Barnstaple

“ Barnstaple. Most certainly; not a sou less. The value of any thing in the eyes of the world is exactly what it costs. Mouton, at a five-franc piece, would excite no interest; and his value to the reader will increase in proportion to his price, which will be considered an undeniable proof of all his wonderful sagacity, with which you are to amuse the reader.
Ansard. But in what is to consist his sagacity?
Barnstaple. He must do everything but speak. Indeed, he must so far speak as to howl the first part of “Lieber Augustin.”
Ansard. His instinct shall put our boasted reason to the blush. ”

“ A few young shopmen and shop-ladies strolled in the narrow roadway, saluting each other with gravity, feeling that they at any rate were doing their best to elevate the general tone of the place, and speaking when necessity arose with the slightly tired and complaining manner that marks unmistakably those of gentle birth.
'Oh, I think Barnstaple's a horrid dull place!' one young woman said in a high voice. 'There's no society, same as there is in Bideford.'
He found himself out of the town, and away from its lamplights in the dark, still road. ”

“ The shortest, but not the most direct way to Barnstaple from Bideford is by the coast [183] road, whence we see, across the brown and yellow sands, the river-mouth from which seven ships of Bideford sailed out to fight the Armada. This road is level, but extremely dusty in dry weather except near Barnstaple, where it has a “prepared” surface. The direct road over the hills is so steep in places that its directness is merely nominal; but here the scenery is lovely. ”

“ There was no doubt that Lord Barnstaple’s deserts were largely of his own invoking, but she set her nails into her palms with a fierce maternal yearning over Cecil. He was blameless, and he was hers. One way or another he should be spared.
She waited for Lord Barnstaple’s return until she could wait no longer. If he were not still with Emmy—and it was not likely that he would prolong the interview—he must have gone to his rooms by the [330] upper corridors. She went rapidly out of the drawing-room and up the stair. She could not be regarded as an intruder and she must know the worst to-night. ”

“ Old Lord Barnstaple left the greater part of his private fortune to his young wife, and the present earl soon made ducks and drakes of the rest. Cecil must marry a fortune, [100] and yours is entirely too small; they want millions over there. Lady Barnstaple has cut into her capital trying to keep up with smart London. She is simply mad to be known as one of the three or four smartest women in society, and the smartest American; and her case is hopeless. She hasn’t money enough, she never was a beauty, and now is nothing but an anxious-eyed faded pretty woman ”

“ The barony of Barnstaple, first granted to Judhael de Totnes, passed to the Tracys, then by marriage to the Lords Martin, and again by an heiress to the Lords Audley. The son of this heiress was the 'heroical' Lord Audley who so greatly distinguished himself at the Battle of Poitiers.
Barnstaple sent three ships to join the fleet that met the Armada. ”

“ In Barnstaple the oldest pottery to survive until modern times was situated in the North Walk. When it was dismantled in 1900, sherds dating from the second half of the 17th century were found in the surroundings, as was a potter’s guild sign, dated 1675, which now hangs in Brannam’s pottery in Litchdon Street, Barnstaple. A pair of fire dogs, dated 1655 and shaped by molds similar to one from the North Walk site, was excavated near the North Walk pottery. ”

“ Lady Barnstaple had written. “London is such a grimy hole, people simply love colour. Don’t mind bothering me; if I were poor I’d be a house decorator. The only fault I had to find with the Abbey was that it was furnished.”
Lee found her doll’s house a delicious nest of colour and luxury after the feudal severity of her tower; and although Cecil was even more serious than when he had married, she managed, during that first spring in London, to make him feel that they were playing at keeping house and at the lighter side of life. ”

“ Barnstaple is a thriving little modern town, but it has many such charming scenes to the visitor with an observant eye—a narrow cobbled street, with an irregular sag of gabled houses either side, the cream and rose-coloured walls mellow and sunny in the late afternoon, or a cluster of really beautiful half-timbered houses of the sixteenth century, with carved oak doorposts and beam-ends, such as those which are known as Church Row, and stand back from the road, between Boutport Street, and the High Street, by St. ”

“ Barnstaple is the starting-point for the grand and almost unsurpassed coast line from Ilfracombe to Porlock. Other coasts may have bolder cliffs, but none such a combination of boldness and luxuriance of vegetation. It has, moreover, a great advantage—that a good road runs along it from Ilfracombe to Combe Martin. But from this point the coast is deserted, and the road climbs a thousand feet to the Trentishoe Down, then dives into the Heddon valley to the sweet and peaceful "Hunter's Inn," climbs again over moor, and makes for Lynton. ”

“ On 31 August, 1612, the town of Barnstaple sent out a ship and a bark—the John of Braunton and the Mayflower—to capture pirates who had robbed a London vessel and also a pinnace of the Isle of Wight, in the roads of Lundy. It is satisfactory to learn that the offenders—“as notorious Rogues as any in England”—were caught at Milford Haven, brought to Barnstaple, and lodged in Exeter Gaol. ”

“ Prince Rupert paid the Prince a visit in June, and not long afterwards Lord Goring's horse arrived in hot disorder, having been chased most of the way from Bridgwater by Fairfax's troops. In the following spring the town was besieged by the Parliament's troops, and the day after the treaty for the surrender of Exeter was completed, Fairfax himself marched to Barnstaple. The Governor, seeing that resistance was hopeless, gave 'the castle and the town ... as a security for surrender of the fort at eight days' end'; and on honourable terms Barnstaple yielded to the enemy. ”

“ In sheltered valleys the drifts of snow were so great that scarcely a tree escaped injury. Bakers who supplied country residents were unable to go out to them with their supplies.
Barnstaple.—The chief town of North Devon had a very harsh experience. Traffic was for some time suspended, but the inconvenience in this respect was not nearly so great as in the south of Devon and in Cornwall. In the districts around Barnstaple there were very heavy losses of sheep and lambs. ”

“ William gave him large estates in Devon and Cornwall. A charter of Judhael’s to the priory which he founded at Barnstaple makes mention of the castle. [264] Barnstaple, at the head of the estuary of the Taw, was a borough at Domesday, and the castle was placed inside the town walls. [265] The motte remains in good condition; the winding walks which now lead to the top are certainly no part of the original plan, but are generally found in cases where the motte has been incorporated in a garden. ”

“ Ten minutes away from Barnstaple Station, and I saw a hawk hovering above the hillside, so quickly do the signs of habitation drop away among these hills and valleys.
We leave the valley of the Yeo, and climb the steep gradients to Bratton Fleming and Blackmoor Gate, across the wind-swept open moors, bare and brown in the afternoon sunshine. Fold behind fold lies the countryside in great brown curves, here a cluster of trees in a sheltered valley, there a lonely farm ”

“ The road that crosses the hill between Barnstaple and Ilfracombe leaves the town by the suburb of Pilton, whose white houses and gaily painted shutters and high walls have rather a foreign air. There is a long but well-graded hill before us, and a surface that is not very good. Each flowery village is followed by another as gay, and each green valley leads into another as green, and still we climb higher and higher till we come to the heather. For a little time the scenery is dull; then the road winds down a deep valley, and we see Ilfracombe in a gorge below. ”

“ In the immediate neighbourhood of Barnstaple is Pilton Church, that should be seen for its fine screen and curious hour-glass; Tawstock for its Bourcher tombs; Chittlehampton for its beautiful tower; and Atherington for its screen, a fragment, but that fragment complete in every member, a superb specimen. Hall, on the Taw, is the fine mansion of the Chichester family.
Swymbridge Church should on no account be omitted. It possesses a magnificent screen, and an ancient pulpit with figures in niches. The modern reredos is bad. ”

“ Barnstaple is a place of considerable importance, which has existed since the reign of the Saxon kings: Athelstan, having built a castle here, made the town into a borough. It is a handsome-looking place, but the harbour is much blocked up, so that only small vessels can enter. The river is spanned by an ancient stone bridge, the width of which is increased, as at Bideford, by iron projections for foot passengers; there is also a railway on either side. ”

“ Our thoughts can then follow no better course than that of the railway from Okehampton to Yeoford Junction, and there abandoning the Exeter train take the one coming up for Barnstaple and North Devon. For then in a very short time you will be upon the banks of the Taw, the chief river of North Devon, where it is yet a modest stream, and keep it quite intimate company till it spreads, a shining estuary, laden with historic memories, into Barnstaple bay. ”

“ Barnstaple. If they are so, virtue must be its own reward. It is necessary that you write a book of travels, and all travellers contradict each other—ergo, you must contradict, or nobody will believe that you have travelled. Not only contradict, but sneer at them.
Ansard. Well, now do explain how that is to be done.
Barnstaple. Nothing more simple: for instance, a man measures a certain remarkable piece of antiquity—its length is 747 feet. ”

“ Barnstaple Fair, although now deprived of some of its ancient commercial importance by the establishment of great markets at other centres in North Devon, still attracts great numbers of purchasers of horses, Exmoor ponies, cattle, and sheep, reared by the agriculturists of the neighbourhood. ”

“ The estuary formed by the combined streams of the Taw and Torridge, the former of which is also known as the Barnstaple River, flows into Barnstaple Bay at the south end of Braunton Burrows. There is no port on the open coast; but just inside the estuary are the quaint old town of Appledore and the equally ancient village of Instow, on the left and right banks, respectively, of the river Torridge. In the mouth of the same stream, a little to the south of Appledore, is a long flat rock called the Hubblestone ”

“ The moment we get to Barnstaple, I shall find some women;—the women can never help telling everything, and for the most part ten times that. Only contradict them bravely, and they have no silence left." However, it helped me not a little when Captain Fuzzy, with a duck of his head, tumbled up from the cuddy, brimful, as we saw, of the dinner-time. ”

“ Meanwhile, the Parliamentary forces under Fairfax were coming, beating down Royalist resistance as they came. At length, in April 1646, they besieged Barum, and, nearly all else being lost to them in the West, the Royalists in five weeks finally laid down their arms.
Barnstaple old parish church is a great roomy building, its walls plentifully furnished with monuments of the old merchants. It stands in an alley known as Paternoster Row; its wooden, lead-sheathed spire, like that of Braunton, warped on one side, and in like manner. ”

“ BARNSTAPLE and Bideford are towns that the jerry-builders have done their utmost to make hideous with white brick villas banded with red. It is a curious fact, but fact it is, that a builder without a grain of taste, if ambitious to make one of his domestic monstrosities attractive, will look into the pattern-book of a maker of terracotta, and select the most obtrusive ridge-tiles and, above all, hip-knobs he can find, frizzle the spine of his roof with the former, clap the latter on his gable, and think that the product is stylish. ”

“ A little fort at Appledore was built, it is said—but the authority is not infallible—at the same time that the forts were thrown up at Bideford, and towards the end of July, 1644, it was called on to make a defence. Barnstaple had suddenly rebelled against the Royalists, and the citizens resolved to take possession of the guns that commanded the river's mouth. ”

“ To those times of unparalleled prosperity, which continued until well into the third quarter of the eighteenth century, belong many of those existing architectural remains of old Barnstaple that are becoming increasingly difficult to find in the rebuildings and other changes of our own times. ”

“ After paying passage money for the party I had only twenty gold pistoles left. God had not conducted us in safety to a haven there to leave us to perish with hunger. The good people of Barnstaple were full of compassion, they took us into their houses and treated us with the greatest kindness; thus God raised up for us fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters in a strange land. ”

“ Is that all the wit you have? Three days in and out of Barnstaple! It is Sir Philip Bampfylde of Narnton Court, close by you."
"There is no Narnton Court, that I know of, your reverence, anywhere round our neighbourhood. There is Candleston Court, and Court Isa, and Court——"
"Tush, I mean near where your ship is lying. And that is chiefly what I want with you. I know men well; and I know that you are a man that will do anything for money." ”