GLORIOUS DEVON!

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 289, 6 December 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

GLORIOUS DEVON!

PRIMITIVE WAYS OF ENGLAND ... ■ ,tz A HOLIDAY IN THE WEST.

(By NELLE 'M. SCANLAN.)

Glorious-/Devon! For. days we have roamed Devon,, along its rugged coast, and through its leafy Janes, where trees form an archway overhead, and the peace is shattered only.by some obese red . bus crowding us into the hedgerow as it rushes by. Orchards are hanging heavy with apples, red and ripe for making cider;:' Corn is being reaped, and the stacks grow high in comforting assurance of winter feed. Just as the village nestles huddled together at the foot of hills "or in snug-valleys, so the farmhouse, barns, slieds and stacks are built cheek by jowl .in a ,terrible intimacy that-would shock' our Agricultural Department. It has always been done that way; the, buildings are of brick or stone, often hundreds of years old. You can't .chang'e these tilings by a wave of the hand. .They go to bed by candle light, and, burn a kerosene lamp in the parlour. Hollyhocks and dahlias tower sik and eight feet against the warm brick walls., And on ail sides graze the little red Devon cows,, which supply the Devonshire' cream—that rich clotted cream that is sold everywhere. "Devonshire Cream Teas" is a sign hung outside nearly every farm and cottage. Here you get' Devonshire Splits, that is white scones with raspberry jam and clotted cream. - It is a luscious meal. Old, discarded railway carriages, gaily decorated are often used to provide teahouses beside some cottage door. Many of the Devon . villages do not seem to have advanced beyond Queen Victoria's time. Inns and farmhouses where we stayed .were full of pictures of Queen Victoria, souvenirs . of /, her , jubilee, statuettes of her—dreadful things of red and gold. ' Loyalty to the throne seemed to. have, stopped there. No other member of the Royal .family figured on their wails, not even the Prince of Wales or Princess 'Elizabeth. 1 . The China Dog. Here, . too, we. found . that priceless treasure, the' China dog. These, white china dogs, smug-faced and insolent, sat erect i>n every mantelpiece, in ones and pairs and lialf-dozens, with painted streaks on their shiny surface for hair. You may pay a guinea 01* two for-^them

in London antique shops, but . motley could not pry them from their ancient setting. Not that I tried. I hated their silly faces at first. "It has been in the family for two hundred years that we know of," I was told with pride in one house. Others had pedigrees going back at least at century. There they sat 011 the mantelpiece, and guarded my sleep, or watched me eat my breakfast of the inevitable bacon and' eggs, and something of the family reverence was contagious in that atmosphere where they are treasured as a priceless heirloom. At Barnstable they were celebrating the 1000 th anniversary of being created a borough—the oldest in England. I went to the Pannier Market, a great institution and famous in these parts, to which the small farmers bring their goods in panniers or baskets. I watched the housewives, homely old women, each with a,couple of plucked chickens, the head tucked. under a wirig, a bowl of clotted cream, a basket of apples, some onions, trading it for cash. There they sat beside their baskets, making a stern duty of market day. Lovely ...Clovelly. Clovelly is said to be the _ loveliest village in England. Certainly it is like 110 other. If one could banish American tourists, souvenir warming pans and door-knookers, cameras, and postcard fiends, and really have a look at the place, one might agree. But these are merely temporary blemishes on the place that has survived the centuries unchanged. It is a' tiny fishing cove at the- foot of a .steep cobbled causeway, and for centuries it has figured in pirate arid' sm'uggling 'stories. Access by land is down the one steep, narrow cobbled: path, so' steep that no vehicle can enter. You leave your car at the top of the cliff, and walk down, slithering over, tlie slippery * stones after rain, until you come to the little village. Its houses, quaint and old, the china dogs looking out through the diamond window panes, are like toys stacked on either side of a stairs. Tired American women in high-heeled shoes, who had slithered down, made the return journey on sturdy little donkeys, the only means of transportation, and these may not carry a person over nine stone. With panniers on their sides, the donkeys carry luggage and merchandise up and down. Below the fishermen spread their nets to dry, and the tiny fishing fleet rocked in the sheltered waters. And all the hillside was covered with trees and rhododendrons and bracken. 1,, should like t'o go to Clovelly again, when the world has forgotten it; for, though it remains unchanged, it is awake to its charms, and the exploitation of the tourist mars much t) at is loveliest in England—and elsewhere.. • -