it is a hilly road that leads from clifton bridge to abbot’s leigh, through the noble leigh woods. nightingale valley lies down on the right; a beautiful seclusion, well-named from those songsters of early summer. looking down upon it is the ancient camp of borough walls. an enterprising land company has acquired building rights here from sir h. miles, owner of these woods and of leigh court, and has recently built a number of charming detached residences, irregularly disposed among the glades; and far advanced, in disposition, in planning, and in architectural style, beyond the methods in vogue when the suburban villas built nearer the bridge were erected, from about 1870 to 1890.
avonmouth, from pill.
three miles, bearing to the right, bring the traveller down to the avon estuary again, at the hillside and waterside village of pill; a queer little place, clinging and huddling closely to the steep banks, and ending in a short quay, where pilots and other strange waterside folk lean and sit on walls and look across to avonmouth, plainly visible on the gloucestershire shore, at the meeting 18of the avon and the bristol channel; a distant congeries of clustered masts, great warehouses, railway signal-posts, and puffs of smoke and steam: all signs of the great series of docks constructed by the somewhat belated enterprise of bristol, between 1880 and 1908. the delays and dangers attending the progress of modern shipping up and down the avon, to and from the docks of bristol city, have long hindered the expansion of the port, and have left bristol behind in that race for commercial greatness in which liverpool and glasgow have emerged foremost; and now it remains to be seen what the expenditure of millions will be able to effect in recovering tonnage and redressing the balance of missed opportunities. there is a ferry across to shirehampton from pill and those eager for light on the subject may readily make the passage into gloucestershire and satisfy themselves on the 19spot of the likelihood of avonmouth’s future prosperity. the rise of avonmouth, at any rate, means loss to the pilots of pill, in the diminished call there will be for their services in guiding vessels up and down the muddy meanderings of the avon.
a pleasant land opens out before the traveller who wends from pill through easton-in-gordano (called for short, “st. george’s”) and portbury, to portishead, where the open coast is first reached.
portishead is almost wholly delightful. the straggling village is surprisingly unspoiled, considering its nearness to bristol and the fact that places further removed have been ruined by overmuch building in recent times. there are docks, with an area of some twelve acres, at portishead, in the level lands below the great bluff of woodhill and black nore, and there is a single-track railway, with a terminus here; but the brilliant future once prophesied and confidently expected for portishead docks has not yet been realised; and now that the great modern docks of avonmouth have been opened, there is even less prospect of those of portishead coming into that predicted success.
attempts have been made to popularise portishead, but as the derelict villas on the wooded crest of woodhill sufficiently prove, entirely without success, and the beautiful underwoods, traversed in every direction by footpaths, and commanding fine views over the channel, are 20as yet unspoiled. there is great beauty in this outlook upon the narrow channel; great beauty alike in the outlook and in the spot whence it is obtained. it is not found in the hue of the water, which is here coffee-coloured; but rather in the glimpses across the five-mile-wide estuary to another land—to monmouthshire—where the misty levels of caldicot are relieved by a gleam on goldcliff.
on this side the estuary are the long levels beyond avonmouth, in gloucestershire, ending in the sudden rise of cliff at aust, where the old passage across the dangerous severn was situated in the old coaching days, before railways and the severn tunnel were thought of.
this boldly projecting hill of portishead commands the entire panorama of the shipping that comes to and from the docks at gloucester and avonmouth; and every wind that blows beats against it, so that the scrub woods are closely knitted and compacted together. it is a place of piercing cold and howling blasts in winter, and in summer the most invigorating spot on the somerset coast. the ivy-clad, storm-tossed dwarf oaks and gnarled thorns reach down to the low, black, seaweedy rocks, and here and there are fine houses, with gardens and conservatories, perched within reach of the spray.
woodhill bay, westward of this windy point, is as sheltered as the heights of woodhill are exposed. near by is the imposing new nautical school, which has replaced the old formidable 21training-ship that for many years was a familiar sight in the anchorage of king road.
the rise and fall of the tide at portishead, ranging from 33 feet at neaps to 44 feet at spring-tides, is said to be the greatest, not only in england, but in europe.
in portishead church.
the old village of portishead is quite distinct from the modern portishead just described. a broad straggling street, a mile long, connects the 22two. some very charming old-world houses are clustered around this original inland portishead, whose noble pinnacled church-tower, rising in four stately stages, is one of the finest in these parts of somerset. the north aisle has towards its east end a transverse masonry strainer, built in the middle of the fifteenth century to prevent the walls collapsing, owing to a subsidence of the soil. as in the case of the great stone inverted arches inserted to support the central tower of wells cathedral, a century earlier, the architects employed have attempted to mask the merely utilitarian addition by decorative treatment. the attempt has here met with a greater degree of success than was possible at wells, and although the broad arch spanning the north aisle has obviously no ecclesiastical use or purport, save that of shoring up walls that were in danger of falling, it is not the offensive blot it might, with less careful treatment, easily have been made.
at portishead is the terminus of that quaint short railway, some twelve miles in length with the long many-jointed name, like some lengthy goods-train—the weston, clevedon, and portishead light railway; familiarly (for life is short and busy) the “w.c. and p.l.r.” this is a single-track line, of ordinary gauge, originally planned for a steam-tramway, when the parliamentary powers for its construction, as between weston and clevedon, were first obtained in 1887. the act authorising the extension to portishead was obtained in 1898.
23the first portion, between weston and clevedon, was opened december 1st, 1897. in the interval between 1887 and 1897 the light railways act had been passed, and the methods of construction were modified in accordance. this was the first line to be opened under the light railways act, and has therefore the interest attaching to a pioneer. the w.c. and p.l.r. has, in the few years it has been opened, conferred many benefits upon a district almost wholly agricultural and hitherto peculiarly inaccessible.
the coast between portishead and clevedon is formed principally by the long steeply shelving hill-range known for the greater part of its length as walton down, thickly covered with woods. the road on to clevedon runs in the valley formed between the landward dip of these heights and the rise of other hills yet further inland, dominated by the camp-crested summit of cadbury hill. in the pleasant vale thus formed, runs easily the w.c. and p.l.r. aforesaid.
there are two villages along this road, weston and walton, both equipped with the “gordano” suffix, lest they should, perhaps, be confounded with other westons and waltons. they are not remarkable villages, and the church at walton has been rebuilt; so that the place holds no particular interest for the stranger. but the church of weston-in-gordano, a small perpendicular building, retains in its porch an unusual and very interesting feature: a wooden musicgallery 24over the doorway, approached by a short flight of stone steps in the thick side wall of the porch itself. this gallery appears to have been used by the church choir in olden times, principally for the singing of the canticle for palm sunday, “gloria laus et honor,” and for christmas hymns; but it has, for centuries past, remained unused and is now merely an arch?ological curiosity.
as the stranger approaches clevedon, his attention cannot fail to be attracted by a singular castle-like group of buildings upon the skyline, on the right hand. this is the so-called “walton castle,” built in the reign of james the first by the paulets, then owners of the surrounding lands, as a hunting-lodge. castle-building after the medi?val style had long been extinct, but this lodge was designed, for picturesqueness’ sake, in that old manner. it is a flimsy and fast-decaying sham.
