NORTHERNHAY, A SONNET, EXETER, 1808.

Not many parks and gardens have had a sonnet written to them.   Northernhay is an exception.  The 'Ruin of Despair' who composed the lines below was James Kemp, about whom little seems to be known other than that he was an Exonian,  the author of' 'Northernhay, a Poem' published in 1808  (the 2nd Edition) and that he was the brother of  Joseph Kemp, (1778 - 1824), a musician who founded a 'musical college' in Exeter in 1814.  James wrote an introductionary sonnet to his poem.  This is it:

 

"Here let me muse, recluse within these shades

Where I so oft opressed with woe respire

Here, where the Curfew's solemn sound invades,

I view the sunbeams down the West retire.

Here I invoke the muse and pensive roam

By moonlight lone that gilds the leafy scene

Here sing how vain the beauty of the grove

And mark the fate that waits on things terrine.

Thy turrets, Rougemont, sheltered by the wind

That seem secure by links of ivy bound

Like the rude Forest-oak or sturdy hind,

Fall to decay, slow crumbling to the ground.

But ah! no sorrows these are doomed to bear

I sink - the grief-worn Ruin of Despair."

At Christmas/New Year 2021/22,  Exeter City Council hired out Northernhay to a provider of 'entertainment'.    The Gardens were closed to the public for eight weeks and trampled underfoot by a multitude throughout Christmas and the New Year.  The damage done then, now in late March, is still sad to see.   The news is that in May '22 the City is inviting another multitude to the Gardens to celebrate pride in its sexual diversity, which party will doubtless increase the scruffiness of the lawns and damage the foliage and terrify the wildlife.  Meanwhile no attention had been given to the 'crumbling' castle walls which the Council have fenced off with ugly steel mesh fencing,   there is still no access to Rougemont Gardens,  the city's  heritage of fine Victorian statuary in the park is dirty and neglected,  (Sir Richard Dyke Acland has lost a hand and there is a crack in his left leg!) and the litter-louts, vandals and grafittists and worse run unregulated through the Gardens day and night. - 

' I sink - the grief-worn Ruin of Despair.'!!!