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)
Grandisson was a man very Romanly inclined, and appointed to a see
that was redolent with Celtic reminiscences. He did not relish
these. Whenever he had the chance of rededicating a church he
endeavoured to substitute a patron from the Roman calendar in place
of the British founder. He drew up a Legendarium, a book of Lessons
on Saints' Feasts to be used in the Cathedral Church, and ignored
nearly every saint whose name was not approved by admission into the
Latin martyrology.
"The Church of Exeter is a remarkable case of one general
design being carried out through more than a hundred years.
It was fixed once for all what the new Saint Peter's should
be like, and it grew up after one general pattern, but with a
certain advance in detail as the work went westward. Bishop
Grandison, when the church was about half built, said that when
it was finished it would surpass in beauty all churches of its
own kind in England and France. Whatever he meant by '_genus
suum_,' the prediction was safely risked. As far as outline
and general effect goes, the Church of Exeter forms a class by
itself."--FREEMAN.
A more remarkable church than the Cathedral of Exeter is that of
Ottery S. Mary, also built by Grandisson. It is, of course, not by
any means so large. It gave, perhaps, the original type to Exeter,
for there also the towers have been employed as transepts, and was
begun in the Early English style. But there a stateliness and an
originality of effect are reached that Exeter cannot approach.
There the side aisles have but lancet windows, and a flood of light
pours down through the very original clerestory lights. There is
no east window. What the general effect must have been before the
levels were wantonly altered at the "restoration" one can now hardly
surmise. But the church, in spite of this and some odiously vulgar
woodwork, is one of the most striking in England, and perhaps the
boldest in originality of conception.
The Guildhall, in High Street, is a good example of Elizabethan
architecture, in bad stone.
A beautiful excursion may be made from Exeter to Fingle Bridge,[10]
on the Teign, where the river winds between the hills densely
wooded with coppice, that close in on each other like the fangs of
a rat-trap. With this may be combined Shilstone cromlech, the sole
perfect specimen of the kind remaining in the county, and once but a
single member in a series of very remarkable monuments.
[10] _Ffin_--limit, _gal_--the level land, _i.e._ in comparison with
the Dartmoor highlands.
The Teign is frowned down on by several strongly fortified camps.
Fingle should be seen when the hills are clothed in flowering
heather, as though raspberry cream had been spilt over them. White
heather may be picked there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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