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)
Adjoining the widow's cottage was another untenanted, like it
consisting of a single apartment on the ground floor. It became
necessary to rent this, knock a door through the wall, and combine
the cottages. The second room was turned into a workshop, with a
carpenter's bench and a chest of tools.
Out of the first art school in the one well-parish grew two others,
one in each of the other well-parishes. Coffinswell has but a
population of a hundred souls, nevertheless its art school has been
frequented by as many as twelve pupils. Sixty is the highest number
reached by the three together, which are now combined to maintain an
efficient art instructor.
It fell out that a stoneware pottery in the Aller vale was burnt
down in 1881, and when reconstructed the proprietor, who had
cordially promoted the art classes, resolved on converting what
had been a factory of drain and ridge tiles into a terra-cotta
manufactory, in which some of the more promising pupils might
find employ, and in which the knowledge and dexterity acquired in
the class might be turned to practical uses. A single experienced
potter was engaged, a gipsy, to start the affair, as there was no
local tradition as to the manufacture of crocks upon which to go.
The classes were from the outset for boys and girls together, and
though recently there has been a change in this arrangement, the
young women coming in the afternoon, and the young men in the
evening, this alteration has been made owing to increase of numbers,
not in consequence of any rudeness or impropriety, for such there
had not been in the ten years of the career of the school. In this
case the experience has been precisely the same as that of the mixed
schools and colleges of the United States.
There is one thing that a visitor to Torquay is certain to carry
away with him if he has made excursions on foot about it--some of
its red soil. The roads, in spite of the County Council, are bad,
for the material of which they are made is soft. But what a soil
it is for flowers and for fruit! Anything and everything will grow
there and run wild. Stick a twig into the earth, and it is bound to
grow. As for roses and violets, they run riot there. And, taken on
the whole, the visitor who has been to Torquay is almost sure to
carry away with him something beside the red mud, something quite as
adhesive--pleasant memories of the place and its balmy air.
CHAPTER XVII.
TOTNES
The legend of Brutus--Derivation of the name--Castle--The
charter--Old houses--Piazzas--The church--The screen--Dartington
Hall--Little Hempston Rectory--Old gate--Priory--Berry Pomeroy.
What a pity it is that the dear old legends that lie at the root
of history have been dissipated! That we can no longer believe in
Romulus and Remus and the she-wolf--no, not even when the Lupercale
remains on the side of the Palatine Hill, after the palaces of
Augustus, of Tiberius, of Caligula, of Septimius Severus, have been
levelled with the dust.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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