A Book of the West/Volume 2/9
CHAPTER IX.
BUDE
AN unpicturesque, uninteresting place, wind-blown, treeless, but with sands—not always obtainable on the north coast—and with noble cliff scenery within easy reach.
There is nothing commendable in the place itself; the houses are as ugly as tasteless builders could contrive to erect; the church is of the meanest cheap Gothic of seventy years ago; but the air is exhilarating, the temperature is even, there are golf-links, and a shore for bathers.
Nestling in a valley by a little stream newly designated the "Strat," as though Stratton were called from the stream and not the street—the Roman road that runs through it—is the parent town, crouching with its hair ruffled, and casting a
sidelong, dissatisfied eye at its pert and pushing offspring, Bude. But Stratton has no reason to be 
BUDE
discontented. It is sheltered from the furious gales, which Bude is not; it has trees and flowers about it, which Bude has not; it has a fine parish church, which Bude has not; and it has a history, deficient to Bude, which is a parvenu, and self-assertive accordingly.
And Stratton further has got its battlefield. The height above the town was the scene of one of those encounters in which the Royalist forces for Charles I. were successful. The following description of the battle is from Professor Gardiner's History of the Great Civil War:—[1]
"The Earl of Stamford placed himself at the head of the army under his command, and resolved on carrying the war into Cornwall. As he could dispose of 6800 men, whilst Hopton and the Cornish leaders at Launceston had with them less than half the number, he determined to
despatch the greater part of his horse to Bodmin in order to suppress any attempt to muster the trained bands there. With his infantry and a few remaining horse he established himself near Stratton, in the extreme north-west of the county, in a position apparently strong enough to secure him from attack, at least till his cavalry returned.
"The ground occupied by Stamford was well chosen. A ridge of high ground running from the north to south parallel with the coast dips sharply down, and rises as sharply again to a grassy hill, from the southern end of which there is a still deeper cleft through which the road descends steeply to the left into the valley in which lies the little town of Stratton. On the top of this hill, the sides of which slope in all directions from the highest point to the edge of the plateau, the Parliamentary army lay. Beyond
this plateau the ground falls away in all directions, more especially on the eastern side, where the position was almost impregnable if seriously defended. The ascent from the west was decidedly the easiest, but an earthwork had been thrown up on this side, the guns from which commanded the whole approach from this quarter."[2]
"Undismayed by the odds against them, Hopton and his comrades resolved to break up from Launceston in order to seek the enemy. As they approached Stratton on the morning of the 16th (May, 1643) they had the advantage of having amongst them one to whom every inch of ground must have been perfectly familiar. But a few miles to the north, on the bleak hillside above the waves of the Atlantic, lay that house of Stowe from which Sir Richard Grenville had gone forth to die in the Revenge, and where doubtless the Lady Grenville of a younger generation was watching anxiously for the return of him who had ventured his life in the king's quarrel. It would have been strange if on this day of peril the ordering of the fight had not fallen into Sir Bevil Grenville's hands.
"The little army of Royalists consisted of but 2400, whilst their adversaries could number 5400, well provided with cannon and ammunition. The attacking force was divided into four bands, prepared to storm, or at least to threaten, the hill from every side. For some hours every effort was in vain against superiority of numbers and superiority of position. At three in the afternoon word was brought to the commanders that their scanty stock of powder was almost exhausted. A retreat under such circumstances would have been fatal, and the word was given that a supreme effort must be made. Trusting to
pike and sword alone, the lithe Cornishmen pressed onwards and upwards. Their silent march seems to have struck their opponents with a sense of power. The defence grew feeble, and on the easier western slope, where Grenville fought, and on the northern, on which Sir John Berkeley led the attack, the outer edge of the plateau was first gained. Immediately the handful of horse which had remained with Stamford turned and fled, the commander-in-chief, it is said, setting the example. In vain Chudleigh, now second in command, rallied the force for a desperate charge. For a moment he seemed to make an impression on the approaching foe, but he incautiously pressed too far in advance, and was surrounded and captured. His men, left without a commander, at once gave way, and retreated to the further part of the plateau. By this time the other two Royalist detachments, finding resistance slackening, had made their way up, and the victorious commanders embraced one another on the hard-won hill-top, thanking God for a success for which at one time they had hardly ventured to hope. It was no time to prolong their rejoicings, as the enemy, demoralised as he was, still clung to the heights. Seizing the cannons which had been abandoned in the earthwork, the Royalist commanders turned them upon Stamford's cowed followers. The frightened men had no one to encourage them to deeds of hardihood, and, following the example of the cavalry, they too dashed down the slope in headlong flight. Of the Parliamentary soldiers, 300 had been killed and 1700 were taken prisoners, besides Chudleigh and thirty of his officers. All the cannon, with a large store of ammunition and provisions, fell into the hands of the victors. From that day the spot on which the wealthy earl demonstrated his signal incompetence as a leader of men has been known as Stamford Hill." The scene of the battle deserves a visit, as it has remained almost unaltered since that day. Whether the earthworks belong to the period or were earlier, utilised by Stamford, remains open to question. They hardly seem disposed with skill and intelligence for the use of cannon.
The Royalists were not merely about half in number to the Roundheads, but they were short of ammunition, and without cannon. They were also "so destitute of provisions, that the best officers had but a biscuit a man."
A monument erected on the hill in commemoration of the battle was destroyed a few years ago, and the plate with an inscription on it recording the victory moved to the front of a house in Stratton.
There is a good deal to be seen in the way of old houses and churches near Bude. Stratton Church itself is fine, and contains a good tomb of an Arundell. It has suffered less than most of the sacred edifices in the neighbourhood from the wrecker. Week S. Mary under his hands has become a shell out of which life and beauty have fled. Morwenstow has been reduced to nakedness, but its grand Norman pillars and arches and doorway remain. Kilkhampton has been lovingly treated and the wrecker held at bay. It also has a Norman doorway, and very fine bench-ends; Poughill has these latter, also two frescoes of S. Christopher that have been restored—one, through a blunder, as King Olaf The idea grew up in the fifteenth century that he who looked on a figure of S. Christopher would not that day die a sudden death. Conse quently representations of the saint were multiplied. On the river Wulf in Devon at a ford it was held that at night anyone who came to the side of the water and cried out was caught up and carried over by a gigantic spirit, and there are those alive who protest that they have been so transported across the Wulf. Recently the County Council has built a bridge, and so this spectral Christopher's occupation is gone.
Pancras Week has a very fine waggon roof of richly-carved wood. Holsworthy is a good church well restored. Here during the restoration a skeleton was found in the wall, evidently hastily covered up with mortar and stone.
At Poundstock and Launcells are good bench-ends. The most interesting old house in the district, because best preserved, is Tonnacombe in Morwenstow, very small, with hall and minstrel gallery and panelled parlours, but perfect and untouched by the restorer, except in the most conservative manner. Penfound in Poundstock, the seat of the ancient family of Penfound, is in a condition verging on ruin. The family has its representatives in Bude as plain labourers. The last squire died in the poorhouse in 1847.
What is so delightful about these old Cornish houses is the way that, in a wind-swept region, they nestle into leafy combes.
Elford, now the parsonage of Bude, was the seat of the Arundells, but it has been so altered as to have lost most of its character. Marhamchurch has a good Jacobean pulpit, and in the parish is Marhayes, an interesting house, the basement Tudor, on top of which a Charles II. house was reared. In one room is a superb ceiling of plaster-work. At Dunsland is another, richer, but not so good in design. Sutcombe Church has the remains of a remarkably good screen and some bench-ends. The church has been judiciously restored and not wrecked.
In Poughill, close to Bude, old Broom Hill, now turned into cottages, has a good Elizabethan ceiling. It was here that Sir Bevil Grenville slept the night before the battle of Stamford Hill.
In the deep glen that leads from Kilkhampton to the sea is the site of Stowe House, built by John, Earl of Bath, in 1680. The title became extinct in 1711, and Stowe became the property of the widow of Lord Carteret, who was created Countess Grenville. The house was pulled down in 1720, so that the same persons saw it built and saw its destruction. The Earl of Bath had the best artists brought there to decorate the mansion, and it is due to this that so much splendid plaster-work is to be seen in Northeast Cornwall and near Hols worthy. An exquisite plaster ceiling of delicate refinement and beauty existed at Whitstone, but was destroyed by the owner of the house, who had not any idea of its artistic beauty.
Marsland in Morwenstow, without any architectural features, is a charming example of a small country squire's house of the seventeenth century. Stowe Barton, though much altered and spoiled, is the ancient seat of the Grenvilles; that has stood, whilst the splendid mansion has disappeared, leaving only its terraces to show where it once was.
Bridgerule Church stands high ; its tower, that of Pancras Week, and that of Week S. Mary were landmarks when all the land except the combes was a great furzy and rushy waste. The soil is cold, clayey, and unproductive. It serves for the breeding of horses and for rough stock, and grew grain when grain-growing paid ; now it is reverting to moor, but anciently it was entirely uncultivated and open, saving in the valleys. Bridgerule has a fine tower, and in the church is a respectable modern screen, though not of local character. About the rood-loft door hangs a tale.
There was a widow who had a beautiful daughter, and one evening a gentleman in a carriage drawn by four black horses and with a black-liveried driver on the box drove to the cottage door. The gentleman descended. He was a swarthy but handsome man. He entered the cottage on some excuse, sat by the fire and talked, and eyed the damsel. Then he called, and his liveried servant brought in wines from the sword-case of his carriage, and they drank, till the fire was in their veins, and the gentleman asked the girl if she would accompany him home if he came for her on the following night. She consented. He would arrive at midnight, so he said.
Now next morning the mother's mind misgave her, and she went to Bridgerule and consulted the parson. Said he, "That was the devil. Did you see his feet?"
"No—that is, I saw one," said the widow. "One that was stretched out by the fire, but the other he kept under the chair, and he had let fall his cloak over it. But I did notice that he limped as he walked."
"Now," said the parson, "here is a consecrated candle; it has burned on the altar. Take it home, and when the visitor asks your wench to go with him, let her say she will do so as soon as the candle is burnt out. He will consent. At once take the candle and run to Bridgerule Church and give it to me, and see what happens."
Next night the woman lit the candle and set it on the table, and it burnt cheerily. But just before mid- night the tramp of horses was heard and the roll of wheels, and the black coach drew up at her door and the gentleman descended. He entered the cottage and asked if Genefer were ready to attend him.
"She is upstairs dressing in her Sunday gown," replied the mother.
"I am impatient ; let her come as she is," said the stranger.
"Suffer her to have time till this candle burns into the socket," asked the mother.
"I consent, but not for a moment longer," was his reply.
Then the widow took the candle, and saying she went in quest of her daughter, she left the room, went out at the back door, extinguished the candle, and ran till she reached the church, where the parson awaited her with his clerk, who was a mason. He took the candle, gave it to his clerk, who placed it in a recess in the wall, and at once proceeded to build up the recess. The mother hastened home. But as she came to a moor called Affaland she saw the coach drawn by four black horses arrive on it, and proceed to a pool that was there, but is now dried up or drained away, and in went horses, driver, coach, and all, and a great spout of blue flame came up where they descended, and after that, they were seen no more. When she came home, she found her daughter in a dead faint.
Now that candle remains behind the wall that closes up the rood-stair door. And the devil cannot claim the girl, because the candle is not burnt out. But if ever that wall be pulled down and the candle be removed, and anyone be wicked enough to burn it, then he will ascend from the place of outer darkness and the gnashing of teeth, and snatch the soul of Genefer away, even though it be in Abraham's bosom.
Bridgerule is Llan-Bridget, that was granted at the Conquest to a certain Raoul. It is one of the cluster of Bridget churches that are found near the Tamar, of which the others are Virginstow and Bridestow, and Landue—now only a house with a holy well of S. Bridget and the foundations of a chapel. Clearly there was in this district a colony from Leinster, from Magh Brea, the great plain in which Bridget had her foundations. S. Bridget was a real person, and one of great force of character; but what gave her such an enormous popularity in Ireland was that she inherited the name of one of the old pagan goddesses, she of the fire, also the earth mother, and the great helper of women in their trouble.
When the real Bridget saw the vast plain in Leinster covered with white clover, from which the wind that wafted over it was sweet as if it had breathed from paradise, "Oh!" said she, "if this lovely plain were mine I would give it to God."
S. Columba heard this story. He smiled, and said, "God accepts the will for the deed. It is the same to Him as if Bridget had freely given Him the wide white clover field."
The centre of the cult of S. Bridget in ancient Dumnonia must have been Bridestow, for there is a sanctuary which marks the main monastic establishment.
One day a party of bishops and clergy arrived at Bridget's house of Kildare very hungry and clamorous for food, and particularly desirous to know what they were going to have for dinner.
"Now," said Bridget, "I and my spiritual daughters also suffer from hunger. We have not the Word of God ministered to us but exceptionally when stray priest comes this way. Let us go to church first, and do ye feed us with spiritual nourishment whilst dinner is getting ready, and then do you eat your fill."
It is a long way to North Tamerton, but worth a visit, for the church is well situated above the Tamar, and contains some good bench-ends; and in the parish is Ogbeare with a very fine old hall, but a very modern villa residence attached to it—new cloth on the old garment.
Whitstone is so called from the church being founded on a piece of white sparry rock. When the late Archbishop Benson was bishop of Truro he came to open the church after restoration. As the rector was taking him in he pointed out the white stone. Bishop Benson at once seized on the idea suggested, and preached to the people on the text, "To him that overcometh will I give ... a white stone." (Rev. ii. 17.) In the churchyard is a holy well of S. Anne, not of the reputed mother of the Virgin, for her cult is comparatively modern, not much earlier than the fifteenth century, but dedicated to the mother of S. Sampson, sister of S. Padarn's mother. There must have been much fighting at some time in this neighbourhood. There is a fine camp in Swannacot Wood over against Whitstone. Week S. Mary occupies an old camp site, and another is in West Wood, and another, again, in Key Wood, all within a rifle-shot of each other.
Week S. Mary occupies a wind-blasted elevation, over 500 feet above the sea, and with no intervening hills to break the force of the gales from the Atlantic. The place has interest as the birthsite of Thomasine Bonaventura. She was the daughter of a labourer, and was one day keeping sheep on the moor, when she engaged the attention of a London merchant who was travelling that way, and stayed to ask of her his direction.
Pleased with her Cornish grace of manner, with her fresh face and honest eyes, he took her to London as servant to his wife, and when the latter died he made her the mistress of his house. Dying himself shortly afterwards, he bequeathed to her a large fortune. She then married a person of the name of Gale, whom also she survived. Then Sir John Percival, Lord Mayor of London, succumbed to her charms of face, and above all of manner, and he became her third husband. But he also died, and she was once more a widow. The lady was by this time content with her experience as a wife, and returning from London to Week S. Mary—think of that! to Week S. Mary, the wind-blown and desolate—she devoted her days and fortune to good works. She founded there a college and chantry, and doubtless largely contributed towards the building of the parish church. She repaired the roads, built bridges, gave dowries to maidens, and relieved the poor. She contributed also to the building of the tower of S. Stephen's by Launceston.
Her college for the education of the youth of the neighbourhood continued to flourish till the Reformation, and the best gentlemen's sons of Devon and Cornwall went there for their education. But as there was a chantry attached to the school, this served as an excuse for the rapacity of those who desired to increase their goods at the cost of Church and poor, and school and chantry were suppressed together. Week S. Mary till lately had its mayor, and was esteemed a borough, though it never returned members.
Externally it is fine, the tower remarkably so. In the tower may be observed curious results of a lightning flash.
The coast of North Cornwall right and left of Bude is very fine; the carboniferous rocks stand up with their strata almost perpendicular, but there are bays and coves that allow of descent to the sea. Widmouth promises to become some day a great watering-place.
To see this coast it is in vain to take the coach road to Bideford or to Boscastle. The road runs on the ridge of high land from which the streams descend and spill into the sea. The only way in which to appreciate its wildness and beauty is to take the coast road that climbs and descends a succession of rocky waves. By that means scenes of the greatest picturesqueness and of the utmost variety are revealed. One excursion must on no account be omitted, that to Morwenstow, for many years the home of a fine poet, an eccentric man, the Rev. Robert S. Hawker.
He was born at Stoke Damerel on December 3rd, 1804, and was the son of Mr. Jacob Stephen Hawker, at one time a medical man, but afterwards ordained and vicar of Stratton. Mr. J. S. Hawker was the son of the famous Dr. Hawker, incumbent of Charles Church, Plymouth, author of Morning and Evening Portions, a book of devotional reading at one time in great request.
Young Robert was committed to his grandfather to be educated. He was sent to Oxford, but his father, then a poor curate, was unable to maintain him there, and told him so. The difficulty was, however, happily surmounted. He proposed to a lady rather older than his mother, but who had about £200 per annum. She accepted him; he was then aged twenty and she was forty-one, and had taught him his letters. By this means he was enabled to continue his studies at Oxford. He was given the living of Morwenstow in 1834, and remained there till his death in 1875.
A writer in the Standard of this latter year thus describes his first acquaintance with the vicar of Morwenstow:—
"It was on a solemn occasion that we first saw Morwenstow. The sea was still surly and troubled, with wild lights breaking over it and torn clouds driving through the sky. Up from the shore, along a narrow path between jagged rocks and steep banks tufted with thrift, came the vicar, wearing cassock and surplice, and conducting a sad procession, which bore along with it the bodies of two seamen flung up the same morning on the sands. The office used by Mr. Hawker at such times had been arranged by himself, not without reference to certain peculiarities which, as he conceived, were features of the primitive Cornish Church, the same which had had its bishops and its traditions long before the conference of Augustine with its leaders under the great oak by the Severn. Indeed, at one time he carried his adhesion to these Cornish traditions to some unusual lengths. There was, we remember, a peculiar yellow vestment, in which he appeared much like a Lama of Thibet, which he wore in his house and about his parish, and which he insisted was an exact copy of a priestly robe worn by S. Padarn and S. Teilo. We have seen him in this attire proceeding through the lanes on the back of a well-groomed mule—the only fitting beast, as he remarked, for a churchman."
We have here an instance out of many of the manner in which he delighted in hoaxing visitors. The yellow vestment was a poncho. It came into use in the following manner:—
Mr. Martyn, of Tonnacombe, was in conversation one day with Mr. Hawker, when the latter complained that he could not get a greatcoat to his fancy, and one that would keep him dry against the rainstorms.
"Why not have a poncho?" asked his neighbour.
"Poncho! what is that?"
"Nothing but a blanket with a hole in the middle."
"Do you put your legs through the hole and tie the four corners over your head?"
"No," answered Mr. Martyn. "I will fetch you mine, and you shall try it on."
The poncho was produced; it was dark blue, and the vicar was delighted with it. Next time he went to Bideford he bought a yellowish brown rug, and had a hole cut in the middle through which to thrust his head.
"I wouldn't wear your livery, Martyn," said he, "nor your political colours, so I have got a yellow poncho."
Those who knew him can picture to themselves the sly twinkle in his eye as he informed his credulous visitor that he was invested in the habit of S. Padarn and S. Teilo.
But his dress was extraordinary enough without the poncho. He was wont to wear a knitted blue sailor's jersey, sea-boots above his knees, and a claret-coloured coat and a clerical wide-awake of the same colour. He had a great aversion to black. "Why should we parsons be like crows—birds of ill-luck?" he would say. "Black—black—are we children of darkness? Black is the colour of devils only." A real poet he was, but desultory, rarely able to remain fixed at work and carry out a project to the end. He was an excellent ballad-writer, but he could do better than write ballads. He began a great poem on the "Quest of the Sangreal," but it remains a fragment. Here is one short specimen of a ballad, the lament of a Cornish mother over her dead child:—
"They say't is a sin to sorrow—
That what God doth is best,
But 't is only a month to-morrow
I buried it from my breast.
"I know it should be a pleasure
Your child to God to send;
But mine was a precious treasure,
To me and my poor friend.
"I thought it would call me mother,
The very first words it said;
Oh! I never can love another
Like the blessed babe that 's dead.
"Well, God is its own dear Father,
It was carried to church and bless'd;
And our Saviour's arms will gather
Such children to their rest.
"I will check this foolish sorrow.
For what God doth is best;
But oh! 't is a month to-morrow
I buried it from my breast."
Note.—For further information see my Vicar of Morwenstow. New and revised edition. Methuen. 1899.