Adventure and adventurers > Black's guide to the counties of Dorset, Devon, & Cornwall

BABBICOMBE BAY ST. MARY CHURCH.
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sion, along the picturesque eliff-road to Babbicombe Bat and Torquay, visiting
on his way Shaldon, where Lord Clifford has a beautiful villa, and RINGMOOR
(pop. 337), a quiet leafy hamlet, about a mile above. It is right to mention that
boating on this part of the coast is dangerous when sails are used. 3. Chudleigh,
and its “ Pixies’ Cave ” lies about 6 m. north-west. The best way to go there is by
Bishop’s Teignton, Ideford, and Ugbrooke Park (Lord Clifford), returning through
King’s Teignton. 4. To Newton Abbots is a five miles’ walk; from thence to Tor¬
quay, about 7 m.; the cliff-road between Teignmouth and Torquay is a most in.
teresting one, passing through Watcombe and Petit Tor, two pretty watering-
places, lying contiguous, and within a mile of Babbicombe.]
BABBICOMBE BAY (2 m. from Torquay, and 4 m. from
Teignmouth) is one of the loveliest nooks on all the British
coast. We must admit, however, “ a saving clause ”—were the
trim villas which now civilize the scene, and the snug hotels,
and the neat gardens swept ruthlessly away, and the place once
•more abandoned to the simple grandeur of nature. Though these
innovations have done much to injure its general effect, it still
remains a scene of wonderful beauty ; with its lofty rocks, its
beetling cliffs, and its masses of deep shadowy foliage. There is
now quite a town of villas on the top of the cliff, and an elegant
new church has been erected.
ST. MARY CHURCH (pop. 4472) stands above the hay,
and dose to Torquay. It is a “ village of villas,” with a tall
church spire in its centre. The Marble Works here are well
worth a visit, and contain numerous specimens of the richly
coloured marbles which the neighbouring rocks supply.*
Half a mile further, and we come upon the Italianesque
towers and terraces of Bishopstowe, the palace of the late
Bishop of Exeter, now the residence of S. Hanbury, Esq.
Immediately below is Anstis Cove, “ the most romantic spot
from Sidmouth to the Dart.” It is a jagged ravine in the cliffs,
wrought out, in the-past by the action of some restless stream.
On either hand, as if flung down at hazard by a weary giant, are
scattered bold, dark rocks. To the left, a promontory of hardest
marble has been rent by the sea into several ragged peaks,
over which the ivy and the lichen clamber; on the right a
lofty hill struggles upward, clothed with coppice and brush¬
wood, and the rude gnarled trunks of elm, birch, and oak.
Yet of all the peaceful places on the earth this is supreme,
* The terra-cotta works of Watcombe, about a mile north of the parish
church, are also very interesting.