COLNE***


Transcribed from the 1864 Chapman and Hall “Tales of All Countries”
edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org





                  THE PARSON’S DAUGHTER OF OXNEY COLNE.


THE prettiest scenery in all England—and if I am contradicted in that
assertion, I will say in all Europe—is in Devonshire, on the southern and
south-eastern skirts of Dartmoor, where the rivers Dart, and Avon, and
Teign form themselves, and where the broken moor is half cultivated, and
the wild-looking upland fields are half moor.  In making this assertion I
am often met with much doubt, but it is by persons who do not really know
the locality.  Men and women talk to me on the matter, who have travelled
down the line of railway from Exeter to Plymouth, who have spent a
fortnight at Torquay, and perhaps made an excursion from Tavistock to the
convict prison on Dartmoor.  But who knows the glories of Chagford?  Who
has walked through the parish of Manaton?  Who is conversant with
Lustleigh Cleeves and Withycombe in the moor?  Who has explored Holne
Chase?  Gentle reader, believe me that you will be rash in contradicting
me, unless you have done these things.

There or thereabouts—I will not say by the waters of which little river
it is washed—is the parish of Oxney Colne.  And for those who wish to see
all the beauties of this lovely country, a sojourn in Oxney Colne would
be most desirable, seeing that the sojourner would then be brought nearer
to all that he would wish to visit, than at any other spot