| Mr. HUBERT CORNISH'S LONG VIEW OF SIDMOUTH, DATED 1815. From its comprehensive nature, taking in, as it does, the whole sea front of the town, and still further, extending right and left to the uttermost ends of the visible earth, this is one of the most interesting pictures of Sidmouth that has ever been published. The date is valuable as marking the appearance of the beach at that period. "The painter's licence," or the artist's carelessness, have one or both of them departed from the truth and accuracy which we look for in a portrait, (whether of a person or place) though not in a fancy drawing. |
The inclined strata of Chit Rock and of Great Picket Rock, at the foot of High Peak Hill, could never have been at that angle. […] I am surprised and disappointed that the Ram's Horn has been omitted in Mr. Cornish's view. At the date of 1815, being nine years before the great storm which destroyed it, this apparatus must have been in full use. […] I may here direct the reader's attention to six bathing machines standing on the beach below Rock Cottage and Clifton Place - a locality which for many years has been so encroached upon by the waves, as before remarked, as to have become wholly untenable. The fisherman's cottages under the cliff which were washed away at the time of the storm, are here well shewn. It was out of these that the occupiers escaped up the cliff with their pig. The signal staff on Peak Hill is clearly displayed. We get a view into the interior of the Fort, adjoining Fort Cottage, and immediately over three persons standing on the sand, and we see two of the 12-pounders inside. |
The road starting from the beach near Fort Cottage, and running away across the field to the large white house, I can well remember. This road was stopped and grassed over when the field was enclosed with iron railings: but even now, sometimes in dry summer weather, its course may be traced. In this view we lose the Shed. It has been walled round and incorporated in the corner house. It is the house beyond two figures - a tottering old lady and gentleman, looking towards Salcombe Hill. This panoramic view was engraved on three sheets of paper, each about a yard long: and it was commonly sold mounted on a roller, and coloured. I procured my copy many years ago of the late Mr. John Harvey, who had bought all Wallis's stock, and long kept a bookseller's shop in Fore Street, being at the corner of Theatre Lane, now East Street. His daughter and only child, Mrs. Culverwell, with her husband, continues to carry on the business there. |
By 1840 the original stock of impressions had been all sold off, but Mr. Harvey had the copper plates. Some erasures and alterations were made in these plates, to suit the change of times, and a new edition was struck off - half right and half wrong, for old Chit Rock was left. I shall say no more relative to this now, but recur to it further on, except to observe that impressions of the original stock are not to be got apparently, and the public buy of the 1840 issue, altogether ignorant of the alterations that have been made in the plates. I have the satisfaction of saying that the series just given belong to the genuine original stock. It was a long time before I could gain resolution to cut up this long view into a number of pieces: but I found that there was no alternative. There was no other way of preserving it in this volume. In the third Edition of his Guide, at page 38, Mr. Butcher thus notices this view:- |
"A most beautiful and faithful panoramic view of the whole beach, including all the buildings upon it, the rocks at each extremity, and the hills in the background, has been drawn by Hubert Cornish Esq., engraved in aqua tinta by Havell, and published by Wallis, opposite whose Library the view was taken - Views of all the principal ornamental cottages and gentlemen's residences in the environs, are to be had at Wallis's only; and Ladies and Gentlemen wishing to preserve a recollection of any part of this coast from Weymouth to Torquay, will meet with a greater variety of prints of this description, than at any other watering place in the kingdom. The proprietor having expended upwards of £900 in engraving, colouring, &." [Text may be taken from a different source or edition than that listed as the source by Somers Cocks.] |
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