. The North Devon coast. ly contorted coast. Down upon it,on either hand, look the great rocky hills of Hills-borough and the razor-backed, spiny ledges ofthe Runnacleaves, and the Tors ; while amidst thewinding roads of the town itself run smaller hillsand vales, and down by the sea, where other sea-side resorts usually have a conventional flatparade running by the shore, there are the LanternHill, overlooking the harbour, and the CapstoneHill, placed just where the usual sea-front wouldbe, if the site of Ilfracombe were other than it it is not. Between the two is CompassHill.
. The North Devon coast. ly contorted coast. Down upon it,on either hand, look the great rocky hills of Hills-borough and the razor-backed, spiny ledges ofthe Runnacleaves, and the Tors ; while amidst thewinding roads of the town itself run smaller hillsand vales, and down by the sea, where other sea-side resorts usually have a conventional flatparade running by the shore, there are the LanternHill, overlooking the harbour, and the CapstoneHill, placed just where the usual sea-front wouldbe, if the site of Ilfracombe were other than it it is not. Between the two is CompassHill. The Capstone Hill—it was formerly, andshould still be, Capstan —runs up towards thesea from the town, and presents, as it were, a lawn,inclined at an angle of something like forty-fivedegrees. When people most furiously do makeholiday, in August, this expanse is covered over,day by day, with hundreds of figures, looking quitetiny in the scale of things. Sometimes, whenSunday Schools, or other institutions, come to 84. COMBE IN HISTORY 85 Ilfracombe for their annual day out, they displaytheir massed forces in living devices or letters ofthe alphabet, on the hillside, in view of the wholetown. There is not, it has already been shown, anyconventional front ; and indeed at one time it wasonly possible to approach the shore at Ilfracombeat infrequent and isolated spots, such as Wilders-mouth, or Chain Beach. That was in the timesbefore seaside holidays were invented, and whenIlfracombe was only a small port. When themodern town began to rise, it was felt that a littlemore of the sea would be thought desirable, andconsequently the present Capstone Parade wasconstructed in 1843, in the more or less perpendicu-lar face that Capstone Hill presents to the is a semicircular roadway carved out of therock, with rocky cliff above and more beneath,and beneath that, the sea, dashing in Capstone Parade has after all, you see,the conventional name ; but, happily, it is
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectdevonen, bookyear1908
