The Bear's Head, with the wreck of the Dart ([1835])

Hearder, G. & J. The South Devon monthly museum. Plymouth: December 1st, 1835. VOL. VI. No. 36. pp. 241-244. THE PERAMBULATOR. No. XII. THE BEAR'S HEAD AND QUEEN ANNE'S BATTERY, PLYMOUTH.WHETHER a circuit in a boat be a perambulation, is a question which we leave to etymologists; and, in the mean time, employ the word (provisionally, until they shall have supplied us with one more orthodox), to denominate another of our excursions, for the purpose of consigning to the press the momentos of some of our mouldering antiquities.Two of these meet the eye, in passing from Cat Down to the Barbican quay; known by the names of the Bear's Head, and Queen Anne's Battery.The Bear's Head is one of those remarkable formations, which attract notice by their difference from the usual characters of the rock they belong to, and their resemblance to some other object of a very dissimilar nature. When we look at the fissures of our lime rocks, indicative of something like stratification, of which the quarryman takes advantage to direct his blast holes; of others again crossing these; and of deep caves perforating the rock in various directions; we should expect to find projecting angles and edges, and overhanging crags; but suspended masses, and suspended too upon curve lines, would by no means be looked for. Yet such is the Bear's Head, as our engraving shews.In the position we have selected, its name is quite appropriate: but the face, taken in front, from the hawthorn, on the opposite angle of its little cove, has much resemblance to that of a water-spaniel. It is situated in Deadman's Bay, just on the eastern side of the easternmost quarry: and it is remarkable that none of the numerous vessels wrecked on all sides of it, should ever have been impelled against it, and have tumbled it from its unstable position.Such an object, so circumstanced, would, in times of idolatry, have been a famed and dreaded sea-god. Sacrifices would have smoked beneath it; and, probably, the blood of the shipwrecked mariner might often have flowed, in expression of horrid gratitude to a senseless stone, for vessels thrown on the coast, a prey to the savage inhabitants. Would that such savage thirst for plunder had never disgraced Christianity! Whether our Druidical predecessors allowed of such idolatry may be questioned; and it is still more unlikely that the Bear's Head was so far worked out, as to have been a striking object in their time. We only know that, in 1785, before we had yet attained years of discretion, it was spring tide when the Bear's Head drank; and now, after half a century, at spring tides, its marble muzzle is still bathed, at high water.It has lost nothing of its ursine profile within our recollection; but the front face seems to us to have become more animal-like; not so much to the bear as the water-spaniel. The cleft, however, which seems to divide it from the body of the rock, appears also to have made progress; and it would not surprise us if another score of years should witness the subvertion of this hoary relic of our childhood; and probably of the days when Plymouth was a defenceless village, the prey of marauders, who came to steal slaves for foreign markets; but of this more presently. Let us, in the mean while, exhort all lovers of the old Bear's Head, to take especial care of this plate; probably the only one whereon its portrait will go down to posterity.And thou, future reader, who, in the year 2500, de-cypherest with toil this antiquated type, and porest over the glossary for these obsolete words; despise not the engraving; but remember that it was executed in the infancy of the arts, in the year 1835; when we had no method of travelling faster than 20 miles an hour on rail roads; no artificial light brighter than the oxy-hydrogen jet on lime; when the magnetic spark was only just discovered; and before the nature of comets and meteorolites had been ascertained. If the rude cuts of our dark ages convey to your instructed eyes, no idea of resemblance, we have provided for the difficulty, in our case, by printing the name beneath.Although of seemingly small importance, the Bear's Head marks the limits of the jurisdiction of the borough seawards; and is alluded to, under the Municipal Corporation bill, in the division of the said borough into wards.[Text may be taken from a different source or edition than that listed as the source by Somers Cocks.]

Wood engr vign

63x92mm

On 1 sheet with SC2047