There are extensive, and in some cases very ancient, stream works at the head of the two Web-burns. Chaw Gully is an early effort in mining. The rocks were not blasted, but cut by driving wedges or cutting grooves into the stone, then filling the holes with lime and pouring water over the quicklime, when the expansion split the rock.
Great quantities of tin have been extracted from these rude works; how early and how late these are none can say. The same heaps have been turned and turned again.
There are good screens in the churches of Bridford, Manaton, Lustleigh--where is also an inscribed stone--Bovey Tracey, and North Bovey; and beautiful scenery in Lustleigh Cleave and about Manaton.
Bowerman's Nose is a singular core of hard granite, left standing on a hillside in the midst of a "clitter." The way in which it was fashioned has been already described.
The valley of the Teign is beautiful throughout; it deserves a visit both above and below Dunsford Bridge. Fingle has been spoken of in the chapter devoted to Exeter. Below Dunsford the river should be left to ascend a picturesque combe to Bridford, in order to visit the very fine screen and pulpit.
Christow Church is good, and there is in the porch a stone, on which is inscribed, "Nathaniel Busell, aet. 48 yeers, clark heere, dyed 19th Feb., 1631." Tradition asserts that he was shot where he lies buried by the soldiers of the Parliament, who desired to enter and deface the church; but Busell refused to deliver up the keys. In the churchyard are some stately yews.
Ashton possesses a screen with paintings on it in admirable preservation. Here was the seat of the family of that name from which came Sir George, who, after the battle of Stratton, passed over from the side of the Parliament to that of the king. Hence also sprang the notorious Duchess of Kingston, the lovely Miss Chudleigh, who was tried for bigamy in Westminster Hall by the peers in 1776, and who was the original from whom Thackeray drew his detailed portrait of Beatrice Esmond, both as young Trix and as the old Baroness Bernstein. She has had hard measure dealt out to her, and cruellest of all was that John Dunning, a native of her own part of Devon, should have acted in the prosecution against her and insulted her before the peers, so as to wring tears from her eyes. There can be no question but that when she married the Duke of Kingston she believed that her former clandestine marriage was invalid.[28]