clovelly—“up along” and “down along”—the “new inn”—appreciative americans—the quay pool—the herring fishery

clovelly has been thought by some to have a roman origin, and its name to derive from clausa vallis. the ingenuity of this derivation compels our admiring attention, even if it does not win our agreement. ptolemy styled hartland point the “point of hercules,” and barnstaple is thought to have been the roman artavia; but no evidence of any kind associates clovelly with those times. the great triple-ditched prehistoric earthworks at clovelly cross, where the road down to the village branches from the highway, point to some ancient people having been settled here and greatly concerned to defend the place; but the history of clovelly dykes, or “ditchens,” as they are called, will never be written. clovelly’s name almost certainly derives from words meaning “the cliff place,” the site of it being amazingly cloven down the face of the steep cliffs that on either hand present a bold front to the sea. the force that carved out this astonishing cleft was the same209 that has fashioned the many combes and “mouths” along this coast; an impetuous stream rushing from the inland heights. indeed, the cobble-stoned stairs that form the footpath of clovelly’s “street,” descending hundreds of feet to the beach, now represent what remained until modern times the bed of that streamlet. it poured down210 here from the cliff-top, and the curious overhanging terraces of the “new inn,” and most of the cottages are survivals of its banks. this stream was diverted half a mile to the east, and now flows through the hobby drive and over the face of the cliff at freshwater cascade.

clovelly, from the hobby drive.

the population of clovelly is almost entirely seafaring: or rather, the men are fisherfolk, and the men’s wives have for years past found a second string to the domestic bow in letting bedrooms and providing refreshments for visitors; so that when circumstances forbid the chase of the herring there is not likely to be that empty cupboard at home, which is apt to vex the lives and haunt the imaginations of the fisherfolk of most other seaboard places. what competition there is in this ministering to visitors is necessarily very limited, because clovelly itself is unexpanding. what it was sixty or seventy years ago, that it remains in almost every detail to-day. it is the manorial appanage of clovelly court, standing up in its broad park on the cliff-top; and has been since the earliest times. in domesday we find it the property, among innumerable other manors, of queen matilda, wife of william the conqueror. down the centuries occur the names of giffards, stantons, and mandevilles, as owners; and in the reign of richard the second it became the property of sir john cary, by purchase.

the oldest part of the church is norman, but of those older lords of clovelly no record survives. they are as though they had never existed. sir211 walter robert cary is the oldest represented here, on a brass dated 1540. other carys survive in epitaph: william, who died in 1652, aged 76, who (it is claimed for him) not only served “three princes, queen elizabeth, king james, and king charles i.,” but his generation as well; and sir “robert cary, kt. (sonne and heyre of william), gentleman of the privy chamber vnto king charles ii., who, having served faithfully the glorious prince, charles i., in the long civil warr against his rebellious subjects, and both him and his sonne as justice of the peace, died a bachelor, in the 65th yeare of his age, an. dom. 1675. peritura perituris relique.” and so at last to the williams family and the hamlyns.

in the days of those older lords, when the country was thinly populated, travel a penance, and the delights of the picturesque unthought of, clovelly of course did not grow; and in our own times, now that beauty of situation is an asset and distinctly a factor in the value of land, and projectors of railways and hotels are currently reported to have eyes upon desirable sites, the hamlyns have resisted all offers. so clovelly will probably long remain unspoiled.

it has two inns, the old “new inn,” up-along, as we say here, and the “red lion,” “down tu kaay”—not, please, “down upon the key,” after the style and pronunciation of the outer world. if one could conceive such a fantastic thing in clovelly as a street directory, it would consist almost wholly of those features, “up-along,”212 “down-along,” north hill, and quay. “the new inn and hotel,” as it now styles itself, does so with some show of reason, for the original “new inn”—when it was new i cannot conceive—still stands upon one side of the road, and a really new building has been erected opposite: the “hotel” referred to in the new style, without doubt. there, in the larger rooms of modern ideas, guests breakfast, lunch, or dine, and those unfortunate ones who cannot be accommodated with a bedroom in the old house across the way, sleep. unfortunate, i say, because at clovelly one wants to fare after the old style. for years familiar (as thousands of people who have never been to clovelly must be) with the well-known view of the street showing the “new inn” and the quaint little soldier and sailor mannikins that serve as windmills on its projecting sign, had i cherished a resolution to stay in the old hostelry; and it had now at last come to pass. up narrow, twisting stairs was my bedroom, looking out, through clusters of roses, upon the street; and being thus gratified in the main object, it was a small matter that i breakfasted and dined in the new building across the way.

“up-along,” clovelly.

i shall say nothing of the fare of the “new inn,” except that it is of the best a typically devonian farm could produce, and what better would you or could you, than that? both houses, old and new—the old, with its snug little old-fashioned bar-parlour, as tiny and as full of corners and cupboards as a ship’s cabin, and the213 new, with its large dining-room—are full to overflowing with the most amazing collection of china, old brass candlesticks, kettles, pestles and mortars, and all sorts of old-fashioned domestic utensils, accumulated in the course of many years at auction or private sales. you sit down to table in that dining-room as though you were dining in a china-shop. some of the china is old and valuable, and a good deal is neither the one nor214 the other. by the odd decoration of the ceiling, representing the british “union jack” and the u. s. “old glory” in amity, you might suspect—if you did not already know it by the accents of fellow-guests—that the bulk of those who seek the hospitality of the “new inn” are citizens of the united states; but that is no reason why a briton should be guilty of such abject sentiments as those inscribed between the two flags—not “something proud and vain,” as the foremost modern novelist of the servants’-hall might say, but something mean and cringing, to the effect that it is hoped the united states will always remain friendly and not attack the mother country. to how many citizens of the united states is england the mother country? this is an age when americans of british descent are in a minority among a huge population of cosmopolitan european immigrants, largely consisting of russian and german jews, hungarians, and italians. the people of clovelly, it may be supposed, naturally seeing only those of british descent, are ignorant of that fact. and, as for being the object of attack, if that happened, could we not hold our own?

meanwhile, the citizens of that republic who find their way here are delightful, inasmuch as they themselves are so frankly delighted. england is such a new experience to most of them, and, whether it be a new england schoolmarm from pottsville, or a pork-packing multi-millionaire from chicago, you can clearly see that he and she215 are as pleased as children. some of them, too, are na?vely ignorant of quite the most commonplace things. it was on north hill, and an old fisherman was talking to me and hoeing his garden the while. a very charming girl came along and, looking over the garden wall, said, in the american language, “my! what curious flowers those are. what are they?”

“them’s tetties, miss,” replied the old man.

she looked puzzled. “potatoes,” i translated.

and so they were; potatoes in flower. and it was from america that raleigh introduced the vegetable, over three hundred years ago!

those transatlantic cousins in summer pervade clovelly. everywhere you hear it to be “purrfectly lovely,” or “real ullegant,” or may catch some one “allowing” it to be “vurry pretty,” or even a “cunning little place.” sometimes they rhapsodise; and when they write down their names in the “new inn” visitors’ book, they write much else in the appreciative sort. i wish my own countrymen were in general as appreciative of the good things in scenery and antiquities as the generality of our american visitors—and yet, on second thoughts, i don’t; because we who do love them would be lost in the sudden overwhelming swirl of humanity, and the things delightful would be finally spoiled, beyond recall.

sign of the “new inn,” clovelly.

to examine an accumulated pile of those books is to note that at least three-quarters of those who stay here are americans. “if it were not for them,” they say at the inn in particular, and in216 the village in general, “we could not go on.” a traveller from the united states, with his womenkind, is generally in a hurry, but if he visits clovelly at all, he is, at any rate, almost certain to stay overnight. often he comes with a motor-car, left at the stables far above. english holiday-makers, on the other hand, are most largely made up of steamboat excursionists, come for an hour or two. you may see them landing in row-boats, and coming straggling up-along, gazing in wonderment this way and that, and then going off again, quite content with this hurried impression. not theirs the wish to know what clovelly is like in early morning, or to witness daylight fade away in that unique street, and the lights of the cottages217 come out, above and below. i need not add that they certainly do not know clovelly with a full knowledge.

of those who record their stay in the visitors’ book at the “new inn,” a large proportion add remarks, and some even indite verse. it is not great verse, as witness the following:

clovelly

“a heaven on earth,

a haven for the weary,

where nature’s glory hath no dearth,

where life may not be dreary.”

a caustic comment upon this by a later traveller shows that not even clovelly may please all tastes. “my life”—so carps the abandoned wretch—“would be very dreary if i staid here long.”

the soldier and sailor who occupy the projecting signpost of the “new inn,” and whose arms, revolving in the breeze like windmills, are finished off like cricket-bats, have been there just a hundred years, as you may perhaps see from their costumes. they are now held together chiefly by dint of many successive coats of paint.

beneath, coming up or going down, clatter the donkeys with their laden crooks—the last survivals of the pack-horse era—for wheels are unknown at clovelly, and whether it be luggage, or coals, or sand, or vegetables to be conveyed, it is some patient, sure-footed “neddy” that does the carrying, on his long-suffering back. on the way they brush past the218 artists, who are generally to be found calmly seated at their easels in the middle of the thoroughfare; for artists are privileged persons here, and so plentiful that no one takes the least notice of them, and no curiosity is ever shown as to whether they be painting well or ill. and every visitor who is not an artist, has a photographic camera of sorts; so that, in one way or another, a good many incorrect representations of clovelly are taken away in the course of the year.

a clovelly donkey.

halfway down to the sea, between this steeply descending line of white houses—every one of them old, except that modern annexe of the “new inn”—is the sharp turn where a breast-high rough stone wall, commanding view’s over the sea,219 is known as “the look out.” immediately below, the road runs under one of the old houses, called “temple bar,” and thereafter goes zigzagging “down tu kaay.”

“temple bar.”

the quay and the quay pool compose the most miniature of harbours: the quay itself being a small but massive masonry pier, with a lower walk, an upper walk, and a breast-wall, curving out from a narrow strand. at high tide the water220 off this pier looks so deep, and the waves rage with such fury, that it is with something the effect of a dramatic revelation you find the ebb capable of receding so far as to leave pier and pool alike quite dry, and the boats all canted at absurd helpless angles.

the quay, clovelly.

over this little scene, the tall, sheer, tree-fringed cliff of gallantry bower protrudes a sheltering shoulder; the smoke from clovelly chimneys on still days ascending perpendicularly against its dark green background, with a comforting, cosy sense of snug homesteads, sufficient though humble. the “red lion” stands prominently here, an odd building with something of a swiss suggestion, and a tunnel through its heavy mass leading to a cobble-stoned courtyard, where you see an upturned221 boat or two, a scatter of domestic fowls searching for grains, and making shift with seaweed; and perhaps one of those patient, all-enduring little clovelly donkeys, submitting to be loaded up with a heavy sack by a burly fisherman, who looks distinctly the better able of the two to hump the burden.

back of the “red lion,” clovelly.

along the wall of the “red lion,” facing the pool, runs a bench, full in the sun, and there the fishermen of clovelly sit. they sit there so long222 and so often that they have little conversation: their pipes and the mere supporting presence of each other appearing to be quite satisfying. we may not believe altogether in the alleged roman origin of clovelly, but i saw a fisherman, one of the company on this bench, whose clean-shaven face was the very counterpart of julius c?sar’s.

clovelly fishermen are famed for their endurance and clovelly herrings for their flavour. all through the west the fame of these herrings has gone forth. yarmouth and lowestoft may measure the catch of herring by the “last.” clovelly reckons so many “maise.” a “maise” is 612, and is arrived at as follows: three herrings make one “cast,” i.e. a handful: fifty cast, with an odd cast thrown in, equal the scriptural “miraculous draught,” and make one maund, and four maunds equal 612 fish = a “maise.”

buildings—not merely the old limekiln that looks like a defensible blockhouse, but dwelling-houses also—come down to the very margin of “kaay pule”: in particular the strangely picturesque cottage, with balcony perilously strutted out from its walls, known as “crazy kate’s,” or rather “craazy kaate.” the fishermen affect a supreme ignorance and indifference about “crazy kate.” if you ask them, they will look enquiry at one another—and will know nothing as to the name, which appears on every one of those picture-postcards that are sold, literally, by the ton every season. it is an odd discourtesy; the fact being that every one in clovelly is perfectly well acquainted223 with the legend which tells how one kate lyall, who lived here many years ago, lost her sweetheart and went “maazed”—as we say in the west.

the “hobby drive” is one of the most charming features of clovelly. it is a two and a half miles’ cliff drive, branching off from the main road at a lodge-gate, where one pays fourpence for the privilege of traversing that glorious winding-way turning and twisting back upon itself at hairpin corners, in negotiating the contours of the cliffs. it was a “hobby” of its constructor, hence the name. from this fern-bordered tree-shaded drive are obtained the finest peeps of clovelly, down there hundreds of feet below: a toy port, an artist’s dream, a—in fact anything rather than the reality it seems, so dainty and exquisite is the view.