Watermouth, nr.Ilfracombe, Devon ([1855?])

Page, John Lloyd Warden. The coasts of Devon and Lundy Island. London: Horace Cox, 1895. pp. 77-8.Of Watermouth "harbour" first. Someone has said that it is like a Scotch sea loch. The simile is a happy one, and it may be added that there are few Scotch sea lochs that are prettier. The low range of cliffs, nearly eaten through at Smallmouth, have here given ingress to the sea, forming a cove so perfectly land-locked, that when a storm is thundering without, the water within is smooth enough for a cockleshell. This natural breakwater is broken up into peaks and knolls and undulations. […] Watermouth, natural harbour though it be, is not much used as a haven. In the first place, it is private property; in the second, there is no population, and consequently no trade. Thirdly, the entrance is very narrow, and crossed by a swinging tide. I have anything but a pleasant recollection of running for it once myself in an open boat, when things were looking nasty outside. But when we got within a few hundred yards of Widmouth Head, there was such a sea running that we feared being "pooped," and, preferring Scylla to Charybdis, put out to sea again, and fought our way back to Ilfracombe as best we could. So there is barely enough shipping to give the cove an air of life. One or two little cutters, and perhaps a sloop lying up on the foreshore discharging coal into country carts for the Castle or Berrynarbor village.The Castle stands on the slope above. It is an imposing battlemented mansion, and, owing mainly perhaps to the ivy and the buttressed wall that sinks from the terrace to the park, looks much older than it really is. Its age is a hundred years at the outside.[Text may be taken from a different source or edition than that listed as the source by Somers Cocks.]

Steel l.engr vign

61x93mm

No. 929