Clive Holland

“ The coast is very pretty, and one passes in turn Labrador, then the Minnicombe Bell Rock, Watcombe, and then Petit Tor, with jagged crest and sides looking out over the sea. The coast then becomes rocky off shore, which it has not been for many a mile, and to pass along it to Torquay either in the early morning, or towards the late afternoon, when the shadows of the cliff fall in charming colour upon the surface of the water, and the luxuriant vegetation which crowns the cliffs and headlands is seen at its best is to enjoy an experience of loveliness and even glamour not easily forgotten. ”

“ We must pass by unentered the many charming creeks of the Helford River, where the woods come down to the waterside, and the inlets provide a snug anchorage for small craft in almost any weather.
Right onward from the Manacles almost to Penzance itself the coast is rocky, dark, and uninviting. No trees soften the brows of the stark looking cliffs, which are here and there torn into great fissures, which look from a little distance out at sea like dark gashes cut with a knife. The coast is not one safe for near approach, and there is, indeed, nothing in the scenery to invite close inspection. ”

“ To-day Bridport by the sea is just a quiet, picturesque little resort, where weary workers and holiday makers, whose taste is not for the bustling, fashionable type of watering-place, may find rest and quietude from the over-energetic and noisy world without, with the open and uninterrupted expanse of West Bay spread in front of them, sunlit, grey, peaceful or storm-driven by turns, whilst northward and north-eastward lie the green undulating hills and vales of Dorset. ”

“ Southampton of to-day may be described as a fairly picturesque town, though modernity and convenience, rather than beauty, distinguish the suburbs, which are so constantly extending on all sides landward; but yachting folk find it a pleasant port, and, moored off pretty and quaint Hythe within reasonable distance of the Royal Pier, can pass a week-end or even longer comfortably enough.
Almost every seaport has its distinguishing feature, and a long acquaintance with Southampton inclines one to think that the mingling of the old with the very new is what strikes the observer most forcibly. ”

“ Now Winchelsea is suffering from the gentle decay which seems to envelop rather than attack places which have once been ports and are so no longer by reason of Nature’s want of kindliness. Amidst its pleasant houses and pretty gardens, in which all flowers that love the sun and the salt air of the coast flourish amazingly, one seems to breathe the atmosphere of somnolent repose, tinctured with the salt which rests upon lip and cheek to tell of the not far distant sea which once lapped the foot of its now vanished castle. ”

“ Away but a short distance under the hill of Trefusis lies the quaint little town of Flushing, with its stretch of quays and cottages clustered upon them, and its perfume of orange and lemon trees which flower and fruit in the open air. Opposite is St Mawes; and a little distance to the north-west lies Falmouth itself, with the picturesque jumble of grey and red roofs, and the docks and quays in which and alongside of which lie vessels from all parts rearing slender masts skyward, or perhaps with an added picturesqueness lent them by drying canvas flapping idly from the yards. ”

“ In times of war it has experienced all the terror and excitement which comes in the train of outgoing battle fleets and incoming victorious galleons, men-of-war, and privateers. In times of peace it has known not a little of the romance of wrecking, smuggling, and the pure joy of life which is borne inland by soft, salt breezes and cleansing winds. Of its beauty those can tell who like ourselves have coasted along its varying shores of high chalk cliffs, shingle, sand, and fretted granite. ”

“ The Island seems to beckon one with its tree-crowned heights and wooded bays and sunny beaches. It is never unpicturesque, even from the distance of Southsea or Spithead; near by it is lovely. And never more so than in the early hours of a summer morning when there is a fresh breeze ruffling the water of the Solent and driving even a barge along a good six or seven knots. If one lays a course for Sea View and drops down the coast to Ryde, one can see something of its beauty as Spring Vale, and then that legendary haunt of the fairies and “little people” Puckspool, slide by. ”

“ When one is snugly inside the breakwater, things begin to assume greater distinctness. There is the Castle and pharos still, but in the serried rows of houses, the Marine Parade along the front, the pier on which are numerous trains made or in the process of making up, and the air of bustle, one begins to realize that Dover’s greatness has not entirely departed, and that one has come to a prosperous and not a decaying port, a lively garrison town, a naval depôt of consequence, a commercial centre for miles round, and a popular holiday resort. ”

“ Descendants of the men who half a century or so ago, at the darkling of the moon, made their way up the silent stretch of water, with boats loaded to the gunwales with contraband spirits, tea, and silks (after surreptitious visits to French luggers in the offing off Eaglehurst) , and who, upon safe landing at dead of night, melted away with their packhorse trains into the solitudes and thickets of the New Forest.
There still hangs a romantic flavour around old-world Hythe which places it in sharp contrast to its big, up-to-date, bustling neighbour across the water. ”

“ Those are times when the heart-strings of men are taut, and when the tears of women are in their eyes. Few sights are more sad, either to sailor or to landsman, than the break up of a fine vessel upon a rocky coast, when the heavy seas pound the strongest works of men into matchwood, and the fabric of the ship seems indeed to dissolve before one’s eyes.
Old Polperro folk—mostly women, it must be admitted—still talk with bated breath of the uncanny doings of a certain John Stevens, who dealt in occult arts in the middle part of the last century ”

“ This somewhat tortuous and difficult tidal way takes one into the heart of Hampshire’s most lovely creek. Need’s Oar Point is well named, as many have found after getting on the delusive mud of Beaulieu Spit, and one is lucky, if the tide is making out, to get so far before the ebb becomes too strong. With the flood, which will not keep one waiting more than three or four hours, and a favouring breeze one can soon run up as far as the bend of the river just below Buckler’s Hard, where there are moorings, snug enough so long as no craft comes drifting down with the stream. ”

“ The scenery from Berry Head southward is of a very different character from that which distinguishes the coast from Sidmouth to Brixham. The calm loveliness of red cliffs, rich with vegetation, hung with creepers, thick with ferns, and gently fissured, is replaced by rock scenery which grows grander and more beautiful as it becomes more sombre and rugged, whilst in the background are the fertile heights of Devon sloping steeply to the cliffs and many groups of outlying rocks off shore, against which the emerald and indigo sea laps in summer and roars in winter. ”

“ Just as the townsfolk of Dartmouth had crowded to the cliffs at the harbour entrance to see Davis depart on his voyages, and wave him God-speed, so climbed they once again to watch the Armada, which Philip of Spain in his pride had named “Invincible,” “wrecking nought that God Himself was with the English fleet and Lord Howard of Effingham,” go surging up the Channel, flags flying, cannon belching, with “pictures of the Holy Saints, and coats of arms wrought upon their sails”; and the little English ships hanging to them in hot and furious pursuit. ”

“ On the summit of this historic and impressive cliff, at whose foot, by turns, lap the waves of a quiet sea and rage the surges of winter’s gale, stands the lighthouse which has an interest to all seafarers beyond its saving power and guidance, in that it is in fact the oldest along the coast. Though much altered and enlarged, its present tower is substantially the same as the one commenced in the reign of the Merry Monarch in 1663. ”

“ What stirring romances could be written of the dark and secret doings of Romney Marsh?
Once round Dungeness, however, and Rye is before one. It is not nowadays much of a port, indeed, as such its greatness has departed, leaving it a quaint, old-world place, with an air of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries hanging about it. It is almost impossible to believe that once it was a flourishing and important place, one of the seven head ports—not merely a “limb” of the Confederacy—and capable as late as the reign of George II of affording a haven of refuge for large ships. ”

“ Except in the summer, when hordes of excursionists from Lymington and Bournemouth invade its old-world street, the town appears to go to sleep, and dream of the time when some bold smuggler of the Hampshire coast used to run his cargoes here, and when tubs and bales on which no duty had been paid formed the contents of many an honest and upstanding man’s cellar. ”

“ In this secluded creek, in the dark hours of England’s need, when she stood almost alone in combating the relentless advance of the great Napoleon, were built some of the most famous ships that have ever played their part in English naval warfare. From the time of the launch of the Surprise, which was put into commission in May, 1750, when war was declared against France, to the time when the great war ended, ship after ship was launched from Buckler’s Hard, destined afterwards to play a gallant part in the struggle by sea, which only ended with Napoleon’s defeat at Trafalgar and Waterloo. ”

“ As one passes along this bit of much and deeply indented coast, inland beyond which are the swelling heights of the Portsdown Hills, green-grey and desolate-looking ridges with almost an unbroken summit line, crowned and pierced by many suspected and unsuspected forts, the great naval station for which one is bound climbs up out of the sea ahead ”

“ Although Portsmouth Harbour is so interesting and full of life, when the time comes to up anchor and make one’s way out into the Solent past the immortal Victory and the host of other craft which seem to be ever hanging in congested groups just outside or just inside the Point and Point Battery, one is generally ready. Portsmouth may be an exciting and interesting, but it cannot be called a restful, haven. ”

“ At various times the house has been restored and practically rebuilt, but it contains many fine and unique relics of Tudor times, including the chair in which Queen Elizabeth sat when on a visit to the then Bishop of Exeter.
One leaves Fowey and its calm, still harbour and environing hills, upon which the houses with their red and grey roofs are grouped so quaintly, with regret. A savour of the past seems to hang about the place, bringing to mind some sad reflections of a bygone greatness ”

“ But sometimes Nature is more than kind to Penzance, and we have seen her transform the distant town, as we lay at anchor on the bosom of Mount’s Bay, into something of almost ethereal beauty, as the soft, pearly light of a June evening enveloped it against a background of crimson and powdered gold. ”

“ Across the Solent, though distant, there is the not less lovely prospect of the Hampshire highlands, and the many tinted stretches of green and grey-green woodlands which mark the New Forest on the horizon.
It is not easy to get a snug berth at any time during the summer months at Cowes. During “the week” late comers will have to put up with what they can get, or go elsewhere; or anchor far outside the charmed circle of beautiful craft, which makes Cowes Roads during Regatta week a unique water pageant, and a thing to be remembered. ”

“ Of old Weymouth, the objective in the past of pirates and freebooters, there nowadays remains very little. The modern town, which has sprung up gradually, spread landward and northwards, and has, in the process, slowly though surely obliterated the more ancient of its features. From its wide esplanade, running almost half the length and round the whole of the most acute curve of the bay, is a prospect of rugged coast and breezy highlands, scarcely excelled in picturesqueness and charm by any other on the Dorset seaboard. ”

“ The coast-line, when one has got out of Newhaven and has laid a course for Shoreham eleven miles distant, is first a series of lofty chalk cliffs, with breezy uplands stretching inland, and then three or four miles of Brighton and Hove shore and sea-front. A long line of houses, hotels and mansions of so distinct a character that, so far as we know, Brighton is never, at least by seamen, mistaken for any other south-coast town. ”

“ On the Hoe, now “tamed,” but otherwise much as it was in Drake’s and Raleigh’s time, the merchant princes of Plymouth were in those far off days wont to forgather, to discuss the news of the day, and to watch the outgoing and incoming of the ships in which their fortunes were embarked. And it was to the Hoe that the bold adventurers, who sailed forth into unknown as well as known seas, bearing with them the fortunes of others with their own lives as surety, turned their last gaze as they dropped away down the Sound out into the deep waters. ”