Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/111

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CHAPTER VI.

CREDITON

Red stone and red cob—Cob walls—The river Creedy—Birthplace of S. Boniface—See of Crediton—The Church—Kirton, serge—Apple orchards and cider-making—France'mass—Apple the basis of many jams—Song of the apple trees—The picking of apples—"Griggles"—Saluting the apple trees—The apple-crusher—Pomage—The cider-press—Apple cheese—Cider-matching—Racking—Cider for rheumatism—A Cornish cider song—John Davy—Seats near Crediton—Elizabeth Buller and Frances Tuckfield—The Coplestone—The North Devon savages—Lapford—Churches round Crediton—Rev. S. Rowe.

A CURIOUS, sleepy place, the houses like the great church built of red sandstone, where not of the red clay or cob. But in the latter case the cob is whitewashed. No house can be conceived more warm and cosy than that built of cob, especially when thatched. It is warm in winter and cool in summer, and I have known labourers bitterly bewail their fate in being transferred from an old fifteenth or sixteenth century cob cottage into a newly-built stone edifice of the most approved style. As they said, it was like going out of warm life into a cold grave.

The art of building with cob is nearly extinct. Clay is kneaded up with straw by the feet, and then put on the rising walls that are enclosed in a frame-

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