Sidmouth was the first of Devonshire seaside resorts, and had arrived at that condition long before Thackeray wrote of it as “Baymouth,” in Pendennis. Do you remember how “Pen flung stones into the sea, but it still kept coming on”? It seems hardly worth while to have said as much, but having been said, let it be put on record that it has lost none of its ancient courage in the meanwhile, and in spite of every intimidation5, will still “come on” if you follow Pen’s example; unless, indeed, you choose the ebb6, when, strange to say, it will retreat. It is believed that this odd phenomenon has been observed elsewhere.
[43]
Before Torquay, Teignmouth, Exmouth, and other places had begun to develop, Sidmouth was a place of fashion, and the signs of that early favour are still abundantly evident in the town, which is largely a place of those prim-frontaged, white-faced houses we associate with the early years of the nineteenth century. It belongs, in fact, to the next period following that of Lyme Regis, and has just reached the point of being very quaint7 and old-world and interesting, as we and ours will have become in the course of another century. The stucco of Sidmouth is not as the plaster of Torquay, any more than that of Park Lane is like the plaster of Notting Hill. It is of the more suave8, kid-glove texture9 we associate with Park Lane, is white-painted, and is only a distant cousin of the later plaster of Notting Hill and Torquay, which is grey, and painted in wholly immoral10 shades of drab and dun, green, pink, and red; in anything, indeed, but the virginal white of Sidmouth.
And now, in this town which ought to be jealously preserved as a precious specimen11 of what the watering place of close upon a century ago was like, the restless evidences of our own time are becoming plentiful12; older houses giving way to new, of the pretentious13 character so well suited to the age, and in red brick and terra-cotta; the inevitable14 architectural reach-me-downs that have obtained ever since Bedford Park set the vogue15.
Why, confound the purblind16, batlike stupidity[44] of it! red brick is not wanted at Sidmouth, where the cliffs are the very reddest of all Devon. We need not give the old builders of white-faced Sidmouth any credit for artistic17 perceptions, for they could not choose but build in the fashion of their age, and everywhere alike, after our own use and wont18; but, by chance, they did exactly the right thing here, and in midst of this richest red of the cliffs, this emerald green of the exquisite19 foliage20, this yellow of the beach, deep blue of the sea, and cerulean blue above, planted their terraces and isolated21 squares of cool, contrasting whiteness. It was a white period, if you come to consider it, a time of book-muslin and simplicity22, both natural and affected23, and although Sidmouth was fashionable it was not flamboyant24.
To this place, for health and quiet, on account of their embarrassed finances, and for the sake of their infant daughter, the Princess Victoria, then only a few months old, the Duke and Duchess of Kent came in the autumn of 1819, and took up their residence at the pretty cottage in Woolacombe Glen, still standing25 at the western extremity26 of the town. Here, quite unexpectedly, for he was a robust27 man, and but fifty-three years of age, the Duke died, January 23rd, 1820, from inflammation of the lungs, the result of a chill. Croker wrote of the event: “You will be surprised at the Duke of Kent’s death. He was the strongest of the strong. Never before ill in all his life, and now to die of a cold when half the kingdom have colds with impunity28. It was very bad luck indeed. It[45] reminds me of Æsop’s fable29 of the oak and the reed.”
Sidmouth continued to grow in favour for years afterwards, and only began to experience neglect when the opening of the railways to the West discovered other beautiful spots in Devonshire. Next to the Royal association already recounted, Sidmouth most prides itself on the fact that in 1831 the Grand Duchess Helene of Russia for three months resided at Fortfield Terrace. Without recourse to a book of reference I do not quite know who exactly was this Grand Duchess, and am not so impressed as I doubtless ought to be. Nor do I think any one else is impressed; but the local historian will never forget the circumstance, and indeed it is devoutly30 kept in remembrance by the black effigy31 of a double-headed eagle on the frontage of the terrace.
The railway that took away the prosperity of Sidmouth is now instrumental in keeping it prosperously select, for it is something of a business to arrive in Sidmouth by train, and a great deterrent32 to trippers to have to change at Sidmouth Junction33 and, journeying by a branch line, to be deposited on the platform of Sidmouth station, one mile from the town.
Sidmouth is in these days recovering something of its own. Not perhaps precisely34 in the same way, for the days of early nineteenth-century aristocratic fashion can never again be repeated on this earth. But a new vogue has come to it, and it is as exclusive in its new way as it was in[46] the old; if not, indeed, more exclusive. More exclusive, more moneyed, not at all well-born, jewelled up to the eyes, and only wanting the final touch of being ringed through the nose. Oddly enough, it is a world quite apart from the little town; hidden from it, for the most part, in the hotels of the place. Most gorgeous and expensive hotels, standing in extensive grounds of their own, and all linked together in a business amalgamation35, with the object of keeping up prices and shutting out competition.
It is not easy to see for what purpose the patrons of these places come to Sidmouth, unless to come down to breakfast dressed as though one were going to a ball, and dressing36 thrice a day and sitting in the grounds all day long be objects sufficient. From this point of view, Sidmouth town is a kind of dependence37 to the hotels, an accidental, little known, unessential hem38 or fringe, where one cannot wear ball-dresses and tiaras without exciting unpleasant criticism.
Bullion39 without birth, money without manners are in process of revolutionising some aspects of Sidmouth, and it is quite in accord with the general trend of things that the newest, the largest, the reddest, and the most insistent40 of the hotels should have shoved a great hulking shoulder up against the pretty, rambling41, white-faced cottage in Woolacombe Glen, where some earliest infant months of Queen Victoria were passed, and that it should have exploited the association by calling itself the “Victoria.”
[47]
There is no river mouth at all at Sidmouth, and the Sid, which so plentifully42 christens places on its banks, has not water enough to force its way to sea, as a river should. Instead, it abjectly43 crawls through the pebbles44 of the beach, as though wishful of escaping observation; but when storms heap up sand and shingle45 and the Sid is denied even this humble46 outlet47, then it becomes an urgent matter to hire labour for the speedy digging out a passage, lest the low-lying town should be flooded.
The sea-front of Sidmouth is, indeed, yet an unsolved problem. Many centuries ago, there seems to have been a harbour where the beach[48] and the walk of the Esplanade now stand, the constant easterly drift of shingle being kept well out to sea by a cliff projecting from the Western end of the town, where its last remains48, the Chit Rock, stood until 1824. But that protecting headland was gradually worn away and by sure degrees the river mouth was choked with shingle. It is much the same story as that which belongs to the Axe49 and to other rivers and obliterated50 harbours of South Devon.
Many projects have from time to time been set afoot to remedy this state of affairs, but without success. A plan to excavate51 the river mouth and form a harbour was mooted52 in 1811, and another in 1825. Again, in 1836, an attempt was made to construct a harbour pier53 on the site of the Chit Rock, but was soon abandoned. Even the more modest attempt made in 1876, to build a pier on either side of the river mouth—or rather, where the river mouth should be—failed; and it seems as though what was long ago written of Sidmouth will long continue to be true of it: “In times past a port of some account, now choaked with chisel54 and sands by the vicissitudes55 of the tides.”
At present, Sidmouth beach is open and exposed, like that of Seaton, but even when Turner made his drawing for the projected work on the “Harbours of England,” although there was certainly nothing even remotely like a harbour here, the Chit Rock remained, to afford some slight protection.
[49]
But the Chit Rock itself has disappeared. It vanished in that terrible November storm of 1824, of whose traces there seems to be no end on the southern coasts. With the rock went a number of cottages, and with the cottages almost went the inhabitants, among them the real original Dame56 Partington, who was rash enough to attempt to mop up the waves.
Mrs. Partington might never have attained57 immortality58, had it not been for Sydney Smith, who in 1831 compared the House of Lords, rejecting the Reform Bill, with her. Reform, he said, would come. The Lords were like Dame Partington at Sidmouth, who attempted to keep out the[50] Atlantic with a mop, and failed. “She was excellent at a slop or puddle59, but should never have meddled60 with a tempest.”
The old parish church was rebuilt, except the tower, in 1859. It was a rather wanton work, and to some minds the purely61 secular62 use made of a portion of its stones may be shocking. Those of the most sacred part of the building, the chancel, were sold and used in the erection of a singular-looking villa63 close at hand, named from this circumstance, “The Old Chancel.”
There can be few more charming nooks than that of Woolacombe Glen, where the cottage of Princess Victoria’s early infancy64 still stands; a white-fronted, long, low, rambling building set in midst of the most cool and delightful65 lawns and overhung by trees. But, charming though it be, the Glen is not what it was at that time, for the broad road leading down to the Esplanade is a modern innovation constructed on the site of other lawns, through which a little stream flowed to the sea. Alas66! for that clear-running Woolabrook. It has been compelled into an underground pipe. And—a last little irritating pin-prick—the “Woolacombe” in the name of the glen is now shorn of the peculiarly Devonian connecting and softening67 a between the syllables68, and has become merely “Woolcombe.” How horrid69 the deed, and how excruciating the thought that, if the same amputating process were extended throughout the county, we should exchange Babbacombe for “Babbcombe,” Lannacombe for “Lanncombe,”[51] Ellacombe for “Ellcombe,” and the less lovely like of them!
High Peak, the tremendous hill and cliff that shuts in Sidmouth on the west, is well named. The road up to the top of it is a mile of exhausting gradients, with fortunately a little grassy70 ledge71 on the way, whence you look down on to a distant beach and along the pebbly72 coast to Ladram Bay and Otterton Point. Ladram Bay is reached either by cliff-top or along that tiring beach; or, greatly to be recommended above all other courses, by boat from Sidmouth, one of whose boatmen, with the pachydermatous hands that would scarce feel any effect from rowing fifty miles, will take you there if you give him a chance.
Ladram Bay was undoubtedly73 made expressly for picnics. There cannot be the least question of it. Geologists74 write profound things about[52] the raised beach and the pebbles—Triassic, Silurian, or what not jargon—that compose it, but Nature most certainly in prophetic mood designed beach, natural arch, and caves for lunch and laughter, and as a romantic background for flirtations.
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1
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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jaunty
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| adj．愉快的，满足的；adv.心满意足地，洋洋得意地；n.心满意足；洋洋得意 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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intimidation
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| n.恐吓，威胁 | |
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ebb
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| vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态 | |
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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suave
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| adj.温和的；柔和的；文雅的 | |
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texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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pretentious
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| adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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Vogue
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| n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的 | |
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purblind
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| adj.半盲的；愚笨的 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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flamboyant
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| adj.火焰般的，华丽的，炫耀的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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impunity
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| n.(惩罚、损失、伤害等的)免除 | |
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fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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devoutly
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| adv.虔诚地，虔敬地，衷心地 | |
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effigy
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| n.肖像 | |
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deterrent
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| n.阻碍物，制止物；adj.威慑的，遏制的 | |
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junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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amalgamation
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| n.合并，重组；；汞齐化 | |
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dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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dependence
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| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
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hem
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| n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制 | |
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bullion
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| n.金条，银条 | |
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insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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rambling
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| adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的 | |
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plentifully
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| adv. 许多地，丰饶地 | |
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abjectly
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| 凄惨地； 绝望地； 糟透地； 悲惨地 | |
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pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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shingle
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| n.木瓦板；小招牌(尤指医生或律师挂的营业招牌)；v.用木瓦板盖（屋顶）；把（女子头发）剪短 | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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obliterated
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| v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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excavate
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| vt.挖掘，挖出 | |
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52
mooted
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| adj.未决定的，有争议的，有疑问的v.提出…供讨论( moot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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pier
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| n.码头；桥墩，桥柱；[建]窗间壁，支柱 | |
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chisel
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| n.凿子；v.用凿子刻，雕，凿 | |
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vicissitudes
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| n.变迁，世事变化；变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 )；盛衰兴废 | |
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dame
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| n.女士 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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puddle
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| n.(雨)水坑，泥潭 | |
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meddled
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| v.干涉，干预（他人事务）( meddle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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secular
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| n.牧师，凡人；adj.世俗的，现世的，不朽的 | |
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villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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66
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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softening
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| 变软，软化 | |
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syllables
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| n.音节( syllable的名词复数 ) | |
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horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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pebbly
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| 多卵石的，有卵石花纹的 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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geologists
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| 地质学家，地质学者( geologist的名词复数 ) | |
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