A Book of the West. Volume I Devon. Baring-Gould Sabine
to be surpassed, but the whole effect is marred by the one mistake made at the outstart. One cannot wish that the towers had been removed, but one does regret that they were allowed to determine the height of nave and choir. The choir was begun by Bishop Quivil, in 1284, when also the great and incomparably beautiful windows were inserted in the towers. The nave was finished by Bishop Grandisson, in 1369, the year of his death.
Grandisson was a friend of the detestable John XXII., one of the Avignon Popes; and John appointed his intimate to Exeter in total disregard to the rights of the chapter to elect. He was consecrated at Avignon. Hitherto almost all the bishops had been local men.
Grandisson was a man very Romanly inclined, and appointed to a see that was redolent with Celtic reminiscences. He did not relish these. Whenever he had the chance of rededicating a church he endeavoured to substitute a patron from the Roman calendar in place of the British founder. He drew up a Legendarium, a book of Lessons on Saints' Feasts to be used in the Cathedral Church, and ignored nearly every saint whose name was not approved by admission into the Latin martyrology.
"The Church of Exeter is a remarkable case of one general design being carried out through more than a hundred years. It was fixed once for all what the new Saint Peter's should be like, and it grew up after one general pattern, but with a certain advance in detail as the work went westward. Bishop Grandison, when the church was about half built, said that when it was finished it would surpass in beauty all churches of its own kind in England and France. Whatever he meant by 'genus suum,' the prediction was safely risked. As far as outline and general effect goes, the Church of Exeter forms a class by itself." – Freeman.
A more remarkable church than the Cathedral of Exeter is that of Ottery S. Mary, also built by Grandisson. It is, of course, not by any means so large. It gave, perhaps, the original type to Exeter, for there also the towers have been employed as transepts, and was begun in the Early English style. But there a stateliness and an originality of effect are reached that Exeter cannot approach.
There the side aisles have but lancet windows, and a flood of light pours down through the very original clerestory lights. There is no east window. What the general effect must have been before the levels were wantonly altered at the "restoration" one can now hardly surmise. But the church, in spite of this and some odiously vulgar woodwork, is one of the most striking in England, and perhaps the boldest in originality of conception.
The Guildhall, in High Street, is a good example of Elizabethan architecture, in bad stone.
A beautiful excursion may be made from Exeter to Fingle Bridge,10 on the Teign, where the river winds between the hills densely wooded with coppice, that close in on each other like the fangs of a rat-trap. With this may be combined Shilstone cromlech, the sole perfect specimen of the kind remaining in the county, and once but a single member in a series of very remarkable monuments.
The Teign is frowned down on by several strongly fortified camps. Fingle should be seen when the hills are clothed in flowering heather, as though raspberry cream had been spilt over them. White heather may be picked there.
Fulford House is a quadrangle in a sad state of dilapidation; originally of Tudor architecture, but disfigured by bad alterations in the Prince Regent's days, when cockney Gothic was in vogue. In the house is a bad portrait of the "Royal Martyr," presented by Charles II., and one of "Red Ruin," a spendthrift Fulford. In the hall is some superb carved panelling, early Tudor.
Exeter may be made a centre for ecclesiological excursions of no ordinary interest. Dunchideock Church has a well-restored screen; but by far the richest carved oak rood-screen in the county is that of Kenton, where also the pulpit is of incomparable beauty. The carver employed thereon was a man of no common talent, and the work is one of brilliant execution. There is much difference in the carving in the county – some is common, mechanical; that in the Kenton screen and pulpit is of the very finest quality.
In the little church of S. Mary Steps, in Exeter, may be seen a portion of the screen removed from S. Mary Major when that monstrosity was erected. At Plymtree the screen bears on it contemporary portraits of Prince Arthur (son of Henry VII.) and Cardinal Morton. That of Bradninch has on it paintings of the Sibyls, the Doctors of the Church, and the Legend of S. Francis.
Pinhoe was the scene of a great battle with the Danes in 1001. They had come up the Exe, and burned Pinhoe, Broadclyst, and some of the neighbouring villages. Levies in Devon and Somerset met them, but were defeated with great slaughter. The church contains a fine coloured screen with the vaulting-ribs and gallery. The alms-box is curious: it represents a serving-man supporting himself with a stick in one hand, the other extended soliciting alms.
East Budleigh should be visited for its fine bench-ends, some very curious; one represents a cook roasting a goose; another a ship in full sail. Their date is 1534. There is a screen, but not of first quality.
Littleham, near Exmouth, has a good screen. Screens are the features of Devonshire churches: a church was built to contain one. Without it the proportions are faulty.
Books on Exeter: —
Freeman (E. A.), Historic Towns: Exeter. 1895.
Northy (T. J.), Popular History of Exeter. 1886.
Jenkins (A.), History of Exeter. 1841.
CHAPTER VI.
CREDITON
Red stone and red cob – Cob walls – The river Creedy – Birthplace of S. Boniface – See of Crediton – The Church – Kirton serge – Apple orchards and cider-making – Francémass – Apple the basis of many jams – Song of the apple trees – The picking of apples – "Griggles" – Saluting the apple trees – The apple-crusher – Pomage – The cider-press – Apple cheese – Cider-matching – Racking – Cider for rheumatism – A Cornish cider song – John Davy – Seats near Crediton – Elizabeth Buller and Frances Tuckfield – The Coplestone – The North Devon savages – Lapford – Churches round Crediton – Rev. S. Rowe.
A curious, sleepy place, the houses like the great church built of red sandstone, where not of the red clay or cob. But in the latter case the cob is whitewashed. No house can be conceived more warm and cosy than that built of cob, especially when thatched. It is warm in winter and cool in summer, and I have known labourers bitterly bewail their fate in being transferred from an old fifteenth or sixteenth century cob cottage into a newly-built stone edifice of the most approved style. As they said, it was like going out of warm life into a cold grave.
The art of building with cob is nearly extinct. Clay is kneaded up with straw by the feet, and then put on the rising walls that are enclosed in a framework of boards, but this latter is not always necessary as the clay is consistent enough to hold together, and all that is required is to shave it down as the wall rises in height. Such cob walls for garden fruit are incomparable. They retain the warmth of the sun and give it out through the night, and when protected on top by slates or thatch will last for centuries. But let their top be exposed, and they dissolve in the rain and flake away with the frost. They have, however, their compensating disadvantage – they harbour vermin.
Crediton takes its name from the Creedy river that flows near the town. The river is designated (Crwydr) from its straggling character, crumbling its banks away at every flood and changing its course. At a very early period the Saxons had succeeded in establishing a settlement here, a tun, and here Wynfrith, better known as S. Boniface, was born in 680. Willibald, a priest of Mainz who wrote his life, tells us that his father was a great householder, and of "eorl-kind," or noble birth. He loved his son Wynfrith above all his other children, and for a long time withheld his consent to his embracing the monastic life. During a serious illness, however, when death seemed near at hand, he relented, and Wynfrith was sent to school at Exeter. Thence he moved to Nutschelle, where he assumed the name of Boniface. At the age of thirty he was ordained. King Ina, of the West Saxons, honoured him with his confidence, and he might have risen to a high office in his native land, but other aspirations had taken possession of his soul. No stories were listened to at his time in the Anglo-Saxon monasteries with greater avidity than those connected with the adventurous mission of Archbishop Willibrord among