The conductor showed us the very fine organ, which before being placed
there had been exhibited at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851; and
we also saw the key of the church door, which, as well as the lock, had
been in use for quite four hundred years.
[Illustration: SEXTON'S COTTAGE, TOTNES.]
We then paid a hurried visit to the ruins of the old castle, which in
the time of Henry VIII was described by Leland the antiquary as "The
Castelle waul and the strong dungeon be maintained; but the logginges of
the Castelle be cleane in ruine"; but about thirty years before our
visit the Duke of Somerset, the representative of the Seymour family,
laid out the grounds and made of them quite a nice garden, with a flight
of steps of easy gradient leading to the top of the old Norman Keep,
from which we had a fine view of the country between Dartmoor and the
sea.
Totnes was supposed to have been the Roman "Ad Darium," at the end of
the Fosse Way, and was also the famous harbour of the Celts where the
great Vortigern was overthrown by Ambrosius. As the seas were infested
with pirates, ports were chosen well up the estuaries of rivers, often
at the limit of the tides; and Totnes, to which point the Dart is still
navigated, remained of importance from Saxon times, through the
struggles with the Danes until the arrival of the Normans; after this it
was gradually superseded by Dartmouth.
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