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)
Several early fonts remain of Norman style, and even in some
cases perhaps earlier. The finest Norman fonts are Stoke Canon,
Alphington, S. Mary Steps (Exeter), Hartland, and Bere Ferrers. In
the west, about the Tamar, one particular pattern of Norman font was
reproduced repeatedly; and it is found in several churches. There
are a number of village crosses remaining, a very fine one at South
Zeal; also at Meavy, Mary Tavy, Staverton, Sampford Spiney, Holne,
Hele, and some extremely rude on Dartmoor.
There was a churchyard cross at Manaton. The Rev. C. Carwithen, who
was rector, found that the people carried a coffin thrice round it,
the way of the sun, at a funeral; although he preached against the
usage as superstitious, they persisted in doing so. One night he
broke up the cross, and removed and concealed the fragments. It is a
pity that the cross did not fall on and break his stupid head.
It is interesting to observe how late the Perpendicular style
maintained itself in the West. At Plymouth is Charles Church,
erected after the Restoration, of late Gothic character. So also
are there aisles to churches, erected after the Reformation, of
debased style, but nevertheless distinctly a degeneration of the
Perpendicular.
In domestic architecture this is even more noticeable.
Granite-mullioned windows and four-centred doorways under square
hoods, with shields and flowers in the spandrels, continued in use
till the beginning of the eighteenth century.
A very large number of old mansions, belonging to the squirearchy of
Elizabethan days, remain. The Devonshire gentry were very numerous,
and not extraordinarily wealthy. They built with cob, and with
oak windows, or else in stone with granite mullions, but neither
material allowed of great splendour. A house in granite cost about
three times as much as one of a like size in brick.
The mansions are too numerous to be mentioned. One who is desirous
of seeing old houses should provide himself with an inch to the
mile Ordnance Survey map, and visit such houses as are inserted
thereon in Old English characters. Unhappily, although this serves
as a guide in Cornwall, the county of Devon has been treated in a
slovenly manner, and in my own immediate neighbourhood, although
such a fine example existed as Sydenham House, it remained
unnoticed; and the only two mansions indicated in Old English were a
couple of ruins, uninhabited, that have since disappeared. Where the
one-inch fails recourse must be had to the six-inch map.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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