Clovelly

Lower part of the village, from the harbour wall

Northwest of the village is the site of an Iron Age hillfort at Windbury Head.

All Saints' Church, restored in 1866, is late Norman.[5] In the reign of King Richard II, the Manor of Clovelly was bought by the judge Sir John Cary, and the church contains several monuments to the Cary family, Lords of the Manor for 600 years.

Clovelly was a solely agricultural parish with no harbour until the late 16th century, when the squire, George Cary, had the stone pier erected, thus providing the only haven on this coast between Appledore and Boscastle. He also erected fish cellars and warehouses at the cliff base, and cottages along the banks of the stream that provided the only route to the shore from the plateau above. The works cost him £2,000 and turned Clovelly into a fishing village.[6]

The village is privately owned and has been associated with only three families since the middle of the 13th century. The estate is run by the Clovelly Estate Company, led by John Rous, a descendant of the Hamlyn family who have owned the village, estate and manor house, Clovelly Court, since 1738. John Rous is the only son of Keith Rous, the 5th Earl of Stradbroke and Mary Asquith, granddaughter of former Prime Minister H. H. Asquith.[7]

In 1901 the village had a population of 621.

Clovelly Lifeboat Station

The village has an RNLI lifeboat station with its boat, the Toby Rundle, installed in 2014.[9][10]

The village main street is not accessible by motor vehicles.[11][12]

The lack of vehicular access to the main street has led to deliveries being made by sledge.[11] This is not done as a tourist attraction, but as a matter of practicality. Goods are delivered by being pulled down on a sledge from the upper car park, and refuse is collected by being pulled down the hill to a vehicle at the harbour.

Donkeys on the steep main street, outside the village's post office. The slope can be seen by comparing the cobbled street with the (level) slate pavement in front of the shop.

The village is served by Stagecoach bus service 319; the route includes Barnstaple, Bideford and Hartland.[7]

Waterfall visible by boat

The novelist Charles Kingsley lived here as a child from 1831 to 1836, while his father, Rev. Charles Kingsley, served first as senior curate then as rector. Later, in 1855, his novel Westward Ho! did much to stimulate interest in Clovelly and to boost its tourist trade.

Actor Joss Ackland and his wife Rosemary bought a property in Higher Clovelly on the outskirts of the village in 1989.[13] Ackland still lives there but Rosemary died in 2002 and is buried in the grounds of their home.[14] Ackland has appeared in promotional videos for the town and has spoken often of his love of and connection to Clovelly.[15]

Clovelly is also described by Charles Dickens in "A Message from the Sea"[5] and was painted by Rex Whistler, whose cameos of the village were used on a china service by Josiah Wedgwood.

The sixteenth-century Carys of Clovelly feature in the historical novel The Grove of Eagles by Winston Graham.

The surgeon Campbell De Morgan (1811–1876), who first speculated that cancer arose locally and then spread more widely in the body, was born here.

Clovelly is mentioned in passing by Rudyard Kipling in Stalky & Co. as being located to the west of the boys' academy.

In Susan Coolidge's In the High Valley (1890), part of the Katy series, a walk into Clovelly is described: "...–surely a more extraordinary thing in the way of a street does not exist in the known world. The little village is built on the sides of a crack in a tremendous cliff; the 'street' is merely the bottom of the crack, into which the ingenuity of man has fitted a few stones, set slant-wise, with intersecting ridges on which the foot can catch as it goes slipping hopelessly down."[16]

J.M.W. Turner's painting of Clovelly Harbour around 1822 hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin.[17]

Clovelly Harbour, Devon by Alfred William Hunt (1830–1896)

On Sunday 28 October 1838 twelve fishing vessels with a total of twenty-six men on board left Clovelly harbour for the fishing grounds. Only one vessel and its crew ever returned after a ferocious storm in the Bristol Channel. This event led to the founding of the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society early the following year with the object of

giving relief and assistance to the widows and orphans of fishermen; and of mariners, members of the Society, who lose their lives by storms and shipwreck on any part of the coasts of the United Kingdom, while engaged in their lawful occupations; and also to render necessary assistance to such mariners, soldiers, or other poor persons as suffer shipwreck upon the said coasts.

The charity is active supporting the seafaring community suffering hardship and distress.[18]

An 18th-century chapbook entitled The History of John Gregg and his Family of Robbers and Murderers explains that "Chovaley" (i.e. Clovelly) was once the home of a tribe of fictional cannibalistic bandits. It is alleged that Gregg and his extended family of dozens were eventually tracked down by bloodhounds and were burnt alive in three fires. They were said to have lived in "a cave near the sea-side" and had committed some 1,000 murders.[19] Writer Daniel Codd observes that a stretch of Clovelly Bay is called "the Devil's Kitchen"—"an apt name indeed if there is any truth in the ghoulish story of the Gregg family".[20]

• North Devon Coast AONB

• Charles Kingsley, Westward Ho!, 1855

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Clovelly.

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Clovelly.

• Clovelly - official site
• Clovelly Parish - Official Website, provided by Parish Council
• Genuki Clovelly
• Live webcams of the harbour, beach and main street