The country between Tiverton and Bampton reminds us how comparatively new are many of our main roads. Beginning with the town, although Bampton Street is one of the principal thoroughfares, this is not the case with Higher Bampton Street; and of both it may be stated with absolute assurance that they do not owe their names to accident or caprice. They were christened thus because they were a direct continuation of the old road from Bampton, the whole of the present route through the picturesque Exe valley not having been constructed until long after the days of John Ridd and the less mythical Bampfylde Moore Carew. For this reason “Jan,” on his way home, would have proceeded first to Red Hill, with the inn at its foot;[7] and hereafter we shall cease to wonder that Carew and his companions fell in with the convivial gipsies at the same “Brick House,” since it adjoined the king’s highway. Hence, he climbed the steep ascent of Knightshayes, from whose summit he might have cast a last lingering look at the town. Afterwards he would, for some time, have seen nothing but the hedgerows and a stretch of desolate road.

Even to Ridd, however, the glory of the Exe was not utterly forbidden, inasmuch as from Bolham onwards there was some kind of road. Moreover, on the opposite side of the river was an accommodating lane, from which lesser lanes scamper off to the “weeches” of Washfield and Stoodleigh Church, and which, steadily pursued in its northward trend, has coigns of vantage imparting grateful visions of Rock, with its sweet old cottages, and the romantic Fairby Gorge, and the woody amphitheatre of Cove Cliff, together with such pretty accessories as a wayside spring, trim dairies, rich orchards, a modern suspension bridge, an old-world bridge, and beside it a quaint little lodge, with its porch and its bonnets of thatch—a miracle of rustic beauty! But it really matters not from which side the landscape is viewed, the prospects are equally charming; and the only cause for regret, from an Æsthetic standpoint, is the railway, whose rigid track, bisecting the valley as far as the Exeter Inn, brusquely intrudes on its soft contrasts of forest, stream, and lea.

From the inn, one branch of the new road still follows the river through a sylvan paradise, while another, nearly parallel with an older lane, yclept Windwhistle, leads on to Bampton along the tributary Batherum, On quitting that highway of loveliness, the Exe, one is conscious of a difference—the outlook is more tame. However, as one approaches the town, the scenery improves, and of the town itself it must be conceded that it is beautifully situated among the hills.

For me, Bampton is a place with sacred memories; but I am well aware that, to sound its depths of sentiment, an initiation is necessary. A stranger strolling listlessly through the churchyard, or seated with callous heart against a walled-up yew—to him it is all a void. What can he know of all the unrecorded history which, for certain souls, has transfigured the spot into a shrine? Moreover, although a fair resident informed me recently that Bampton “stands still,” I have an uncomfortable conviction, forced upon me in a brief visit, that this is not quite the case, that it has exchanged some of its old Sabbatic calm for an irreverent spirit of enterprise and strivings to be “up-to-date.” Thanks to a disciple and friend of the late Mr Cecil Rhodes, the quarries have been galvanised into stupendous energy, and, aided by the contrivances of modern science, are now working at high pressure, and all Bampton is cock-a-whoop over the same. Well, well, one must have patience. Only suffer me to write of my Bampton, which was also Blackmore’s Bampton, not the Bampton that now is.

In those far-off days of 1891-3, the quarries were not wholly quiescent; even then they were shedding their riches, but in a decent, leisurely way, leaving many a grass-grown plot and fern-clad lovers’ walk, and tokens of vanished industry in what we termed “the rubble-heaps.” The distinctive feature of Bampton stone is that it contains a large proportion of “chert” or flint, which makes it good for roads. The principal structures in the neighbourhood—including the county and other bridges—are built of it, and, judging from the age of the church tower, these black limestone beds have been worked for at least six hundred years.

The topography asks some explaining. A noter hies here, noting. Somebody has told him of Bampton Castle, and forthwith the heady ass swoops on a circular shed on the quarry plane as a relic. To be sure, at the south-east entrance of the town there are plentiful suggestions of military operations. The wind-swept knoll, whence you catch the first glimpse of Bampton, would be a fine station for a park of French artillery, to which the exposed railway station, with its less warlike engines, could offer but a faint resistance. A few paces further on, and you come to what is uncommonly like a bastion, crowned by the pseudo-Bampton Castle. Of the real Bampton Castle, at the opposite end of the town, nothing remains but the site and some rather doubtful fortifications in what is now an orchard.

But there was a castle, for in 1336 Richard Cogan had a licence from the Crown to castellate his mansion-house at Bampton, and to enclose his wood at Uffculme, and three hundred acres for a park. The exact site of the castle is believed to have been on a lower level, but closely adjacent to the existing Mote. The origin and purpose of this great mound, which is artificial, is not perhaps free from obscurity, but a former resident favours the following elucidation: The name of

the place is derived from the Saxon word mot or gemot (a “meeting”), and it was probably the seat of the Hundred-mote, or court of judicature, Bampton being the head manor of the hundred.[8] It was also a burgh, or fortified place, and by the laws of King Edgar the Burghmote, or Court of the Borough, was held thrice a year. The parish, it may be observed, is still divided into Borough, East, West, and Petton quarters, and the ancient office of portreeve is yet retained. Some time before Domesday and the Geldroll, the king gave Bampton to Walter de Douay. From Walter’s son, Robert de Baunton, the lordship passed through the Paynells to the Cogans, and from the Cogans to the Bourchiers, Earls of Bath, who, so far as is known, were the last owners of the barony to reside at the castle. The Bourchier knot is to be seen in the church—on the screen and the roof-bosses.

Apart from such rather dry particulars, it is not much that I can tell you of the public annals of Bampton, but one morsel relating to the Bourchier reign you must swallow, if only for its rarity. In May 1607, Walter Yonge, of Colyton, thus wrote in his diary: “There were earthquakes felt in divers parts of this realm, and, namely, at Barnstaple, Tiverton, and Devonshire; also I heard it by one of Bampton credibly reported that there it was felt also. And at Bampton, being four”—Tush, Squire Yonge, it is full seven—“miles from Tiverton, there was a little lake which ran by the space of certain hours, the water whereof was as blue as azure, yet notwithstanding as clear as possible might be. It was seen and testified by many who were eye-witnesses, and reported to me by Mr Twistred, who dwelleth in the same parish, and felt the earthquake.”

Can it be that this “little lake”—good Devonshire for running water—was the shut-up and buried, but by no means dared or dead, Shuttern stream? Perchance it was. Flowing under broad Brook Street, in times of flood he emerges and revenges himself for his confinement, spreading across the roadway, and swamping the sunken cottages, and waxing a lake indeed, in the Biblical acceptation of the term. But the Shuttern was not shut up or buried for many a year after the miracle. He flowed muddily along in open channel, though straitly enclosed by banks and spanned at intervals by bridges—a poor copy of a Venetian canal and a rare playground for the oppidan ducks. Now they have to waddle their way, and a long way it is for some of them, to the Batherum, a few, it may be, tumbling down the hill from Briton Street. And let not Master Printer, in his wisdom, correct to “Britain Street,” as he hath aforetime been moved to do. For “Briton” is the recognised and official spelling, and who is he that he should alter and amend what has been approved by lawful authority?

The Conscript Fathers of the town are greatly exercised at such odious disguisings of the true and proper form, which they rightly decline to sanction or accept. I am with them, heart and soul. Here in Beamdune, in this very street, the ancient Britons—’twas in 614—fought a great fight for freedom against the West Saxons, and there were slain of them forty and two thousand. The present inhabitants are descended from the vanquished, the Britons. You doubt it? Then little you know of their intermarriages. An outsider has no chance. Why even the pedlars and pedlaresses complain of Bampton’s closeness. “They’re no use,” they exclaim, “they deal only with their own people.” You still doubt? Then I renounce you as a heathen man and a publican.[9]

Bampton’s chief boast is its fair, which is held on the last Thursday in October, and attracts thousands of visitors, many of them coming from considerable distances. It is not easy to say precisely why, since there are other places nearer the moor, but for a long succession of years the town has served as the principal mart for the wild Exmoor ponies, deprived of which the fair would no doubt rapidly dwindle. These shaggy little horses—a good number of them mere “suckers”—are sold by auction, and the incidents connected with their coming and going, and their manners in the sale-ring, constitute the “fun of the fair.”

On the last occasion when I travelled to Bampton Fair, my compartment was entered by a gipsy belle with abundance of raven hair in traces, the dark complexion of her race, the regulation earrings and trinkets, and much conversational fluency. She had come up from Exeter on the chance of meeting with some of her people whom she had not seen for several years. That brought to my recollection a prevalent belief that the Romany folk have a septennial reunion, no doubt intended to be cordial and friendly in the extreme. Nevertheless, I can answer for it that the intention is not always fulfilled, for on one fair day two rival tribes fought a pitched battle with blackthorns, etc., in the orchard of the Tiverton Hotel. And the women will fight like the men, and with the men. They are artful beggars. A gipsy matron guided round a youngster of three or four years, with his small legs already encased in trousers, to claim a penny, because on one hand he had little excrescent thumbs. The boy could hold a penny between these thumbs, and, on being given a coin, was told to say “Thank you,” his mother expressing her gratitude with the wish, “May you enjoy the lady you loves!”

It is a safe assumption that no one visits a place of the size of Bampton—at all events, at ordinary times—without having a look at the church. Ten years ago you would have been rewarded with the spectacle of high pews, over the backs of which I can remember feminine eyes taking stock of the congregation. Nose and mouth were not visible, and consequently the fair damsels had somewhat the appearance of hooded Turkish ladies. Now that Bampton Church has been swept and garnished and the arcade straightened—it fell over quite two feet and crushed the timbers in the aisle—the building hardly seems the same, but the most valuable features, to an antiquary, remain untouched.

Entering the chancel from the churchyard, you will find against the north wall fragments of bold and graceful sculpture, with tabernacle work, tracery, shields, the symbol I.H.S., and the Bourchier knot and water bouget, or budget, as it is sometimes written. Perhaps “bucket” may be permissible as a variant, since the bearing, which is in the form of a yoke with two pouches of leather appended to it, was originally intended to represent bags slung on a pole which was carried across the shoulders—an arrangement adopted by the Crusaders for conveying water over the desert. To return to the fragments, they were part of two ancient monuments which, according to the Rev. Bartholomew Davy, formerly stood in the chancel; on their removal, about a hundred years ago, the sides were used to line the wall.

That the monuments covered the remains of Sir John Bourchier, knight, Lord Fitzwarner, created Earl of Bath July 9, 1536, and those of his father, is certain. The will of the former, bearing date October 20, 1535, and proved June 11, 1541, expressly directs that his body shall be buried in the parish church of Bampton, Devon, in the place there where his father lies buried, and that a tomb or stone of marble be made and set over the grave where his body shall be buried, with his picture, arms, and recognisances, and the day and the year engraven and fixed on the same tomb within a year after his decease. During the restoration the workmen discovered under the place where the organ now stands, a vault containing several ridged coffins, believed to be those of members of the Bourchier family, but, as the dates were not taken, this is merely a matter of speculation.

Behind the organ is a triptych of black marble, one compartment of which perpetuates the memory of a lady. The two others contain the following inscriptions:—

“Vnder lyeth the body of Arthur the sone of John Bowbeare of this Town, Yeoman, who departed this life the 17 day of December Anno Dom 1675.”

“Here vnder lyeth ye body of John the sone of John Bowbeare of this Town, Yeoman, who departed this life the 12 day of May Anno Domi 1676.”

According to local tradition, Arthur and John Bowbeare were giants, like John Ridd; and it will be noted as a further coincidence that they were of the yeoman class. The name is still preserved in Bowbear Hill, to the south-east of the town, and in Higher and Lower Bowbear Farms. Another interesting point is that John Ridd may have entered the town of his fellow-giants, who were still alive, though soon to die, not by the old Tiverton road, but by an ancient track which ran down Bowbear Hill. This track, now disused, was an old Roman road, and, having been paved, is still known as Stony Lane.

Giants are said to be usually short-lived—a charge which cannot be laid against the Vicars of Bampton. On consulting the list I find that from 1645 to 1711 the living was held by the Rev. James Style, from 1730 to 1785 by the Rev. Thomas Wood, and from 1785 to 1845 by the Rev. Bartholomew Davy. In the case of the last-mentioned divine—familiarly known as “old Bart Davy”—the patience of some member of his flock was evidently exhausted, for one fine morning there was found, nailed to the church door, the following lamentation:—

According to the son of the last parish clerk of Bampton, there was a servant of Mr Trickey, of the Swan Inn, named Joe Ridd, or Rudd, who amused the townspeople of a generation or two ago with stories of the “girt Jan Ridd,” of Exmoor, ostensibly an ancestor. One of these stories was that the huge yeoman, “out over,” broke off the branch of a tree and used it as a weapon. This circumstance gives special point to the statement in chapter liii. of Lorna Doone, that “much had been said at Bampton about some great freebooters, to whom all Exmoor owed suit and service, and paid them very punctually.” Moreover, in Mr Snow’s grounds at Oare is a mighty ash, whose limbs incline downwards, they (it is said) having been bent out of their natural set by the constraining power of the matchless Ridd.

Blackmore not only conducts his hero and heroine through Bampton as a place on their line of route, but alludes to it respectfully (see chapter xiii.) as one of the important towns on the southern side of the moor, though he dare not for conscience’ sake compare it with metropolitan Taunton.