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CHAPTER III.

HONITON

One long street—The debatable ground—Derivation of the name—Configuration of the East Devon border—Axminster —The Battle of Brunnaburgh—S. Margaret's Hospital—Old camps—S. Michael's Church—Colyton—Little Chokebone—Sir George Yonge—Honiton lace—Pillow-lace—Modern design—Ring in the Mere—Dunkeswell.

"THIS town," said Sir William Pole in 1630, "is near three-quarters of a mile in length, lying East and West, and in the midst there is one other street towards the South." The description applies to-day, except only that the town has stretched itself during two hundred and eighty years to one mile in place of three-quarters. A quarter of a mile in about three centuries, which shows that Honiton is not a place that stands still.

It is, in fact, a collection of country cottages that have run to the roadside to see the coaches from London go by, and to offer the passengers entertainment. The coach-road occupies mainly the line of the British highway, the Ikenild Street, a road that furnished the chief means of access to the West, as the vast marshes of the Parret made an approach to the peninsula from the North difficult and dangerous.

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