The coast scenery towards Teignmouth is very lovely. A road of 2 miles in length leads to Babbacombe Bay (4 miles from Teignmouth), passing by two interesting spots, Anstis Cove and Kent's Hole. The little dell is of surpassing beauty: on one side of a pile of rocks is a cove under the limestone head, on the other side a cove with boulders beneath a cliff of slate and shale. Rugged rocks shut it in on the left is a wall of marble, but in the centre coarse limestone, with long dark wreaths of spiral ivy; on the right rises a lofty hill, of every rich colour where its craggy height is not dappled with lichen, gorse, or moss, or the copse creeps up to its undercliff, waving with gnarled oak ́and stunted ash and feathery birch-trees: the waves break in foam upon pebbles and sands scarcely less white than their spray. Above it are the terraces and towers of the Italian palace of the Bishop of Exeter-Bishopstowe Here are found Galathea rugosa, G. strigosa, trochus ziziphinus, cypræa Europæa, pecten distortus, P. opercularis, pleurobranchus, actinia alba, polynoe cirrata, and fossil madrepores. "Crushed shells Rich mosses, tree-like sea-weed, sparkling pebbles Kent's Hole, (three quarters of a mile) is as strange and wonderful as the Anstis cove is romantic. It is entered by a cleft 7 feet wide and 5 feet high. When first explored in 1824 it revealed a maze of chambers, vaults and winding passages, caverns some 30 feet high and 100 feet in length, roofed with stalactites in clusters of cones on a roof like transparent glass, and with floors of stalactite white as a pavement of alabaster. The drip of water charged with lime, the extension of sediment and concretion, gradually formed this wonderful sepulchre. It is closed by a pool of dark water. Gloomy and huge these caves appear in the torch-light of the guide, flashing into the ghastly sides and hollow recesses and along its glimmering bed: they have a deeper interest than mere natural curiosities, as they contain the fossil remains of the extinct monsters and beasts of prey which once infested Britain-the lion, the elephant, the rhinoceros, the wolf, bear, and hyæna. It is a chasm in the limestone strata. The remains lie in a bed of reddish sandy loam, and cover the bed of the cavern to a depth of 20 feet; the principal fissure is 600 feet long. A layer of hard, solid stalagmite, one to four feet in thickness, is spread over this ossiferous loam, and covered with a thin layer of earth, which breaking through the floor of spar is mixed with bones of the bear, and other carnivora, flint knives, arrows, spear-heads, coarse pottery, and charcoal, the remains of the hunter's feast and arms being intermingled. The legend attributes the name to the knight Sir Kenneth Kent, who escaped from the shrieks of the murdered king at Berkeley, to find a treacherous welcome from Sir Harry Lacey, of Tor Abbey, whose daughter Serena he loved well and truly. Warned by the lady, Sir Kenneth escaped to this cavern, whither the fisherman below watched her ascending, with a lamp, to join him in his flight; but never was either seen to come forth, and years after the folks whispered that one bold man had penetrated the murky recesses, and seen a rusted suit of mail in which was no living form, and a pale shade beside it. On the adjacent farm of Tor Wood, once the seat of the Earls of Londonderry, are the remains of a Grange-chapel of Tor Abbey. Sweet oar-weed is found in the lane leading from St. Mary's church to the Public Gardens, containing four acres, on the Torwood road. Babbacombe is a small inlet with villas scattered through a wood on the hill-side, and peeping out among gardens and shrubberies; they are planted on terraces laid with earth like the artificial soil of the vineyards of the Rhine. On the north the boundary is Petit Tor, a headland of compact limestone covered with moss and grass, honeycombed by saxicava rugosa, and fretted by the sea into caves. The precipice has no slope, but in every hollow are tufts of iris bramble and brakes of fern; on the summit the golden gorse blossoms among the evergreen of ivy, and the jackdaw and kestrel find their home. Here are SHORE OF BABBACOMBE BAY. 443 found Tortula didymum, T. tortiosa, actinia crassicornis, A. nivia, A. anguicoma, A. bellis, A. mesembryanthemum, rhodymenia ciliata, R. palmata, plocamium coccineum, chylocladia articulata, laurentia pinnatifida, laomedea geniculata, iridæa edulis, delesseria sanguinea, chondrus crispus, phyllodoce lamelligera, pachymatisma Johnstonii, laminaria saccharina, L. digitalis; the rosy featherstar and common coralline, naked-gilled mollusca, polycera ocellata, eolis papillosa, E. coronata, doris bilamellata, D. tuberculata. Low-water at spring tides occurs at noon, and as the tide rises, "Each following billow lifted the last foam Shrank down within its purple stem to sleep, All its green anther necks." Here, says the fairy tale, discovering the origin of the name, "the Dell of the Babe," the disconsolate Titania discovered, by the aid of a mystic egg and three grains of gold embedded in the yolk, her lost child Florus, whom Ariel, set free by Prospero in the enchanted isle, had beguiled to earth, and with joy restored to Oberon. Here she held her court of elves in grass-green robes, with caps of folks'-glove and coronets of the bluebell, who all night long, to the star-like light of the glow-worm and the yellow disc of the harvest moon, kept revel and dance which, ere morning broke, printed, to the music of merry little feet, the smooth turf of Mary Church with tiny rings. The white narrow shingly beach glitters with pebbles of quartz, and beside the red sandstone cliffs appear richly veined and mottled marble, grey limestone, shale and glossy slate but Torquay is rapidly extending its building towards this once secluded bay. Here are found Tortula tortiosa and lepidum didymum. Towards Teignmouth lie the picturesque landslips of Watcombe, and the cove of Maiden Combe (combe means a valley); above Babbacombe is the tall tower, a seamark, of St. Mary Church; near it is found Lichen lentigerus, and on Dungeon Cliff Lithospermum purpureo-cæruleum. Upon the land side of Torquay is the mother-church (Perpendicular) of Tor Mohun (J. H. Harris, P.C.); besides some Jacobean monuments of the Carey family, it contains an effigy in armour of Ridgway, father of the first Earl of Londonderry, and an octagonal Perpendicular font. On the hill (half-a-mile), by the Newton Abbot road, is the ruined chapel of St. Michael. Tor Abbey, the seat of the Careys, was the Premonstratensian Abbey of St. Saviour, founded by William Bruére in 1196. The ruins of the minster are on the north side of the house: the present chapel was the Refectory which, like the gateway, is Decorated; the grange barn likewise remains. About 4 miles distant, approached through the little village of Cockington (2 miles), the church of which contains an octagonal Perpendicular font, are the ruins of Compton Castle, of the 14th century, and formerly a seat of the Poles: the north front tower-gateway and part of the chapel remain. The beach, stretching from Tor Abbey and Livermead to Paignton, is divided by low steep cliffs of red conglomerate, or new red sandstone, worn by the tide into fantastic shapes and caves, like the temples of Ellora, with recess behind recess, and dark vaults supported upon columns, coloured by the hand of nature. Here will be found Anthea cereus, pholas dactylus, P. parva, doris pilosa, asterrina gibbosa and trochus ziziphinus; and echinus miliaris, which the children call "mermaiden's head." Here Dr. Turton, Col. Montagnaud, Mrs. Griffith, Gaertner, Gosse, and Dillwyn prosecuted their curious researches. |