"AND a mighty sing'lar and pretty place it is, as ever I saw in all
the days of my life," said Captain Jorgan, looking up at it. After
this quaint fashion Charles Dickens commenced the description of
Clovelly with which he opened one of the best of the "All the Year
Round" series of Christmas stories. And it would be difficult in a
few words to more completely state the case regarding this
out-of-the-way picturesque Devonshire fishing village. Singular it
certainly is, and of its prettiness there can be no doubt, whether
we approach it from land or sea. Looking down upon it from the
thickly-wooded heights through which the road known as the Hobby
winds towards it, or looking up at it, as Captain Jorgan did, from
the little pier or quay, it declares itself on the instant to be a
mine of wealth for the artist. No spot can there be found along
that most paintable coast of North Devon more justifiably entitled
an "artists' haunt;" indeed, it should be called his head-quarters
for the district. The subjects which it offers for his pencil are
simply endless and of infinite variety. Be he landscape or marine,
picturesquely architectural, figure, or animal painter, given to
minute detail, or to broad, bold, expressive sketching, he can be
accommodated with all he wants. Beginning our inspection of the
place critically, and with an eye to covering canvas or filling
portfolios, we will take our first peep at it from the road by
which it is usually reached, viz., the aforesaid Hobby. Striking
into this from the Bideford Road, we wind through a park-like
pleasaunce studded with trees of every growth and variety, amply
satisfying the student devoted to entirely leafy scenes, until by
degrees we come upon gaps in the thick foliage through which the
sea begins to appear like specks of turquoise fretting the green.
These growing larger as the coast is neared, craggy, brown-black
rocks and precipitous slopes of dense under-wood, terminating in
patches of silvery, stony beach, with the rippling surge breaking
on its marge, are revealed. Skirting the top of the cliff, the way
still winds in and out, now crossing a tiny rivulet, now plunging
into dense umbrageous shade, now coming out .upon a wide opening
whence, looking north-east, splendid views of the blue Bay of
Bideford are to be had as far as Morte and Baggy with their. rocky
promontories. Presently blue wreaths of smoke, curling through the
foliage, tell of habitations, and then is seen the glint of a slate
roof and white cottage perched apparently upon an inaccessible
ledge overhanging the sea, and then another and another, and we
find ourselves at the top of a small, narrow, precipitous paved
lane, with steep banks on either side. At the bottom, a trifle to
the left, a coup d'oeil may be had of the "sing'lar and
pretty" village, from a little terrace of cottages, smothered with
myrtle and fuchsias. Hereabouts is the head of the street, which,
running, or rather wriggling, its way down the sheer face of the
lofty cliff, is the main thoroughfare of Clovelly. Quoting Dickens
for a moment again, he says of it:--
"There was no road vehicle in it, there was not a level yard in
it. From the sea-beach to the cliff top two irregular rows of white
houses, places opposite to one another, and twisting here and
there, and there and here, rose like the sides of a long succession
of stages of crooked ladders, and you climbed up the village or
down the village by the staves between - some six feet wide or so,
and made of sharp, irregular stones."
THE MAIN STREET OF CLOVELLY.
Descending this narrow way slowly, for to go quick is to imperil .
one's neck, a closer inspection of the habitations shows them each
and all, though similar in character, to have an individuality of
their own. "No two houses were alike," continues the . popular.
writer, "in chimney, size, shape, door, window, gable, roof-tree,
anything." Their construction, arrangement, and colour offer in
nearly every one a worthy subject for outline or close study,
whilst about half-way down the street, and looking back and up
therefrom, they afford in combination a curious and paintable
picture, hard to be beaten by any similar foreign association of
dwellings. The ground floor of one :is all but on a level with the
chimneys of the next; little balconies and narrow terraces project
from doors and windows on either side; in most cases painted green,
and bedecked with shrubs and flowers; and there are posts and
rails, palings and poles, surmounted by tiny weather vanes, or
having nets and other fishing gear hung and slung to them, and
flung about in all directions. Wooded heights crown the scene,
bringing into most happy relief the odd and queer chimneys (the
chimneys alone in Clovelly might form the contents of a large
sketch-book), whence issues the smoke to give the necessary
atmosphere, and to mark the relative distances, as the painter
wills.
OLD HOUSES ON THE BEACH, CLOVELLY.
Proceeding, the descent becomes steeper and narrower, until at last
it is obliged to zigzag to a lower level. Here a flight of steps
conducts the explorer beneath an over-shoot of water; there another
flight conducts him up to a cottage ensconced, like a sea-bird's
nest, in a niche of rock scarce big enough to hold it; whilst the
main thoroughfare passes under an arched house facetiously known as
Temple Bar, and thence, by one more irregular zigzag, the level of
the harbour and quay is reached. Here a disused lime-kiln and more
balconied houses trend away towards the beach, and bring the
confines of the little town, with boat-builders' sheds, low
sea-walls, and other heterogeneous accessories, to an end under the
cliffs. The pier running seawards, and then curving partly
landwards again, after the fashion of such constructions, is not
the least striking feature at this part of our subject. Charles
Kingsley, who knew and loved every stone in the place, thus
describes the outer face of the sturdy little breakwater: - "Thirty
feet of grey and brown boulders spotted aloft with bright yellow
lichens and black drops of tar, polished lower down by the surge of
centuries, and towards the foot of the wall roughened with crusts
of barnacles, and mussel-nests in crack and cranny, and festoons of
coarse dripping weed."
CLOVELLY FROM THE HOBBY WALK
Further on, his picture of its inner side, or the harbour pool at
low tide, must set every artist's mouth watering; . we have just
landed at the pier-head, and "beneath us, to the left hand, is the
quay-pool, now lying dry, in which a dozen trawlers are lopping
over on their sides, their red sails drying in the sun, the tails
of trawls hauled up to the topmast heads; while the more handy of
their owners are getting on board by ladders, to pack away the said
red sails, for it will blow to-night." Obviously the fishing-boats
of Clovelly are among its principal attractions for the painter.
Whether coming in on the top of the tide in the early morning from
their perilous cruise "away to the west where the sun goes down,"
or getting under weigh as the shades of evening fall upon the bay,
or lying at anchor in the offing when the breeze is from the land,
or, as Kingsley speaks of them, left high and dry in the not too
savoury harbour pool, they singly, or in combination either with
themselves or the adjuncts of the place, bring about a succession
of pictures and effects impossible to describe without brush or
pencil. The smaller boats too, hauled up on the beach or the
gangway of the pier, canted over, or turned topsy-turvy, the better
for stowing, or tarring, or mending them, or afloat under their
single lugsail, or merely the sturdy oar, they are in every
position admirable and delightful, whilst the "picturesque lumber
of the shore" and quay, the capstans, the windlasses, the chains,
the ropes, the blocks, the rusty anchors, the timber baulks, the
disused spars, and, above all, the nets, go to supply details for
any and every composition. The way in which the nets are festooned
from balcony or rigging, or spread out over the huge light grey
stones of pier, wall, or beach, would of themselves be worth going
to see and draw, were there no other artistic treasures in
Clovelly. Besides the fish, which from their brilliancy of colour,
abundance, and variety will catch the eye of the artist (and not
his eye alone), there is an element of animal life to be found here
under picturesque circumstances, scarcely seen anywhere else now in
this country. See again how Dickens was struck by it. Continuing
his description as Captain Jorgan was looking up at the quaint
town, he says humorously, "The old pack-saddle, long laid aside in
most parts of England as one of the appendages of its infancy,
flourished here intact. Strings of pack-horses and pack-donkeys
toiled slowly up the staves of the ladders bearing fish and coal,
and such other cargo as was unshipping at the pier, from the
dancing fleet of village boats, and from two or three little
coasting traders. As the beasts of burden ascended laden or
descended light, they got so lost at intervals in the floating
clouds of village smoke, that they seemed to dive down some of the
village chimneys, and come to the surface again far off, high above
others."
Most valuable, of course, are the means which such primitive
methods of transport and the incidents growing out of them afford
to the artist for infusing life and activity into his scenes.
Coming to the all-important question of figures, it would indeed be
hard to find in our own island a race of people more entirely
adapted to the requirements of the limner, and we have only to
remember the life-like presentments of these fine, tanned, and
weatherbeaten fellows, and their wives and children, as given to us
on canvas by J. C. Hook, conspicuously among others, to be assured
that in figure subjects, no less than in every other, this
"artists' haunt" is almost without a rival.
The aforesaid fictitious Captain Jorgan was a seafaring man, who
had travelled and sailed nearly all over the world, and though no
artist, he even, as we have seen, intimated that in all the days of
his life he had not seen anything to surpass it. Scraping
acquaintance, as the story progresses, with one of the inhabitants,
a fine young fisherman, the experienced mariner soon discovers that
the hearts of the Clovellians, no less than their homes and
appearance, are all that they should be. The fiction here referred
to only graphically describes the truth as it is known to any one
who his lived amongst them, and we cannot do better in concluding
this part of the subject than once more see what Charles Kingsley
says concerning these "lazy giants " - "black-locked,
black-bearded, with ruddy, wholesome faces and eyes as bright as
diamonds; men who are on their own ground and know it; who will not
touch their caps to you, or pull the short black pipe from between
their lips as you pass, but expect you to prove yourself a
gentleman by speaking respectfully to them, which, if you do, you
will find them as hearty, intelligent, brave fellows as ever walked
this earth; capable of anything, from working the naval-brigade
guns at Sevastopol, down to running up to . . . a hundred miles in
a cockleshell lugger to forestall the early mackerel market. God be
with you, my brave lads, and with your children after you; for as
long as you are what I have known you, old England will rule the
seas, and many a land beside!"
THE QUAY, CLOVELLY, FROM THE HILL
With such an amount of work at his very door, the artist will not
think of travelling far afield when he has once established himself
at the comfortable blue china be-crammed "New Inn," or in one of
the several snug though primitive lodgings to be had in Clovelly.
Should he do so, however, the coast, east and west, will yield
abundant material of a wild, rocky, weather-beaten, yet rich and
fertile character. The neighbourhood of "Mouth Mill," to the west,
including the woody region known as the "Wilderness," the lover's
seat on the verge of a yawning and precipitous chasm in the cliff,
called "Gallantry Bower," and the storm-lashed pile of "Black
Church Rock, " among other rugged features, will amply repay the
student for a visit. To the east and north, the curving bay of
Bideford, with its deep-wooded ravines running inland, and the
moorland streams tumbling through them and bursting into the sea
over a shelf of crag, or finding their way to their inevitable
bourne by an oozy, reedy marshland, together with the hamlets of
Buckish and Peppercombe dotting the cliff line, is equally
enchanting to all who have an eye to purposes pictorial. Lundy
Island likewise ought to be visited, for there is to be found cliff
scenery on a very grand scale indeed, and as a little cutter plies
to and fro between it and Clovelly three times a week, it is easily
accessible. Thus, in whatever direction we look or bend our steps
or steer our boat (for many of the coast beauties can only be seen
or reached by sea), there is nothing in this favoured spot but what
will rivet the eye and charm the mind of the true artist. Has he
too but a taste for seamanship and practical marine fishery, he has
but to conduct himself towards the natives as Kingsley suggests,
and they will willingly take him with them for a cruise, and
initiate him into the mysteries of trawling and deep-sea fishing
generally, the picturesque phases whereof are too well known to
need any word of recommendation here.
THE PIER AND BAY, FROM THE WEST.
The reminiscences and notes from which the above "summer sketch in
black and white" has been compiled, were accumulated some years
ago, as necessarily is the case with much of the material with
which I have now-a-days to do my limning, but nevertheless I
venture to believe that in the spirit, if not in the letter, the
picture of Clovelly is sufficiently faithful to do duty as a
portrait of the spot as it now exists. In few places I understand
have bricks, mortar, and whitewash so little marred and blurred
these quaint beauties, as such enemies of the artist have been
doing steadily elsewhere with his favourite haunts during the last
twenty years. It will be a long while ere any great damage can be
done to this little fishing village in the west. The glorious
rugged picturesqueness of the cliffs amidst which it nestles is
eternal, and defies alike the ruthless hand of time and the demon
of modern improvement.
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Clovelly 
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