Exmouth Quay

See the Exmouth Quay Residents Association website for About the Quay, an interesting series of articles by Ian Dowell about the history of Exmouth Quay, originally published in Quay News, a quarterly publication for Exmouth Quay residents.

Thanks to Wayland Wordsmith for spotting the link.

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Surf's up in Braunton, 2011

A number of recent news items such as the one in Drift magazine (Museum of British Surfing confirms funding, 16th September 2010) have reported that the Museum of British Surfing, a national registered charity, has received a grant to establish museum premises scheduled to open next spring in Braunton, North Devon.

The museum has a vast collection of surfboards and memorabilia tracing more than two centuries of the nation’s involvement with this ancient water sport.

Founder and director Peter Robinson has spent more than a decade researching the UK’s surfing history and putting together the collection, which includes almost 200 surfboards. British surfers have also donated many key items, keen that our surfing heritage is preserved.

The building includes a skate bowl and the surf museum will be sharing part of the site with the local youth service, and will collaborate with them on projects for young people in the community with the help of museum volunteers.

Building work to convert the space at The Yard in the village centre will be carried out over the next 10 months, with a scheduled opening date of May 28, 2011, and the lease is currently being finalised.

"We want to change people’s perception of what a museum is, with fresh and vibrant exhibitions each year, touring shows and working with schools. There will also be a community space where we’ll have acoustic music, film, club meetings and special events," said Pete. "We have waited a long time for this to come together and the trustees of the charity and I are thrilled."

For the last seven years the collection has been on a successful tour of museums around the British coast.

Pete said: "The concept of having a new exhibition each year at our space in Braunton that then goes off and tours the country means we can always offer something fresh and exciting, as well as delivering our environmental and educational aims."

The main funding for the surfing museum has come via the Leader 4 programme, which supports projects in Torridge and North Devon with the aim of improving the economy, environment and quality of life in rural areas. The Leader 4 Local Action Group has offered its full backing, and says it is well aware of the economic benefits to the area. Chairman, Viv Gale said: "We’re enthusiastic in our support for the Museum of British Surfing being established in North Devon. Past evidence from the Leader programme showed the great economic and social benefit surfing brings to northern Devon. We see the museum as an innovative extension of this benefit and look forward to it becoming a significant tourist attraction."

It's interesting both for the innovative museum project and as an example of little-known history. Before reading this and associated items, such as the BBC pictorial feature, I had no idea that British contact with surfing dated at least two centuries back, since sailors encountered indigenous people "sliding" (as it was originally called) in the Pacific.

See The Museum of British Surfing website for further background.
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Yola: a deceased relative

This is not strictly about Devon history, but having mentioned Devon dialect previously - see Classics of Devon dialect - I ran into an interesting relative while browsing for William Barnes (the Dorset dialect poet and philologist): an extinct language I'd never heard of: Yola.

Yola - otherwise called "the dialect of the Baronies of Forth and Bargy" - was a remarkable geographical isolate that would be impossible nowadays, arising when an enclave of Anglo-Saxon speakers went to County Wexford with Norman barons in 1169. In these baronies, it went its own way (with minor imports from Irish Gaelic), completely missing the Great Vowel Shift that characterised the change from Middle English to Modern English.  It lasted for some 600 years before being swamped in the 19th century by Hiberno-English following the 1830 Irish Education Bill that fostered English literacy through Ireland.

The Devon relevance is that it shared many characteristics with Devon and Cornwall English dialect, and commentators say the accent was similar. Relatively few samples have been preserved, but one of the largest appears in the 1890 book Chronicles of the County Wexford, which reprints a Wexford Independent report from 15th February 1850, telling of an address composed in Yola to Earl Musgrave, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, when he visited in 1836. (I've interlaced the translation).

To’s Excellencie Constantine Harrie Phipps, y’ Earle Mulgrave, Lord Lieutenant-General and General Governor of Ireland. Ye soumissive Spakeen o’ouz Dwelleres o’ Baronie Forthe, Weisforthe.

To his Excellency, Constantine Henry Phipps, Earl Mulgrave, Lord Lieutenant-General, and General Governor of Ireland. The humble Address of the Inhabitants of the Barony of Forth, Wexford.

MAI’T BE PLESANT TO TH’ECCELLENCIE, - Wee, Vassalès o’ ‘His Most Gracious majesty’, Wilyame ee Vourthe, an, az wee verilie chote, na coshe and loyale dwellerès na Baronie Forthe, crave na dicke luckie acte t’uck neicher th’ Eccellencie, an na plaine grabe o’ oure yola talke, wi vengem o’ core t’gie ours zense o’ y gradès whilke be ee-dighte wi yer name; and whilke we canna zei, albeit o’ ‘Governere’, ‘Statesman’, an alike.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY – We, the subjects of his Most Gracious Majesty, William IV, and, as we truly believe, both faithful and loyal inhabitants of the Barony of Forth, beg leave at this favourable opportunity to approach your Excellency, and in the simple dress of our old dialect to pour forth from the strength (or fullness) of our hearts, our sense (or admiration) of the qualities which characterise your name, and for which we have no words but of ‘Governor’, ‘Statesman’, etc.

Yn ercha and aul o’ while yt beeth wi gleezom o’ core th’ oure eyen dwytheth apan ye Vigere o’dicke Zouvereine, Wilyame ee Vourthe, unnere fose fatherlie zwae oure diaez be ee-spant, az avare ye trad dicke londe yer name waz ee-kent var ee vriene o’ livertie, an He fo brake ye neckares o’ zlaves.

In each and every condition it is with joy of heart that our eyes rest upon the representative of the Sovereign, William IV, under whose paternal rule our days are spent; for before your foot pressed the soil, your name was known to us as the friend of liberty, and he who broke the fetters of the slave.

Mang ourzels – var wee dwytheth an Irelonde az ure genreale haim – y’ast, bie ractzom o’honde, ee-delt t’ouz ye laas ee-mate var ercha vassale, ne’er dwythen na dicke waie nar dicka.

Unto ourselves – for we look on Ireland to be our common country – you have with impartial hand ministered the laws made for every subject, without regard to this party or that.

Wee dwyth ye ane fose dais be gien var ee guidevare o’ye londe ye zwae, - t’avance pace an livertie, an, wi’oute vlynch, ee garde o’ generale reights an poplare vartue.

We behold in you one whose days are devoted to the welfare of the land you govern, to promote peace and liberty – the uncompromising guardian of the common right and public virtue.

Ye pace – yea, we mai zei, ye vast pace whilke bee ee-stent owr ye londe zince th’ast ee-cam, proo’th, y’at wee alane needeth ye giftes o’generale rights, az be displayth bie ee factes o’thie goveremente.

The peace – yes, we may say the profound peace – which overspreads the land since your arrival, proves that we alone stood in need of the enjoyment of common privileges, as is demonstrated by the results of your government.

Ye state na dicke daie o’ye londe, na whilke be nar fash nar moile, albeit ‘constitutional agitation’, ye wake o’hopes ee-blighte, stampe na yer zwae be rare an lightzom.

The condition, this day, of the country, in which is neither tumult nor disorder, but that constitutional agitation, the consequence of disappointed hopes, confirms your rule to be rare and enlightened.

Yer name var zetch avancet avare ye, e’en a dicke var hye, arent whilke ye brine o’zea an dye craggès o’noghanes cazed nae balke.

Your fame for such came before you even into this retired spot, to which neither the waters of the sea below nor the mountains above caused any impediment.

Na oure gladès ana whilke we dellt wi’ mattoke, an zing t’oure caulès wi plou, wee hert ee zough o’ye colure o’ pace na name o’ Mulgrave.

In our valleys, where we were digging with the spade, or as we whistled to our horses in the plough, we heard the distant sound of the wings of the dove of peace, in the word Mulgrave.

Wi Irishmen ower generale houpes be ee-boud – az Irishmen, an az dwellerès na cosh an loyale o’ Baronie Forthe, w’oul daie an ercha daie, our meines an oure gurles, praie var long an happie zins, shorne o’lournagh an ee-vilt wi benisons, an yersel and oure gude Zovereine, till ee zin o’oure daies be var aye be ee-go to’glade.


With Irishmen our common hopes are inseparably bound up – as Irishmen, and as inhabitants, faithful and loyal, of the Barony Forth, we will daily and every day, our wives and our children, implore long and happy days, free from melancholy and full of blessings, for yourself and our good Sovereign, until the sun of our lives be gone down the dark valley (of death).

Edmund Hore, who consulted with Yola speakers to write the address, commented:

In all probability it was the first time regal or vice-regal ears were required to listen to words of such a dialect; and it is even still more probable that a like event will never happen again; for if the use of this old tongue dies out as fast for the next five-and-twenty years as it has for the same by-gone period, it will be utterly extinct and forgotten before the present century shall have closed.

The major documentation of the language was done by Jacob Poole around 1800: see Jacob Poole Of Growtown - And the Yola Dialect. His 1700-word glossary was published, edited by William Barnes, 40 years after his death, and is available in full online: A glossary, with some pieces of verse, of the old dialect of the English colony in the baronies of Forth and Bargy (1867). The glossary features a few examples of Yola folk songs.

The Graphic and Historical Illustrator for 1834 has an article on the district and dialect, Observations on the social habits and dialect of the Baronies of Forth and Bargy (commonly called "the English Baronies," in the County of Wexford, which has the following anecdote:

And here it may be related, as a singular fact, that the Rev. William Eastwood, Rector of Tacumshane, Barony of Forth, while amusing himself one day in his field with a volume of Chaucer, fancied some of the obsolete words which met his eye resembled those which also met his ear, as his workmen conversed together: he accordingly called them around him, and commenced reading a page or two of old Geoffrey aloud, to their great delight, as they well understood the most obscure expressions, and often explained them better than the glossarial aids of Dryden and Johnson.

"Yola", incidentally, means "old" in this language. It doesn't appear to be what its speakers called it - they referred to it, in its moribund days, as " oure yola talke" ("our old dialect") - but seems to have grown up among philologists due to the noted citation of a folksong, "a yola zong" ("an old song"). Several modern books repeat the factoid that Yola stands for "ye olde language" ("ye olde language" presumably - see Google Books), but this is highly unlikely. No contemporary commentators mention this derivation, and pre 20th century acronyms are invariably suspect.
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Ladram Bay: time and tide

Looking towards Ladram Bay, Devon, from the north-east: the gaps both in the foreground and the background were framed by natural arches; the background one was the famous Ladram Arch.

On Friday, my wife and I were planning to revisit Beer, but a last-minute change in itinerary (the X53 bus had a mishap) led to us walking for the first time the section of the South West Coast Path between Sidmouth and Budleigh via Ladram Bay.  It's moderately strenous in places - whatever direction you walk it, there's a stiff ascent to the Peak Hill / High Peak section - but we highly recommend it.

A glance through Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art found an interesting account of the location from Volume 25, 1893:

Landslip At Sidmouth.

"Considerable excitement was caused at Sidmouth about seven o'clock on Thursday evening [June 8th, 1893] by a large quantity of the cliff at High Peak giving way. The spot in question is about a mile and a half from Sidmouth Esplanade and half a mile from Ladrum Bay, at which place the Sidmouth branch of the Church of England Temperance Society were holding an open-air meeting over the natural arch, so well known in the neighbourhood. There were about 100 persons at the meeting. There was a terrific rumbling, resembling an express train at full speed, followed by a loud crash, which greatly startled all present. The noise of the falling continued for some ten minutes, and the sea for quite two miles out was covered with thick red sandstone. Owing to Peakhill intervening, the noise of the fall was not very distinctly heard at Sidmouth, but the red mist on the sea attracted the attention of many, and much anxiety prevailed as to the safety of the people who had gone to Ladrum."—Western Morning News, June 10,1893.

"This landslip, if it can be so called, occurred in Picket Rock Cove, that is, the first sweep of the beach beyond Picket Rock and the projecting foot of High Peak Hill. The distance of the spot from Sidmouth is one mile and a half, the mile being on the flat sand at low water, and the half mile over slippery rocks covered with sea-weed. It was also observed by Mr. Parsons, of Sidmouth. The sea being very calm, he took his boys, accompanied by a sailor or two, in a row-boat along the coast to the west. They had attained to about a mile and a half, and were off the point of High Peak Hill, but near the shore. Suddenly they were startled at hearing a loud roaring noise, and on looking round they saw large masses of earth, marl, and the usual soft red sand-rock falling from the perpendicular face of the cliff. It was out from the top of the cliff, so that none of the field above came down. The cliff at this place may be from 150 to 200 feet high. The quantity is described as a great heap. What interests me most is this, that it is at or near the same place where there was a similar fall-down in 1875, when there was a talus as big as a house. I passed it and examined it in my walks at low-water once or twice, but detected nothing. Afterwards, however, when the rising waves had washed away some of the softer portions, Mr. H. Lavis, a visitor here, walking that way, detected and extracted what turned out to be some of the head plates of an unknown batrachian. He brought them to me, and I made a sketch of them. Mr. Lavis took them to London ; they were recognized as the bones of an unknown species of Labyrinthodon, and the specimen was named the Labyrinthodon Lavisi. It is described in Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxii. pi. xix. (P. 0. Hutchinson.)"

Nothing much changes, in some respects; such slips go with the geological territory and still regularly happen - see Sidmouth: a harbour never built. However, a couple of details caught my interest. One is the irony that a few yards from where the temperance meeting gathered - Ladram Bay at the time was backed by orchards and had little beyond Ladram Cottage, some limekilns and a coastguard lookout - there's now a large licensed bar/restaurant. The other is that "the natural arch, so well known in the neighbourhood" no longer exists.

The arch's location is described in Peter Orlando Hutchinson's 1843 The Geology of Sidmouth and of South-eastern Devon; marked by a flagstaff, it was at the end of the promontory by the coastguard cottage at the Sidmouth end of Ladram Bay (see page 63 onward - the account also mentions the ongoing erosive process, including the destruction of Chit Rock, Sidmouth, in a storm in November 1824). There are some striking images of the location at Exmouth to Milford on Sea, 1800-2000, Doreen Smith's excellent photo site documenting the World Heritage Site coastline through historical images. The before-and-after pair of postcards, however - 1890s / c. 1928 - look a trifle unreliable as documentation of the process. The newer image appears to be merely retouched to remove the arch, as the rest of the shot is, suspiciously, identical to the older. It gives a time frame, though, and I pinpointed the actual time of collapse via The Times, which reported:

Collapse of Ladram Bay Arch

The natural arch at Ladram Bay, situated near Sidmouth and Exmouth, has been damaged by the coast erosion which is taking place between these two watering places. The central portion of the arch fell into the sea early yesterday morning. Ladram Arch has long been a picturesque feature of this part of the South Devon coast.

- The Times, Thursday, Oct 29, 1925

See the modern Google Maps image below: the Ladram Arch bridged the gap between the promontory (centre) and the offshore stack to its right.


View Larger Map

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Newsletter: Issue 6, August 2010

The sixth issue of Devon History News, the newsletter of the Devon History Society, is now in print or available here: Devon History News 6, August 2010 (PDF format).

Contents:

• 1.  (Cover) - historical print of Exmouth, souvenir card of Exeter Cyclists' Carnival 1896.
• 2.  Editorial by Chris Jago.  Notice of 40th AGM, to be held on Saturday 9th October 2010 in the Lecture Theatre of the Peninsula Medical School at St Luke’s Campus in Heavitree Road, Exeter.
• 3-4.  Report on year by the Programme Secretary, Jane Bliss.
• 4.  Progress report by Elizabeth Maycock on the DHS Anniversary Book.
• 5-6.  Andrew Jackson, past Journal editor, compares the Devon and Lincolnshire landscapes.
• 6.  From the Webmaster. Sadru Bhanji describes, and invites comment on, current developments on the Devon History Society website.
• 7-8.  Anne Howard reports on the scope and work of the Westcountry Studies Library.
• 8-11.  Phil Planel on the Parishscapes Project 2007-2010.
• 11.  Obituary by Shirley Purves for Adrian Harbottle Reed, past DHS Chairman.
• 12.  2010 events listing for the Sampford Peverell Society.
• 12. Official Devon History Society contacts.
  

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