Women Writing on the Devon Land: A County's Women Who Wrote - circa 1965

I ... Ilfracombe Scenes around Ilfracombe Photo Julie Sampson A - Z of Devon Places and Women Writers  Said to be Rev., John Chanter and his wife Charlotte Kingsley Chanter outside their vicarage home in Ilfracombe. (Photo copy from Ilfracombe Museum)          Ilfracombe has enticed various women writers and in this A-Z it was the obvious choice to represent 'I'. Most famously,  although she was a visitor to Devon,   George Eliot stayed in the town in 1856, at the beginning of her literary career. Her  contemporary,  Charlotte Chanter , daughter of Reverend Charles Kingsley , and sister of the more famous authors Charles, Henry and George was local and is the central focus of this blog piece. Charlotte  wrote several novels, including   Over the Cliffs   as well as a travel memoir,  Ferney Combes , 1856, an unusual book about her driving tour with husband across Devon looking for ferns. Charlotte Chanter (1828-1882) in 1856 wrote a short ‘guide’

At Brixham 'The merry boats of Brixham Go out to search the seas; A staunch and sturdy fleet are they, Who love a swinging breeze; And before the woods of Devon, And the silver cliffs of Wales, You may see, when summer evenings fall, The light upon their sails'. ( The Wives of Brixham by Menella Bute Smedley)       A to Z of Devon places and Devon women writers - B Excerpt from my poem about Flora Thompson in Brixham B for Brixham Page from Miss Green's Journals 1841 It's unlikely that you reading this don't know of Brixham, in Torbay in the south of Devon. Chances are you may have been there. Brixham is one of the county's prime tourist places as well as one of Devon's most famous fishing towns, In my first post in this A-Z of Devon places and women writers I noted that, as I've trawled the county in search of places associated with various authors, it has often happened that my quest to find one or other writer has coincid