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Seven Lords’ Land Roundhouse

Things New and Old Item 16: Review of Rowe’s Perambulation of Dartmoor

Home » What to Read » Things New and Old » Things New and Old Item 16: Review of Rowe’s Perambulation of Dartmoor



This is the sixteenth item from Robert Dymond’s book: “Things New and Old Concerning the Parish of Widecombe-in-the-Moor and its Neighbourhood” (1876)

REVIEW.

A Perambulation of the Ancient and Royal Forest of Dartmoor, and the Venville Precincts. By SAMUEL ROWE, A.M., Vicar of Crediton. Plymouth: J. B. Rowe. London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co. Onevol. , 8vo.

THE land of unworldly sublimity, the rugged playground of rudeuntameable forces of nature, Dartmoor affects the imagination with reverence, like the consciousness of some awful supernatural presence.Never does its name sound trivial and familiar in our ears. We have beheld it, “mysterious, shadowy,” from afar off’; We have trod itsheather, and have stood upon its tors, but, still, Dartmoor is to our fancy unreal, incomprehensible, unlike the petty scenes amidst which wedwell. “

Entertaining this undefined respect for the Moor, as for a neighbour whose reserve and haughtiness keep us at a moral distance, we should hardly thank Mr. Rowe for the very exact and comprehensive map prefixed to this volume, did we not know that the pleasure of finding oneself in a romantic wilderness is hardly a recompense for the disadvantages of losing one’s way; and let the doubtful reader try the experiment while a chilly fog draws its curtains over the scenery, and a drizzling rain wets him to the skin. It is not for the sake of themap alone, nor as a mere guide book, that we commend this volume to the tourist, but as the best description yet published of those objects which concentrate upon Dartmoor so much antiquarian and historical interest. A man may traverse it many times, seeking different objects ,acquiring various gratifications. As a pedestrian, let him enjoy manly exercise in scaling the granite fortresses of primaeval nature. As a sportsman, he may wander by the clear streams and cast his invisible thread and fatal fly. As a poet, let him sit in the wild glen through which the torrent rushes, or on the bare forehead of a frowning precipice, and learn there truths undiscernible to the short-sighted pedant. But once, at least, our tourist ought to qualify himself by the study of this treatise to observe the antiquarian relics of the Moor; that he may not pass the Cromlech unheeded, nor disregard the ruined houses of his British ancestors, nor profane ignorantly the deserted temples of their idolatrous worship, far less the cairns and tumuli, which are hallowed as sepulchres of the dead. Within this circle of upright stones the domestic hearth glowed cheerfully, and the family sat around. Here, upon this rampart which fortifies the village, its broad walls were blood-stained with the savage strife of battle. Here, arose the raging din of curses and the shrieks of tortured despair.

Such remembrances invest Dartmoor with an intense interest ; but it is time to speak more particularly of the volume which helps to recall them. Its title is aptly borrowed from that of a Survey made in 1248 by twelve Commissioners, under the authority of Henry III. , who had granted the Forest of Dartmoor and the bordering Fenfield districts to his brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall. The author, whose arrangement is methodical, first defines the extent and boundaries of the Moor; then specifies its legal liabilities and conditions; then describes, in poetical language, its grand natural features and general aspect; then furnishes a series of elaborate essays, the concentration of much learning, on the different relics of its aboriginal inhabitants, which he classifies thus: among those belonging to their religion, their sacred Cycles or temples of the Sun; their stone avenues for processions; their rock idols, Logan Stones, which are said to have been oracles ;their Rock Basins, for baptism and purification. The Cromlech, he conceives not to have been an altar, but a sepulchre, of which kind are also the Kist Vaen, or stone coffin, and the Cairns or heaps of stones; unless the latter were sometimes memorials of battles or treaties, like the single Obelisks, of which one exists at Merivale Bridge. He next describes the circular huts, of many of which the foundations exist, in their enclosed villages, in several places. The walled circular fortifications (as he assumes them to be), especially that of Grimspound, also receive attention, as well as the extensive trackways or roads, and the boundary lines which cross the moor. The rude bridges of unhewn stones are then noticed : a noble specimen exists in Post Bridge, within a stone’s throw of the Moreton and Prince Town road, visible by every traveller. The author next refers to the earthen camps or entrenchments, of which he attributes that of Prestonbury on the Teign, and Hembury on the Dart, to the Britons. Finally he enters into a curious enquiry as to the aboriginal inhabitants.

The “ Perambulation” itself is an imaginary tour of the whole Moor, commencing in the extreme north at Cawsand Hill, near Sticklepath,on the road from Exeter to Okehampton; thence to the several sources of the rivers which flow, some into the British Channel, some throughthe fertile South Hams, especially Cranmere Pool – thence to Gidleigh Park and Chagford with its “ Holy Street” – to Drewsteignton Logan,to Fingle Bridge, to the Grey Wethers, a temple formed of a circular arrangement of stones-—eastward again to Moretonhampstead, downthe valley of the Teign to Dunsford Bridge, and to Blackyston – then to Lustleigh, Becky Fall, Manaton, North Bovey—then to Bowerman’sNose (a rock idol) and to Hey Tor – to Grimspound, Widecombe, and so to Ashburton – then Holne Chace, and all that glorious road up toDartmeet, eight miles above Ashburton :-

“ There’s not in the wide world a valley so sweet

As the vale in whose bosom the Dart waters meet,”

The author then makes south-westward towards Ivybridge, towards the Yealm and the Erme, as far as Plympton—then up Bickleigh Vale to Roborough Dewn-—then ascends the hilly frontier of the Moor again,and comes in by the road from Plymouth, to Prince Town, once a war prison, now a convict establishment; and to Two Bridges. Being there, he describes the wonderful wood of Wistman, the grove of stunted oaks, which have twisted their knotted arms into the strangest fantastic attitudes, and the distorted branches of which are tediously decaying under the thick accumulated moss of a thousand years. Hepasses on to Post Bridge, noticing fully Crockern Tor and Parliament Rock, the ancient seat of law and legislation; then returns, takes theTavistock road, observing the British town at Mis Tor, Vixen Tor, and all that belongs to the Walkham. He does ample justice to theTavistock district and western border of the Moor. Thence he proceeds north to conspicuous Brent Tor, Lydford Cataract, where legends of romance and marvel are abundant ; Lydford Castle, the former seat of government for the manor ; and in the appendix we have old William Browne’s ballad about “Lydford law.” He then takes to the Ockment, which having its course northward, brings him to Okehampton, and to the completion of his circuit. We have presented only a most imperfect outline of the author’s tour ; let it be understood that he diverges a hundred times, and approaches every remarkable scene. The appendix contains valuable articles by Dr. Moore, of Plymouth, as to the geology, soil, and agricultural capabilities of Dartmoor, as well as its botany, ornithology, and fishes, by the same learned gentleman. An historical view of the mining operations is added by the reverend author; we have then a paper by Dr. Sir George Magrath, on the sanitory condition of Dartmoor, and copies of historical documents. The lapse of nineteen years since Mr. Rowe laid down his pen, have affected the accuracy of his descriptions in some instances, while the progress of archaeological science has disproved some of his conclusions.The preparation of another edition would be a worthy task for some qualified editor. Meantime, thanks to the learned and laborious author, from all true men and women of Devon! The poet of Dartmoor is Carrington ; its legendary and historical romance belongs to Mrs. Bray; and the Rev. Samuel Rowe has given his country one ofthe best of topographical works, in this Perambulation of Dartmoor.