Lynmouth

“ And yet, with it all, there is a holy calm at Lynmouth. Save for the murmur of the Lyn, the breaking of the waves upon the pebbly shore, or the occasional bell of the crier, nothing disturbs the quiet. As there are no advertisement-hoardings, so also there are no town or other bands, minstrels, piano-organs, or public entertainers. Rows of automatic penny-in-the-slot machines are conspicuously not here. There is not a railway station. ”

“ Past the hotels you go, and a little straggle of small modern houses, past the untidy little patch which would be the suburb of a larger community, with upturned boats and washing drying in the sun, and within five minutes a turn of the road hides Lynmouth and the sea from your backward look, and you stand in the heart of a valley and beyond signs of habitation. The southern slope is beautifully wooded, showing every range and variety of green, from the light vivid green of larches to the dull brownish tone of the oaks. ”

“ We who stay, communing with nature, elegantly housed in the more refined hotels of Lynmouth, or the even yet primitive Clovelly, shudder at the August crowds at Ilfracombe, and recount across the dinner-tables, what time the tender evening closes in upon the quiet harbour, how we adventured there for half a day and watched the trippers at their strenuous tripping. ”

“ Watersmeet, “an exquisite combination of wood and stream, the one almost hiding the water, the other leaping down over rocky ledges in a series of tiny cascades,” must tax the painter’s pencil, and is certainly no theme for a prosaic pen; and of Lyndale the same despairing confession must be made. Every turn in this lovely glen reveals some new beauty, until, with Lynton lying in the cup of a hill on the left, one reaches Lynmouth, where, just before the river plunges into the sea, it receives the waters of the West Lyn as they merrily tumble out of Glen Lyn. ”

“ THE CHEESEWRING, VALLEY OF ROCKS. as meditated—Lynton and Lynmouth were in all essentials the same as they are now.
To the lover of nature and the simplicity of country life this conversion of scenery into shekels, and Exmoor into Bayswater, represents by no means pure gain, albeit the lover of humanity may decide otherwise—on the principle of the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Both sorts, however, may unite in casting curious glances at the old Lynton which courted neither aristocratic nor democratic favour, and actually had a revel. ”

“ The only possible or thinkable place where to begin this exploration of these seventy-eight miles is Lynmouth, situated six miles from Glenthorne, where the coast-line of Somerset is left behind. The one reasonable criticism of this plan is that, arrived at Lynmouth, you have the culmination of all the beauties of this beautiful district, and that every other place (except Clovelly) is apt to suffer by comparison. ”

“ Henry de Lynmouth, after him Isabella de Albino, and now Wichals, possesseth it. A generous family: he married Pomerois; his father, Achelond, his grandfather, Munck.”
Concerning the “generous family” more anon; we have not quite done with the sign of Pisces. Originally Lynmouth was a little village—Blackmore speaks of it as “the little haven of Lynmouth” (Lorna Doone, chapter xxxix.) —whose inhabitants dwelt in huts and depended for a livelihood on the curing of herrings, which was carried on in drying-houses. ”

“ A commonplace shepherd’s hut looks down upon the scene, young plantations mantle the quite unremarkable hills, and romance fails to keep the expected tryst.
But if so be the pilgrim resents being cheated of scenic delights, let him then retrace his steps, cross Malmsmead Bridge into Devon, and so proceed a distance of some six miles down the enchanting gorge of the Lyn, to Lynmouth. ”

“ LYNTON—THE WICHEHALSE FAMILY, IN FICTION AND IN FACT There is more difference between Lynmouth and Lynton than is found in the mere geographical fact that the one is situated over four hundred and twenty feet below the other; a certain jealousy on the one side and a little-veiled contempt on the other exist. Lynmouth people do not speak in terms of affection of Lynton. ”

“ The new road to Lynmouth turns abruptly back upon the hillside, and on it we plunge into the green depths. [17]
If Nature is austere upon these hills, in the valley she is riotous. We seem to be dropping down and down into her generous heart, and, like the poet, we bless ourselves with silence. Far above us, as we wind beside the river, the tall sides of the valley are clear-cut against the sky ”

“ Of course, the ideal way to arrive at Lynmouth is by motor-car, and there, as you come down the salmon-coloured road from Minehead and Porlock, the garage of the Tors Hotel faces you, the very first outpost of the place, expectantly with open doors. But, good roads, or indeed any kind of roads, only rarely approaching the coast of North Devon, it is merely at the coast-towns and villages, and not in a continual panorama, that the motorist will here come in touch with the sea. ”

“ Sometimes they rise up for all the world like pedestals rudely shaped to receive statues; but they would need to be statues of heroic size and pose to fit these surroundings. The eye ranges along the coast, past Castle Rock and Duty Point, to the softly rounded masses of woods covering the hillsides enclosing Wooda Bay; and only the restless, resistless spirit of exploration forbids long lingering here and there, on those occasional seats provided by the thoughtful Urban District Council that rules the twin places, Lynmouth and Lynton, and perseveringly tries to reconcile their jealousies. ”

“ And as the road winds on we think at every corner [194] that all this beauty must come to a sudden end. Surely we have passed the climax: surely the next curve will take us out of this enchanted valley into the world we know. But the beauty does not end. It grows; and only finds its climax in the red and green headlands, and in the lovely village that lies between the hills where the valley ends in the sea.
Lynmouth below and Lynton above, when one recalls them, seem, like Clovelly, too good to be true. All the charms of Devon are here. ”

“ Lynmouth stands where two small streams, the East Lyn and West Lyn, flow down deep and well-wooded valleys to the sea. Lynton is on the cliff-edge, 430 ft. above. A lift connects the villages. The industries are fishing and a small coasting trade. Not far off are the Doone Valley, part of the vale of the East Lyn, here called Badgeworthy water, once the stronghold of a notorious band of robbers and famous through R. D. Blackmore’s novel Lorna Doone ”

“ Lynmouth was a noted resort for herrings all through the Middle Ages, and curing-houses stood on the beach for many years until 1607, when nearly all were swept away by a great storm, and never after properly reconstructed. The herrings also at some time in the seventeenth century left these coasts completely—tradition says because of the avarice of a parson of Lynton, a hard man and greedy, who cared rather to fleece his flock than feed them, and who imposed such heavy tithes on his poor parishioners, that, in spite of the prosperity of their fishing, they were unable to pay them. ”

“ If you take carriage (in which case you will walk the greater part of the way!) , you will start from Lynmouth, and ascend the steep hill that leads right up the cliff to Countisbury Foreland—I should have said the steepest two miles of carriage road in England, had I not also climbed Porlock Hill, twelve miles northward. The surface of the road is loose, and scoured by winter rains, and on a windy day the dust comes swirling down it like a miniature sandstorm. ”

“ And so at length into Lynmouth, seated at the point where the rushing Lyn tumbles, slips, and8 slides at last into the sea. One misses something in approaching the place, nor does one ever find it there. It is something that can readily be spared, being indeed nothing less than the usual squalid fringe that seems so inevitable an introduction to towns and villages, no matter how large or small. There are no introductory gasworks in the approaches to Lynmouth ”

“ It rises from about the sea-level at Lynmouth, steeply up to a height of some four hundred feet at Countisbury, passing beneath a rawly red, new villa built on the naked hillside by a wealthy person whose hobby it is said to be to visit a fresh place almost every summer, to build a house, and then to move away. ”

“ Descending this fairest of introductions to the North Devon coast, past the confluence at Watersmeet, where slender trees incline their trunks together by the waterfall, like horses amiably nuzzling, one comes by degrees within the “region of influence”—as they phrase it in the world of international politics—of the holiday-maker at Lynmouth, who is commonly so lapped in luxury there, and rendered so indolent by the soft airs of Devon, that Watersmeet forms the utmost bounds to which he will penetrate in this direction, when on foot. ”

“ It is daintiness itself, to begin with, and so small and neat, yet so rugged and unexpected, that it is sometimes difficult to believe in the bona fides of its picturesqueness, which looks almost as if it had been created to order. Yet the evidence of old prints proves, if proof were wanting, that Lynmouth—what there was then of it—was as romantic a hundred years ago as it is to-day.11 Indeed, an inspection of old prints leads one to believe that, though there are more houses now, the enclosing hills are more abundantly and softly wooded than then. ”

“ CHEDCOMBE, SOMERSETSHIRE
n the third day of our cycle trip we journeyed along a lofty road, with the wild moor on one side and the tossing sea on the other, and at night reached Lynton. It is a little town on a jutting crag, and far down below it on the edge of the sea was another town named Lynmouth, and there is a car with a wire rope to it, like an elevator, which they call The Lift, which takes people up and down from one town to another. ”

“ THE NORTH WALK—THE VALLEY OF ROCKS—LEE “ABBEY”—WOODA BAY—HEDDON’S MOUTH—TRENTISHOE—THE HANGMAN HILLS And so at last to leave Lynmouth.
It is by no means necessary to take Lynton on the way to the Valley of Rocks and the coast-walk to Wooda Bay and Heddon’s Mouth. The cliff-path known as the North Walk avoids Lynton, and, climbing up midway along the hillside, forms a secluded route of the greatest beauty. ”

“ Stand upon one of the terraces of Lynton on a still summer evening, looking east to Countisbury Foreland, and see the water of the bay still and gleaming in the evening light, the great headlands ruddy and golden above it. The steep sides of the gorge of the East Lyn are warm and sunlit, they glow richly with purple and russet; over the rocks of the valley a faint flicker of grey mist begins to hang above the stream. From the trees around and below comes a great cawing of rooks, drowning the rush of the water below ”

“ The Castle Rock looks far over the sea, the Devil's Cheesewring is on the [Pg 259] inner side of the valley, and there are many others. A narrow path cut in the deep descent of the cliffs leads from the valley, 'where screes and boulders, red and grey and orange, covered for the most part with lichen or tendrils of ground-ivy, lend splashes of vivid colouring to the hill-side;' and about a mile farther on is Lynton.
Lynmouth
Perched on the cliffs nine hundred feet immediately above Lynmouth, Lynton looks down to the inlet, into which two ravines open from the south. ”

“ It is amusing to note how antipathetic are those who resort by choice to Lynmouth and Clovelly to those others who find in Ilfracombe everything to satisfy them. To make excursion from Ilfracombe to Lynton or Clovelly and back in half a day forms an easy and delightful trip, but to see those places and look upon them with an amused and indulgent eye is sufficient for your typical Ilfracombe visitor. Such an one would consider it impossible to stay there. ”

“ THE COAST, TO COUNTISBURY AND GLENTHORNE The six miles or so of the North Devon coast between Lynmouth and Glenthorne, where it joins Somerset, may best be explored from Lynton by taking the coast-line on the way out, and returning by the uninteresting, but at any rate not difficult, main road. The outward scramble is quite sufficiently arduous. ”

“ There remain, however, large numbers of holiday-makers who are unaffected by school-terms and would resent being thought slaves to convention. They can go a-pleasuring when they please, yet they wait until the dog-days. Now Lynmouth, in particular, and the North Devon coast, in general, are exceptionally delightful in May and June. ”

“ It is possible now to take cars on the “lift,” or funicular railway that runs up and down the cliff; but it seems to me that the simplest plan is to drive round by Simonsbath to Lynmouth. There is shelter there for both man and car; but those who prefer to stay at Lynton—and they are many—may leave [192] their cars at the bottom of the hill, and mount it themselves, with their luggage, in the cliff railway.
At Blackmoor Gate, then, instead of taking the road to Parracombe, we must go straight on till we turn to the left at Challacombe. The country is not inspiring. ”

“ Charms that elsewhere seem incongruous are here in accord; grandeur and homeliness agree together; the lion lies down with the lamb. Boats and heather are in the same picture; the cliffs are clothed with woods almost to the water’s edge. The two places cannot be compared; they are so different that neither is complete without the other. Some love best the boats and shallow pools and shaded river of Lynmouth; and to some the wide view from Lynton hill seems the fairest thing in England.
VIEW FROM LYNTON.
Wherever we stay ourselves, there is little to be gained by taking the car up the cliff. ”