burnham—highbridge—bawdrip—“bath bricks”—the river parret

the upstart capital of these levels is burnham, but the supremacy is disputed by highbridge. now burnham and highbridge, although but a mile and a half apart, are places very different, socially and geographically. the first stands amid sands, by the seashore; the other is situated about the distance of a mile from the sea, on the muddy, sludgy banks of the river brue. burnham is a pleasure resort, of sorts, to which all the railways of somerset and dorset run frequent cheap excursions. it is the ideal of the average sunday school manager, seeking a suitable place for the school’s annual treat; for here you have sands—a little muddy perhaps, but eminently safe. it would be possible to get drowned only after superhuman exertions in finding a sufficient depth of water; unless indeed one wandered off in the direction of the brue estuary in one direction or the lonely shores of berrow in the other; where it is easily possible to be drowned in the swiftest and most effectual 112manner; as demonstrated every summer by a few rash and unfortunate bathers, who generally prove, strange to say, to be local folk, presumably well informed of the risks they run—and foolishly contemptuous of them.

highbridge is not a pleasure resort. not even a sunday school manager would fall into that error. it was once (but a time long enough ago) a place inoffensive enough; a hamlet of no particular character, good or ill, beside the river brue, and taking its name from the original humpbacked bridge that here spanned the stream; built in that manner for the purpose of allowing masted barges and other craft to pass under. that was highbridge. nowadays, the old bridge is replaced by a modern flat iron affair, and there are railway sidings and docks, and great sluice-gates to the river brue. here, too, are the engine shops and works of the somerset and dorset railway, with a large and offensive, and exceptionally blackguardly, colony of railway men, radicals and socialists to a man, and not content with holding their own views, but insistent upon imposing them upon their neighbours at election-times, with threats and violence. there are railwaymen and railwaymen, but the country in general has, as yet, little comprehension of their essentially disaffected, selfish, and dangerous character, as a body: the more dangerous in that they have largely in their power the communications of the land. we shall hear more of them some day not far distant, 113and governments will be obliged to give them a sharp lesson in social discipline.

but enough of highbridge and its forlorn, abject houses, and its paltry modern church with red and black tiled spire, apparently designed by some infantile architect. let us return to burnham, and contemplate the crowded promenade there.

weston we have seen to be a children’s paradise; but there they are largely mingled with “grownups.” here they predominate, and the vast sand-flats, that at low tide stretch out more or less oozily and muddily as you advance, some four miles, are converted for a goodly distance from the promenade wall into a manufactory of sand-castles and mud-pies. the burnham donkeys must feel a blessed relief when the season is over, for they are in great request for rides, even so far as the straddle-legged lighthouse that stands on iron posts to the north of the town; yea, and even unto the sandhills—or “tots,” as the local tongue hath it—of berrow.

all the eastern ports of the somerset coast are severely afflicted by “trippers,” who descend in their thousands upon clevedon, weston-super-mare, and burnham, not to mention the neighbouring villages. truth to tell, they are effusively welcomed at these places, at any rate by the refreshment caterers and the proprietors of swing-boats, donkeys, sailing and rowing-boats, and by the “pierrots”; but the rest of the community resent the presence of these hordes of half-day 114holiday makers, and act the superior person towards them. yet, when you hear, at any of these resorts, visitors, obviously present on sixteen days’ excursion-trip tickets, speaking disparagingly of “trippers,” you wonder really what constitutes such an one. what is that time-limit within which a holiday-maker becomes a mere “tripper,” and when does he become enlarged as one of the elect, who do not trip, but make holiday?

the definition of a tripper, in these parts, is a person who comes across the bristol channel from barry, cardiff, swansea, or any other of the south wales ports, for half a day, and “brings his nosebag with him”; or, if it be a family party of trippers, a family handbag with provisions; including a bottle of beer for mother and father, and milk for the children. thousands of these family parties came over by cheap steamboat excursions on most fine days in summer, and may be observed on the sea-front at weston and other favoured resorts, where they are apt to leave an offensive residuum of their feasts behind them, in the shape of greasy paper and pieces of fat, as often as not upon the public seats. those are the trippers.

the unfortunate person who, clad perhaps in a light summer suit (“gent’s west-end lounge suit. this style 25s.”), has unwittingly sat upon a piece of ham-fat left behind by one of these gay irresponsibles, hates the tripper thereafter with a baleful intensity. can we blame him that he 115does so? but this is only one of that half-day excursionist’s deadly sins, of which the fact that he brings merely his presence and his nosebag—and little money—into the places he favours is one of the deadliest. another is the circumstance that he is a welshman. the somerset folk do not like the welsh, who are alien from them in every possible way, and it is quite certain that the south wales colliers and dockers are not a favourable or pleasing type. thus triply—financially, racially and socially—the trippers from across the severn sea are not a success.

it is all very lively at burnham, and there is a bandstand, and there are lodging-houses and boarding-houses innumerable, and teashops, and a “park” about the area of a moderate-sized private garden. no tramways have yet appeared at burnham, but it is possible to travel expeditiously, if involuntarily and not altogether safely, and quite freely—on the banana-skins that plentifully bestrew the streets. but this form of locomotion is not altogether popular.

there is much motor-boating in these latter days off burnham, and by favour of such a craft, or by sailing-skiff, or the comparatively tedious method of rowing, you may visit steart island, off the mouths of the brue and parret. but there are no attractions on that flat isle, swimming in surrounding ooze, except at such times as winter, when the wild-fowl congregate greatly there, in the mistaken notion that they are safe from the sportsman.

116in midst of the long line of houses that closely front upon the sea, stands the ancient parish church of burnham; considerably below the level of the street. the traveller who has come from brean and berrow will at once perceive that this street and this roadway are founded upon the blown sand that has placed brean church in a similar hollow.

here, at burnham, the church-tower, of three storeys, leans as many times, this way and that, and has apparently been long in this condition, having been left so at the restoration of 1887. in the chancel remains a portion of a huge white marble altar-piece designed by inigo jones for the chapel royal, whitehall, and subsequently erected in westminster abbey by sir christopher wren. at the coronation of george iv. it was removed and placed here by dr. king, canon of westminster and vicar of burnham; and singularly cumbrous and out of place it looks still, even though parts of it have been removed, to afford much-needed room.

leaving burnham behind, and then highbridge, we come to huntspill level, with the square, massive tower of huntspill church prominent against the skyline, on the right hand. the road, worn into saucer-shaped holes by excess of motor-traffic, goes straight and flat across the level, with pollard willows and stagnant, duck-weedy ditches on either side, and so through the wayside hamlet of west huntspill: a naturally slovenly, out-at-elbows place, not improved by 117being nowadays thickly coated with motor-dust.

huntspill.

and so to pawlett (locally “pollitt”) consisting of an old church and half-a-dozen houses on a slight knoll, overlooking miles of flat pasturelands, said to be the very richest in somerset. proceeding in the direction of bridgwater, the sedgemoor drain, chief of the many cuts, large and small, that prevent the moor from being inundated, is crossed at the point where it falls into the river parret. here is the level expanse known as horsey slime. it is not a pretty name. dunball railway-station stands on the left, and the distance in that direction is closed by the polden hills, crowned by a ready-made ruined castle, built some sixty years ago, yet looking perfectly romantic and baronial, so long as this distressing fact of its appalling modernity is not 118disclosed. over those strangers and pilgrims from far lands who, landing at plymouth, and travelling to paddington per great western railway for the first time, catch a momentary glimpse of this fictitious fortalice, before the engine dashes with a demoniac yelp into the dunball tunnel, there comes a feeling that they have at last entered a region of romance. they have indeed, but not in respect of that castle, at any rate. it is painful to be confronted with the necessity for such a revelation, but the honest topographer sees his duty plain before him—and does it, no matter the cost!

in the levels beneath the hills crowned by this sham castle lies bawdrip, a village of the very smallest and most retiring agricultural type, with a little early english cruciform church, remarkable for the finely sculptured female heads and headdresses of wimple and coif on the capitals of the four pillars supporting the central tower. restoration has left the building particularly neat and tidy and singularly bare of monuments. bawdrip church, however, contains a monumental inscription which includes a mysterious allusion that has never yet been properly explained; and probably never will be. the small black marble slab setting forth this inscription in the ornate latinity of the seventeenth century might well escape the scrutiny of the keenest antiquary, for it is built into the wall in a most unusual situation, behind the altar. it is a comprehensive epitaph to edward and eleanor lovell and their 119two daughters, eleanor and mary, erected here to their memory by the husband of the daughter eleanor, who, singularly enough, omits his own name. done into english, it runs as follows:

“edward lovell married eleanor bradford, by whom he had two daughters, eleanor and mary. both parents were sprung from batcombe, in this county of somerset, from a noble family, and reflected no less honour on their ancestry than they received from it. eleanor, a most devoted mother, as well as a most faithful wife, exchanged this life for the heavenly, april 20, 1666. mary followed her, a most obedient daughter, and a maiden of notable promise, may 11, 1675. edward, the father, m.a. and fellow of jesus college, cambridge, also rector of this church for fourteen years, a most praiseworthy man, received the reward of his learning, september 1, 1671. lastly eleanor, the daughter, heiress of the family honour and estate, died june 14, 1681. her most sorrowing husband mourned her, taken away by a sudden and untimely fate at the very time of the marriage celebration, and to the honour and holy memory of her parents, her sisters, and his most amiable wife, wished this monument to be put up.”

tradition associates the sudden death of the bride with the story of “the mistletoe bough,” made popular many years ago by haynes bayley’s woeful song of that name, worked up by him from ancient legends current in many parts of the country. the legend he versified was that of the 120fair young bride of one “lovel,” apparently the son of a medi?val baron, who, playing hide-and-seek in the revels of her wedding-day, hid in an ancient chest, and was imprisoned there by a spring lock. that it was at christmas-time we are assured by haynes bayley’s verses, which tell us that:

the baron’s retainers were blithe and gay,

keeping their christmas holiday.

unavailing search was made for the missing bride:

and young lovel cried, o! where dost thou hide?

i’m lonely without thee, my own dear bride.

the spring lock that lay in ambush in the old chest imprisoned her there securely, and her body was not discovered in the life of lovel. to quote again from haynes bayley:

at length an old chest that had long lain hid

was found in the castle—they raised the lid;

a skeleton form lay mouldering there,

in the bridal wreath of that lady fair.

oh! sad was her fate! in sportive jest

she hid from her lord in that old oak chest.

it closed with a spring, and her bridal bloom

lay withering there in a living tomb.

but who was the “baron” and who “lovel,” and where they resided, or when they flourished we are not informed. curiously enough, however, a viscount lovel disappeared in something the same manner. this was that francis, viscount lovel, who fought ex parte the impostor, lambert 121simnel, at stoke, and disappeared after the defeat of the pretender’s cause on that day. his fate remained a mystery until 1708, when, in the course of some works in the ruins of what had been his ancestral mansion at minster lovel, in oxfordshire, a secret underground chamber was discovered, in which was found the skeleton of a man identified with him. it was thought that he had taken refuge there, in that locked room, and was attended to by a retainer who, possibly, betrayed his trust and left his master to starve; or who, perhaps, was himself slain in some affray during those troubled times. the repetition of the name of lovell is at any rate curious.

now across the levels rise the distant houses of bridgwater town, and the slim spire of its church. the long flat road, of undeviating directness, points directly towards the place. hedgerow and other trees dispose themselves casually, without ordered plan, on either hand, and a railway crosses the highway, diagonally, on a bridge and embankment. the scene is absolutely negative and characterless: neither beautiful nor absolutely ugly: the very realisation, one would say, of the commonplace. as you proceed, a distant grouping of masts and spars proclaims the fact of navigable water being near at hand, and then groups of factory chimneys, smoking vigorously, loom up. these are the most outstanding marks of bridgwater’s only prominent manufacture: the manufacture of “bath bricks.” every housewife knows what is meant by “bath 122brick.” with this article of commerce and domestic economy knives are cleaned, brass fenders and candlesticks and coppers are scoured, and much other metal-work brought to brightness. but it is not made at bath. at only one place in the world—and that bridgwater—is the so-called “bath brick” brought into being: the reason of this monopoly of manufacture lying in the fact that the material of which it is made is found only here in the mud of the river parret. but only in a stretch of some three miles of that river’s course is found the peculiarly composed mud of which this aid to domestic cleanliness is compacted. equally above and below the town, within those strictly-defined limits, the rise and fall of the tide amalgamates the river mud, and the seashore sand in just the right proportions for the scouring properties of “bath brick.” at a further distance above the town, the mud that renders the parret’s banks so unlovely becomes merely slime; while, as the sea is more nearly approached, the proportion of sharp sand in it destroys the binding character of the mud, and would render bricks made of the amalgam there found very destructive to cutlery and other ware unfortunate enough to be scoured by it.

why these “bricks,” made only at bridgwater, should be given the name of “bath,” and not that of the town where they originate, is a mystery at this lapse of time not likely to be solved. the most plausible explanation offered is that when these bricks were first made they 123were stored and “handled,” as a commercial man might say, at bath.

the mud from which the bricks are made is collected quite simply, but ingeniously, in pens carefully constructed along the parret’s banks. these “slime-batches,” as they are named, are brick-built enclosures, so arranged that the mud-charged tide flows into them at every flood, the mud settling down during the interval of ebb. thus with every recurring tide a new deposit is added; the “batches” being filled in the course of two or three months, according to the time of year. this accumulation, grown hard in all this time, is dug out, generally in the winter, and removed to the banks, whence it is taken as required to the pug-mills, in which it is mixed with water and thus tempered to a putty-like consistency. then it is ready for the moulder, that is to say, the actual brickmaker, who, after the identical fashion followed by the moulder of ordinary bricks, takes his lumps of material, throws them into a wooden framework made to the gauge of a brick, scrapes off the surplus clay from the top and pushes the raw brick aside, as one of a rapidly growing row. the rapidity with which a moulder does his work is astonishing to the unaccustomed onlooker. a workman of average excellence can thus shape four hundred bricks an hour.

the clammy slabs of clay thus formed are then taken by the “bearer-off” and placed in the “hacks”—that is to say, long stands—with 124a slight tile roofing, to dry. the tiled protection is to shield the unbaked bricks from being partly dissolved by possible rainstorms.

the final operations are the stacking into kilns and the burning, carried out precisely in the same manner as the burning of bricks to be used in building.

the river parret—in the anglo-saxon chronicle styled “pedridan”—is in other ways a river of considerable importance to north somerset. like the avon at bristol, it runs out towards the sea in its last few miles more like a deep and muddy gutter at low water than in the likeness of a river; but the parret mud, as we have already seen, is at least useful, and a source of wealth to bridgwater; and shipping of considerable tonnage, bringing chiefly coals from south wales, and deals from norway, comes up the estuary to bridgwater’s quays.

the parret is about thirty miles in length, rising some two miles within the dorset border, near south perrot, which, together with the two widely sundered small towns, or large villages, of north and south petherton, and perhaps the village of puriton also, takes its name from the river. in common with several other streams on either side of the bristol channel—with, of course, the river severn at their head—it is subject to a tidal wave, known as “the bore.” this is caused by the very great ebb and flow of the tide, here so much as thirty-six feet at springs. the flood tide comes up the deep and narrow estuary 125from the outer channel with such swiftness, and is so laterally compressed that a gradual rise is impossible and the water comes surging up as a great and formidable wave, like a wall, from five to six feet in height. at such times when westerly gales or spring tides prevail, the bore easily rises to nine feet in height. it is always an impressive spectacle, seen from the river bank; and viewed from a boat, even when the craft is managed by a boatman accustomed to this phenomenon, is more than a little alarming. it sufficiently scared the french prisoners of war, confined by the riverside in an old factory, known as the “glass house” and nowadays a pottery, from any serious attempts at escaping by water.