A LINE ENGRAVING , 1803?

In one respect Exmouth cannot be faulted. It has the finest charity shops in the South West. There is no end to the treasures to be unearthed in the Exeter Road and elsewhere. A charity shopper in Exmouth is a prince of Serendip.

Last Friday I bought the original copper line engraving here illustrated for six pounds only. It is one of the illustrations to "The Beauties of England & Wales", a series of books published between 1801 and 1815 and the print is entitled "Powderham Castle. &c. Devonshire". It was engraved by W. Angus from a drawing by W M Craig.

Mr Craig,the artist, is sitting on a sand dune at Dawlish Warren and the windmill in the middle ground is on the Point at Exmouth. This is a rare glimpse of this windmill which did not survive the middle of the nineteenth century. It is high water and calm and the Warren is busy. Then as now it is a grand place to beach boats and to attend to them. The mariner in the foreground sitting on a barrel is holding a bumkin or bumpkin. 'Bumkin' is a lovely word from the Dutch boomken , a little boom. He has been working no doubt but like most boatmen he has time to listen to a tale, today from the knock kneed mariner in the tarred hat. To the left is a fishing party setting out. If my eyes don't deceive me the standing figure in the boat is handling a net.

The western bank of the Exe looks as deserted as any African riverbank. Haldon is bald, a wild tract of common rather than a forest. That lone building at the end of the Point must surely be a boatyard. This corner of Exmouth would appear to boast only four boats where now are a hundred and these few boats are not moored but pulled up on the beach. There are no boats shown to be moored on the Estuary but we cannot see the Bight where the big ships ride. Powderham Castle and its new Belvedere are not for me the most interesting things in this picture. I prefer the &c. But the magnificent castle walls are gleaming in the sun.

THE SKIRMISH AT POWDERHAM CHURCH

In the cold winter of the year 1645, ‘loyal’ Exeter was still a royalist stronghold holding out against a now confident parliamentarian army. General Fairfax, the parliamentarians’ supreme commander, had his headquarters in Ottery and Lieutenant General Oliver Cromwell had turned up with his forces. The Estuary demanded their attention because supplies and reinforcements were reaching besieged Exeter up river by ship and boat.

The parliamentarians controlled the length of the eastern bank and there must have been armed men everywhere. There were garrisons at Topsham, Nutwell and at the Fort in Exmouth. Troops stared across to the western bank of the Exe which was in royalist hands and fired at suspect shipping passing up to Exeter. Then came the parliamentarian attack across the river on Powderham Castle. With both Powderham and Nutwell in their hands, the parliamentarians hoped to prevent help reaching Exeter up river. Professor Hoskins takes up the story:

“Under cover of darkness – it was nine o’clock on Sunday night, December 14 – Captain Dean with two hundred foot and dragoons , moved across the river from Nutwell in boats and reached the Powderham side. But they found the house more strongly defended than they had imagined and they did not, in fact, attack it.

Not wishing to return without doing anything, they occupied the church, not far from the Castle. The next morning they brought provisions across the river from Nutwell into the church and began to fortify it. The royalists up at Exeter feared that the river would be blocked by these manoeuvres. On Monday night they sent down a party of five hundred soldiers to join the two hundred in the Castle. Together they attacked Fairfax’s men who were barricaded inside the church, throwing in many hand-grenades. For three hours the siege of Powderham church went on until the royalists withdrew, leaving the snow stained with their blood. However, it was bitterly cold in the church. There was no means of warming it, and the parliamentary forces were glad to be withdrawn in a day or two from this unpleasant situation.”

For more on Exeter in the Civil War link to Exeter Memories.

'TO THE VALE OF LYMPSTONE'

In the August of the year 1908, Mrs Alice Fildew of Estuary View, Exton, had the gratification of seeing her verses printed in the local paper, ‘The Exmouth Journal’. It was not the first time she had tasted literary success. In 1890 she had sent verses to the great and famous soprano, Adelina Patti, who had replied by sending to her a signed photograph inscribed ‘to Mrs Alice Fildew with many thanks for charming verses. – Adelina Patti Nicolini.’ In 1901 her verses on the death of Queen Victoria, ‘Victoria, sweet mother, name peerless through ages.. &co.’ appeared in ‘The Devon Express’ and no doubt Alice enjoyed many other triumphs of which I am not aware. As a poet and songwriter Mrs F. clearly shared a Muse with the great Sir Walter Scott. The century that interposed itself between her work and his was to her as nothing. What follows is the third stanza of her four stanza work ,‘To the Vale of Lympstone’:

And yon – there, how pleasant in rich, pastoral beauty,
Stands ‘Nutwell’ the Court of fam’d Drake’s glory’d name,
Where, hard by, I’ve watched the last gleam of rare sunset
Expire mid refulgence of sky-glow aflame.
Whilst o’er the calm Est’ry floats stately yon pennant
From Powderham’s old castle and Church as of yore!
Where near sleeps that good Earl - of Devon’s best (lineage)
’Neath the dear, hallow’d spot by the wavelet-kissed shore.

Is ‘yon – there’ preferable to ‘yonder’? I wonder. The word at the end of the penultimate line is obscured. It’s not ‘lineage’ but I’m blessed if I can work out what it is.

Well, another century has passed and ‘yon pennant’ is still to be seen floating from Powderham Castle across the ‘Est’ry’ ‘as of yore’, at least it floats whenever the Earl is at home. Rumour has it he hides in cramped quarters and dark passages at the back of the house while the trippers scuttle about. And we still have plenty of ‘refulgence of sky-glow aflame’. You should have seen it last night.