. The North Devon coast. ly reported that severalhave been seen on the sea-bottom off WestwardHo ! at exceptionally low tides. Bideford Quay, that figures in circumstancesof considerable stress in the great romance byKingsley, is a very different place from the quayof Elizabethan days. A broad roadway runs now,where water and mudbanks once stood. Kingsleyhimself would scarce recognise it. Paradoxicallyenough, all these works and improvements havebeen undertaken since the commerce of the townhas declined. There is no fierce energy at Bidefordto-day, and such shipping as there remains is verycas
. The North Devon coast. ly reported that severalhave been seen on the sea-bottom off WestwardHo ! at exceptionally low tides. Bideford Quay, that figures in circumstancesof considerable stress in the great romance byKingsley, is a very different place from the quayof Elizabethan days. A broad roadway runs now,where water and mudbanks once stood. Kingsleyhimself would scarce recognise it. Paradoxicallyenough, all these works and improvements havebeen undertaken since the commerce of the townhas declined. There is no fierce energy at Bidefordto-day, and such shipping as there remains is verycasual. vSome few old houses—older than they BIDEFORD CHURCH 191 look from without, remain by quayside ; inespecial, the Three Tuns inn, with a seven-teenth-century plaster mantelpiece in an upstairsroom, with figures in the costume of the time,clinging uncouthly to Renaissance ornament. Bideford church is so closely surrounded bynarrow lanes that it is not a remarkably con-spicuous building. Except the tower, it is quite. BIDEFORD QUAY. modern, the people of Bideford having in theeighteenth century been afflicted with that per-versity for destroying Gothic buildings and rearingclassic in their stead which desolated so manyplaces. In its turn, the fantastic thing that issaid to have resembled a lecture-hall, rather thana church, was demolished in 1865. A fine monu-ment to Sir Thomas Graynfylde, 1514, stands onthe south side of the chancel, and near by is a brassplate inscribed with the dying speech of Sir 192 THE NORTH DEVON COAST Richard Grenville, at Flores. The register of1591 describes him as being in his lifetime theSpaniards terror. The monument of John Strange, merchant ofBideford, deserves notice, for he was no less bravea man. He died in 1646, the year the plaguemade such havoc here. It was the fourth year ofhis mayoralty. All others in authority had fledthe infected place, but he remained to take careof the sick ; at last, when the scourge was abating,he took the infec
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectdevonen, bookyear1908
