Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

After dinner we rambled through the wood to a considerable distance, but found no scene so lovely as that above Shaugh Bridge. The character of the vale is altogether different, being much tamer, but still very interesting.

On our return, most of the party chose to walk up the steep hill which leads to Bickleigh village. A handsome Inn first attracted our notice, built with good taste in the gothic style of architecture, and affording every accommodation for the numerous parties who visit the romantic vicinity.

Curiosity next led us to the village Church, which by its late alterations has been made one of the most graceful little edifices that can be seen. I know no term so appropriate to be applied as the epithet we have chosen. Truly graceful is the pure white stone forming the interior. There are but two aisles, and these are supported by slender lancet-shaped arches. The pulpit is at one end of the church, from its size and form, being hexagonal on a single shaft, it might almost be taken for the baptismal font. But the font is elsewhere, of very ancient date, placed, if we remember rightly, in a pew near the door. A large recess with raised seats, terminating the centre aisle is, we suppose, for the singers; immediately before it is the clerk's desk, who acts, we should imagine, as a precentor. There was only one thing to regret in the alteration of this church. An old monument to the famous Sir Nicholas Slanning, on which was made mention of his fatal duel with John Fitz, is gone. Being constructed only of gypsum or plaster of Paris, it broke in the act of removal, and was found too much disfigured to be replaced.

On leaving the church, we sought our various conveyances, and travelled by a winding and rugged road to Jump, passing in our way Roborough House, at present the residence of Mrs. Walker.

A stranger remaining in the neighbourhood of Bickleigh would do well to extend his rambles to the romantic little village of Tamerton, not more than three miles, supposed to be the ancient Tamare of the Romans; and with great appearance of notability.

It stands upon a small creek formed by the river Tavy. There are deep woods and rising hills around; and above all is seen the bold outline of Warleigh Tor. Tradition still points to "the fatal Oak" on the village green, known by the name of the Copplestone Oak, as the living witness of a dark murder: pity it is that so fair a tree should bear so foul a stigma; blasted in appearance as in fame, it stands the warfare of time, a sad emblem of the undying records of crime. The legend of the oak forms the ground work of Mrs. Bray's novel of Warleigh; it has been ingeniously woven into a tale of fiction, on the authority of some papers said to have been found at the family mansion, as well as on that of old John Prince, who states that it "cost Copplestone thirteen good manors in Cornwall, to buy out his pardon for the murder of his godson." Whether or not Sir John Copplestone committed the fearful deed ascribed to him, his memory is sufficiently branded with the supposition, and we pass on to the simply recorded virtues of the lowly dead in the neighboring churchyard. Should the door of the venerable gothic Church be open, we may look in upon the tombs of the Copplestones, and Foliots, and Georges; but the spirit longs to be again abroad, and ranges through the fair domain of Warleigh, which stretches far out by the Tavy's side, resting at length upon the noble structure of the family mansion itself, which rises with stately grandeur amidst its noble trees. The house was erected in the time of Stephen; but it also bears evidence of the Tudor style of architecture, and is said to have been altered in the reigns of Henry the seventh and Henry the eighth. It

has been possessed severally by the Georges, barons of Foliot, from whom it passed by inter-marriage to the Copplestones; by marriage also, it became the property of the Radcliffes, to whose descendant it now belongs.

We have extended our travels somewhat beyond the scenes of interest properly belonging to Tavistock, and must once more retrace our steps to our native town.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic]
« ZurückWeiter »