Clovelly - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

CLOVELLY, a fishing village in the Barnstaple parliamentary division of Devonshire, England, r1 m. W.S.W. of Bideford. Pop. (1901) 621. It is a cluster of old-fashioned cottages in a unique position on the sides of a rocky cleft in the north coast; its main street resembles a staircase which descends 400 ft. to the pier, too steeply to allow of any wheeled traffic. Thick woods shelter it on three sides, and render the climate so mild that fuchsias and other delicate plants flourish in midwinter. All Saints' church, restored in 1866, is late Norman, containing several monuments to the Carys, lords of the manor for 600 years. The surrounding scenery is famous for its richness of colour, especially in the grounds of Cary Court, and along "The Hobby," a road cut through the woods and overlooking the, sea. Clovelly is described by Dickens in A Message from the Sea.