The South Devon Coast. Charles G. Harper
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at Sidmouth, who attempted to keep out the Atlantic with a mop, and failed. “She was excellent at a slop or puddle, but should never have meddled with a tempest.”
The old parish church was rebuilt, except the tower, in 1859. It was a rather wanton work, and to some minds the purely secular use made of a portion of its stones may be shocking. Those of the most sacred part of the building, the chancel, were sold and used in the erection of a singular-looking villa close at hand, named from this circumstance, “The Old Chancel.”
There can be few more charming nooks than that of Woolacombe Glen, where the cottage of Princess Victoria’s early infancy still stands; a white-fronted, long, low, rambling building set in midst of the most cool and delightful lawns and overhung by trees. But, charming though it be, the Glen is not what it was at that time, for the broad road leading down to the Esplanade is a modern innovation constructed on the site of other lawns, through which a little stream flowed to the sea. Alas! for that clear-running Woolabrook. It has been compelled into an underground pipe. And—a last little irritating pin-prick—the “Woolacombe” in the name of the glen is now shorn of the peculiarly Devonian connecting and softening a between the syllables, and has become merely “Woolcombe.” How horrid the deed, and how excruciating the thought that, if the same amputating process were extended throughout the county, we should exchange Babbacombe for “Babbcombe,” Lannacombe for “Lanncombe,” Ellacombe for “Ellcombe,” and the less lovely like of them!
High Peak, the tremendous hill and cliff that shuts in Sidmouth on the west, is well named. The road up to the top of it is a mile of exhausting gradients, with fortunately a little grassy ledge on the way, whence you look down on to a distant beach and along the pebbly coast to Ladram Bay and Otterton Point. Ladram Bay is reached either by cliff-top or along that tiring beach; or, greatly to be recommended above all other courses, by boat from Sidmouth, one of whose boatmen, with the pachydermatous hands that would scarce feel any effect from rowing fifty miles, will take you there if you give him a chance.
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