British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car Part 4

Plymouth, with the adjoining towns of Devonport and Stonehouse, is one of the most important seaports in the Kingdom, the combined population being about two hundred thousand. The harbor is one of the best and affords safe anchorage for the largest ocean-going vessels. It is protected by a stupendous granite breakwater, costing many millions and affording a delightful promenade on a fine day. Plymouth is the princ.i.p.al government naval port and its ocean commerce is gaining rapidly on that of Liverpool. To Americans it appeals chiefly on account of its connection with the Pilgrim Fathers, who sailed from its harbor on the Mayflower in 1620. A granite block set in the pier near the oldest part of the city is supposed to mark the exact spot of departure of the gallant little ship on the hazardous voyage, whose momentous outcome was not then dreamed of. I could not help thinking what a fine opportunity is offered here for some patriotic American millionaire to erect a suitable memorial to commemorate the sailing of the little ship, fraught with its wonderful destiny. The half day spent about the old city was full of interest; but the places which we missed would make a most discouraging list. It made us feel that one ought to have two or three years to explore Britain instead of a single summer's vacation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROCKS OFF CORNWALL.

From Painting by Warne Browne. Exhibited 1906 Royal Academy.]

From Plymouth to Penzance through Truro runs the finest road in Cornwall, broad, well kept and with few steep grades. It pa.s.ses through a beautiful section and is bordered in many places by the immense parks of country estates. In some of these the woods were seemingly left in their natural wild state, though close inspection showed how carefully this appearance was maintained by judicious landscape gardening. In many of the parks, the rhododendrons were in full bloom, and their rich ma.s.ses of color wonderfully enlivened the scenery. Everything was fresh and bright. It had been raining heavily the night before and the air was free from the dust that had previously annoyed us. It would be hard to imagine anything more inspiring than the vistas which opened to us as we sped along. The road usually followed the hills in gentle curves, but at places it rose to splendid points of vantage from which to view the delightful valleys. Then again it lost itself under great over-arching trees, and as we came too rapidly down a steep hill on entering Bodmin, the road was so heavily shaded that we were near our undoing. The loose sand had been piled up by the rain and the dense shade prevented the road from drying. The car took a frightful skid and by a mere hair's breadth escaped disastrous collision with a stone wall--but we learned something.

After leaving Truro, an ancient town with a recently established cathedral, the road to Penzance, though excellent, is without special interest. It pa.s.ses through the copper-mining section of Cornwall and the country is dotted with abandoned mines. A few are still operated, but it has come to the point where, as a certain Englishman has said, "Cornwall must go to Nevada for her copper," and there are more Cornish miners in the western states than there are in their native shire.

Penzance is another of the South of England resort towns and is beautifully situated on Mounts Bay. One indeed wonders at the great number of seacoast resorts in Britain, but we must remember that there are forty millions of people in the Kingdom who need breathing places as well as a number of Americans who come to these resorts. The hotels at these places are generally excellent from the English point of view, which differs somewhat from the American. Probably there is no one point on which the difference is greater than the precise temperature that const.i.tutes personal comfort and makes a fire in the room necessary. On a chilly, muggy day when an American shivers and calls for a fire in the generally diminutive grate in his room, the native enjoys himself or even complains of the heat, and is astonished at his thin-skinned cousin, who must have his room--according to the British notion--heated to suffocation. The hotel manager always makes a very adequate charge for fires in guest-rooms and is generally chary about warming the corridors or public parts of the hotel. In one of the large London hotels which actually boasts of steam heat in the hallways, we were amazed on a chilly May day to find the pipes warm and a fine fire blazing in the great fireplace in the lobby. The chambermaid explained the astonishing phenomenon: the week before several Americans had complained frequently of the frigid atmosphere of the place without exciting much sympathy from the management, but after they had left the hotel, it was taken as an evidence of good faith and the heat was turned on. But this digression has taken me so far away from Penzance that I may as well close this chapter with it.

VII

FROM CORNWALL TO SOUTH WALES

In following a five-thousand-mile motor journey through Britain, there will be little to say of Penzance, a pleasant resort town, yet without anything of notable importance. A mile farther down the coast is Newlyn, a fishing-village which has become a noted resort for artists and has given its name to a school of modern painting. A handsome building for a gallery and art inst.i.tute, and which also serves as headquarters for the artists, has recently been erected by a wealthy benefactor. We walked over to the village, hoping to learn that the fisher-fleet would be in the next morning, but were disappointed. A man of whom we inquired informed us that the fishermen would not bring in their catch until two days later. He seemed to recognize at once that we were strangers--Americans, they all know it intuitively--and left his task to show us about the immense quay where the fishermen dispose of their catch at auction. He conducted us out on the granite wall, built by the Government to enclose the harbor and insuring the safety of the fisher-fleet in fiercest storms. He had been a deep-sea fisherman himself and told us much of the life of these st.u.r.dy fellows and the hardships they endure for little pay.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NEAR LAND'S END.

From Water Color by Wm. T. Richards.]

The ordinary fishing boat is manned by five or six men and makes two trips each week to the deep-sea fishing "grounds," seventy-five to one hundred miles away. The craft is rude and comfortless in the extreme and so constructed as to be nearly unsinkable if kept off the rocks. The fish are taken by trawling great nets and drawing them aboard with a special tackle. The princ.i.p.al catch of the Newlyn fishermen is herring, which are pickled in the village and exported, mainly to Norway and Sweden. The value of the fish depends on the state of the market, and the price realized is often as low as a shilling per hundred weight. The majority of the population of Cornwall is engaged directly or indirectly in the fisheries, and considering the inferiority of most of the country for agriculture and the extensive coast line with its numerous harbors, it is not strange that so many of the natives should follow this life.

In earlier days, smuggling and wrecking const.i.tuted the occupation of a large number of the Cornishmen, but under modern conditions these gentle arts can no longer be successfully practiced, and fishing furnishes about the only alternative.

Just across the peninsula is St. Ives, another fishing village, even more picturesque than Newlyn and quite as much in favor with the artists. To reach this town we turned a few miles from the main road on the following day, but missed the fisher-fleet as before. The bay on which St. Ives is situated is the most beautiful on the Cornish coast, and on the day of our visit the bright stretch of water, sleeping placidly under the June skies and dotted with glistening sails, well maintained its reputation for surpa.s.sing loveliness. Before we entered the town a man of whom we inquired the way advised us to leave our car and walk down the sharp descent to the coast, where the village mostly lies. The idea of the return trip was not pleasing, and we boldly started down, only to wish we had been more amenable to the friendly advice, for a steeper, narrower, crookeder street we did not find anywhere. In places it was too narrow for vehicles to pa.s.s abreast, and sharp turns on a very steep grade, in streets crowded with children, made the descent exceedingly trying. However, we managed to get through safely and came to a stop directly in front of the Fifteenth Century church, an astonishingly imposing structure for a village which showed more evidences of poverty than of anything else. The church was built at a time when the smugglers and wreckers of Cornwall no doubt enjoyed greater prosperity and felt, perhaps, more anxiety for their souls'

welfare than do their fisher-folk descendants.

On re-ascending the hill we stopped at the Castle for our noonday luncheon, but the castle in this instance is a fine old mansion built about a hundred years ago as a private residence and since pa.s.sed into the possession of a railway company, which has converted it into an excellent hotel. Situated as it is, in a fine park on the eminence overlooking the bay, few hostelries at which we paused seemed more inviting for a longer sojourn.

Four miles from Penzance is Marazion, and St. Michael's Mount, lying near at hand, takes its name from the similar but larger and more imposing cathedral-crowned headland off the coast of France. It is a remarkable granite rock, connected with the mainland by a strip of sand, which is clear of the water only four hours of the day. The rock towers to a height of two hundred and fifty feet and is about a mile in circ.u.mference. It is not strange that in the days of castle-building such an isolated site should have been seized upon; and on the summit is a many-towered structure built of granite and so carefully adapted to its location as to seem almost a part of the rock itself. When we reached Marazion, the receding tide had left the causeway dry, and as we walked leisurely the mile or so between the town and the mount, the water was already stealthily encroaching on the pathway. We found the castle more of a gentleman's residence than a fortress, and it was evidently never intended for defensive purposes. It has been the residence of the St. Aubyn family since the time of Charles II, and the villagers were all agog over elaborate preparations to celebrate the golden wedding anniversary of the present proprietor. The climb is a wearisome one, and we saw little of the castle, being admitted only to the entrance-hall and the small Gothic chapel, which was undergoing restoration; but the fine view from the battlements alone is worth the effort. The castle never figured in history and is remarkable chiefly for its unique location. By the time of our return the tide had already risen several feet and we were rowed to the mainland in a boat.

On our return to Truro we took the road by which we came, but on leaving there our road roughly followed the Northern Cornish coast, and at intervals we caught glimpses of the ocean. For some distance we ran through a rough moorland country, although the road was comparatively level and straight. We pa.s.sed Camelford--which some say is the Camelot of the Arthur legends--only five miles distant from the ruins of Tintagel Castle on the coast, and came early to Launceston, where the clean hospitable-looking White Hart Hotel offered strong inducements to stop for the night. A certain weariness of the flesh, resulting from our run over the last long stretch of the moorland road, was an equally important factor in influencing our action.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ON DARTMOOR.

From Water Color by Vincent.]

Launceston was one of the surprises that we frequently came across--a town that we had never heard of before and doubtless one that an American seldom sees. Yet the ma.s.sive castle, whose circular keep crowns an eminence overlooking the town, was one of the objects that loomed into view long before we reached the place, and its gloomy grandeur, as we wandered through its ruins in the fading twilight, deeply impressed us. A rude stairway led to the top of the great circular tower, rising high above the summit of the hill, which itself dominates the country, and the view stretching away in every direction was far-reaching and varied. The castle has been gradually falling into ruin for the last six hundred years, but in its palmy days it must have been one of the grimmest and most awe-inspiring of the fortresses in the west country.

Scarcely another ruin did we see anywhere more imposing in location and more picturesque in decay. Ma.s.ses of ivy clung to the crumbling walls and all around spread a beautiful park, with soft, velvety turf interspersed with shrubbery and bright dashes of color from numerous well cared-for flower beds.

Not less unique is St. Steven's church, the like of which is not to be found elsewhere in Britain. Its walls are covered with a network of fine carving, vine and flower running riot in stone, and they told us that this was done by English stonecutters, though nearly all such carving on the cathedrals was the work of artisans from the continent. The Launceston church is pointed to as an evidence that English workmen could have done quite as well had they been given the chance. Aside from this wonderful carving, which covers almost every stone of the exterior, the church is an imposing one and has lately been restored to its pristine magnificence. Launceston had its abbey, too, but this has long since disappeared, and all that now remains of it is the finely carved Norman doorway built into the entrance of the White Hart Hotel.

Our next day's run was short, covering only forty-two miles between Launceston and Exeter. For about half the distance the road runs along the edge of Dartmoor, the greatest of English moorlands. A motor trip of two or three days through the moor itself would be time well spent, for it abounds in romantic scenery. The road which we followed is a good one, though broken into numerous steep hills, but a part of the way we might as well have been traveling through a tunnel so far as seeing the country was concerned. A large proportion of the fences are made of earth piled up four or five feet high, and on the top of this ridge are planted the hedges, generally reaching three or four feet higher. There were times when we could catch only an occasional glimpse of the landscape, and if such fences were everywhere in England they would be a serious deterrent upon motoring. Fortunately, they prevail in a comparatively small section, for we did not find them outside of Cornwall and Devon. This experience served to impress on us how much we lost when the English landscapes were hidden--that the vistas which flitted past us as we hurried along were among the pleasantest features of our journey. It was little short of distressing to have mud fences shut from view some of the most fascinating country through which we pa.s.sed.

The greatest part of the day we spent in Exeter. The Rougemont Hotel, where we stopped for the night, is s.p.a.cious and comfortable, and a series of stained-gla.s.s windows at the head of the great staircase tells the story of Richard Ill's connection with Exeter; how, according to Shakespeare's play, the Rougemont of Exeter recalled to the king's superst.i.tious mind an ancient prophecy of his defeat at the hands of Richmond, later Henry VII.

Leaving Exeter early, we planned to reach Bath in the evening--only eighty-one miles over an almost perfect road--not a very long run so far as actual distance is concerned, but entirely too long considering the places of unusual interest that lie along the way. We pa.s.sed through the little town of Wellington, noted chiefly for giving his t.i.tle to the Iron Duke, and it commemorates its great namesake by a lofty column reared on one of the adjacent hills.

No town in Britain has an ecclesiastical history more important than Glas...o...b..ry, whose tradition stretches back to the very beginning of Christianity in the Island. Legend has it that St. Joseph of Arimathea, who begged the body of Christ and buried it, came here in the year 63 and was the founder of the abbey. He brought with him, tradition says, the Holy Grail; and a thorn-tree staff which he planted in the abbey grounds became a splendid tree, revered for many centuries as the Holy Thorn. The original tree has vanished, though there is a circ.u.mstantial story that it was standing in the time of Cromwell and that a Puritan who undertook to cut it down as savoring of idolatry had an eye put out by a flying chip and was dangerously wounded by his axe-head flying off and striking him. With its awe-inspiring traditions--for which, fortunately, proof was not required--it is not strange that Glas...o...b..ry for many centuries was the greatest and most powerful ecclesiastical establishment in the Kingdom. The buildings at one time covered sixty acres, and many hundreds of monks and dignitaries exerted influence on temporal as well as ecclesiastical affairs. It is rather significant that it pa.s.sed through the Norman Conquest unscathed; not even the greedy conquerors dared invade the sanct.i.ty of Glas...o...b..ry Abbey. The revenue at that time is said to have been about fifty thousand pounds yearly and the value of a pound then would equal twenty-five to fifty of our American dollars. However much the Normans respected the place, its sanct.i.ty had no terrors for the rapacious Henry VIII. The rich revenues appealed too strongly and he made a clean sweep, hanging the mitered abbot and two of his monks on the top of Tor Hill. The Abbey is the traditional burial-place of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, and four of the Saxon kings sleep in unmarked graves within its precincts.

Considering its once vast extent, the remaining ruins are scanty, although enough is left to show how imposing and elaborate it must have been in its palmy days. And there are few places in the Kingdom where one is so impressed with the spirit of the ancient order of things as when surrounded by the crumbling walls of Glas...o...b..ry Abbey.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. JOSEPH'S CHAPEL, GLAs...o...b..RY ABBEY.]

At Wells is the cathedral that gives the town an excuse for existence.

Although one of the smallest of these great English churches, it is in many respects one of the most symmetrical and beautiful. Its glory is centered chiefly in its west front, with deep b.u.t.tresses and many sculptured images of kings and saints. We had only an unsatisfactory glimpse of the interior, as services happened to be in progress. The town of Wells is a mere adjunct to the cathedral. It has no history of its own; no great family has ever lived there; and it can claim no glory as the birthplace of distinguished sons. Still it has a distinct charm as a quiet little Somersetshire town which has preserved its antiquity and fascination. Its name is taken from the natural wells still found in the garden of the Bishop's palace.

Bath, though it has the most remarkable Roman relics in the Kingdom, is largely modern. It is now a city of fifty thousand and dates its rise from the patronage of royalty a century and a half ago. It is one of the towns that a motorist could scarcely miss if he wished--so many fine roads lead into it--and I shall not attempt especial comment on a place so well known. Yet, as in our case, it may be a revelation to many who know of it in a general way but have no adequate idea of the real extent of the Roman baths. These date from 50 to 100 A.D. and indicate a degree of civilization which shows that the Roman inhabitants in Britain must have been industrious, intelligent and cleanly.

Excavations have been conducted with great difficulty, since the Roman remains lie directly under an important part of the city covered with valuable buildings. Nearly all of the baths in the vicinity of the springs have been uncovered and found in a surprising state of perfection. In many places the tiling with its mosaic is intact, and parts of the system of piping laid to conduct the water still may be traced. Over the springs has been erected the modern pump-house and many of the Roman baths have been restored to nearly their original state. In the pump-house is a museum with hundreds of relics discovered in course of excavation--sculpture, pottery, jewelry, coin and many other articles that indicate a high degree of civilization. Outside of the Roman remains the most notable thing in Bath is its abbey church, which, in impressive architecture and size, will compare favorably with many of the cathedrals. In fact, it originally was a cathedral, but in an early day the bishopric was transferred to Wells. There is no ruined fortress or castle in Bath, with its regulation lot of legends. Possibly in an effort to remedy the defect, there has been erected on one of the hills that overlook the town a structure which goes by the epithet of the Sham Castle.

On leaving Bath, we followed the fine London road as far as Chippenham, a prosperous agricultural town celebrated for its wool market. To the north of this is Malmesbury, with an abbey church whose history goes back to the Ninth Century. A portion of the nave is still used for services and is remarkable for its ma.s.sive pillars and Norman doorway, the great arch of which has perhaps a hundred rude carvings ill.u.s.trating scenes from scripture history. The strong walls of the church caused it to be used at times as a fortress, and it underwent sieges in the different wars that raged over the Kingdom. The verger pointed out to us deep indentations made by Cromwell's cannon and told us that one of the abbey's vicissitudes was its use for some years as a cloth manufacturing establishment.

From Malmesbury we followed the road through Cirencester to Cheltenham, one of the most modern-looking cities which we saw in England. Like Bath, it is famous for its springs, and a large share of its population is made up of retired officers of the army and navy. The main streets are very wide, nearly straight, and bordered in many places with fine trees. However, its beginning dates from only about 1700, and therefore it has little claim on the tourist whose heart is set upon ancient and historic things.

Of much greater interest is its neighbor, Gloucester, about twelve miles away. The two cities are almost of the same size, each having about fifty thousand people. Gloucester can boast of one of the most beautiful of the cathedrals, whether considered from its imposing Gothic exterior or its interior, rich with carvings and lighted by unusually fine stained-gla.s.s windows, one of which is declared to be the largest in the world. The cathedral was begun in 1088, but the main tower was not completed until nearly five hundred years later, which gives some idea of the time covered in the construction of many of these great churches.

Gloucester boasts of great antiquity, for it is known that the Britons had a fortified town here which they defended against the Roman attacks; and after having become possessed of it, the Romans greatly strengthened it as a defense against incursions from the Welsh tribes.

Before the Norman Conquest, it was of such importance that Edward the Confessor held his court in the town for some time. Being in the west country, it naturally was a storm-center in the parliamentary struggle, during which time a great deal of the city was destroyed. But there are many of the old portions still remaining and it has numbers of beautiful half-timbered buildings. One of these was the home of Robert Raikes, known to the world as the founder of the Sunday School. Gloucester is worthy of a longer stay than we were able to make, and in arranging an itinerary one should not fail to provide for a full day in the town.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN GLOUCESTERSHIRE.

From Water Color by A. Waters.]

From Gloucester to Ross runs an excellent highway, though rather devoid of interest. It was thronged with motorists who generally dashed along in sublime disregard of the speed limits. We pa.s.sed several who were occupied with "roadside troubles" and we were in for an hour or so ourselves, due to a refractory "vibrator." The Welsh farmers who pa.s.sed joked us good-naturedly and one said he would stick to his horse until he had money to buy a motor--then, he added, he wouldn't buy it, but would live on the income of the money. We told him that he was a man after Solomon's own heart. Suddenly the evil spirit left the car and she sprang away over the beautiful road in mad haste that soon landed us in Ross.

Ross is a pretty village, situated on a green hillside overlooking the Wye, and the tall, graceful spire of its church dominates all views of the town. Although it was growing quite late, we did not stop here, but directed our way to Monmouth, twelve miles farther on, which we reached just as the long twilight was turning into night.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DISTANT VIEW OF ROSS, SOUTH WELSH BORDER.]

VIII

THROUGH BEAUTIFUL WALES

Of no part of our tour does a pleasanter memory linger than of the five or six hundred miles on the highways of Wales. The weather was glorious and no section of Britain surpa.s.sed the Welsh landscapes in beauty. A succession of green hills, in places impressive enough to be styled mountains, sloping away into wooded valleys, with here and there a quaint village, a ruined castle or abbey, or an imposing country mansion breaking on the view--all combined to make our journey through Wales one of our most pleasing experiences. Historic spots are not far apart, especially on the border, where for centuries these brave people fought English invaders--and with wonderful success, considering the greatly superior number of the aggressors. I have already written of Ludlow and Shrewsbury on the north, but scarcely less attractive--and quite as important in early days--are the fine old towns of Hereford and Monmouth on the southern border.

We were everywhere favorably impressed with the Welsh people as being thrifty and intelligent. The roadside drinking-houses were not so numerous as in England, for the Welsh are evidently more temperate in this regard than their neighbors. My observation in this particular is borne out by an English writer well qualified to judge. He says: "There is, of a truth, very little drinking now in rural Wales. The farming cla.s.ses appear to be extremely sober. Even the village parliament, which in England discusses the nation's affairs in the village public house, has no serious parallel in Wales, for the detached cottage-renting laborer, who is the mainstay of such gatherings, scarcely exists, and the farmer has other interests to keep him at home." Evidently the Welsh farmer does attend to his business in an industrious manner, for he generally has a substantial and prosperous appearance. People with whom we engaged in conversation were always courteous and obliging and almost everything conspired to heighten our good opinion of the Welsh. The fusion with England is nearly complete and the Welsh language is comparatively little used except by the older people. King Edward has no more loyal subjects than the Welshmen, but apparently they do not greatly incline towards admitting his claims as their spiritual head.

The Church of England in Wales is greatly inferior in numbers and influence to the various nonconformist branches. This is especially true of the more rural sections.

We found Monmouth an unusually interesting town on account of its antiquity and the numerous historic events which transpired within its walls. At the King's Head Hotel, which of course afforded shelter to Charles I when he was "touring" Britain, we were able with difficulty to find accommodation, so crowded was the house with an incursion of English trippers. Monmouth's chief glory and distinction is that it was the birthplace of King Henry V, Shakespeare's Prince Hal, whom William Watson describes as

"The roystering prince that afterward Belied his madcap youth and proved A greatly simple warrior lord Such as our warrior fathers loved."