THROUGH LEAFY LANES

Southland Times, Issue 22473, 8 November 1934, Page 9

THROUGH LEAFY LANES

MOTORING IN BRITAIN CLOVELLY AND BIDEFORD. Atricle VH. Channing little Clovelly and historic Bideford are described by Mr M. N. Hyndman in the following article:— Bidding goodbye to Cornwall’s loveliness—perhaps most reluctantly to the many fem-banked roadways, that reminded us of New Zealand—we reentered Devon, and skirting the coast made a direct run for—Clovelly. At the top of the cliff commodious garaging is provided for bus and car, and this was so taxed on the day we arrived that the attendants had some difficulty in wedging in our little car. It was not until we left this somewhat annoying, yet very necessary, modem efficiency that we really felt that we were in unique Clovelly. This little herring-fishing village has a fixed population of some 600, but quite that number of visitors were ascending or descending its one street that morning. And as it was that day, so is it every day. Clovelly is built in a cleft of a steep cliff which is beautifully wooded to the water’s edge. The little village hugs its one street, one a streambed, and is but a cobble-paved stairway some 400 or 500 feet high. . Or if you have a picturesque mind it is a veritable waterfall of blossoming creep-er-covered and rose-trailed cottages, ■with many green doors splashing against the whitewash. The descent reveals more and more steps, and. as one rests in some convenient turning, more and more quaintness, and more beauty, until at last one glimpses the original reason for Clovelly’s existence, the little harbour where boats still lie on a shingly beach, and nets still dry in the sun. But herring fishing must now, surely, be but a secondary industry. Clovelly’s quaintness has been commercialized, as has been all. England’s beauty; of sheer necessity, of course, for how else could her moving population of overseas tourists, and overtired city dwellers, not to mention her over-moneyed leisurely class, find accommodation. Donkeys In Clovelly. In Clovelly, ice creams and minerals tempt one at every step, and “bed and breakfast” at every second step. Donkeys plod up and down the steep street, hardy little fellows that command your respect as they push by, nonchalantly, yet purposefully, carrying children, panniers filled with mail, or goods, or even very enterprising a ’ults, who desire the experience. We were told that the charge for the ascent was 2/-. Personally we preferred to walk, though the climbing was quite trying—for beast as well as for man—and we saw numbers of donkeys resting in flat, grassy paddocks on the cliff top. Panting, and good-natured amusement at one’s own and the other fellow’s temporary exhaustion, were universal on Clovelly steps. A postman climbed a little ahead of us. Lad, panted a plump countrywoman, labouring in the ascent, “do you do this every day?” „ “Six times a day, up and down, he replied with a pardonable economy of words.

Cameras were busy, our own among the number. Looking over the cliff side from the stone parapet at Rose Villa my wife spoke of New Zealand. Immediately, a man engaged in adjusting his camera for a family snap looked up and exclaimed: “Who said God’s own country!” My wife admitted to having mentioned New Zealand. “Same thing,” said the man. We come from Palmerston North. We are Nathans—Glaxo Nathans.” No Domestic Privacy.

A lovely place Clovelly, but one feels sorry for survivals of the earlier village, when domestic privacy was possible. It certainly is not now. An old woman emerged from her home, walking by the aid of a stick over the rough, steep road to a house across the way. She carried the bone of a leg of mutton in her hand, partly covered up, and looked so soberly domesticated in a wrong place—in the midst of a stream of gay holidaymakers. An eleven-mile run along the summit of a high ridge gave us extensive views of Devon and brought us to a place made famous by Kingsley in “Westward Ho!”, to Bideford. Bideford or By-the-ford (the name evolved from a Roman highway that ran from Cornwall through . Devon into Somerset) remembers Kingsley. On the quay there is a fine 18ft. statue of him and the room in which he wrote “Westward Ho!” is preserved, a street wall plaque calling attention to it. Westward Ho! Westward Ho! lies a mile or two away from Bideford, and does not kindle any deep feeling in one’s mind. The name was given to this little settlement in 1863, after the publication of Kingsley’s novel, and much was expected of the place. But apart from having obtained “a well deserved reputation in golfing circles,” it has not fulfilled expectations of patronage. Perhaps because the visitor to England wants really old things, with that flavour of antiquity that is absent in new lands. Bideford, By-the-ford, with its excavations that reveal Roman fosseways, its mysterious foreign-made old guns, thought to be from the. Armada, its old bridge, and its associations with the great Grenville family (for nearly 700 years the manor of Bideford was in possession of this family and it is to them that much of its maritime importance was due) has that satisfying older-world atmosphere. There is a cross in Bideford Church to that gallant Grenville, Sir Richard, whose little Revenge and her company defied the Spaniard’s swoop in that fight-of-fights at Flores in the Azores. The Pride of Bideford. Bideford’s old bridge, 677 feet with 24 arches, is the town’s chie± pride. It was built in the 14th century, and in 1459 was of wood with two chapels in bad repair. The present structure is of stone (maintained of course) and dates back to the 16th century, so that Bideford . history is thoroughly incorporated in it. Crossing this bridge we were reminded of another ancient bridge, that at Avignon, an which a chapel still stands. At Avighon the very stones of the Palace of the-Popes, and of the old city walls seem to echo pomp and power and high spiritual endeavour. And here in Bideford, the names of English heroes breathed hints of high deeds, and high pride- inextricably wrought with religion, in the lives of saint and sinner alike. All the passions of men’s souls had spent themselves within the Palace Cathedral of Avignon, and on the old bridge in Bideford where the sea-tang drifts into your very being, we realized the strength of love and hate, and of high endeavour, that had sent soldier-sailors out into the wide seas in search of achievement, in days when sailors were really sailors and not merely “steamship hands.” Kingsley in his . novel records that Sir Richard Grenville in 1588 brought to Bideford the first convert from the North American Indians. This fact is recorded in the records of the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary. But Bideford lives in the present, as well as in the past. We had an amusing encounter with school children, who answered our inquiries most obligingly, but in a dialect so broad, as to be difficult of comprehenson. Our mutual

endeavours at understanding resulted in hopeless laughter, on our part, and a resort to the sweet shop on theirs. On the farther side of the bridge, called “East-the-Water,” was evidence of the shipping depression. Eleven large tramp steamers were closely “packed” in rows, some with funnels carefully cowled against the weather and others red with rust —altogether a sad, hopeless company.