An ugly place--Its charm in the air--Stratton--The battle of Stamford Hill--Churches--Norman remains--Frescoes at Poughill--Pancras Week--Bench-ends--Tonnacombe--Marhayes--Old Stowe--Church towers--Landmarks--The candle-end in Bridgerule Church--Bridget churches--The clover-field--Ogbeare Hall--Whitstone--Camps--Thomasine Bonaventura--Week S. Mary--The coast about Bude--Morwenstow--Robert S. Hawker--One of his ballads. An unpicturesque, uninteresting place, wind-blown, treeless, but with sands--not always obtainable on the north coast--and with noble cliff scenery within easy reach. There is nothing commendable in the place itself; the houses are as ugly as tasteless builders could contrive to erect; the church is of the meanest cheap Gothic of seventy years ago; but the air is exhilarating, the temperature is even, there are golf-links, and a shore for bathers. [Illustration: BUDE] Nestling in a valley by a little stream newly designated the “Strat,” as though Stratton were called from the stream and not the street--the Roman road that runs through it--is the parent town, crouching with its hair ruffled, and casting a sidelong, dissatisfied eye at its pert and pushing offspring, Bude. But Stratton has no reason to be discontented. It is sheltered from the furious gales, which Bude is not; it has trees and flowers about it, which Bude has not; it has a fine parish church, which Bude has not; and it has a history, deficient to Bude, which is a parvenu, and self-assertive accordingly. And Stratton further has got its battlefield. The height above the town was the scene of one of those encounters in which the Royalist forces for Charles I. were successful. The following description of the battle is from Professor Gardiner’s _History of the Great Civil War_:--[11] “The Earl of Stamford placed himself at the head of the army under his command, and resolved on carrying the war into Cornwall. As he could dispose of 6800 men, whilst Hopton and the Cornish leaders at Launceston had with them less than half the number, he determined to despatch the greater part of his horse to Bodmin in order to suppress any attempt to muster the trained bands there. With his infantry and a few remaining horse he established himself near Stratton, in the extreme north-west of the county, in a position apparently strong enough to secure him from attack, at least till his cavalry returned.