THE LITERATURE OF THE CAVERNS AT

BUCKFASTLEIGH, DEVONSHIRE.

COMPILED BY W. PENGELLY, F.R.S., F.G.S.

(Read at Sidmouth, July, 1873.)

[I HAVE Sometimes thought that Buckfastleigh might appropriately be called the Metropolis of Devonshire Caverns, so numerous do they seem to be in that locality. Though they have not been utterly neglected, and are not quite destitute of a literature, they do not seem to have attracted much attention, nor has much been written on them. The only document respecting them which I have been able to discover, is the following fragment in the Rev. J. Mac Enery's MS. "Cavern Researches"]:-"We next proceeded to the large cave adjoining the town of Buck [fastleigh]. On the occasion of my former visit I had also searched this cave, but without success. Several persons, some of whom too of experience, have searched it with like effect. The result of this second trial was but a confirmation of my former view that this cave contains no vestige of Diluvium, but merely contains such deposits of clay and vegetable mould as the rain continues to wash down through the crevices and rents. The stratum on the floor consists of alternating layers of pure red argile, compact as potters' clay, free from stones, gravel or bones, and a blackish mould, partly of decomposed vegetable intermixed with Bats' dung, through which were disseminated an occasinal bone of rat, rabbit or dog. This bed was irregularly divided by seams of stalagmite of unequal thickness. Within the memory of the old inhabitants this cave stretched out fifty yards in front, and occupied all the area at present [***] by lime-kilns, &c.

The face of the excavated cave presents the most instructive section I have ever observed. It displays all the irregularity

[Everything within brackets is editorial; all else is by the author quoted. Asterisks within brackets denote a hiatus in the original.-W.P.] † [See Trans. Devon. Assoc. vol. iii., p. 196, &c.]

of winding and convolutions observable in Kent's Cave, and shows two distinct levels or floors, yet communicating with chimney-like [***] with each other.

The original floor of solid rock along the upper horizontal level is seen covered immediately by a layer of stalagmite two and 3 feet thick, without the mediation of clay or rubble or any other extraneous substance; which induces me to think this cave must have been once closed hermetically on all sides.

The cavern is of great magnitude and before its excavation must have equalled Kent's Cave in size. The stalactites are on a large and most striking scale.

CAVERN UNDER THE CHURCH.

The progress of quarrying has laid open an extensive cave situated at the base of the hill on which the church stands. The mouth is capacious. Stalactites splendid, and numerous crystals. Mr L [? Lyte] penetrated with great difficulty and hazard into an oven-like [***] at the western extremity where he invited me to follow him. This part of the cave bore all the virgin characters of having never been visited or disturbed. We clearly distinguished a solid and wide-spread crust, above which was heaped a stratum of rounded waterworn gravel. No bones. Found no stream [?] in the vicinity, or possible inlet. Workmen never found bones, though employed some of them ten and fifteen years, and their fathers before them.

1829, December. I visited the neighbourhood of Buckfastleigh, accompanied by the Rev Mr Lyte. Mr Yarde Buller, on whose estate of Dean some of the caves were situated, had made the necessary arrangements against our arrival for investigating them. The Cave of Dean I examined 3 [?] years previously, and saw no probability of success; but from the report of extraordinary discoveries being made there, I was induced to repeat my visit and also to ascertain the existence of other caves. The cave is a vertical fissure in a compact limestone, running down to an indefinite extent in the strata. It was opened at the top, thro which the rains wash down the mould of the surface, conducts thro by a horizontal passage, thro which it is necessary to escape some yards, when the cavity enlarges and divides into two small branches closed at the ends. The roof and sides had been coated with most exquisite groups of crystals of arragonite, and stalactites, &c. of which there were still remaining some fine specimens. The best had been transferred to the manor

house of Dean Court; and we soon found at Buckfastleigh of the existence of fossil remains there did not appear the slightest hope."

[The following brief statement has been prepared from my own Note Book :-" April 22nd, 1859. Visited Buckfastleigh to see the caverns, said to be numerous there. That which has the greatest reputation has its mouth in a limestone quarry termed 'Baker's Pits,' on the hill on which the parish church stands. Indeed, it is immediately adjacent to the churchyard. Understanding it to be very large and intricate, it seemed best to obtain a guide, and I was so fortunate as to secure the service of a lime-burner named George Wilcocks, cousin, he told me, of William Wilcocks who discovered, or rather broke into, the cavern by quarrying, about 12 years before. We found it a very wild scene. Huge masses of limestone, which had fallen from the roof, lay in the wildest confusion, and strangely grotesque stalactites hung from the roof and lined the walls. Desolation, in the most fantastic trappings, stared us in the face. The furthest point we reached, and which seemed to be the end, was 411 feet from the mouth. The entrance itself was a sort of horizontal funnel, about 20 feet in diameter at the outer end, whilst the inner was barely large enough for the passage of a man. The cavern seemed to consist of a series of chambers, connected by galleries, with many lateral recesses and undervaultings. In some places the rock surfaces were much corroded as if by the action of acidulated water, whilst others were eroded, apparently by a running stream. About half way from the entrance we heard the sound of running water, which proved to be but a small stream. In rainy seasons it is no doubt much larger. It did not appear that any search had been made for fossils, nor did the time at my disposal suffice for me to begin one."]

SKETCH OF B. R. HAYDON.

BY THE REV. TREASURER HAWKER, M.A.

(Read at Sidmouth, July, 1873.)

Ir would perhaps be an exaggeration to apply to Haydon and his fate that most touching epitaph in Worcester Cathedral which Wordsworth has made the subject of a sonnet, "Miserrimus." Most wretched indeed was Haydon's end, yet, with all his difficulties, all his contentions and failures, his life, on the whole, had a good deal of sunshine-in no small degree from his own wonderful buoyancy of spirits and unfailing belief in himself and his own powers. Still, he was a disappointed man. And his disappointments culminated on June 22nd, 1846, when, oppressed with debt, soured at the failure of his exhibition of pictures, disgusted by the preference of the public for Tom Thumb, harassed with anxieties for his children's future, and, perhaps above all these causes, worn out and disordered physically by a succession of sleepless nights, he destroyed himself, leaving the pathetic words, "Finis of B. R. Haydon."

"Stretch me no longer on this rough world."

King Lear.

As a native of no mean town of Devonshire, which undoubtedly he adorned by great genius, if not always by successful painting, he deserves to be recorded, however feebly, in this our Devonshire Association, which joins Art with Science and Literature. His father was a leading bookseller and printer at Plymouth. From family circumstances he had seemingly somewhat descended in the social scale: the Haydons of Cadhay, near Ottery St. Mary, were his ancestors. Judging from his habit of evasion and ingenious excuses to cover neglect in business, &c., the son derived some of his undeniably great imaginative powers from the paternal side. On one occasion the bookseller was

asked angrily by an important customer, why he had not fulfilled his oft-repeated promise to procure some young walnuts, to which he had access; and his reply was, that there had been such a demand for gunstocks from the war then raging on the Peninsula that there were no trees left. The son does not appear to have had much care for him, although his mother is always spoken of in his autobiography with great affection, and her opposition to her only boy's choice of the profession of a painter cost him a severe struggle before he could disregard her entreaties to abide by his father's trade. The decided turn which Haydon took for figurepainting and historical subjects seems to have arisen from his getting hold of and studying, when quite young, a book on the anatomy of the human frame, and from the teaching of an Italian, Feridzi, the foreman in his father's establishment of the bookbinding department, who told him of the glories of the Italian galleries, and urged him on to draw figures above all.* Otherwise the unrivalled sea-view from the Hoe of Plymouth, and the lovely scenery surrounding his native town, would, it might have been supposed, have stirred him to landscape painting.

I used just now the term "boy;"-Haydon was little more than a boy in years when he left his home at twenty and plunged into the uncertain depths of London life. At the age of twenty-eight he was voted the freedom of his native town in honour of a picture he had painted in London, the "Judgment of Solomon;" a considerable testimony to his fame. It is impossible not to admire the resolute courage and exemplary self-denial which then enabled him to confront the difficulties of his opening career. He had indeed an introduction to Northcote, a Devonshire man like himself, who did not however do him much service or show him much favour. And he was fortunate in soon attracting the notice of Fuseli, Keeper of the Royal Academy, who liked him and helped him to master the rudiments of his profession. He soon too became acquainted with Wilkie, a struggling fellowpupil, and with certain interruptions from difference of temperament and character (they were as different as the north from the south), and a widely different measure of popular success, they were friends for nearly forty years. Haydon's talent also introduced him to some noble patrons very early in life, Sir George Beaumont, Lord Mulgrave,

Haydon discussed "high art as if it depended solely on the knowledge and the appreciation of form. In this lay his great mistake. Form is but the vehicle of the highest art."-MRS. JAMESON's Commonplace Book, p. 320.