A book of the west. Volume 1, Devon : $b being an introduction to Devon and CornwallBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
A book of the west. Volume 1, Devon : $b being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Devon (England)
Torbrian, situated in a lovely spot, has fine screenwork
and monuments of the Petres. The three Wells, Coffinswell,
Kingskerswell, and Abbotskerswell, lie together. At Kingskerswell
are some old monumental effigies of the Prowse family. At
Abbotskerswell are a screen, and a large statue of the Blessed
Virgin in a niche of the window splay. This latter had been
plastered over into one great bulk; when the plaster was removed
the statue was revealed. The very fine Jacobean altar-rails were
removed at the "restoration," to make place for something utterly
uninteresting. Here there is an early and interesting church-house.
The church-house was the building in which the parishioners from a
distance spent a rainy time between morning service and vespers. The
house was divided by a floor into two storeys, that above for women,
that below for the men. Here were also held the church ales, that
is to say, the ale brewed by the wardens and sold to defray church
expenses. The ale was also supplied on Sundays by the clerk to those
who tarried for evensong, and so, little by little, most of these
old church-houses degenerated into taverns.
Abbotskerswell is the seat of the Aller pottery art manufacture,
started by the late Mr. John Phillips, with the object of providing
the village young men with remunerative work at their own homes.
But about this presently. The story of the inception of the work is
interesting.
Coffinswell still possesses its holy well, that is called the "Lady
Well," used by young girls for fortune-telling.
At some little distance from this spring lies a nameless grave in
unconsecrated ground, where is buried a lady banished holy ground
for her sins. Every New Year's morn, after the stroke of midnight,
she rises and takes "one cock's stride" towards the churchyard,
which, when she reaches, she will find rest, and her hope is to be
found therein--at the crack of doom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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