And on a piece of level ground saved from inundation by a pebble beach stands Sidmouth. Wooded glens rise inland. Huge cliffs, shaved down almost sheer, stretch pinkly to the east until they change to the white chalk of the Dorset coast. Westwards to Devon there is a mile-long beach below Peakhill where at low tide the stretch of sand changes from pink to gold as it goes further west. I could say that of all the seaside resorts I have seen on this tour, Sidmouth has the best sea from the children’s point of view. That pebble beach is only a high tide affair. At low tide there is accommodation west of the town for all the population of Devon to play rounders by the salt sea waves. And ah! to bathe as I did in warm summer water, and swim towards the great pink cliffs and creamy stucco esplanade!
Despite these ample sands and hot-house garden walks, there are few chars-à-bancs. The crowds are neither vast nor noisy. No giant wheels nor kursaals intrude, no pier takes iron strides into the sea. The roads to Sidmouth are twisty, and the streets of the town are far too narrow even for private motors to move with ease, let alone chars-à-bancs. Sidmouth is indeed an exclusive place. It excludes the vulgar throng. No hideous jazz chain-stores, nor gimcrack concrete cages defile the quaintness of its older quarters.
The town is mostly Georgian with few newer additions than those put up in King Edward’s reign. The style of the newest Sidmouth is a sort of red-brick Devonian baroque with green copper domes, and several humble terraces of yellow and red brick near the gasworks. The older and more gracious Sidmouth is Devonian too—low, two-storied stucco villas with green ironwork verandahs, some with pointed windows; some houses are Greek, little Parthenons among ilex trees, with hydrangeas by their front doors. Devon Georgian is the simplest, gayest, lightest, creamiest Georgian of all. I doubt if anywhere on the south coast there is a prettier Georgian stucco crescent than Fortfield Terrace which overlooks the cricket ground and sea, nor a more romantic fairy-tale-Gothic seaside house than Royal Glen a few hundred yards away. And round the Parish Church of St. Nicholas (mediæval and fairly high), and the newer Church of All Saints (Victorian and very low) are many stuccoed and barge-boarded villas, and beyond them villas of a latter age, Bournemouth in style, and many rare trees, wide gardens, flowering shrubs and carefully concealed tennis courts.
What a place to live in in the winter! Those old people I saw in the shops were clearly living on in a calm and civilised world which still lingers throughout the year in this equable climate. How they or anyone else have the money to keep up those big villas among the wooded glens, I do not know. Perhaps great sacrifices are made. If it is so I am glad it is, for they make Sidmouth civilised. What I am certain of is that in summer it is the hotel life that counts in Sidmouth. It is a town of vast hotels. From our table in the dining room, I saw beautiful button-nosed blondes who smiled secretly at young men in club blazers at neighbouring tables. Tennis-girl queens of Sidmouth! What romances must have started over coffee in basket chairs in the lounge, or on the hotel court during a strenuous single! What last walks there must have been at the end of the holidays, while in one of the glittering hotels in the valley below, parents are trying to like one another over a rubber of bridge. Sidmouth! silvery pink and creamy Sidmouth! Farewell! Looe
I came to Looe by unimportant lanes.No main roads for me. I used a one-inch map.No hill was too steep, no village too remote or too full of witches. Thus I was able to taste the full flavour of the inland country behind Looe. Burnt brown August hedges were high as houses either side of narrow lanes. Grey-slated farms with granite round their windows hung on hill slopes. Little fields descended in steps of grass to deserted mines, to meadows heavy with the smell of mint.
On the hills above the lushness it is bleak indeed. Anything that dares to grow to any size is blown backwards from the sea. Ash trees and sloe bushes form a tunnel of twisted branches across the lane. Woods of oak and elm and beech belonging to mysterious country houses just peep above the hills and—phew!—the gale catches them, turns their leaves brown with salt and slices the tree-tops level with the hill.
Then, down, down, down for nearly two miles into Looe. I had a glimpse through oak trees of dark green river-water flecked with white wings of gulls. I saw overhanging woods enfolding the Looe and West Looe rivers, and in the mud the rotting hulks of ships.
Looe is two towns, East Looe and West Looe, one on each side of a steep valley. The oldest parts of the two towns are down on the waterside. Yachts, dinghies, and fishing boats are anchored in the river. There are wharves. They have old roofs of wonderful silvery-grey slate, and so have the older houses behind them. In East Looe, the bigger and more prosperous of the two old towns, the old streets are along the quay-sides. In West Looe the prettier and less-visited town, old houses climb a hill from an octagonal market house (1853), now a grocer’s shop. The pavements on this hill are made of big brown pebbles; on either side of the road are white-washed cottages, black-tarred at their bases. It is quite easy to see
