing, 15. The Handbook For Torquay And Its Neighbourhood with (English Heritage). the Natural History Of The District, p. 31. 16. A.Taigel and T. Williamson, Parks and Gardens, London, 1993, p. 122. Great Expectations: 17. J.R.Pike, Torquay, Torquay, 1994, p. 47. Approaches to Country Houses 18. www.torbay.gov.uk/torquay_harbour_conservation_area_ appraisal.pdf, p. 2:18. Rob Wilson-North 19. Lasdun, p. 164. 20. Pike, p. 47. The landscape of Exmoor National Park is dramatic, sublime 21. Ellis, p. 362. and secretive. Those who built great houses there, especially 22. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/1, July 1846-Feb 1857, Poster inside during the nineteenth century, made imaginative use of the Local Board Minute Book. topography and other features in designing the routes - the 23. J.T. White, The History of Torquay, Torquay, 1878, p. 266. drives - which led to them. 24. Ellis, p. 377. 25. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/13, Oct 10 1887, Torquay Local Board Approaches to great houses have usually played a central role Harbour Committee, 1886-1889. in how buildings and their designed landscapes are perceived. 26. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/13, July 2, 1889, Torquay Local Board They also often form an integral part of the designed landscape Harbour Committee, 1886-1889. itself, especially when the house sits within ornamental park- 27. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/14, April 8, 1890, Torquay Local Board land. The visitor experiences the first glimpse of a house and its Harbour Committee, 1889-1892. setting from horseback or through a carriage window - views 28. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/14, Nov 16, 1889, Torquay Local are contrived to create an initial effect, sometimes using water, Board Harbour Committee, 1889-1892. or often using careful plantings to frame the view. Similarly, the 29. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/14, Nov 4, 1890, Torquay Local Board way a house and its setting are shown off can reveal how the Harbour Committee, 1889-1892. owner wished his possessions to be viewed. For me this aspect 30. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/14, Jan 13, 1891, Torquay Local Board of designed landscapes can be very personal and insightful. It Harbour Committee, 1889-1892. provides a very intimate perspective on the intentions of their 31. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/14, Nov 4, 1890, Torquay Local Board creators. Harbour Committee, 1889-1892. 32. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/15, May 31, 1894, Torquay Local I would like to whet your appetites for looking anew at the Board Harbour Committee, 1892-1892. approaches to houses by taking you to three places on Exmoor 33. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/15, July 19, 1892, Torquay Local Board where the experience of the original visitor can still be felt Harbour Committee, 1892-1895. today: , Glenthorne (Countisbury) and . 34. H.Jordan, Public Parks, 1885-1914, in Garden History 22:1, Coincidentally, all of the houses date from between 1820 and pp. 85-113, p. 92. 1840 and their approaches are assumed to be contemporary 35. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/15, Feb 28, 1893, Torquay Local Board with the houses (although one is currently not absolutely Harbour Committee, 1892-1895. dated). They reveal a number of factors including the 36. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/15, May 17, 1894, Torquay Local aspirations of their creators, views of the past and a heightened Board Harbour Committee, 1892-1895. sense of the picturesque, as well as impressive engineering 37. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/9, May 10, 1894, Torquay Local Board solutions to specific topographic problems. One of the most Minute Books, November 1892-October, 1896. compelling aspects is that two of the three are not now 38. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/15, May 17,1894, Torquay Local Board obviously part of any designed landscape and would not even Harbour Committee, 1892-1895. be easily recognised as part of an elaborate approach. 39. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/15, June 26, 1894, Torquay Local In 1818 the Royal Forest of Exmoor was enclosed by Act of Board Harbour Committee, 1892-1895. Parliament and purchased by John Knight (1765-1850) who 40. R 4582A-2/TC/15, April 11, 1894, DRO Torquay Local set about the ‘improvement’ of the moorland for farming. At Board Harbour Committee, 1892-1895. the centre of his great new estate he planned a mansion. 41. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/15, Oct 31, 1894, Torquay Local Board The history of this house and its setting has recently been Harbour Committee, 1892-1895. researched by Caroline Garrett (report at Exmoor National Park 42. R 4582A-2/TC/15, Feb 13, 1894, DRO Torquay Local Board Authority). The house which stood in Simonsbath was built in Harbour Committee, 1892-1895. the gothic style, but was never completed, and has now almost 43. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/15, Sept 23, 1894, Torquay Local entirely vanished. It occupied a shelf above the sweeping valley Board Harbour Committee, 1892-1895. of the and there is some evidence that the valley 44. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/9, May 7, 1895, Torquay Local Board sides were to be clothed with plantations. John Knight had been Minute Books, November 1892-October, 1896. brought up with the picturesque in a family which included 45. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/15, May 2, 1893, Torquay Local Board Richard Payne Knight (1750-1824), a central figure in the Harbour Committee, 1892-1895. Picturesque Movement. Simonsbath lies in the middle of the 46. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/15, July 26, 1893, Torquay Local Board moor and was approached from to the north where a Harbour Committee, 1892-1895. tower stands beside the road, formerly perhaps part of a more 47. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/15, Feb 13, 1894, Torquay Local Board elaborate mock ruin marking the entrance to the estate. To the Harbour Committee, 1892-1895. south, the old packhorse route from approached 48. Ellis, p. 381. the river crossing at Simonsbath over generally level, wild, 49. DRO R 4582A-2/TC/15, Aug 17, 1894, Torquay Local Board open moorland. John Knight did away with this, and instead Harbour Committee, 1892-1895. 28 2236 DGT JOURNAL 2009/2 13/5/13 10:13 am Page 33

built a metalled road which clung to the precipitous slopes her book Glenthorne: a Most Romantic Place in terms of a much of the valley side winding in and out of the combes on a loved relative some of whose well-known attributes continue to spectacular descent to the river at Simonsbath. This road is one niggle despite their familiarity: of the most scenic on Exmoor and affords a majestic view along the valley of the River Barle. It was clearly Knight’s intent to Built of pinkish-grey local stone, its complicated mass of ridges create in his visitors a sense of awe in nature before they even and ornamental chimneys seem to rise in all directions, making arrived at his great house…a sense still palpable to us today. it look far larger than it is. It backs up against the high hill so that, if you crane your neck and look up through the back Tarr Steps is one of the most visited sites on Exmoor. The windows, you see the roots of trees on a level with the roofs, but ‘ancient’ clapper bridge straddles the beautiful River Barle set the big front windows and the terrace look straight over thirteen in a valley of ancient broadleaf woodlands (now a National miles of sea to the cliffs and mountains of Wales. On both sides Nature Reserve). On one side of the bridge is a former of the house, the trees slide down the hills to reddish cliffs and, farmhouse whilst on the other, set a way back from the river on clear nights, the Nash Light [Nash Point lighthouse on the is the former rectory of Hawkridge parish. The rectory seems to South Wales coast] shines on the walls and the moon shines over have been built by George Jekyll, rector from 1834 to 1843, and the sea through the branches of an old pine. It has inspired has recently been studied by Mary Siraut ( V.C.H. countless poems, some of them very bad, but in winter the sun County Editor) for the new book, Exmoor: the Making of an never rises high enough to shine over the hills and down to the 1 English Upland. The rectory is surrounded by formal gardens. house and, although undeniably grand and very beautiful, it In the wooded valley of the Barle is a leat or water-carrying can then be extremely gloomy.2 channel which can be traced for over a kilometre back along the valley side until it reaches a tributary stream of the Barle. The house is surrounded by appurtenances such as a walled The leat was recorded by Richard McDonnell whilst carrying out garden, ice house, arboretum and bath house (which no longer an archaeological survey in the woodlands in 2002; but he also survives) and of course the well planted hillsides all around. noticed that when the leat reaches outcrops of rock close to Sitting at the foot of a massive thousand feet high cliff, its Tarr Steps it spills over the outcrops in two cascades. It is clear approach is a remarkable engineering feat bringing the visitor that these elaborate water features were designed to enhance from high heather moorland to near sea level in almost three the setting of Tarr Steps, and it seems most likely that this was breath-taking miles. Even Pevsner remarked on the house’s done as part of an impressive approach to the rectory from the setting ‘…in a wonderfully sheltered cove far below the Lynton- east; but the date of the water features and the identity of their road and reached on a private road with serpentines as creator remain a mystery. daring as the Alps’.3

The entrance gate-piers at Glenthorne (Rob Wilson-North) The clapper bridge at Tarr Steps (Rob Wilson-North) Although one of the least visited National Parks, modern visitors to Exmoor experience its more well-known country houses and designed landscapes every day, such as Dunster Castle, Arlington Court, and . The examples I have given you here are perhaps more compelling: they are both secretive and subtle. It is perhaps not a coincidence that from one of them is seen one of the most famous ‘picture-postcard views’ of the moor - looking along the at Simonsbath, whilst the other, Tarr Steps is one of Exmoor’s most visited locations. So it would be true to say that these ‘drives’ – nearly two hundred years on - continue to contribute to the special landscape of the National Park. Close-up of the clapper bridge (Rob Wilson-North) References 1. Mary Siraut, Exmoor, the Making of an English Upland, Along Exmoor’s coastline are a series of mainly nineteenth Stroud, 2009. century estates. By far the most complete of them is Glenthorne 2. Ursula Halliday, Glenthorne: a Most Romantic Place, on the county boundary between Devon and Somerset and a , 1995, p. 23. little to the east of Lynmouth; the inspiration of Walter 3. Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner, The Buildings of Stevenson Halliday. The house was completed in 1831, but the : Devon, London, revised 1989, p. 292. estate took much longer to accumulate and required the cajoling of local landowners to part with their farms, until finally all the parish of Countisbury belonged to Glenthorne. At its heart is a mansion perched remarkably and romantically on a ledge just above the Bristol Channel. It is described by Ursula Halliday in

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