W. I. Lincoln Adams photographed the landscape around the two villages in the summer of 1909. He compared the drive through the Valley of Rocks and along the cliff road with the Axenstrasse over Lake Lucerne, considering the Devon drive "the more wonderful, both as an engineering feat in road-building, and in the grandeur and sublimity of the scenery".[1]
In 1952 it was the scene of the devastating Lynmouth flood when in one night 35 people were killed and a further 420 were made homeless. Over 100 buildings and 28 bridges were destroyed.
The parish council has designated the parish to be a town, and so calls itself Lynton and Lynmouth Town Council. The parish was just called Lynton prior to 1976. In 2021 the parish had a population of 1,405.
From the Summerhouse Hill between the two is a prospect most magnificent - on either hand, combes and river; before, the beautiful little village, which, I am assured by one who is familiar with Switzerland, resembles a Swiss village".[5]
Southey had travelled to Lynton in 1799, journeying along the Exmoor coast via Porlock, and staying at one of Lynton's Inns. The poet's praise of Lynton and Lynmouth was used in publicity as the "English Switzerland" for the developing tourism industry, while his likening of the area to Switzerland sparked off a fashion for building in a Swiss style.[6][7]
Lynton and Lynmouth became popular with tourists in the early 1800s when the Napoleonic Wars closed mainland Europe to British travellers; unable to make their Grand Tour due to the conflict, visitors to Lynton and Lynmouth found the area evocative of their earlier sojourns in the Alps en route to Italy.[8][9][10]
Prior to 1976 the parish was just called Lynton.[11] The parish of Lynton was designated a local government district in 1866, governed by an elected local board.[12] Local boards were reconstituted as urban district councils in 1894. The Urban District Council built itself Lynton Town Hall on Lee Road in Lynton in 1900 to serve as its headquarters.[13] Lynton Urban District Council was abolished in 1974 to become part of the new district of North Devon.[14]
A successor parish called Lynton was established to cover the former urban district. The parish was renamed "Lynton and Lynmouth" on 12 January 1976.[15][16] The parish council has resolved that the parish shall have the status of a town, allowing the council to take the name "Lynton and Lynmouth Town Council" and the chair of the council to take the title of mayor.[17] The town council continues to be based at Lynton Town Hall.[18]
References
^Adams, Washington Irving Lincoln (1910), "In the Land of the Doones", Photographing in Old England, New York: Baker & Taylor, pp. 37–38
^"Robert Southey". Exmoor National Park. 27 April 2015. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
^"Lynton and Lynmouth". Devon Online: The Original Online Guide to Holidays in Devon (website advertising holidays). Archived from the original on 12 November 2015.
^Travis, J. F. (1995). An Illustrated History of Lynton and Lynmouth, 1770-1914. Breedon Books. p. 14. ISBN1-85983-023-4.
^Butler, Richard; Suntiku, Wantanee (2013). Tourism and War. Routledge. ISBN9781136263095. ... at the end of the nineteenth century, Grand Tour travel for the British was effectively halted by the Napoleonic Wars, as traversing Europe to get to Italy proved dangerous if not impossible ...
