Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and CoastsNorthcote, Rosalind
History
Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts
Northcote, Rosalind
Devon (England)
A short distance below the Abbey, the Tavy, now broadened into a wide
but still shallow stream, ripples and hurries over the pebbles in a deep
valley between wooded hills. Returning to Tavistock and going up the
river, one arrives at the pretty and very remote village of Peter Tavy.
The houses are scattered about in an irregular group, a stream runs
through them to join the Tavy, and just above the wide bridge the brook
divides, flowing each side of a diamond-shaped patch, green with long
grass and cabbages. A steep slope leads up to the little church, which
stands back, and a tiny avenue of limes leads up to it from the
lichgate. The tower is battlemented, and the church must have been
partly rebuilt, for parts of it are early English and the rest late
Perpendicular. Within are slender clustered columns, supporting wide
arches, and different designs are sculptured on the sides of the granite
font.
Close by is a glen, which Mrs Bray says, 'I have ventured to name the
Valley of Waterfalls, on account of the vast number of small but
exquisitely beautiful falls seen there.' A narrow lane with high hedges
leads round the shoulder of the hill to the steep little valley, where
the Tavy jostles against obstructive boulders, and a high, narrow,
unstable-looking bridge of tarred timber (sometimes called a 'clam'
bridge) crosses the stream. Climbing up on the farther side, the road
soon reaches the village of Mary Tavy. In reference to these villages a
very old joke is told of a Judge unacquainted with these parts who, in
trying a case, not unnaturally confused the names with those of
witnesses, and ordered that Peter and Mary Tavy be brought into court.
Mary Tavy has not the unusual attractiveness of Peter Tavy. It looks
barer, and is overshadowed by that peculiarly comfortless air always
given by chimneys or machinery of mines. The church stands above the
road, and beside it a large old tree, whose lower branches are so
abundantly covered with polypody that the fronds hang like long fringes
from either side of each branch. The porch has a white groined ceiling,
crossed with fragments of the old timber roof, on which are bosses
carved in different designs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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