The North Devon CoastHarper, Charles G. (Charles George)
History
The North Devon Coast
Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
Devon (England) -- Description and travel
Lee Abbey, occupying the site of the old manor-house of the Wichehalse
family, is an abbey only in name and venerable only in appearance,
having been built in 1850. But although “Abbey” be merely a fanciful
name, and although there yet remain people who have seen the building
of the entire range of mansion and outworks, the ivied entrance-tower
and enclosing walls have so truly mediæval an appearance, that many
people are entirely deceived, and, not seeking to inform themselves,
dream wonderfully romantic dreams of “the old monks” and their
religious life in this secluded spot, and live ever afterwards in happy
ignorance of the deception. Lee “Abbey” is, in fact, nothing more than
a very charming country residence, designed to fit an exceptionally
beautiful site.
High above it is the woody hill with look-out tower overhanging that
spot on Duty Point called “Jennifrid’s Leap,” of which we have already
heard, and down below is the loveliest little bay--Lee Bay--with
Wooda Bay opening out beyond it, and the little tumbled headland of
Crock Point and the swelling, scrub-covered hillside of Bonhill Top
in between. To style the little promontory Crock Point is entirely
correct, for it was the scene of a landslip somewhere about 1796, when,
one Sunday morning, the hillside fields, with their standing crops
of wheat, suddenly slid down to the sea in utter ruin. This was due
partly to the percolation of landsprings acting upon the clay, and the
clay-digging that had for some while been in progress, for shipment
to Holland. The names, “Crock Point” and “Crock Meads,” probably allude
to this old digging for pottery uses.
[Illustration: LEE “ABBEY.”]
Lee Bay looks like the choicest site in some delectable Land of Heart’s
Desire. Down goes the road, through another gate and past the most
entirely picturesque and well-constructed lodge I have ever seen, and
so out of this private domain. Here a shady valley welcomes the heated
traveller; a valley where everything but the generous trees, and the
cool shade they spread, is in miniature. A little stream comes running
swiftly down from the hilltops, as though it, too, were eager to enter
from sunburnt heights into this place, where mossy tree-trunks radiate
a welcome coolness, and hart’s-tongue ferns grow in lichened walls and
look refreshing. The little stream presently falls over a ledge of rock
and becomes a little waterfall, whose purring voice fills the narrow
space; and everything is delightful. And there are not any of those
horse-stingers, which generally infest the most desirable spots and,
instead of confining themselves strictly to horse-stinging, interfere
with inoffensive explorers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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