was a noted
resort for herrings all through the Middle Ages, and curing-houses stood
on the beach for many years until 1607, when nearly all were swept away
by a great storm, and never after properly reconstructed. The herrings
also at some time in the seventeenth century left these coasts
completely--tradition says because of the avarice of a parson of Lynton,
a hard man and greedy, who cared rather to fleece his flock than feed
them, and who imposed such heavy tithes on his poor parishioners, that,
in spite of the prosperity of their fishing, they were unable to pay
them. So the herrings left the district, and the parson could whistle
for them, until he mended his ways and reduced his tithes, when they
magically returned.

At the dissolution of the monasteries very little difference in the daily
routine of their lives can have been felt by the country people round
Lynton and Countisbury. John Chidley, who had been bailiff for Ford
Abbey, applied to the King for continuation in his office, which was
granted to him, and he administered the property for Henry VIII, Edward
VI, and, Elizabeth, as he had administered it for the Abbey of Ford.

Nor did the Civil Wars touch it nearly. Barnstaple and Dunster were
taken and retaken by the Parliamentarian troops, and armies marched from
Dunster west to Bideford across Exmoor and the great commons, but no
armed troops came down into Lynton; perhaps hardly even a straggler found
his way there. In the tragic rebellion of 1685 a bloody little drama was
enacted here indeed, but that is connected with the history of the de
Wichehalses, the family of chief interest and importance who have lived
at Lynton. They did not come to Lynton before the early seventeenth
century; their home was a small hamlet called Wych, near Chudleigh in
Devonshire, though Blackmore invents for them a romantic Dutch pedigree,
and asserts that they fled to England to escape from Spanish persecution
in the Netherlands; this story, however, has been proved entirely without
foundation by the careful researches of Mr. Chanter. In the time of
Elizabeth, he says, these de Wichehalses had overflowed all over the
country; we find them at Exeter, Chudleigh, Ashcombe, and Powderham. In
1530 one, Nicholas de Wichehalse, settled at Barnstaple and started in
the woollen trade; he married into the Salisbury family, who were in the
same business; and when he died he decreed by will that his nephew John
should marry h