DRAKE’S COUNTRY

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 62, 6 December 1930, Page 25

DRAKE’S COUNTRY

Glorious Devonshire LAND OF ROMANCE (By Nellie M. Scanlan.) London, October 10. Glorious Devon 1 For days we have roamed Devon, along its rugged coast, and through its leafy lanes, where trees form an archway overhead, and the peace i- shattered only by some obese red bus crowding us into the hedgerows as it rushed 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, burns, sheds, and stacks are built cheek by jowl in an 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 change these things by a wave of the band. I hey go to bed by candle light, and burn a kerosene lamp in the parlour. Hollyhocks and dahlias tower to a height of six and eight feet against the warm brick walls. And on all 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 walls, not even the Prince of Wales of Princess Elizabeth. .. Here too we found that treasure, the China dog. These white China dogs, smug-faced and insolent, sat erect on every mantelpiece, in ones and pairs ano half-dozens, with painted streaks on their shiny surface for hair. _ You may pay a guinea or two for them in London antique shops, but money could not pry them from their ancient setting. Not that 1 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 hac pedigrees going back at least a century. There they sat on the mantelpiece, and guarded my sleep, or watched me eat my breakfast of the inevitable bacon and egg”, and something of the family reverence was contagious in that atmosphere where they arc treasured as a priceless heir.oom. Market Day. ' At Barnstable they were celebrating the 1000th anniversary of being created a borough—the oldest in England. I went to the Panier Market, a great institution, and famous in these parts, to which the small farmers bring their goods in paniers or baskets. I watched the housewives, homely old women, each with a couple of plucked chickens, the head tueked under a wing, a bowl of clotted cream, a basket of apples, some onions, trading them for cash. There they sat beside tbeir baskets, making a stern duty of market day. Tt was while staying near Barnstable that we heard of the Australian victory, and we decided to celebrate the return ot the Ashes by having a chicken for dinner. Our dame spread the good news, and soon a neighbour came hurrying up the garden path-with a red-headed chicken squeaking under her arm, and its carcass was the central figure of our feast of celebration down. the quiet lane next day—chicken and cider. At Ilfracombe, a lovely bay with all the sophisticated pleasures of a city., we got mixed up with a carnival procession and I fear some imagined we had entered for the competition with our decorated Cal ‘ Sober Holiday Crowds.

The steep cliffs, wind-swept road, and pounding surf made for an invigorating holiday, and a spare, pink-nosed population bent into the gale on those marvellous coastal paths. The softer ones hugged the shelter in the town. There was more spontaneous joy about the holiday crowd here than in most English seaside resorts, where they take their pleasures soberly, as though an annual seaside holiday were part of their duty, in fact, almost a penance. I have been rebuked before for commenting on the English holiday crowd at the sea. Parochial pride burns fiercely in the breast of the exile from home. I must admit, however, that the seasides of the west are incomparably more attractive than those of the east. Clovelly is said to be the loveliest village in England. Certainly it is like no other. If one could banish American tourists, souvenir warming pans and doorknockers, cameras, and post-card fiends, and really have a look at the place, one might agree. But these are merely temporary blemishes on a 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 and smuggling! stories. Access by land is down the one steep, narrow, cobbled path, so steep that no vehicle can enter. You leave your enr ar the top of the cliff, and walk down, slithering over the slippery stones after rain, until you eome 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. Tourists Exploited. 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. Witli paniers 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, flowers and bracken. I should like to 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 that is loveliest in England—and elsewhere.