The hill is now much-visited and, I believe, appreciated and that is the intention.
Higher Chuggaton
My home in North Devon is known as Higher Chuggaton and you may well ask: where is that? Higher and Lower Chuggaton, Chuggaton Farm and Chuggaton Cross, along with Traveller’s Rest, are part of the hamlet of Cobbaton. The postal address, however, is Umberleigh, the parish is Swimbridge, the telephone exchange was Chittlehamholt and the nearest village is Chittlehampton. I came to buy Higher Chuggaton by an amazing piece of luck. During the summer of 1968 I rented part of a farmhouse in Cobbaton from my close friend and neighbour, Jim Isaac. I mentioned to him that I was anxious to buy a property in the immediate area. He told me that there was only one house on the market, and this was down a long, unmade-up lane, and needed a lot doing to it. I was standing in Jim’s orchard, from which one could see the thatched roof of a cottage three fields away. I said: ‘That’s the sort of house I am looking for’, to which Jim replied that it was not on the market. He said that the house was in good condition, had central heating and a converted barn. Three days later it came on the market, and within five days I bought it. Caroline and I moved in in January 1969. She was six months pregnant, and was to lift nothing. A group of friends and supporters fifteen-strong awaited us and the removal van, and within two hours the furniture was in place, the drawers had been lined, china and glass unpacked and most of the curtains and pictures were hung. It was an instant move, which I recommend!
The top of the garden was completely wild and one could only reach it in the winter months when the brambles had died down from their six-foot height. An old boy called Reg Rice had agreed to cut the thicket and remarked: ‘T’was like a bloody jungle, the only things missing were tigers!’ In due course we had to re-thatch the barn and the cottage. Traditionally farmers used to set aside a field for growing thatching straw, but this nowadays occurs very rarely. Wheat now grows much shorter for economy of handling, and even Norfolk reed is affected by chemicals and pesticides which have reduced its lifespan. On two occasions, therefore, we ordered thatching reed from Austria and Hungary. It cost a third more, but lasts more than twice as long. I remember my anger, having just organised this source of supply, when I read in a well-known gossip column that I was using plastic thatch! The cottage dates from about 1630 and is built of cob, a mixture of clay, gravel and straw. The walls are three feet deep and retain the heat in the winter and keep the house cool in the summer. An inspector from the Department of the Environment visited the house, as a result of which it was listed. He went into the roof space and there found some of the original thatch, which had been blackened by the smoke of an open fire. As it is the practice to lay the new thatch on the old, the darkened straw, caked with soot, showed the existence of an open fire which dates that part of the house back to the fifteenth century. Some original beams remain, and we have uncovered others which had been plastered over.
On one side of the fireplace a traditional bread oven is built into the thick cob wall. When one day I was showing a step-grandson the mysteries of baking bread, I noticed for the first time, rolled up into a ball at the very back of the oven, a partly scorched newspaper. Still legible was the report of the speeches of David Lloyd George, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Sir Rufus Isaacs, then Attorney-General, in the two-day debate which took place on 18–19 June 1913 on the Marconi affair. It had lain there undisturbed for eighty-four years.
Within a few weeks of moving in, Caroline discovered that on her father’s side she had a close connection with Chuggaton, and even more so with the neighbouring village of Chittlehampton. Her great-great-aunt, the late Mrs Lewis, had in my time been president of the local Liberal Association. Many years ago, John Richard Howard of Chittlehampton married Amelia Huxtable, whose father had bought Lower Chuggaton from the Duke of Bedford. Mr Howard’s sister, Mrs Annie Hobbs, had a daughter Winnie, who married an Allpass; their son, Caroline’s father, is my father-in-law, Warwick Allpass. Caroline also had second cousins living in the area. This was a splendid surprise.
The garden has grown and matured over the years. When it wakes up from its winter slumbers, it bursts into a sea of daffodils; one bank is planted out with daffodil bulbs given to Marion and myself as a wedding present by Alec and Elizabeth Home, and we call it ‘Home Hill’. Chuggaton has always been part of my son’s, Rupert’s, life, and the three of us spend as much time there as possible. It is also a favourite visiting place for Marion’s sons and eleven grandchildren – although there are occasionally casualties to the flowerbeds, not unconnected with football sessions!
For me it is the nearest thing to paradise on earth.
Copyright
This edition published in 2014 by
Biteback Publishing Ltd
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Copyright © Jeremy Thorpe 1999, 2014
First published in Great Britain in 1999 by
Politico’s Publishing
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In My Own Time Page 24