Blackpool sands were destined to witness a yet more historic landing, for it was here that the great Earl of Warwick, the “Kingmaker,” who had made Edward the Fourth king, and then quarrelled with his handiwork, came back from exile in 1471, with an armed expedition, intent upon unmaking him. It was Warwick’s last throw, and ended a few weeks later with his defeat and death at the battle of Barnet. Sunday-school treats are held nowadays on the golden sands of Blackpool; sands that in more than a figurative sense have been found golden, for a discovery was made here in modern times of gold coins dating from that period, and doubtless lost in the confusion of the landing. The entirely uninteresting hamlet of Street passed, standing at the head of the next rise, the road goes, steep and winding, down to one of the most remarkable stretches of coast-line in Devon; the famous Slapton Sands, a flat two miles of raised beach along which, ages ago, the present high road was formed. The sands take their name from the village of Slapton, a mile inland, and consist of small shingle thrown up by the sea, and banking back the outflow of three streams, which thus forms a long and marshy freshwater lake, the whole length of this shingly bank. Just as you come down-hill upon the finest view from above of the sea, the sands, the Ley, as this freshwater lake is named, a long and lofty blank wall shuts out the scene and proclaims the malignant humour of the landowner who built it. Sparse and hungry-looking grass grows on the ridge of the shingle, but the yellow sea-poppy thrives, and so does the spurge, or milkwort, whose poisonous juice is milk-white and innocent-looking. Here, too, on the inner face of the bank, looking upon the rush-grown waters of the Ley, the purple blossoms and hairy leaves of the mallow are abundant, while bordering the highway, and braving the dust of it, are masses of the thrift or sea-pink. The Ley, or Lea, is one of the most noted resorts of wild birds in Devon, and its two hundred acres are frequented in winter by sportsmen, whose headquarters are the lonely “Sands Hotel,” standing solitary, a mile from anywhere, on the shingly ridge, facing the sea one way, and on the other the highroad and the Ley.