Ilfracombe on the coast of North Devon (1814)

Ayton, Richard: A voyage round Great Britain, undertaken in the summer of the year 1813 and commencing from the Land's-End, Cornwall. London: Longman & Co and W. Daniell, 1814. Vol. I. pp. 49 - 50.From the summit of Hillsborough, a tremendous height to the eastward of the harbour, all the beauties of Ilfracombe may be seen […] Amongst other views from Hillsborough we caught a birds-eye glimpse of the coast to the eastward, the scene of our future operations, extending in a series of inequalities, that determined us to pursue our course along the Devonshire shore by sea. We engaged a four-oared boat, and at a very early hour in the morning embarked on our voyage, with a strong and foul wind, and the tide against us. This arrangement of circumstances was not exactly of our own selection; the wind was not to be controuled [sic], and the boatmen assured us that they could gain ground over the tide, which would turn in two hours after our departure, and find us prepared to take the earliest advantage of its change. Our glimpse of the coast to the eastward had not deceived us. For some miles it is strangely irregular, and proves, by the wild disorder of the rocks, the confusion of the strata, the deep clefts and chasms, and the fragments that line the shore, that it has been subject to some great convulsion. The cliffs are of prodigious height, yet their vast front is hollowed into numberless little bays, and battered and broken, as if the sea had risen and torn down the rocks from their very summits. In order to avoid the force of the tide we were obliged to keep close to the shore, and follow all its windings: in the sheltered recesses we advanced without much effort, but round the projecting points the tide ran with such velocity, and there was so tumultuous a sea, that it required extreme labour to pull the boat through the water, and a miracle, as we sometimes thought, to support her above it. We were surprised, and a little shocked, at the boldness with which the man approached the rocks, on which there was a raging surf. The management of the helm was committed to my hands, and I was continually called to order: "Keep her in, sir; pray keep her in, out of the tide, and never fear the rocks." The waves which threatened to throw us on to the shore were counteracted by the recoil of the waves in advance, and we were thus held in balance between them, but with the appearance of being every moment about to be dashed to pieces. We had not only to fear the rocks of the main land, but had to steer through a perfect labyrinth of them in the sea, starting up in clusters about us, or discovered by the breakers, or by-a dark shadow in the water over them. At low water they are seen in large masses, full half a mile from the shore. We were deploring the obstructions that they must oppose to navigation, when our boatmen represented to us that if it were not for some such impediments pilots might starve. They declared that the rocks were bread to themselves and their families, and pointed out one of more than common terrors, that was a bit of roast beef on a Sunday. How natural, or at least common, this mode of reasoning is, it would be superfluous to illustrate by further examples.We at length arrived opposite to a point of land, from whose base the rocks project so far into the sea, that in doubling them we were exposed to the full force of the tide. Here we remained stationary, and as if spell-bound, for ten minutes, the men straining with all their might, and, in their rage, startling us with their profane wishes that they and the boat might go to the bottom. In the oral chart of the boatmen along shore this terrible point is emphatically denounced as Pull-and-be-damned Point. Perseverance had finally its just reward; we doubled the point, and immediately entered into the quiet little cove of Combe-Martin, sheltered from wind and tide, and with nothing to disturb our contemplation of the varied scenery around us. We had rowed about four miles from llfracombe, in which interval the coast, though broken and indented, preserves a continued line.[Text may be taken from a different source or edition than that listed as the source by Somers Cocks.]

Aquatint

165x237mm

S40. DANIELL William (text by AYTON, Richard): A VOYAGE
ROUND GREAT BRITAIN UNDERTAKEN IN THE SUMMER OF THE YEAR 1813 AND COMMENCING FROM THE LAND'S END, CORNWALL.