el
of Totnes; then it passed to the De la Poles; Lady Alice de la Pole gave
it to the Comptons, and seven generations later a Compton heiress
brought it, in the reign of Edward II, to the family of Gilberts, of
whom Sir Humphrey Gilbert was a descendant. The Gilberts seem to have
lived alternately at Compton and on their older property, Greenway, and
with one interval the castle belonged to them till nearly the end of the
eighteenth century. The only trace of them now to be seen is in the
spandrels of a small cinquefoil-headed opening on the projecting gabled
wing to the south of the central door. Each spandrel is sculptured with
their crest, a squirrel holding a hazel branch.

Mr Eden Phillpotts has painted the ruins with a characteristic touch:

'At gloaming time, when the jackdaws make an end of day, when weary
birds rustle in the ivy ere they sleep, hearts and eyes, gifted to feel
and see a little above the level prose of working hours, shall yet
conceive these heroes of old moving within their deserted courts. Some
chambers are still whole, and bats sidle through the naked window at the
call of dusk; some are thrown open to sun and rain and storm; the chapel
stands intact; the scoop for holy water lies still within the thickness
of its wall. But aloft, where rich arras once hid the stone, and silver
sconces held the torch, Nature now sets her hand, brings spleenwort and
harts-tongue, trails the ivy, the speedwell, and the toad-flax....

'Ivy-mantled, solemn, silent, it stands like a sentient thing, and
broods with blind eyes upon ages forgotten; when these grey stones still
echoed neigh of horse and bay of hound, rattle of steel, blare of trump,
and bustle of great retinues.'

The castle of Okehampton stands about half a mile from the town, and
looks on one side over fertile hills and valleys, woods, and rich
meadows, and the gleaming waters of the West Okement, on the other
towards the bold, changeless outlines of the outer barriers of Dartmoor.
The Castle was once surrounded by its park. Risdon mentions that
originally there were 'Castle, market, and park adjoining.... The park,
which containeth a large circuit of land, King Henry the eighth, by the
persuasion of Sir Richard Pollard, disparked and alienated the same.'
The Okement, rippling over a rocky bed--the name _uisg maenic_ means the
'stony water'--hurries past the foot of a knoll on which the castle
rises out of a cloud of green leaves that shelter and