An enquiry into the causes which render Ilfracombe the healthiest Devonshire watering-place / by Edwyn J. Slade-King.

  • Slade-King, Edwyn J.
Date:
[1875]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An enquiry into the causes which render Ilfracombe the healthiest Devonshire watering-place / by Edwyn J. Slade-King. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ever most civil. If we care not for the tunnels and dislike its entrances and its exits, we may walk to the pier, often a lively spot for a morning stroll, and there take a boat for Rapparee. This is a cove very secluded under Hillsborough, the great half-mountain cliff to the east. A small boat ferries us across the mouth of the harbour free of charge. The bathing at Rapparee is very good, at all states of the tide. Owing to its position and the sweet influence of the Gulf Stream, bathing at Ilfracombe may be indulged in, and especially at this cove, when it has long ceased in the more open sea-way at most of the other watering places of Great Britain. This is a fact we can establish by personal proof. A quick turn or two on the Pier after bathing, or if the ablution be performed uncommonly early, a walk up Hills- borough affording a grand coup d’ ceil of the whole town and surrounding elevations, or to the terraces above-mentioned, or on the Torrs Walks, the walk par excellence of Ilfracombe, or a turn around the Capstone, the fashionable parade, a half-a-dozen times, wall of course, add greatly to the zest of the matter and insure us a good appetite for our breakfast, at which be it public or private, a dish of Exmoor trout may not be found wanting. The social meal is ofttimes enlivened by the strains of wandering minstrels, who play about the streets of the town—though alas, the strains are somewhat discordant. After breakfast, until lunch or early dinner time, we chat and read the papers at the Town Hall Club, or idle about the Harbour, or by the old Lantern Hill, crowned with a light- house, once the chapel of St. Nicholas, patron saint of sailors, and watch the passing steamers, or the shipping entering and leaving the harbour at our feet, or take tickets for one of the packets making daily trips on the Channel to Lundy’s Isle, remote in ocean’s realm,or to fair Clovelly, perched in its woody nest over the heaving sea, or on to Lynton and Lynmouth, by theBristol steamers, which will leave us there in the morning and pick us up on their return voyage in the evening; or we paddle about the shore in a boat, or fish from the new harbour works. If walking suits us better than strolling or boating, then handy or distant walks are as varied as they are numerous, or we may use a convenient train to carry us to Morthoe, to Braunton, or Barum, and from either of these places the guide books will point out how we can arrange a morning, afternoon, or long day’s ramble, or if we would rather