inscribed and dated "Samson's caves Ilfracombe Sept 1863" and signed with initials "LWT"
Tom and Laura Taylor and thence by descent
There is an early reference to smuggling in Ilfracombe in 1585, but smuggling really developed from the 1680’s when there were particularly high taxes on luxury imports. Sailing vessels began to use fore-and-aft rigging; which can sail nearer to the wind than square-rigging, and were consequently more manoeuvrable, enabling them to access remote and rocky bays. Smuggling was often associated with lime burning, since a vessel bringing coal or lime from Wales could meet a foreign ship in the Channel, purchase contraband, and land at a remote kiln where it could be secretly unloaded
Smuggling was common in north Devon in the 18th and early 19th centuries, although recorded information is understandably rare. Smugglers were known to have used Lee, Ilfracombe, Heddon’s Mouth, Watermouth Cove and Morte. Some of the smuggling operations were clearly considerable; in 1785 a 96 gallon cask [sic] of rum was found at Watermouth Cove and in 1801 224 gallons of gin and 164 gallons of brandy were found on the foreshore near Ilfracombe. It seems that everyone was involved; in 1783 all the Ilfracombe pilot boats were suspected of smuggling and one, the Cornwall, was seized and cut up into three parts. An Ilfracombe Collector from 1804-1824, Thomas Rudd, was father in law to a known smuggler, Cooke, who was never caught. In 1825 the richest man in Combe Martin, John Dovell, was prosecuted for handling smuggled goods
The most infamous smuggler in north Devon was Thomas Benson, who in 1747 became MP for Barnstaple. The following year he was granted a lease on Lundy and entered into contract with the Government to carry convicts abroad. However, he landed them on Lundy instead to run his smuggling operation. He became over confident and was fined for smuggling and stripped of his office. He didn’t pay and his lands in Bideford were seized. To recover his losses he persuaded the Captain of the Nightingale to fire it for the insurance, but the plan was discovered and he fled to Portugal. The poor Captain was tried and executed in 1754
Far worse than smugglers were the wreckers, who would lure a ship onto the rocks with a misplaced light and then plunder anything of value. Salvage couldn’t be kept if there was even one survivor and Elizabeth Berry from Morthoe was said to be known for holding down drowning men with a pitchfork (she was arrested for plundering the William and Jane in 1850 and given 21 days hard labour). The William Wilberforce was said to have been lured onto the rocks at Lee in 1842 by tying a lantern to a donkey’s tail, but there is no evidence to support this. Wrecking is said to have ceased after the Rev. Charles Crump wrote an account of the 1850 alleged wrecking of the Thomas Crisp, entitled the Morte Stone; and work started on a lighthouse at Bull Point in 1878
There are said to have been wreckers and smugglers in Hele. There is a local legend that the Granada was wrecked in Hele Bay in 1663 by Alexander Oatway, a tenant of Chambercombe, and that the skeleton of a young woman was found in a hidden room at Chambercombe in 1865, supposedly from Oatway's tenancy. There is a hidden room, to the right of the tallest chimney in this engraving from before 1840 (left), but the legend of the skeleton and the smuggler Oatway is almost certainly from an anonymous story The Call of Chambercombe, published in 1865, which ironically tells how Alexander's son, William, found a lady barely alive on Hele Beach after a shipwreck and hid her at Chambercombe so that he could keep her money and jewels. But he realises, as she dies, that she was his own daughter
There are always local legends regarding smugglers caves and tunnels. There is said to have been a tunnel from Watermouth Cove to the nearby Castle, and the Tunnels in Ilfracombe are said to have originally been a smugglers cave. There is also a legend of a tunnel from Chambercombe Manor to Hele beach. The Call of Chambercombe has a chapter called The Cave at Hele Bay, where wreckers hid their booty; but it is not like any local cave and there is no tunnel (although some of the story does take place in a Cornish mine). The first mention of a tunnel in Hele is from the Ilfracombe Chronicle of 1874, which refers to "a subterranean passage between the village and Chambercombe which was used by the wreckers". In 1888, in an article on smuggling, an 'old man' claimed that when he was a boy, he heard of a smuggler's tunnel from Hele Beach to an old well at Chambercombe. Another article from 1933 quoted Nathaniel Lewis, who lived in Hele, as saying that the tunnel led to Rapparee Cove. In 1976, Lilian Wilson wrote that the tunnel, now collapsed, led to a ledge high up in Samson's Cave, accessible only by ladder
By local tradition, Samson’s Cave and Samson's Bay were named after a local smuggler called Samson or Sampson (or is it coincidence that the Coastguard cottages were built above here in the 1930’s ?). But smuggler's didn't often use caves or tunnels, preferring the open where they could escape. The other local caves, Joe Moon's and Tom Norman's Hole, are named after the quarryman or miners that made them; Samson's probably has a similar origin. There are actually five caves in the bay and it is not clear which one is Samson's; the 1889 Ordnance Survey map shows Samson's Cave on the eastern side, but also Samson's Caves on the western side. One of the two western caves, furthest from the sea, does however match Lilian Wilson's description; just inside, on the left, is a high gully at the top of which is a ledge, largely obscured, and very difficult to reach.
At Chambercombe, part of what appears to have been a chimney breast, contains a curious hidden vertical shaft, with an iron ladder, leading up into the roof. The shaft is filled to ground level but it is said that early in the 20th century it led down into a tunnel, blocked after some 20-30 paces. The shaft's stones are unfaced and it would have been useless for hiding smuggled goods, there being barely enough room to climb the rungs. If not just an architectural accident, capitalised by the addition of a ladder, then it may have once led to a priest hole (but an iron ladder ?). Many old houses have hiding places that were made in times of religious persecution. Perhaps the shaft led to a priest hole in the roof, or underground. If there really was a tunnel, it could have been a route leading to the nearby stream, some 40-50m away, where a small ravine 3-4m deep provides good cover for escape. This is much more likely than a tunnel from Chambercombe to Samson's; such a tunnel would have to be two kilometres long and pass under three streams. Besides, it would be far less trouble, and just as effective at concealment, to simply walk up the stream from Hele Beach.
There are persistent stories of Hele being associated with smugglers, and they are not all in the distant past. The 1933 Ilfracombe Chronicle article says that there was smuggling at Chambercombe when Nicholas Lewis was alive; it also refers to Jan White's path, and to a Bill Stephens and John Wilkey, who apparently tried to waylay a smuggler's wagon en-route from Chambercombe to South Molton, but were bribed off with silken scarves. Nicholas Lewis lived in Hele at the time of the first Census in 1841, as did a William Stevins, and a John White lived at Widmouth farm. In 1851 a John Wilkey lived in Hele and Chambercombe was tenanted by John Robins; this is a photograph of his son, John Robins (right), he certainly looks the part of a smuggler! Coincidently (?) one of his workmen may have been called John Oatway.
Smuggling became less common during the 19th century. One of the last major occurrences near Ilfracombe was the smack Lively, who lost her boom in a storm in October 1831 off Lundy, was seized by Custom's with 300 tubs of brandy on board and broken up into three parts. According to articles in the Ilfracombe Chronicle of 1888 and 1913, she was first found by some Ilfracombe vessels, who offered help but wanted more than the smuggler's were willing to pay. They returned to port, and soon after, a Customs ship put out and apprehended the Lively, giving rise to the expression Combe Sharks and the following song :-
"Come all you shipmasters, I bid you beware!
When outside ‘Combe harbour, I’d have you take care;
If long in that roadstead, you forced are to lie,
Be sure you don’t let those bold Pirates draw nigh.
CHORUS: Sing Brandy hi O !
They’ll kiss you like Judas, and will you betray,
Then into ‘Combe harbour will force you straightway
Unless fifty pounds or your cargoe half share
You give them, your body and soul they’ll ensnare.
CHORUS: Sing Brandy hi O !"
The smugglers still had plenty of local support, however, since it appears that an effigy of one of the men who reported them was burnt in public.
Laura Wilson Barker (6 March 1819 – 22 May 1905), was a composer, performer and artist, sometimes also referred to as Laura Barker, Laura W Taylor or "Mrs Tom Taylor".
She was born in Thirkleby, North Yorkshire, third daughter of a clergyman, the Rev. Thomas Barker. She studied privately with Cipriani Potter and became an accomplished pianist and violinist. As a young girl Barker performed with both Louis Spohr and Paganini. She began composing in the mid-1830s - her Seven Romances for voice and guitar were published in 1837. From around 1843 until 1855 she taught music at York School for the Blind. During this period some of her compositions - including a symphony in manuscript, on 19 April 1845 - were performed at York Choral Society concerts.
On 19 June 1855 she married the English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant, and editor of Punch magazine Tom Taylor. Barker contributed music to at least one of her husband's plays, an overture and entr'acte to Joan of Arc (1871), and provided harmonisations as an appendix to his translation of Ballads and Songs of Brittany (1865).
Her other works include the cantata Enone (1850), the violin sonata A Country Walk (1860), theatre music for As You Like It, (April 1880), Songs of Youth (1884), string quartets, madrigals and solo songs. Her choral setting of Keats's A Prophecy, composed in 1850, was performed for the first time 49 years later at the Hovingham Festival in 1899. The composer was present.
Several of Barker's paintings hang at Smallhythe Place in Kent, Ellen Terry's house.
Barker lived with her husband and family at 84 Lavender Sweep, Battersea. There were two children: the artist John Wycliffe Taylor (1859–1925), and Laura Lucy Arnold Taylor (1863–1940). The Sunday musical soirees at the house attracted many well-known attendees, including Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, Henry Irving, Charles Reade, Alfred Tennyson, Ellen Terry and William Makepeace Thackeray.
Tom Taylor died suddenly at his home in 1880 at the age of 62. After his death, his widow retired to Porch House, Coleshill in Buckinghamshire, where she died on 22 May 1905, aged 86.