The Cornwall Coast
by Arthur L. Salmon · English · Gutenberg #26907 · 533,074 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Cornwall Coast
Author: Arthur L. Salmon
Release date: October 13, 2008 [eBook #26907]
Most recently updated: January 4, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26907
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[Illustration: A HIGH SEA ON THE NORTH CORNWALL COAST.
From a photograph by Mr. Alexander Old, Padstow.]
The Cornwall
Coast
_By Arthur L. Salmon_
_Illustrated_
[Illustration: 1 Adelphi Terrace, W.C.]
_T. Fisher Unwin_
_London: Adelphi Terrace_
_Leipsic: Inselstrasse 20_
_1910_
[_All rights reserved._]
ROAD MAPS FOR THE CORNWALL COAST
Those who travel through Cornwall by cycle or motor-car will usually
find very good roads, but for the most part these only touch the coast
at special points; and in some cases it will be wise to leave bicycle
or car at hotel or farm if the coast is to be fitly explored. The
study of a map will show the tourist what to expect, and he may note
the parts where, if he thinks of easy travelling alone, he will have
to desert the sea. But by a judicious use of high-road and by-road he
need never be far from the shore, and in some places the road that is
actually best for him gives fine views of the coast. There are many
excellent maps issued, but it is best to go to the fountainhead, to
the publications of the Ordnance Survey. For the pedestrian those of
one inch to a mile are admirable; but the cyclist or motorist will
find the two miles to an inch more handy, as covering a wider range;
and even those of four miles to the inch are sufficiently full for the
motorist. If any special district is to be carefully explored, the one
mile to an inch should be carried, but the wise rider will not content
himself with a map of a single scale; he should at least carry one for
the entire Duchy and others for the sections.
The maps of the Ordnance Survey for Cornwall are as follow:--
One mile to the inch, large series, in sheets about 27 x 18
inches, paper (flat or folded), 1s. 6d. net; mounted, 2s.; cut
into sections and mounted to fold, 2s. 6d., Nos. 139, 146-7-8,
151-2.
One mile to the inch, small series, in contoured outline, with
hills shaded or coloured, Nos. 347, 353, 1s. 6d. and 2s.; 348,
354, 1s. and 1s. 6d.; 322, 336, 1s. 6d. and 2s.; 335, 346, 1s.
and 1s. 6d.; 351, 359, 1s. and 1s. 6d.; 352, 360, 1s. 6d. and
2s. These may be had flat or folded.
Two miles to an inch (flat or folded, or on the new layer
system), Nos. 35-6, 1s. 6d., 2s., 2s. 6d.
Four miles to the inch, Cornwall, 1s. (flat or folded).
Four miles to the inch, Nos. 21, 22, 1s. 6d., 2s. (flat or
folded).
Ten miles to the inch, No. II. (flat or folded), 1s., 1s. 6d.
It should be mentioned that Mr. T. Fisher Unwin is sole wholesale
agent for these maps, which may be procured from any bookseller.
Fuller details of the maps are given in a special Catalogue issued by
Mr. Unwin.
A. L. S.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE PLYMOUTH DISTRICT 13
II. LOOE AND POLPERRO 29
III. FOWEY 48
IV. ST. AUSTELL TO ST. MAWES 66
V. FALMOUTH AND TRURO 81
VI. FROM FALMOUTH TO THE LIZARD 106
VII. THE LIZARD TO HELSTON 126
VIII. MOUNT'S BAY 150
IX. THE PENZANCE DISTRICT 167
X. THE SCILLY ISLANDS 190
XI. FROM LAND'S END TO ZENNOR 211
XII. ST. IVES 231
XIII. FROM HAYLE TO PERRAN 253
XIV. CRANTOCK, NEWQUAY, MAWGAN 271
XV. THE PADSTOW DISTRICT 301
XVI. TINTAGEL AND BOSCASTLE 335
XVII. BUDE 354
XVIII. MORWENSTOW 363
INDEX 381
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
LOOE 33
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_
FOWEY 55
_Photo by Gibson, Penzance_
ON THE RIVER FAL 83
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_
COVERACK 119
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_
THE LIZARD LIGHTHOUSE 129
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_
BENCH-ENDS IN MULLION CHURCH 133
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_
MARCONI STATION, POLDHU 139
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_
PRUSSIA COVE 155
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_
ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT, FROM MARAZION 161
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_
PENZANCE 171
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_
LANYON CROMLECH 181
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_
SHIPMAN HEAD, SCILLY 191
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_
A SCILLY FLOWER GARDEN 201
_Photo by Alex. Old_
CAVERN AT LAND'S END 213
_Photo by Gibson, Penzance_
SENNEN COVE 219
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_
GURNARD'S HEAD 227
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_
ST. IVES 233
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_
CHURCH OF ST. PIRAN 267
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_
CRANTOCK CHURCH 283
_Photo by Alex. Old_
BEDRUTHAN STEPS 293
_Photo by Alex. Old_
MAWGAN CHURCH 297
_Photo by Alex. Old_
PORTHCOTHAN BAY 303
_Photo by Alex. Old_
RUINS OF CONSTANTINE CHURCH 307
_Photo by Alex. Old_
TREVOSE LIGHTHOUSE 311
_Photo by Alex. Old_
CLIFFS NEAR PADSTOW 317
_Photo by Alex. Old_
A ROUGH CORNISH SEA 323
_Photo by Alex. Old_
WADEBRIDGE 327
_Photo by Alex. Old_
PORT ISAAC 331
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_
TINTAGEL 337
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_
KING ARTHUR'S CASTLE 343
_Photo by Alex. Old_
ST. KNIGHTON'S KIEVE 349
_Photo by Alex. Old_
MORWENSTOW 367
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_
The Cornwall Coast
CHAPTER I
THE PLYMOUTH DISTRICT
Britain is an emergent mass of land rising from a submarine platform
that attaches it to the Continent of Europe. The shallowness of its
waters--shallow relatively to the profundity of ocean deeps--is most
pronounced off the eastern and south-eastern coasts; but it extends
westward as far as the isles of Scilly, which are isolated
mountain-peaks of the submerged plateau. The seas that wash the long
Cornish peninsula, therefore, though they are thoroughly oceanic in
character, especially on the north, are not oceanic in depth; we have
to pass far beyond Scilly to cross the hundred-fathom line. From the
Dover strait westward there is a gradual lowering of the incline,
though of course with such variations and undulations as we find on
the emerged plains; but the existence of this vast submarine basis
must cause us to think of our island, naturally and geologically, as a
true part of the great European continent, rendered insular by the
comparatively recent intrusion of shallow and narrow waters. With some
developments and some limits, our flora and fauna are absolutely
Continental, the limits being even more noticeable as regards Ireland.
The extensive coast-line has played a most important part in
influencing national history and characteristics. The greater or less
resistance of different rocks and soils has affected not only
coast-configurations, but therewith also the very existence and
well-being of the inhabitants.
The very appearance of Cornwall is eloquent of its granitic structure;
nothing less enduring could have survived the stress to which it is
daily exposed. All softer measures have been eroded by the fierce wash
of Atlantic seas; what we may consider a gaunt, bare backbone has
stood the test, and the Cornish coast to-day confronts forces that
would play havoc with the more yielding and gentle curves of east and
south-east England. We know what the narrow seas can do on
East-Anglian and Kentish shores; and the same work of coast-erosion
that we there see proceeding before our very eyes must have taken
place in Cornwall before the days when historians could note it. The
denudations that left our stark Cornish coasts as we know them now for
the most part occurred in times that are dim and legendary. We hear of
the havoc by an uncertain voice of tradition; we dream of a lost land
of Lyonesse, of which only the Scillies remain; but the underlying
truth of such romantic rumour must be carried back to Neolithic or
earlier times. Though inaccurate in detail, such legends are rarely
baseless. In places, such as Mount's Bay, there is still evidence of
what the sea has taken; in other parts the evidence has been washed
far from sight. The fact that the shallow seas extend far westward
cannot be ignored; when we speak of a lost Lyonesse we are not
dealing with absurdities. We must only be careful to date it far
enough backward, or rather to leave it without date, which is a matter
for the geologist rather than the historian to settle. It is an
alluring vision on which we can linger without the sense of being
actually unhistoric. We may even carry our thought further still, if
we choose, and dream of some old Atlantis, now lying submerged in far
greater depths beneath the waters of the ocean that perpetuates its
name.
It will be seen that the peculiar shape of Cornwall has not been
attained by chance, but has been the result of natural forces. In its
appearance on a map there is a certain resemblance to Italy; while
some etymologists, taking this appearance as a guide, have imagined
that the origin of its name may be found in its horn-like figure. No
other British division--using the word "division" advisedly, for
Cornwall is not strictly a county--has such an extent of coast-line.
Its greatest direct length is 80 miles, but the broken nature of the
shore increases this very considerably; even at its juncture with
Devon the Duchy is not more than 46 miles in breadth, and at its
narrowest it is only six miles. Both the most western and the most
southern points in England are to be found in Cornwall, at Land's End
and the Lizard. The climate is delightfully equable, without extremes
of heat or cold, but it is naturally humid, as Cornwall has to bear
the first brunt of rain-storms that drive in from the Atlantic. To
find a fitting point of departure for a pilgrimage round these coasts
we have to step into Devonshire. In some sense Plymouth is the gateway
of Cornwall, and a very appropriate gateway it is. Of the three
rivers that give Plymouth its noble estuary the Lynher is purely
Cornish, and the Tamar is as much Cornish as it is Devonian, except
that it rises just over the Devon border. The population of Plymouth,
Stonehouse, and Devonport is so largely Cornish that the three towns,
which we conveniently but incorrectly group under the name of
Plymouth, have been styled the "capital of Cornwall"; and certainly no
single Cornish town contains so many Cornish folk as have gathered
together to assist and share in the prosperity of this Devonshire
locality. The majority of visitors to the Duchy approach it by this
avenue, and the old stage-coaches followed very much the same route as
the present railway, but conveyed their passengers to Saltash by ferry
instead of by bridge. The rail is the successor of an immemorial
trackway that linked Devon and Cornwall in days when they had not been
subdivided. Even in times long before shires had been dreamed of, it
is certain that the river must have been an important tribal boundary.
There was a British track by which Cornish tin was carried eastward to
a point of nearer contact with the Continent; that point may have been
the Isle of Wight, but was more probably Thanet. This track passed the
Tamar at Saltash and ran to Liskeard, where it joined a tributary path
from the Fosseway; after which junction it crossed the Bodmin Moors
and pushed on to Truro and Mount's Bay. This has been spoken of as a
Roman road, but it was certainly not of Roman construction, being far
earlier in date. There is no proof that the Legions ever entered
Cornwall at all, and such Roman remains as Cornwall has yielded may be
attributed to British residents of Roman culture and taste. Cornwall
was never conquered, in the sense of occupation, either by Roman or
Teuton; and the conquest of the Ivernians, or Iberians, by the Celts
must have been very partial and chiefly in the nature of a military
predominance, if we may judge by the comparatively short stature, dark
skin and hair, that are still largely characteristic of Cornish folk.
Plymouth has another link with Cornwall, though it must be considered
a fabulous one. One of the suggested derivations for the name of
Cornwall is Corineus. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Corineus was
one of the companions of the Trojan Brutus, who landed at Totnes and
proceeded to bestow his name and his rule upon Britain. In support of
this we may quote Milton, with a suggestion that he was a greater poet
than historian: "The Iland, not yet Britain but Albion, was in a
manner desert and inhospitable, kept only by a remnant of giants,
whose excessive force and tyranny had consumed the rest. Them Brutus
destroies, and to his people divides the land, which, with some
reference to his own name, he thenceforth calls Britain. To Corineus
Cornwall, as now we call it, fell by lot; the rather by him liked, for
that the hugest giants in rocks and caves were said to lurk still
there; which kind of monsters to deal with was his old exercise." He
was indeed the father of Cornish wrestling, which has ever since been
so popular and so excellent. The poet proceeds to tell us how Corineus
wrestled with the giant Goemagog (or Gogmagog) and threw him into the
sea. Drayton, in relating the same legend, hints at the true cause
that enabled the smaller Neolithic Ivernians to subdue the taller
Paleolithic inhabitants; it being a fact that there was a difference
in height great enough to be magnified by fancy and exaggeration into
the myth of the giants. He tells how Gogmagog was brought forward as a
champion to daunt the Trojan invaders:--
"Great Gogmagog, an oak that by the rootes could tear;
So mighty were (that time) the men who lived there:
But, for the use of arms he did not understand
(Except some rock or tree that coming next to hand,
He raised out of earth to execute his rage),
He challenge makes for strength, and offereth there his gage."
If there is any basis to this Brutus legend at all, it may be taken as
denoting an invasion of higher culture, of the later Stone or early
Metal Age, opposed to the greater physical strength but inferior
weapons of a lower scale in civilisation. Methods and materials of war
were the standard of advance then, as they seem to be still the
measure of dominance now. All tradition states that the struggle
between Corineus and the giant took place on Plymouth Hoe, on a spot
now partly covered by the Citadel. Plymouthians so devoutly cherished
the legend that they preserved the figures of the two wrestlers, cut
in the turf after the manner of the famous White Horses; but either a
greater scepticism or another need for the site has caused the figures
to vanish long since. As Corineus, by the same tradition, became first
Duke of Cornwall, it was supposed that he bestowed his name on the
Duchy; but the "Corn" is not so easily identified as this, and to get
at the true origin we should have to understand more definitely the
derivation of the tribal name _Cornavii_. But it does seem that the
Plymouth Hamoaze can claim to be the Hamo's Port which Geoffrey of
Monmouth wrongly identified with Southampton; and this proves that the
fine estuary, where the pulse of national life now beats so strongly,
was a haunt of navigators, defenders and invaders, in days before
Britain's story had begun to be written. Britain also can never forget
the part that Plymouth played in repulsing the Great Armada. It may or
may not have been true that Drake was playing bowls on the Hoe when
the Spanish ships were sighted; it may not be true that he said,
"There's time to play the game out and to thrash the Spaniards
afterwards." We can cherish this doubtful tradition or not, as we
happen to be credulous or sceptical; but in any case that was the
genuine spirit of the West Country in those days of stress, and that
was the spirit by which the British Empire was moulded. It was a
spirit born of rough seas and unruly winds, the confidence that sprang
from successful struggle with peril and difficulty, the pluck that
confesses nothing to be impossible. It was a spirit that loved sport,
yet never shrank from war.
But the glorious memories that linger on Plymouth Hoe, perhaps the
finest promenade in the kingdom, must not hinder us from passing over
to the Cornwall coasts that are luring us with all their varied and
exquisite beauty. We cannot stay to recall the sailing of the
_Mayflower_ from Plymouth Barbican, nor the wonderful siege endured by
the town during the great Civil War--the fiercest siege of all that
sad conflict, successfully sustained by the Plymouthians against the
forces that the King's generals, backed by loyal Cornwall, could bring
against them. The tales and associations that belong to the "Three
Towns" are of the deepest interest; and surely no other English shires
have so grand a dividing-line as this mouth of the three rivers. We
must not forget that Devon itself was once a part of Cornwall or "West
Wales."
We may well start our journey round the coast at Mount Edgcumbe, where
we find ourselves on Cornish soil, however eagerly Plymouthians may
claim the Mount as one of their special beauty-spots. There is good
excuse for the tradition that the Spanish Admiral, Medina Sidonia,
when he caught sight of Mount Edgcumbe on his way up the Channel in
charge of the Armada, was so impressed by its loveliness that he
selected the estate as his own future reward of victory. It is pretty
certain, however, that on this occasion the Admiral would not have
sighted Mount Edgcumbe at all until after-events had begun to render
him a little less cocksure of the result. But he may have seen the
manor during some earlier and more peaceful visit. The Edgcumbes are a
Devonshire family, coming from the neighbourhood of Tavistock; the
estate came to the possession of Sir Piers Edgcumbe by his marriage
with Joan Durnford, of East Stonehouse, and the present house was
begun by his son, Sir Richard, in 1553. It is possible that Sidonia
had been a guest of Sir Richard's in the following year, when there
was a notable gathering of Admirals here. There are some defences
still standing that were erected in anticipation of the Armada, and
these were brought into use by the Civil War, when Royalist Edgcumbe
frowned defiance at Parliamentary Plymouth across the Sound. But it
was Plymouth that had the last word, and Edgcumbe had to surrender in
1645. The peaceful memories of the spot are more in accord with its
beauty than those of discord and bloodshed; that beauty, and the
number of its distinguished visitors, had made it famous throughout
Europe. The place has been noted for its hospitality and for its many
guests, from the days of Cosmo de' Medici to those of our late King.
During his stay at Torquay, after the close of the Franco-German War,
the Emperor Napoleon III. came hither with his son; and it was only
two days later that the Crown Prince of Prussia, afterwards the
beloved Emperor Frederick, was here with his wife and sons, one of
whom, the Kaiser, now looms so large in the imagination of Europe. But
art has its associations with this spot, even more interesting than
those of royalty. The elder Vandevelde is supposed to have been here,
and to have painted his "Royal Charles" as the guest of Sir Richard
Edgcumbe; this and other paintings of his are preserved among the art
treasures. A little more certainty attaches to the visits of Sir
Joshua Reynolds. He was the son of the headmaster of Plympton
School--a school that can boast connection with three other famous
artists: Northcote, Eastlake, and Haydon; and as a boy young Reynolds
became a frequent companion of the second Lord Edgcumbe, then a lad of
about his own age. The two between them painted a portrait of Thomas
Smart, Vicar of Maker, who was the young Edgcumbe's tutor. The picture
was executed on a piece of sailcloth, in a boathouse at Cremyll. It is
probable that the portrait was done rather with mischievous than
artistic intent--a boy's picture of his tutor is not likely to be
flattering; but Reynolds had already begun to show signs of his
wonderful genius, and it may be guessed that he did the lion's share
of the work. The friendship between the two lads survived to maturity,
and there are many examples of the artist's ripe work at Mount
Edgcumbe. There are three generations of the family from his pencil;
and the marble busts in the saloon were purchased by him for this
purpose, at Rome, which he first reached chiefly through his friend
and patron's influence. There are also paintings here by Lely and
Mascall, and there is a good deal of fine statuary in the grounds.
When these grounds are hospitably thrown open to visitors, as they are
so often, the educative influence of art, as well as that of natural
beauty, is brought to bear on many, of whom we may hope that some are
susceptible. When Sir Joshua brought Dr. Johnson to Plymouth, in 1762,
we may feel sure that he took his great friend across to be introduced
at Mount Edgcumbe; and we know that others connected with the same
brilliant circle, such as General Paoli and Garrick, were visitors
here. Garrick, indeed, celebrated the place in verse, as surpassing
"all the mounts of England." Miss Burney came in 1789, on an occasion
when "all 'the Royals' went sailing up the Tamar"; and she was
delighted with the manor and its occupiers. There are therefore many
ghosts wandering about among these Upper and Lower Gardens--the
misnamed English Garden with its subtropical vegetation--magnolias,
cork, bamboo: the Italian Garden with its orange-trees; the French
Garden with its arbours and trellis and ilex-trees in the style of the
old Empire. But the ghosts that walk here among the crowd of
sight-seers, or at night when the moon glitters brilliantly on the
broad estuary, or when the dark, moonless expanse is pierced with
lights from pier and masthead and distant Eddystone--these ghosts are
not such as we dread; they are the gracious figures of old-time
guests, grizzled seamen of Elizabethan glory when men dreamed of new
worlds and found them: kings, nobles, poets, painters, they are all
here to greet us on our approach to the enchanted regions of the
Delectable Duchy.
It is said that a parish clerk, more than a century since, wrote a
poem about Mount Edgcumbe in which he stated that--
"Mount Edgcumbe is a pleasant place,
It looketh on Hamoaze,
And on it are some batteries
To guard us from our foes."
The batteries are certainly there, more numerous than ever, and we may
hope that they will fulfil the purpose ascribed to them. Picklecombe
Fort, on the cliff below the grounds, is particularly powerful, and in
conjunction with the similar forts on the opposite heights of Staddon
might be able to render a good account of itself if Plymouth Sound
were ever attempted. The massive breakwater might also become an
effective obstacle to unfriendly navigation. This defence, built to
protect the harbour from south-west and south-easterly winds, is a
very fine piece of engineering. It was begun in 1812, and its
construction took twenty-eight years. About four and a half million
tons of limestone were brought from the Oreston quarries, and two and
a half million cubic feet of granite from Dartmoor. The central
length is 1,000 yards, each of the wings being 350 yards, making the
total length nearly a mile. The original cost was L1,500,000, to which
may be added the expense on the lighthouse and on frequent repairs and
renovations. The utility of the work has amply repaid the outlay.
Though the surface rises several feet above normal high water, there
are many times when the breakwater is swept by waves from end to end.
Mount Edgcumbe is in the parish of Maker, and there is a sensational
tale attaching to the interesting and finely situated church. It is
said that a former Lady Edgcumbe was brought here for burial, and the
sexton, left to himself, was trying to tear the rings off her fingers,
when she gave a sigh and awoke. She had been merely in a trance.
Returning to her home, she lived for many years after. This tale is
sometimes told of Cotehele, an earlier seat of the family; but in any
case it is one of those legends that have been told of many places, in
England and abroad. Maker church tower was used as a signalling
station during the French wars, in connection with another at Mount
Wise; there is now a regular signal station at Rame Head. The lychgate
and old font deserve attention. These heights, and especially the
Mount Edgcumbe woodlands, suffered severely from the great blizzard of
1891, many of the finest trees being uprooted. At the foot of Maker
heights are the twin villages of Kingsand and Cawsand, separated by a
small brook; some of the houses, built across this, claim to be in
both places at once. This provides one of the most frequent and
popular trips of the Plymouth pleasure-steamers, and the picturesque
spot, once haunted by smugglers, is now, during the summer months, a
lively playground of the excursionist. It is said that Richmond,
afterwards Henry VII., landed at this spot on his first attempt
against Richard Crookback, his fleet having been scattered by a storm.
Southward is Penlee Point, and westward Rame or Ram Head. This is the
most southern point of East Cornwall, and the nearest land to
Eddystone. There is an old saying--
"When Dodman and Ram-head meet,"
Dodman being the extreme point of Mevagissy Bay; and, as Ray tells us:
"These are two forelands, well known to sailors, nigh twenty miles
asunder, and the proverb passeth for the periphrasis of an
impossibility." The Head, which is nearly insular, has a chapel
dedicated to St. Michael on its summit. St. Michael was widely claimed
as a patron of lofty and exposed places (such as the two St. Michael's
Mounts); it was considered his especial function to disperse and set
at naught all evil forces of tempest and thunderstorm. Rame Church,
dating from the thirteenth century, is about a mile inland; it
occupies the site of a still earlier building. Whitesand Bay
(generally called Whitsand), which stretches westward towards Looe,
has many memories of the past to offer those who, in summer, come
hither in large numbers. It was here that Drake and Howard first
confronted the Armada, after the memorable but possibly fabulous game
of bowls. Whether the Spaniards intended making for Plymouth or no is
not quite certain; but it is certain that the Englishmen intended to
prevent them. It was in the early Sunday morning that the Spaniards
first caught sight of the English fleet--the royal or official
squadron under Lord Howard, the volunteers under Francis Drake.
Displaying his consecrated standard, the Duke Medina endeavoured to
interpose between the two sections of the opposing flotilla, thinking
to destroy them separately at his ease; but he was readily
circumvented in his design, finding to his cost that the English
vessels could sail closer to the wind than his own, and could be
manipulated more quickly, while their guns carried further. His
cumbrous ships also were too much crowded with men, being fitter for
transport than for action; the fighters were impeded by the press, and
every effective shot from the enemy's guns found many victims. The
English managed to keep at a distance while they delivered their
raking broadsides, which, according to the Spanish notions, was
against all principles of chivalrous sea warfare. But, as Froude says,
"it was effective, it was perplexing, it was deadly." Drake and Howard
did not wish to come to closer quarters with their formidable foes; a
near embrace of those heavy galleons, fully manned with brave men,
might soon have brought disaster; the struggle would have been too
unequal. It is the art of the weaker to be elusive. The engagement
lasted till late on Sunday afternoon, by which time the squadrons had
drifted past Plymouth Sound. Not many hours later the _Capitana_,
England's first prize, was being towed into Dartmouth harbour, giving
a welcome booty in bullion and powder. The Armada had received a first
blow, from which it never recovered; though recovery might yet have
been possible if the winds had not fought for the English. The
Spaniards' first taste of the West Country had probably satisfied
them, but other death-traps lay to the eastward. The later story of
the Armada belongs to distant Scottish and Irish coasts, whereon many
of its finest vessels drifted; it is a story of calamity, blunder, and
stubborn bravery; all the courage was not on one side of the
conflict--perhaps the Spanish were as great in their failure as the
English in their success.
The shores of Whitesand Bay, though so beautiful, are treacherous both
to the seaman and the bather; their beaches have often been strewn
with wreckage. The Bay is fully exposed to south-westerly winds, which
often hurl tremendous seas upon its coast, and many a good vessel has
been driven to its destruction. There are shifting sands here also,
which are the source of peril to unwary bathers; and it was at this
spot that Mr. E. Spender, the founder of the _Western Morning News_,
was drowned, with his two sons; a memorial marks the spot. But many
parts of the extensive bay are perfectly safe, and there are several
nooks that are becoming increasingly popular with visitors from
Plymouth, such as Port Wrinkle, with its coastguard station, and the
pretty village of Downderry. A portion of the coast is in the parish
of St. John's, and here there is a grotto excavated by a lieutenant,
who is said to have cured himself of gout by this labour; the walls
and entrance are inscribed with verse. Another of the Whitesand
parishes is Antony East, so named to distinguish it from other
Antonies further westward, which extends from the Lynher to the coast.
In this is the seat of the Pole-Carew family, a branch of the old
Devonshire Carews. The house dates from 1721, and has some good
pictures by Holbein, Vandyke, and Reynolds. Carew, the Cornish
historian, who died in 1620, lived and wrote his works here.
CHAPTER II
LOOE AND POLPERRO
As we pass along the coast from Whitesand Bay towards Looe we are
approaching a spot that is now prized for its exceeding loveliness,
but that formerly took high rank among the seaports of the West
Country. In appearance and in ancient position it must be classed with
Dartmouth and Fowey, which both were likewise notable ports in days
when the English navy was in its sturdy infancy--days when the
national pulse beat most keenly in the south and east instead of in
the north and midlands. Commerce and industrialism have largely
changed all that; Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham have assumed
metropolitan importance in their densely populated districts. Only
Plymouth in the south-west is now of first-class consequence to the
nation; and Plymouth is a _parvenu_ compared with Looe and Fowey. The
actual decline of these two little towns may not be great, but
relatively it is enormous. Yet it deserves a milder term than decay,
for the present-day life here is still wholesome and in a certain
sense prosperous. It is a gentle and placid prosperity, very largely
the happiness of places that have no history. There is the
compensation of a glorious past, and there is the further
compensation that such places preserve for us the best picture of
what Old England truly was in days before she became "a nation of
shopkeepers." It is no use to go to the flourishing commercial cities
to find traces of earlier England; these cities have usually swept
away the traces of antiquity they once possessed--tortuous streets are
straightened and widened, quaint old houses are thrown down, the
picturesque makes way for the useful; even the old churches are looked
at askance, as occupying ground that might be devoted to warehouses
and offices. In these quiet corners of the West such temptations have
not presented themselves; population is thin, and there is little call
for the destructiveness of expansion; mediaevalism may still be found
here, in the streets and byways, in the houses, and sometimes in the
people. The chief peril is in the intrusion of the summer holiday and
the "week-end." Irreparable damage is sometimes prompted by the desire
to attract visitors. But those who come to the West Country are not
usually such as seek for the noise and glare of the conventional
watering-place. They come for natural beauty, pure air, and quietude.
The recreative pleasure that they crave must be of a different kind
from that with which they can daily become familiar if they please.
There are theatres and music-halls in town; it does not add to the
wittiness of the Pierrot or the humour of the comic singer to find
them exercising their functions on a hot dusty beach, densely packed
with humanity, strewn with torn newspapers, burnt matches, orange
skins, and banana peelings. Yet those who feel in this manner are a
minority, otherwise certain popular resorts would be less
flourishing.
The crowds that flock to the average watering-place may leave their
toils behind them, but they apparently wish to carry their amusements.
Even the jaded mill-hand asks for the congested variety entertainments
of Blackpool or of Douglas, rather than for the solitudes of shore and
woodland. In moments of pessimism one may fear that the very capacity
of peaceful enjoyment is being killed, and that ceaseless grinding
work destroys the power of resting. When the ordinary tourist visits
places of peaceful solitariness he usually does so in crowds that
rifle and ravish the sacredness of this solitude; he ruthlessly
desecrates that which he does not understand; he never learns its
secrets; the most commonplace of public parks would have responded
fully to his needs and their gratification. But the West has long been
a resort of that wiser, certainly better endowed, minority that seeks
for direct personal contact with Nature, face to face, and not merely
as seen through the glass windows of huge pavilions or from the seats
of fashion-haunted promenades. Therefore the majority of Western
watering-places are not yet spoiled; their physical features have
often assisted to preserve them. They have not lost the quaint
simplicity of their parochialism, to become national if not
cosmopolitan. Constant intercourse with even the most sober of
visitors must take something from the provincialism, the cherished
traditions and local customs, the personal peculiarities and dialect.
But there is still a good deal left; there is still the possibility of
reaching Nature in her inmost sanctuaries, and at the same time
winning some of those elusive and shy confidences that are the charm
of locality.
[Illustration: LOOE.
_Photo by Gibson & Sons._]
In this sense Looe, or rather the two Looes, are purely delightful.
When we liken the place to Fowey or Dartmouth we must grant it the
advantages of being closer to the sea; it stands actually at the mouth
of its river, instead of retired within protecting sea-gates. To some
extent it has to submit to the tender mercies of the tripper, for
Plymouth steamboats are fond of bringing excursionists here; apart
from these invasions, the spot is as peaceful as could be desired
except by the veriest misanthropist. Approached by rail from Liskeard,
the journey is made in leisurely backward and forward stages, the
engine being reversed at times; so that passengers, who are requested
not to get out till "the train is at rest," sometimes imagine
themselves to be carried back to their point of departure. It is an
amusing little line, but it serves its purpose; and indeed has a
definite usefulness in reminding us that we have come away from bustle
and hurry to a region of placid leisure and quietness. Arrived at the
journey's end, one at first wonders how the people get in and out of
their houses, so higgledy-piggledy do they appear to be piled one on
top of the other; but the mystery may be solved by exploring the lanes
and allies. Deliveries of produce are still often made by panniered
donkeys, in quaint old-world fashion. There are two Looes, East and
West, and two rivers of the same name which meet above the bridge.
East Looe belongs to the parish of St. Martin's, and West Looe to that
of Talland; both were granted a corporation in the time of Elizabeth,
and each, before the Reform Bill, returned two representatives to
Parliament. The credit of having sent twenty vessels and 315 men to
the siege of Calais is given to East Looe, but it may be guessed that
all the residents on the banks of the Looe rivers joined in this
great patriotic effort. Those were the days of the town's fiercest
activities, though its business as a port trading with the Continent
endured till long afterwards; and the pilchard-fishery was once more
important than it is now. Pilchards now for the most part keep further
west. There is still much fishing done, and some small coastwise
shipping gives occasional bustle to the rugged little banjo-shaped
pier. There was anciently a great animosity between the two Looes, as
was natural with such near neighbours; and the two still nourish a
lurking contempt for each other, not always successfully concealed.
They are at one, however, in their scorn for the pretensions of Fowey.
An intense local patriotism, that really cannot tolerate outside
claims, is a feature of many Western towns; a man from the next parish
is almost as much a foreigner as if he came from "the shires." The two
Looes have been brought to an enforced companionship, but they are not
mutually conciliatory. East Looe can claim to be the business portion
of the town, having the pier and the principal shops, while West Looe
is more select and residential. The debate as to the greater antiquity
may be left for the two to settle between themselves, but its harbour
and pier must long have given East Looe the practical precedence. At
the harbour some coal and limestone are imported, and there is a
shipment of fish, bark, granite, and china-clay. East Looe boasts a
further relic of its past in the ancient pillory preserved at the
porch of its town hall. St. Martin's, the parish church, has a Norman
door, and a font that appears to be of the same date; there is also a
more modern church, St. Anne's, whose dedication recalls that of the
chapel which formerly stood on the old fourteen-arch bridge, long
since displaced. At West Looe the church of St. Nicholas was once used
as a town hall and room for general entertainment, and very curious
indeed were some of the amusements that used to come here. Mr.
Baring-Gould tells us that when he first saw Looe it struck him as one
of the oddest old-world places in England. There was a booth-theatre
fitted up, and luring the folk to its dingy green canvas enclosure.
"The repertoire comprised blood-curdling tragedies. I went in and saw
'The Midnight Assassin; or, The Dumb Witness.' Next evening was to be
given 'The Vampire's Feast; or, The Rifled Tomb.' This tragedy was
followed by Allingham's play, 'Fortune's Frolick,' adapted to the
narrow capacities of the company. It was performed in broad Cornish,
and interspersed with some rather good and I fancy original songs. But
surely nowhere else but at Looe could such a reminiscence of the old
strolling company-show of fifty or sixty years ago be seen." It is
said that there are still queer things to be seen at the annual fair
of May 6th, the West Looe "cattle and pleasure fair." But the contact
with outside influences has had its natural effect; Looe is not quite
what it once was; better approaches have been made, so that the
visitor no longer drops sheer upon the roofs of the houses as he did
once; the claims of local improvement and sanitation have done
something to remove quaint and characteristic features. Yet there are
still picturesque whitewashed houses with ragged gables and outside
staircases; there are still curious old porches and delightful
hanging-gardens where myrtle, hydrangea, and geranium can thrive all
the year round. The shops still partake of the dual character that we
find in quiet villages, so that the grocer is also the chemist and the
butcher is the greengrocer. In one case the grocer has not only a
chemist's store but also keeps a circulating library--a charming
confusion of trades that enables the visitor to do his shopping within
very limited range. The fishing done here, both professionally and as
a sport, is fairly considerable; the Looe fishing-fleet often goes as
far afield as the shores of Ireland, but when at home the men hang
about the quay in the usual fashion of their kind, getting an
occasional job with visitors, but more often enjoying that dreamy
laziness for which they appear supremely qualified. They have the
faculty of gazing long and intently at nothing, and of disputing for
hours over subjects of scarcely greater tangibility; but their
capabilities and efficiency must not be measured by their customary
longshore attitude. Sometimes their wrangling almost equals that of
the gulls that clamour in crowds about the small harbour, and that are
always on the look-out for refuse thrown from the boats or from the
quaysides. A special haunt of these gulls is the little Looe Island
lying off West Looe, which is about a mile in circumference and 170
feet in height. This islet, also called St. George's Isle, because a
chapel to St. George once stood here, is of great value to the
river-mouth as a natural breakwater, and was once of further value as
an inestimable aid in smuggling. Traces of the chapel may yet be seen
on the summit of the isle, and human remains found here may possibly
date from an early Christian settlement; but the prevailing memories
of the island are by no means saintly. It was once occupied by a
reprobate pair who certainly lived the "simple life" to perfection so
far as locality was concerned, but whose simplicity may otherwise be
doubted. These were a man named Fyn and his sister "Black Joan," who
appear to have been born on the Mewstone, near Plymouth, and who were
as wild as their companion seabirds. Their desperate cleverness
assisted ably in the running of many an untaxed cargo; and even when a
coastguard was placed on the island itself, his vigilance was quite
insufficient to baffle them. The smugglers of Whitsand Bay well knew
the uses of Looe island, and made frequent expeditions to it. The
supposed fishermen of Cawsand did far more smuggling than they did in
their avowed avocation, finding it more exciting and profitable; they
were joined by many wild spirits from Plymouth, discharged navy men,
loafers, and dare-devils. A special kind of galley was built to suit
them, ostensibly intended for seine-fishing, but in reality adapted
for high speed and easy handling; and these boats often made the
journey to and from the French shores, in the face of terrible danger
not only from Preventive forces, but from sea and rock. Very often the
cargoes were not landed at all from these boats, but were sunk near
shore, to be fetched as opportunity offered. Suspicion soon attached
to these fleet Cawsand fishing-boats, and when they set forth on their
apparently innocent purpose, the coastguard men were in a state of
irritated expectancy; they knew too often that they were being fooled,
yet their task of prevention was both difficult and perilous. The
order used to be sent out that "a rocket and blue-light will be fired
from the Ramehead when the galleys go afloat, as a signal to
Polperro." Many of the smugglers' tricks reveal invention of a high
order. After their own galleys had earned too much of a risky
reputation, many having been taken in the act, their owners resorted
to the device of chartering French vessels, with which, under certain
limits, the revenue cruisers could not interfere. It may be guessed
that unscrupulous confederates on Looe island were able to play an
important part in such enterprises; so that Fyn and "Black Joan"
enjoyed a life of constant excitement, and an unlimited supply of the
best spirits. Not many years since the floor of a barn on the islet
collapsed, and underneath was discovered a cellar for the storage of
such spirits. It will be seen that St. George's Isle fully deserved
its share in the evil repute that formerly attached to such islands as
the haunt of desperadoes; Lundy, off the North Devon coast, is another
instance. It was probably in remembrance of this isle and its chapel
that the Looe ship was named the _George_, of which it is related
that, many centuries since, it attacked and captured three French
vessels single-handed. But of this, and of Looe's nobler memories
generally, there is small record.
In place of such we have an interesting memorial of Looe's former use
of the "cage," a companion instrument to the pillory. It is stated
that "at East Looe Hannah Whit and Bessie Niles, two women of fluent
tongue, having exerted their oratory on each other, at last thought it
prudent to leave the matter in dispute to be settled by the Mayor.
Away they posted to his worship. The first who arrived had scarce
begun her tale when the other bounced in in full rage, and began hers
likewise, and abuse commenced with redoubled vigour. His worship, Mr.
John Chubb, ordered the constable to be called, and each of the
combatants thought her antagonist was going to be punished, and each
thought right. When the constable arrived, his worship pronounced the
following command to him, 'Take these two women to the cage, and there
keep them till they have settled their dispute.'" It is therefore
clear that the name of John Chubb must be added to the roll of Looe
heroes; and something may also be said for the constable--if he
accomplished his mission safely.
There are many beautiful walks to be enjoyed from Looe, one being
along the cliffs to Downderry; still more delightful is the walk along
the banks of the West Looe River to Watergate, where the luxuriant
foliage and the rich undergrowth of ferns are a perpetual joy. Such
wooded loveliness is of a kind that we do not usually associate with
Cornwall, though it is amply to be found in different parts of the
Duchy; it is more like parts of the Lyn or the Wye than what is
generally attributed to Cornwall. Another beautiful walk or row is up
the east river to Sandplace. Talland also should certainly be visited;
it is about two miles from West Looe, of which it is the
mother-parish. The church, with its campanile tower, is most finely
situated among wooded hills, and contains some beautiful workmanship.
There is an altar-tomb of Sir John Beville, 1574; and there are
bench-ends bearing Beville and Grenville arms. The families were
connected, as we are reminded by the name of the noble Sir Beville
Grenville. The transept was formerly known as the Killigarth Chapel;
and Killigarth, close by, was formerly the Beville manor, noted in
old days for its prodigal hospitality. The house has been destroyed,
and a farm stands on the site, retaining the old name. A mile or two
inland is Trelawne, another notable Cornish manor associated with one
of the great old families. Parts of the house, which is in Pelynt
parish, date from the fifteenth century, but a great deal of
restoration has been done. The Trelawneys removed hither from Alternon
in 1600. Mrs. Bray's novel, _Trelawney of Trelawne_, gives many
particulars about the family and the locality; but this typical
Cornish name is now chiefly recalled by the refrain of Hawker's "Song
of the Western Men":--
"And shall Trelawney die?
Here's twenty thousand Cornishmen
Will know the reason why."
Hawker's song, which both Scott and Macaulay took to be a genuine old
local ballad, was skilfully woven around those three lines and made to
apply to the committal of the Seven Bishops, Sir Jonathan Trelawney,
then Bishop of Bristol, being one of the Seven. The ballad had an
enormous circulation and reputation, but, being issued anonymously,
brought little renown to its author. The refrain is generally
supposed, and was believed by Hawker himself, to belong to a popular
ballad of the days when the bishops were committed; but it seems to
have been earlier still, and to belong directly to this neighbourhood
of West Looe. It has been revealed that an earlier Trelawney was
imprisoned in the Tower in 1627, and there seemed a probability that
his life would be taken. Being much beloved in the district of his
home, some one was inspired to write the quatrain:--
"And must Trelawney die,
And shall Trelawney die?
We've thirty thousand Cornish boys
Will know the reason why!"
This circulated rapidly through the Duchy, and reached London, where
it is said to have procured the Cornishman's release. It is certain
that John Trelawney was committed to the Tower in 1627 by the House of
Commons, but was shortly released by order of the King and created a
baronet. It is very probable, therefore, that this occasion was really
the origin of the much-debated refrain, and that its use was revived
by the committal of Bishop Trelawney, if not on other occasions and
attached to other names as well. Hawker was not always sufficiently
explicit as to the derivations of his poems, and he was guilty of one
or two mystifications, some of which still survive in the popular
guide-books (such as his story of the "Silent Bells of Bottreaux");
but he cannot be accused on this occasion, as he never asserted that
his ballad was really ancient; and he certainly did fine service in
embodying and perpetuating the stirring refrain. As Hawker states, he
never claimed the chorus, but he did claim the ballad.
But after making all allowance for the beauties and varied
associations of the Looes and of Talland, it must candidly be
confessed that the great gem of the district is Polperro. From West
Looe it is reached by way of Portlooe and Talland; there are daily
excursions by brake from Looe in the season. Of course visitors can go
by boat if they prefer; the distance is about four miles. The little
port was once much more inaccessible than it is now; passengers
literally dropped into it by a path part of which was cut into steps;
no wheeled vehicle could possibly get down. The houses cluster at the
mouth of a deep ravine that runs up to the village of Crumplehorn.
Approaching the place by road, Mr. Norway says that "just at first one
sees nothing of the town, but all at once it bursts upon the sight as
the road runs round a bend, a striking huddled group of houses, cast
so strangely into a heap as to produce the impression that they must
have been built originally upon the hillside at comfortable distances
apart; and that by some slipping of the rock foundations the houses
have slid and slid until they can slide no further, but are brought to
a standstill in the very bottom of the hollow.
"The confusion of the town is immense. It is a labyrinth of winding
alley often ending in a _cul-de-sac_. But the downward sweep of the
headlands is superb; and under the towering cliffs studded with bosses
of golden furze lies a little pier and harbour with the sea-foam
flying sharply round the jutting peaks of rock before a stiff
south-wester, while the gulls wheel shrieking overhead, and out at sea
a schooner is labouring heavily." Unfortunately, the cliffs, both here
and at Talland, have lately been somewhat disfigured by huge
scaffoldings erected by the Admiralty for speed tests; but it takes
more than this to spoil Polperro. In spite of its appearance of having
slipped, many of the houses look as if they were carved out of the
very rock itself, and in some cases their steps actually are so
carved. Polperro, part of which is in the parish of Talland and part
in Lansallos, remains more lonely and primitive than Looe, for it is
not touched by the railway, and its site offers little temptation to
expansion. But it is becoming more and more sought after; artists have
learned to love it and have introduced it to the art galleries; the
inevitable sophistication must follow, just as Clovelly and Robin
Hood's Bay have become sophisticated. But nothing can take from
Polperro the loveliness of its position at the mouth of this seaward
gorge, the beauty of the hills that surround it, the deep, restful
blue of its seas. There are three piers protecting its safe little
harbour, but even these are hardly enough in times of tempest, and
heavy baulks of wood are let down into grooves, further to break the
force of the waves. The sea has played a deadly part to Polperro folk
in the past, and is ready to do so again. Old Jonathan Couch, the
forefather of our present "Q," gives a striking picture of what
Polperro used to be like in a storm during the days when he was doctor
here, a century since:--"The noise of the wind as it roars up the
coomb, the hoarse rumbling of the angry sea, the shouts of the
fishermen engaged in securing their boats, and the screams of the
women and children carrying the tidings of the latest disaster, are a
peculiarly melancholy assemblage of sounds, especially when heard at
midnight. All who can render assistance are out of their beds, helping
the sailors and fishermen; lifting the boats out of reach of the sea,
or taking the furniture of the ground-floors to a place of safety."
Every fishing port round the coast knows what such a tempest means,
and the horror, the hopeless and helpless desolation it arouses in
the minds of the women at home, if it should overtake their men at
sea. In these aspects, at least, our shores are still primitive; they
still know the primal force of wind and waves: there is no
sophisticating, no taming of these. But days are not all of storm and
wreckage; there are many times here when the waves lap peacefully
against the old stone piers, when the air is soft and delicious, and
when the women at their doors, engaged in their everlasting task of
knitting jerseys for their men, can chatter of the happiest subjects
without dreaming of storm or shipwreck. This is the calmer mood in
which visitors generally find Polperro.
Probably not many visitors will trouble to inquire into the derivation
of the name of Polperro; they will be content to know that it is
Cornish. There would be something to do indeed if tourists were to ask
the meaning of every place-name they meet with, and if they depended
on local replies their last state would certainly be worse than their
first. But an intelligent inquiry into the origin of place-names is
always delightful and useful. _Pol_, of course, is one of the
recognised Cornish prefixes; it is simply pool, the Welsh _pwll_, a
creek or inlet or "pill." The _perro_ is supposed to be a corruption
of Peter, and the whole name would thus mean Peter's Pool, so called
from a chapel to St. Peter that once stood on Chapel Hill. An earlier
name was Porthpeyre, which neither assists nor contradicts such a
derivation. That St. Peter should be the patron of an old fishing town
is only natural. Leland speaks of the place: "a fishar towne with a
peere." There are some who say that you really have to walk sideways
in Polperro, the streets are so narrow; but that is an exaggeration.
Small as the place is, it afforded abundant material to Mr. Jonathan
Couch, the country doctor who lived and died here (1788-1870), for his
_History of Polperro_, which is a very charming book; and he further
added to the reputation of the town by discovering certain
ichthyolitic remains known as the "Polperro fossils." Happily he was a
naturalist who recognised that the study of man is an important branch
of all natural history; and geologic curiosities, interesting as they
are, can hardly compete with the tales of old Polperro privateers and
smugglers. Polperro built its own boats as it bred its own seamen, and
both were excellent. That they were arrant smugglers was a
characteristic of the times and of the locality; it is not for us to
judge them. That they were men of piety is proved by the epitaph of
that smuggler who prays for the pardon of the Preventive man who had
shot him down:--
"I by a shot which rapid flew
Was instantly struck dead.
Lord, pardon the offender who
My precious blood did shed."
They were able to show a clean pair of heels not only to the excisemen
but also to the King's enemies; as was proved by the Polperro captain
who escaped from right under the nose of two French frigates during
our last war with "that sweet enemy, France."
Lansallos, one of the mother-parishes of Polperro, has a finely placed
church, useful as a sea-mark. It seems to have been in this parish
that a former resident had a very interesting duck-pond. It had all
the appearance of being like other ponds, and the revenue officers,
who sometimes dined here with their hospitable host, could see nothing
in the least suspicious. But, when desired, this duck-pond could be
made to swing round on a pivot, and underneath it was a most
convenient recess which was an admirable storehouse for such things as
it was not expedient for the Preventive men to see. The ingenuity
fostered by smuggling was notorious, but surely few cleverer devices
than this were ever conceived for the evasion of the King's revenue.
CHAPTER III
FOWEY
The traveller along the cliffs from Polperro to the Fowey estuary
finds himself first in the parish of Lanteglos, known as
Lanteglos-by-Fowey, to distinguish it from Lanteglos-by-Camelford. The
accent, locally, is laid on the second syllable; and the name is a
curious composite of Celtic and corrupted Latin. Taking the _t_ as
simply euphonious, we have the Celtic _lan_, first signifying an
enclosure, then a sacred enclosure or consecrated ground, finally the
church erected on such an enclosure; and _eglos_, a corruption of the
Latin _ecclesia_, found elsewhere in Cornwall at Egloshayle and
Egloskerry; the same word appearing usually in English place-names as
Eccles, in Welsh as Eglwys, in Irish as Aglish or Eglish (Gaelic,
_eaglais_). The _llan_ or _lan_ may generally be considered of earlier
date than the _eglwys_ or _eglos_. Lanteglos is a large parish, with
which visitors chiefly become familiar by means of Polruan, a kind of
suburb of Fowey across the river. To many persons the beauty and
grandeur of the scenery will be more attractive than any antiquarian
details, but there can be no harm in mentioning that the church of
Lanteglos is dedicated to St. Wyllow, who is supposed to have had his
cell here in the early days of Cornish saintdom, and to have been
murdered by a relative who was probably an unrepentant pagan. The
greater number of the parishioners live at Polruan, distant rather
more than a mile; the church is surrounded by fields and lanes, whose
luxuriant growth of bank and hedge suggest a rich humidity of soil. In
summer there is a remarkable abundance of ragged-robins by the
wayside, with honeysuckles and wild-roses clustering above them in
glorious profusion; here and there rises the stately spire of a
foxglove. Ferns of exquisite grace and loveliness dispute the right of
existence with brambles and grasses and moss; and golden grain comes
close to the churchyard wall. Standing as it does in such isolation,
it is surprising to find that the church is a building of considerable
size; but it is never rare to discover noble churches even in greater
solitude than this--our forefathers did not measure the size of their
churches in relation to the probable number of their congregations.
Also, the fact that a church is out of sight does not always mean that
it is out of mind; and when the fine, deep-sounding peal of Lanteglos
bells rings for service on Sunday mornings, a good number of
countryfolk wend their way through the lanes and meadows towards it. A
rugged and time-worn Celtic cross keeps guard beside the porch,
having, doubtless, stood here since the days when the first Christian
missionaries found these monoliths of granite serving a pagan purpose,
and transformed them with rough labour into the Christian symbol.
There is another such cross standing on the hill about a mile distant,
looking down on the little fishing harbour of Polruan, by which is
also a holy well. It is not many years since Lanteglos Church was a
disgrace to the country-side, by reason of the decay into which it had
been allowed to fall; but that period of neglect is past, and a
careful restoration has preserved the noble groining of the interior
and the fine woodwork of the benches. The building, chiefly Decorated
with Perpendicular tower, is specially notable for its admirable
ribbed vaulting. The font is of earlier date, and near it are the
parish stocks, once devoted to the confining of unruly legs. In the
Lady Chapel, south of the chancel, where an abortive stairway points
to the former existence of a rood-gallery, is a lovely altar,
constructed mainly of pure alabaster, and the flooring before both
altars is of highly polished marble. Here, too, are some fine old
brasses to members of a family that has played its part in the
nation's history; one member of which family, the duellist Mohun, is a
prominent figure in Thackeray's _Esmond_. The Mohuns, coming from
Dunster, settled at Hall House in this parish in the fourteenth
century; it was doubtless in connection with them that the church once
belonged to a Bridgwater foundation. But the Mohuns had removed to
Boconnoc by the time that they achieved their greatest notoriety, in
the person of Lord Charles, some of whose duels partook rather of the
nature of assassination than of fair fight, the most notable being his
slaying of the actor Mountford. It was in keeping with his life that
Mohun should die in a combat of such fierceness that both the
combatants, himself and the Duke of Hamilton, received mortal wounds.
Hall House, near the Bodinnick side of the ferry from Fowey, is now a
farm, embodying some remains of the old mansion. The Hall Walk above
this eastern bank of the river gives a magnificent view of Fowey town
and harbour. Fowey itself needs to be seen from such a spot to be
fitly appreciated. The house was taken and held for the King by Sir
Richard Grenville, and it is said that Charles, who was here in
August, 1644, was nearly struck by a ball from across the river, Fowey
being at that time in the hands of the Parliamentarian Essex.
Bodinnick is just a tiny hamlet, a small cascade of houses tumbling to
the riverside, with its own stone slip to meet the ferry at its foot.
The road to this ferry is so steep as to be almost precipitous, and
the cottages abutting on its side are embowered in fragrant bloom.
There is a runnel of water at the roadside, and in one place this
water is collected in a round stone basin that looks immensely old;
from this it trickles forth again with coolness and musical plash.
Having reached this spot, we may as well pass over into Fowey by the
ferry here instead of by that from Polruan. If we had already come
from Fowey to Bodinnick we should find that the ferryman would carry
us back without further payment; the outward fee included a
return--not like the ferry of Charon which had no return for
passengers. The oars dip peacefully into the water, breaking its
surface of glistening light; a delicious coolness, that phantom
fragrance of water to which we can give no name, steals upward
soothingly and sweetly.
Fowey, whose position is strikingly like that of Dartmouth, is named
from its river, which rises at Foy-Fenton on the Bodmin Moors and
passes through Lostwithiel on its journey to the mouth. Mr.
Baring-Gould derives its name, as that of the Fal, from the Celtic
_falbh_, which means the "running or flowing," but the point is
hardly clear. It is pleasant to turn from such disputations to the
place itself, which has become famous in present-day romance as "Troy
Town," the fanciful title bestowed by a gifted literary resident. The
true street of this town may be said to be its river, where it is
delightful to do one's business by water--much pleasanter than the
narrow and somewhat dingy road that lies out of sight behind. Each
garden has its boat moored at its foot, where the tide eternally
whispers and gurgles and ripples. Sometimes the stream flows silently,
though it may be with power; at other times it finds a voice by which
the air is possessed and thrilled. The old stained walls, the rugged
ladders by which the folk descend to their boats, are washed by the
clear, pure waters; the shimmer of water enters the dwelling-rooms and
is reflected on the ceilings, a fluctuating quiver of light, moved by
every breeze that ruffles the surface of the stream. The small gardens
are green to the edge of the walls that drop sheer to the river; these
ladders and gardens are the true household gates. Here and there may
be a small strip of quay, with the soil and grime of industry--perhaps
the blackness of coal-dust; but the prevalent flavour is domestic.
Higher up the river there may be more dissonance, where the steamboats
are being laden with china-clay and stone; there is a clang of cranes,
a rattle of machinery, a bustle out of unison with the placid water
beneath, the dense woodland behind. Maritime doings seem to lose much
of their beauty when they are dependent on steam--they cannot lose it
all. For pure beauty we must go to the sailing-boat, whether it be the
fisher's smack with red or tawny sail, the graceful yacht of
pleasure, the schooner or barque of commerce. All these are
represented in this lovely harbour within its protecting sea-gates;
but none of them are represented intrusively; there is plenty of room,
and there are delightful creeks running up into utter woodland
solitude, like that one which is the pleasantest way of reaching
Lanteglos Church.
One feature of this Fowey creek is its constant clamour of seagulls.
From morning to night their voice can be heard, sometimes with a noise
of wrangling and discordance, sometimes in single cries of bodeful
complaint. Occasionally the din is such that it is difficult to hear a
friend speaking; the birds cluster and hover and swoop above with
fierce argument and angry parleying. They are so accustomed to human
presences that, even if sometimes a nuisance, they are more often a
joy. They are never molested; they have a sense of privilege--the good
women of the houses will come out and talk to them as one might to a
pet canary. Very often the house-wife throws broken food to them, and
laughs at their scramble for it--the birds' queer difficulty in
settling downward on the water, the wide sweeps they take to reach
what lies beneath, the awkward dives and tumblings when they are near
the surface. In full flight they are graceful and buoyant, with an
easy command of their passage; but in descending thus to snatch
something from the tide they often appear clumsy. When the object they
want is close beneath, they do not seem able to reach it without
fluttering and effort; whereas if they see anything from a distance
they can swoop down upon it with the greatest ease. Sometimes one will
gather some morsel from the water or exposed beach, and soar away with
it; if observed, another, or perhaps two, will pursue him, trying to
snatch the booty from him. A flying bird with his beak engaged in
holding a treasure is very much at the mercy of his pursuers; his only
resource is either to outstrip his covetous comrades, or else hastily
to gobble the desired morsel in a manner that must rob it of some of
its sweetness. These gulls are peculiarly fond of settling on the
boats that are moored at the foot of the gardens; sometimes as many as
fourteen or fifteen may be seen on one little rowing-boat, all sitting
solemnly with their heads turned in one direction. A single bird will
alight first, and others follow till the boat is occupied from stem to
stern. Such of the boats as are in frequent use are seldom visited in
this way; but the birds select those that are rarely used, and the
owners of these boats do not always appreciate the selection. Some are
covered with canvas as a defence, and a few are at times decorated
with streamers of coloured rags, like those that we innocently place
in our gardens in seed-time to scare the sparrows. The gulls soon
recover from their alarm, if they ever feel any; and it is somewhat
suggestive of irony to watch a gull calmly wiping his beak on a piece
of rag intended to scare him away. Whether meant as insulting or not,
such conduct does not provoke the inhabitants to severe reprisals; the
gulls are an institution of the place, to be grumbled at sometimes but
always to be tolerated. And all the grumbling is not on one side, as
one may judge from the noise the birds sometimes make. At times the
sharp cawing of black crows mingles with the croaking, and of course
other birds have their say as well, in the bright mornings and dreamy
eves. Out beyond the mouth of the harbour there are curlews and
puffins on the lonely sea-washed crags; and in quiet weather there
are more of the gulls seaward than up among the gardens. But they may
certainly be regarded as the presiding genius of Fowey.
[Illustration: FOWEY.
_Photo by Gibson, Penzance._]
The village of Fowey--it calls itself a town--runs along in a single
street on the westward bank of the river. At first sight this street
is almost unattractive; it is narrow, with some awkward bends, and it
gives no view of the water except an occasional peep through a low
doorway. It runs to a considerable distance, and tries to increase its
importance by changing its name at intervals; a few small alleys and
by-roads strike off from it. One of its turnings is a sharp drop as
well as a curve, perilous to all but the initiated. In some parts when
a vehicle passes it is necessary to press very close indeed to the
wall or in the kindly shelter of a doorway; the ample omnibus of the
chief hotel spares little space for pedestrians. It may be with
something of a malicious chuckle that one notices that this
four-wheeled tyrant is often empty; but the malice is of evanescent
nature, born of narrow escape. There are some shops, respectable if
not imposing, and a goodly supply of inns; a fine church and a notable
old Cornish manor-house. But all the time one has a sense that the
real life of the place is the river behind these houses; even the
leisurely little railway station does not seem of much consequence,
though it acts as a feeder of the boats that busily ply here. Quite
obviously this is no resort of mere pleasure, and it is all the more
pleasurable for that; it has set itself to live sturdily, not
troubling to attract the idler and the luxurious. Fowey is not
altogether content to repose on its memories, though these are great.
Generations of those who laboured on deep waters have nestled in these
riverside homesteads, these nooks and corners and precipitous byways;
they were lusty fighters and dauntless smugglers; they rose for their
old faith, they fought loyally for their king, and they molested his
enemies when he was at peace with them. In general they were a tough
and independent lot, with a considerable scorn of those who live "in
England"--that is to say, beyond the Tamar; and to this day an
Englishman from the shires is very much of a foreigner with them. Even
the man from a parish a few miles distant is looked at somewhat
askance; after long years of residence they will still think him an
outsider, and they repudiate with scorn the idea that any interlopers
can understand them or their ways. They do not easily initiate
strangers into the local mysteries or bestow the freedom of their
township. Such an attitude may be out of date in this cosmopolitan
age, but it is not unpleasant to strike against it; it coexists with
the kindest of welcomes, the warmest of hospitalities. Yet it must be
confessed that there are moods in which these Cornish folk are neither
kind nor hospitable; their roughness is very rough, their
parliamentary elections are often conducted in a spirit notorious for
its violence. They are not all the gentle visionary dreamers that the
Celts sometimes claim to be; indeed, there is much in their very
physiognomy that proclaims them in large measure to be not true Celts
at all, but men of still more aboriginal blood. Where then, it may be
asked, shall we find the pure Celt? Yet it cannot matter greatly,
except to those who set far too much store on matters of race. The
weaving of ethnologic Britain would take more skill to unravel than
the most learned can now attain to; it is a weft of many strands,
strangely inter-knitted, and its result is infinite variety of
personality. But it may be that here in Cornwall some of its earliest
elements have lingered longer than in parts of the kingdom more
exposed to invasion and immigration.
Both Plymouth and Falmouth may be spoken of as modern towns compared
with Fowey. Its antiquity is proved by the dedication of its church to
the Irish St. Finbar, who seems to have been a pupil of the Welsh
Dewi, or St. David. Very many of Cornwall's saints came either from
Ireland or Wales, and some from Brittany, to which the debt was
repaid. Not much is known of Finbar, and that little is probably
apocryphal. In 1336 the church was reconstructed and rededicated;
Bishop Grandisson, who did this, may have thought that a more firmly
established saint would be better, and he chose St. Nicholas, the
patron of sailors and fishermen. A good part of the present building,
including the north aisle, probably dates from that time; but the
tower, a hundred feet high, is true Perpendicular. The groundwork has
settled, causing a curious slope. The south-porch doorways appear to
be late Norman. Among the monuments of the Treffrys is one erected by
John Treffry during his own lifetime. Place House, the home of the
Treffrys, stands close by, dominating the little town that presses
around it. If its restoration had been conducted in better taste this
fine old house might have been more beautiful than it is; its best
features are the two exquisite fifteenth-century bay windows. The
original hall and porch-room also survive, the latter being now known
as the "Porphyry Room." Perhaps some visitors will take a deeper
interest in the residence of Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch, the "Haven,"
standing pleasantly by the waterside, facing the mouth of the harbour.
Thousands of readers have made the acquaintance of "Troy Town" through
the romances of "Q"; and Mr. Couch is not only the writer of fiction
that is often delightful, he is also a fine literary critic.
We do not know a great deal of Fowey in its earlier days, but its
manor passed to Robert de Mortain at the Conquest. The town sent
vessels to the Crusades, and in 1340 it shared with the port of Looe
in sending a representative to a Council at Westminster. But the usual
test by which historians now estimate the relative consequence of old
English ports is the number of vessels contributed to the siege of
Calais under Edward III., and by this test, which should not be
pressed too hard, Fowey would appear to have been the chief port in
the kingdom. She sent as many as forty-seven ships, the largest number
of any, manned by 770 seamen. Next came Yarmouth, with fewer ships but
more men; and Dartmouth was third. It is interesting to recall that to
this memorable expedition Ilfracombe contributed six vessels, and
Liverpool one. We may take it that the whole Fowey estuary shared in
the manning and maintenance of this gallant squadron. The Fowey men
had certainly the defect of their qualities, being proud and
stiff-necked under the successes that attended them. It is reported
that Fowey was made a member of the Cinque Ports, that very elastic
"five"; but its comradeship in that association was clearly of a
stormy and high-handed fashion. We read that certain Fowey men,
passing near Rye and Winchelsea, "would vaile no bonnet," by which we
may suppose is intended the customary salutation made in courtesy to a
fellow-port.
Highly indignant, the men of Rye and Winchelsea sallied forth to teach
the Foyens better respect, our seamen in those days being as willing
to quarrel among each other as they were with the men of Normandy or
Brittany. In the quaint words of the Cornish Hals, this contempt shown
by the Fowey men, "by the better enabled seafarers reckoned
intolerable, caused the Ripiers to make out with might and maine
against them; howbeit with a more hardy onset than happy issue; for
the Foy men gave them so rough entertainment as their welcome, that
they were glad to depart without bidding farewell--the merit of which
exploit afterwards entitled them Gallants of Fowey." Of course the
Fowey men held their heads higher than ever after this, and even
presumed to wear the arms of Rye and Winchelsea interwined with their
own, in token of their supremacy. It was from such tough fibres that
the British navy was built; those strenuous days of constant conflict
and privateering were a grand tutorage for seamen, though not
unexceptionable from a moral standpoint. But a town that behaved as
Fowey did naturally had to suffer reprisals.
To quote again from Hals, we learn that certain Normans, with a
commission from the King of France to "be revenged on the pirates of
Fowey town, carried the design so secret that a small squadron of
ships and many bands of marine soldiers was prepared and shipped
without the Fowey men's knowledge. They put to sea out of the river
Seine in July, 1457, and with a fair wind sailed thence across the
British Channel and got sight of Fowey Harbour, where they lay off at
sea till night, when they drew towards the shore and dropped anchor,
and landed their marine soldiers and seamen, who at midnight
approached the south-west end of Fowey town, where they killed all
persons they met with, set fire to the houses and burnt one half
thereof to the ground, to the consumption of a great part of the
inhabitants' riches and treasures, a vast deal of which were gotten by
their pyratical practices. In which massacre the women, children and
weakest sort of people forsook the place and fled for safety into the
hill country. But the stoutest men, under conduct of John Treffry
Esquire, fortified themselves as well as they could in his then new
built house of Place, where they stoutly opposed the assaults of the
enemies, while the French soldiers plundered that part of the town
which was unburnt without opposition in the dark." But the
country-side was aroused, and men began to gather in such force that
the French invaders found it prudent to depart with some haste, and
with such of their spoil as they could hurriedly carry with them. They
departed, says Hals, "with small honour and less profit." It was after
this attack that the twin forts were built, at Polruan and Fowey, to
protect the mouth of the river, and a chain was dropped at night
between the two, as was the practice at Dartmouth.
It must have been on another occasion that the wife of Thomas Treffry,
as Leland tells us, "repelled the French out of her house in her
husband's absence." But the great days of Fowey were nearing their
end. When Edward IV. made peace with France the town declined to
countenance this termination of hostilities, and continued to wage
war on its own account; perhaps it felt that there was much yet to be
wiped off. "I am at peace with my brother of France," came the royal
message; but the Fowey men were not at peace, and they said so. It is
even stated that they slit the nose of the King's pursuivant, which
almost made it appear that they were willing to be at war with the
King of England also. Edward was not the man to be so trifled with,
but the course he took was unkingly and despicable. He sent a party of
men, who were clearly afraid to come nearer than Lostwithiel; and
these, pretending to be harbouring some new designs against the
French, invited the men of Fowey to come and take counsel with them.
The Fowey men were then treacherously seized and their leader hanged;
and the men of Dartmouth were fetched to take away the chain from
Fowey Harbour and to snatch its ships. It may be that Dartmouth had
some accounts to settle with its Cornish neighbour, but even these
Devonians must have felt some grudging at such an act. This was the
death-blow of Fowey's naval prosperity. She was now at the mercy of
her foes, home or foreign. Yet she continued to bear herself bravely.
Later, she erected St. Catherine's Fort as a defence; it is now a
picturesque ruin. In the Civil War Fowey, like Cornwall generally, was
loyal to her King, and though Essex took the town, it was soon
retaken, with six thousand prisoners, and held for a year and a half
longer. A few years later, (in 1666) the Dutch chased our Virginian
fleet into Fowey Harbour, and dared to follow the vessels with the
purpose of destroying them. But the Fowey forts had a word to say in
the matter, and they made the place so hot for the great Dutch
frigate of seventy guns, that it was glad enough to escape without
finishing its errand. Such are the leading incidents in the history of
this plucky little town, which formerly returned two members to
Parliament. Relatively, its eminent position is entirely lost, but it
has an eminence for loveliness of situation that can never be taken
from it, and it can educate its sons in a glorious though chequered
tradition. It has memories of occupation long before days of Cinque
Port emulation. Close to Menabilly Park (Menabilly is the seat of the
Rashleighs, a Cornish family of ancient repute) is a granite pillar
known as the Longstone, bearing the inscription _Cirusius hic jacit
Cunomori filius_, doubtless commemorating a Romanised Cornishman. At
this manor-house, about two miles westward of Fowey, on a height above
the sea, is a curious grotto built by a former Rashleigh to exemplify
the mineral wealth of the Duchy. It is octagonal, and its sides are
inlaid with native ores, fossils, shells, and stones. There is a
further remarkable mineral collection at the house, with fine
specimens of sulphuret of tin and copper, malachite, fluor, crystals,
topaz, with some blocks of prehistoric tin. The coast here extends to
Gribbin Head, and there is then a sharp bend inward to Par sands. Par
is not particularly attractive, except for its pleasant bay; but the
decay of its former mining activities is compensated for by its busy
shipping of china-clays at the quays built by the late Mr. Treffry.
Much of the china-clay goes to distant potteries, or is used for the
whitening of cheap so-called linens; of course, much of this is
despatched at the railway station which is the junction for Fowey.
This is a British export which seems to be advancing by leaps and
bounds; and this St. Austell district, with another active port at
Charlestown, is practically its centre. It is said that, in this
district alone, the royalties paid to ground landlords approach the
figure of L90,000 per annum, and foreign companies are keenly
endeavouring to establish a footing. But the presence of the powdery
clay is not alluring except to those who profit by its output, and we
may leave Par and Charlestown to their industrialism. Tywardreath (the
"house or town-place on the sands") claims mention for the memory of
its old Benedictine priory, now vanished. To pursue the Fowey River
inland, past the charming Golant and St. Winnow, is a delightful
excursion with a fitting termination in the beauties of Lostwithiel;
but on the present occasion it takes us too far from the coast. The
loveliness of this river resembles and equals that of the Fal and of
the Dart.
CHAPTER IV
ST. AUSTELL TO ST. MAWES
The town of St. Austell is not exactly upon the coast, but it is only
about two miles inland, and visitors may be attracted by the
reputation of its fine church. It is a busy and self-respecting little
town, and is the commercial centre of a district that, for Cornwall,
is quite thickly populated; it is, indeed, one of the few Cornish
districts in which population has really shown an increase of recent
years. Much of its growing activity is due to the china-clay business;
St. Austell claims to be the china-clay metropolis of the world. Most
of the shipment is done from Fowey, Par, and Charlestown. The industry
is becoming a recognised lucrative field for investment. Yet the
immediate presence of the mines and yards is not a thing of beauty or
of comfort. St. Austell Church, dedicated to a companion of the famous
St. Samson, has a lofty Perpendicular granite tower, whose niches
contain statues of Christ, the Virgin, and many other saintly figures.
The implements and emblems of the Crucifixion are carved in the
southern buttresses. Older than the tower is the chancel; and there is
a Cornish inscription, _Ry Du_ ("give to God") above the porch. In the
churchyard is one of the sacred stones whose names at least we find
scattered in different parts of the kingdom, such as the _stan_ (or
Steyne) of Brighton, and the "folk's-stone" of a popular Kentish
watering-place. This St. Austell stone, the Menagew, is said to have
once stood at the junction of three manors, but its veneration
doubtless dates from a far earlier period. The historian Lake tells
us, "It is certain that on this stone all declarations of war and
proclamations of peace were read; and although at present it is
partially disregarded, a strong degree of veneration still attaches to
its name. All cattle that had been impounded for a given time, and for
which no owner could be found, were brought to this stone and exposed
for a certain number of market days, after which, if they remained
unclaimed, their sale became legal." But many visitors will probably
take greater interest in the famed Carclaze Mine, situated more than
600 feet above sea-level; the pit is about 150 feet deep, and nearly a
mile round. Once notable for its tin, this mine now supplies an
immense quantity of china-clay and stone. Charlestown may claim to be
the port of St. Austell, and is becoming also a popular residential
suburb. But St. Austell has another watering-place in Porthpean, a
mile or two westward, which, though it can boast of no shipping, has
features that may some day bring it a wide reputation. With good
sands, good bathing, a mild climate, Porthpean might easily develop
into a holiday resort of the conventional but highly prosperous type.
As yet its fame is hardly more than local.
South of Black Head, an eminence of about 150 feet, is the little port
of Pentewan, noted for its elvan building stone, which is shipped,
together with some china-clay, from its excellent small harbour.
Pentewan stone has a good name for hardness and durability; its
qualities are well shown in the tower of St. Austell Church. In the
tin works here, carried on at some depth below sea-level, were found
horns of the Irish elk, not petrified, but completely metallised by
the tin ore; also definite traces of buried forest. It is said also
that some curious oaken canoes were discovered in the soil, but were,
unfortunately, destroyed for firewood by the tinners. It is hard to
estimate how many valuable antiquities have been similarly destroyed
by carelessness and ignorance; but such ruin has been more often
suffered by stone monuments, longstones, kistvaens, snatched for use
as gate-posts and walls by heedless farmers and builders.
About two miles inland from Pentewan is Heligan, a very fine estate,
whose gardens display rare subtropical vegetation. Such vegetation is
rather a boasted feature in southern and western Cornwall, and is, of
course, interesting as a kind of _tour-de-force_, showing what the
British climate at its best can do. Apart from this use, however, it
may seem to some of us that such efforts are easily overdone; the
native beauty of an English garden or woodland has infinitely more
appeal, more freshness, more loveliness, than any grandeurs of the
exotic. The glories of Kew Gardens have their charm, their utility,
their educational value; but tropical growths are really as much out
of place in an English landscape as a Moorish palace or a Buddhist
temple would be. All who know anything of landscape gardening know
that it has been a fertile field for the growth and exemplification of
false taste. Yet the plea of botanical interest, educational use, may
be added to the attraction of rarity as a defence of all such
cultivations as we find not only at Heligan and Mount Edgcumbe, but at
Morrab Gardens and Tresco. Those of us who dislike them can keep away.
But Heligan has a reputation also for genuine English beauty. The old
mill here has been a favourite with many artists, and has become
familiar in many an exhibition-room. At Lanshadron, close by, is a
mutilated cross, which is perhaps unique in having an inscription
around its base; the inscription being Latin. Heligan is in the parish
of St. Ewe, which is usually supposed to be a dedication to St.
Eustachius; but non-Celtic saints are almost as much out of place in
Cornwall as exotic plants are, and St. Ewe was probably some forgotten
British or Welsh missionary. A former clergyman of this parish appears
to have been notable as a healer of bodies as well of souls. We read
of him that "Martin Atwell, parson of St. Ewe about 1600, was a
physician of body as well as soul: now and then he used blood-letting
or bleeding, and administered Marius Christi and other like cordials,
yet mostly for all diseases he prescribed milk, and very often milk
and apples, and recovered sundry out of desperate and forlorn
extremities: his liberality was very great, his affection for religion
sound, and he turned out with both hands _in pios usus_." Certainly a
most enlightened man for his time, and if we could only add that he
recommended the milk to be sour we should have brought his modernity
to the highest point.
Mevagissey, about six miles south-west of St. Austell, was once one of
the most flourishing fishing-ports on the Cornish coast, and though
it has not quite maintained its relative position, it is not done with
yet. The town can also boast some fame as the Aberalva of Kingsley's
_Two Years Ago_, a book once far more popular than it is to-day. The
same claim has been made for Clovelly; but though some features in the
novelist's description may be applied equally to both, there are other
points that can only be attributed to Mevagissey. Kingsley, who wrote
the book fifty years since, says: "Between two ridges of high pebble
bank some twenty yards apart, comes Alva River rushing to the sea. On
the opposite ridge, a low white house, with three or four white
canvas-covered boats and a flagstaff with sloping crossyard, betokens
the coastguard station. Beyond it rise black jagged cliffs; mile after
mile of iron-bound wall: and here and there, at the glens' mouths,
great banks and denes of shifting sand.... Above, a green down
stretches up to bright yellow furze-crofts far aloft. Behind, a reedy
marsh, covered with red cattle, paves the valley till it closes in;
the steep sides of the hill are clothed in oak and ash covert....
Pleasant little glimpses there are, too, of gray stone farmhouses,
nestling among sycamore and beech; bright green meadows,
alder-fringed; squares of rich fallow-field, parted by lines of golden
furze; all cut out with a peculiar blackness and clearness, soft and
tender withal, which betokens a climate surcharged with rain. Only, in
the very bosom of the valley, a soft mist hangs, increasing the sense
of distance, and softening back one hill and wood behind another, till
the great brown moor which backs it all seems to rise out of the empty
air. For a thousand feet it ranges up, in huge sheets of brown
heather, in gray cairns and screes of granite, all sharp and
black-edged against the pale blue sky." The description of the town
itself that follows might apply tolerably well to a number of such
fishing-ports in the West Country; but Kingsley is most clearly not
speaking of Clovelly, and he introduces Cornish names. That corner of
North Devon must be content with figuring in _Westward-Ho!_ and not
claim _Two Years Ago_. There was the cholera also, which was a very
terrible reality at Mevagissey in 1849, and which did its good work as
well as its evil, by causing the place to be thoroughly cleansed. The
truly Cornish name of the town derives from a double dedication to the
Saints Meven (or Mewan) and Issey; St. Mewan being a Welsh saint, and
St. Issey probably an Irishman. The place has won, and deserved, the
nickname of Fishygissey, but there is none the less a real charm about
it; its distance from the railway, however inconvenient for visitors,
brings compensations that many can appreciate. The pier dates from
1770, but the harbour is much more recent. A fine and costly harbour
constructed about 1890 was destroyed in the following year by the
great blizzard, which is distinctly "_the_ storm" in the West of
England; the present quays were built in 1897. At one time more
pilchards were taken here than at any other spot, but the pilchard is
a fickle fish, and has no consideration beyond the choice of
feeding-grounds; if better satisfied elsewhere, no sentiment
interferes with its migrations. But there are still a good many
pilchards taken off Mevagissey, and these are largely cured here--many
under their own name, but a large number find their way to the factory
of the Cornish Sardine Company established in the town. It has often
been debated whether pilchards and sardines are one and the same; Mr.
Aflalo says they are identical. It is certain that many so-called
sardines are pilchards--and some are sprats. Differences in size may
be accounted for by the fact that Cornish nets have often a rather
large mesh, and the smaller fish are not taken. Many such nets are
made at Mevagissey. The seine, or sean-net, was that commonly used
here when the pilchard schools came nearer, but is now almost
abandoned for the drift-net; we shall find seines still common further
west. The seine may be described as a wall of netting, buoyed at the
surface and weighted below; this is dipped in the thick of the shoal,
its ends drawn together, and the fish taken out with a tuck-net. The
leaded bottom of the net must touch the ground or the fish will
escape; thus seine-fishing is only practicable in shallow waters. With
it is associated the occupation of the "huers," who are stationed on
the look-out above the shore, and who signal the arrival of the
schools, easily seen in the daylight. But this method is now abandoned
at Mevagissey, where the fishermen go farther from port, sailing to
meet the schools in open sea instead of waiting close to shore for
them. In many details their drift-fishing differs from the seine. The
nets are long and deep, with a fairly large mesh: the object being for
the fish to become entangled as in a trap, into which they swim
blindly. A dark night is the most favourable; the drift-fishers start
from port about sunset, and are often back with their catch long
before dawn. The fish, indeed, are frequently caught, brought ashore,
and sold before daybreak; some are taken off by hawkers to be sold at
farms and cottages about the country-side, while others go at once to
the curers, or are pressed for export. Of course, mackerel and other
fish are caught, often in considerable quantity, but the distinctive
Cornish fish is the pilchard, and the pilchard has had most to do with
the prosperity of Cornish fishing-ports. Unless cooked by the
initiated, however, who get rid of the superfluous oil, the fresh
pilchard is a very bilious article of diet, and the visitor must be
wary.
In Mevagissey Church there is a curious old font, probably Norman in
date as it is in appearance. The tower of this church was removed for
some reason, perhaps because it was out of repair; and it was slyly
reported in the neighbourhood that the townsfolk had sold their bells
to pay for the removal of their tower. Cornish parishes are fond of
these jibes against each other. Penwarne, the seat of "One-handed
Carew," is in this parish; he lost his hand at the siege of Ostend in
1601, and returning after the fight, he presented the amputated limb
to his hostess, remarking "This is the hand that cut the pudding
to-day." A little south is the fishing hamlet of Portmellin; and just
beyond Chapel and Turbot Points reach out into the Channel. There are
remains of entrenchment on the headlands, and a little inland the farm
of Bodrigan perpetuates the name of an old Cornish family, once of
power and reputation. The waste known as Woful Moor, and the rock on
the coast named Bodrigan's Leap, both have a tale to tell in relation
with the ruin of this ancient family. It seems that in the days of
Richard III. Sir Henry Bodrigan was engaged in a fierce feud with the
leaders of the Edgcumbe and Trevanion families, and in the hour of
his prosperity he pressed them hardly. When the day of adversity came
and he was attainted by the newly crowned Henry Tudor, Bodrigan's
enemies turned on him with vindictive zeal. Driven to bay, the
desperate Bodrigan met them in a last conflict on Woful Moor, so named
to commemorate his sorrow, and was so hotly pressed that he was
compelled to leap from the shore, at the spot still known as his
"leap." The drop was of a hundred feet, but he escaped without injury
and was picked up by a vessel that lay beneath. His later story is not
told; but Gilbert says that "he seems to have perished in exile. His
property was divided between the two families opposed to him, and,
after the lapse of three hundred and fifty years, continues to form a
large portion of their respective possessions." But much water has
passed by Black Head since Gilbert wrote.
There is a recollection of Bodrigan at Gorran Haven, where he is said
to have built the old pier; this was rebuilt in 1888. Gorran Haven is
a most attractive little fishing-village, and may have a future before
it as a watering-place; at present it only draws the quietest of
visitors. The beach is excellent, pleasantly diversified with crags;
and there is a small outlying mass of rock known as the Guineas or
Gwinges, round which a rough sea breaks finely. There is a daughter
chapel here, late Tudor, dating from about 1450 and restored in 1885;
while the mother-church of St. Gorran at the church-town has a
pinnacled tower of 110 feet in height (late Perpendicular) with six
bells. This was renovated in 1896. There are some good initialled
bench-ends in the church. It is a district of grain culture. Gorran
men were rather made a butt of by their neighbours in the old days;
they "tried to throw the moon over the cliffs," and they "built a
hedge to keep in the moonlight." Such parochial witticisms may be
laughed at to-day, but they often provided a stinging grievance in the
past and were a handy weapon in neighbourly feuds. They were by no
means limited to Cornwall, though the Duchy was very plentifully
supplied. The typical instance in England is that of the unfortunate
men of Gotham, whom it is amusing to find old Ray seriously defending
in his _Proverbs_, where he says that "as for Gotham, it doth breed as
wise people as any which causelessly laugh at their simplicity. Sure I
am, Mr. William de Goteham, fifth Master of Michael House in
Cambridge, 1336, and twice Chancellor of the University, was as grave
a governour as that age did afford." All which may be very true; and
doubtless the men of Gorran were no more simple than their decriers.
Doubtless also they had a payment for all compliments. The local
dedication seems to be to the Gorran or Goron who surrendered his cell
at Bodmin to St. Petrock, perhaps because he recognised a better man.
The coast around Gorran is very grand, and reaches its culmination in
Dodman Point, sometimes called the Deadman, which rises to about 370
feet. The cliff has a sheer drop to the water, which is here deep, so
that large vessels can pass close inshore. The local saying linking
Dodman with Rame Head has already been quoted; and it is asserted that
Dodman and Rame really did meet when they both came into possession of
Sir Piers Edgcumbe. This bare, gaunt headland has proved disastrous to
shipping, and some will recollect that two torpedo-destroyers, the
_Thresher_ and the _Lynx_ collided with the rock here in a fog,
several lives being lost through the resultant explosion. This point
is the eastern gateway of Veryan Bay; in the heart of which bay lies
the very small parish of St. Michael Caerhayes, or Carhays. The parish
is inseparably connected with the old Cornish family of Trevanion, one
of which family, Sir John, fell at the siege of Bristol in the Civil
War, and left his name to the sad commemorative couplet in which
Cornwall recorded those by whose lives she had to pay for their
glory:--
"The four wheels of Charles's Wain,
Grenville, Godolphin, Trevanion, Slanning, slain."
The list was not exhaustive. Speaking of Trevanion and Slanning,
Clarendon says: "They were the life and soul of the Cornish Regiment;
both young, neither of them above 28; of entire friendship to each
other, and to Sir Bevil Grenville, whose body was not yet buried." It
would be a poor thing if the horrors of war did not sometimes allow us
such glimpses of heroic friendship and valour. In the church of St.
Michael's are hanging many weapons that once belonged to Trevanions,
including the sword said to have been worn at the field of Bosworth by
Sir Hugh, who was knighted after the battle by the conquering
Richmond. There is a doorway supposed to be Saxon in this church. The
present Caerhayes House, beautifully situated at the head of
Porthluney Cove, is the successor of the old Trevanion mansion, and
was built about a century since by Nash, the architect of Buckingham
Palace and Regent Street. For the sake of contrast, it is interesting
to remember that the Brighton Pavilion was also Nash's work; and thus
the mind can wander from this peaceful Cornish cove to that most
populous of British watering-places. At Portholland is a small hamlet
wedged into a tiny cleft, where those who desire the uttermost
quietude might be satisfied; westward along the coast is the slightly
larger fishing village of Portloe. This is in the parish of Veryan,
one of the "Roseland" parishes whose name has really nothing to do
with roses. Roseland, formerly Rosinis (_Roz-innis_, "moorland" or
"heath island"), was in its origin a very early designation of this
strip of land lying between Veryan Bay and the Fal; and we find the
same original in the Rosen Cliff, just above Nare Head.
Nare Head, a fine bluff of rock, is the southward point of Veryan
parish and the western extremity of Veryan Bay. There is some memory
of Tregeagle around this headland, but his tale belongs more fully to
Dozmare Pool on the Bodmin Moors and to the Land's End district. More
immediately concerning us is the story of Geraint--at least of one of
the rather numerous Cornish princes bearing that name--which is
associated with Gerrans Bay and Dingerrein, now opening upon us, and
with the great barrow of Carne Beacon. Perhaps Geraint, Latinised as
Gerennius and sometimes as Gerontios, was simply a title of
chieftainship or kingship; it is certain that the name was applied to
more than one British chieftain, though since Tennyson's Idylls there
has been only one Geraint in the mind of the general reader. Gerrans
Bay, of course, embodies the name, and so do the remains of the
entrenchment or camp at Dingerrein. It is possible that he whose name
thus survives was truly the Arthurian champion; we may certainly give
him the benefit of the doubt, and believe that this was the Geraint
who married the sweet Enid, who tested her faith so harshly, and who
died at Llongborth (probably Langport in Somerset) about the year 522.
He is claimed by the Welsh bards as one of their heroes, and there can
be no historic objection to such a claim. Llywarch Hen sang of his
death--
"In Llongborth Geraint was slain,
A brave man from the region of Dyvnaint,
And before they were overpowered they committed slaughter."
Tennyson's version of the legend is mainly taken from the Mabinogion.
We usually think of this Geraint, son of Erbin, as a fighter, but in
Cornwall he appears as a saint and the father of saints; both
characters, indeed, have been united in the same person, before and
since. Geraint is claimed as the founder of Gerrans, as well as of St.
Geran in Brittany; and Dingerrein is supposed to have been his
residence, while Carn Beacon was his tomb. The last supposition is the
most dubious. There is a traditional rumour that he was driven from
Wales by Teutonic invaders, that he settled here near Veryan and built
this stronghold, that he embraced religion and resigned his rule to
his son, and died a holy man. If we accept this tale we must decide
that it was another Geraint who fell fighting at Langport. The Book of
Llandaff tells us that the great St. Teilo visited Geraint while on
his way to Brittany, and that he hastened back from the Continent in
time to administer viaticum to his dying friend, bringing a stone
coffin for the burial with him. Tradition further says that the dead
chieftain was buried with his golden boat and silver oars in which he
had been wont to row himself. The place of burial was Carn Beacon, and
there was long an expectation that these treasures would be discovered
if the barrow was opened. This was done about half a century since,
but the kistvaen that was found only contained some prehistoric ashes,
of far earlier date than Geraint; the gold boat and silver oars were
not visible. The remains were replaced and the excavation closed.
There was a later Geraint who fought against the Saxon Ina in 710. But
it is almost more difficult to identify these Geraints than it is to
attain any certitude about King Arthur himself.
Gerrans is close to one of the lovely creeks that run inland from
Falmouth Harbour. On the coast is the little settlement of
Porthscatho, which is undergoing the transformation so common in
Cornwall, from fishing-village to watering-place. The artists came
first, and then the tourists. The charm of the place, with its
whitewashed houses and grey slate roofs, has not yet been destroyed;
and Porthscatho is still a delightful haunt. Southward is Zose Point,
or St. Anthony's Head, so called from the parish of St.
Anthony-in-Roseland, with its beautiful restored Early English church.
The Norman doorway and lighted steeple are noteworthy. Close by is
Place Houses (Places are common in Cornwall), a mansion erected by
Admiral Spry on the site of a priory founded by Athelstan, belonging
later to the monks of Plympton. There is a lighthouse, as well as a
prehistoric castle, on Zose Point, the light visible for fourteen
miles, and a valuable guide to vessels making Falmouth. This St.
Anthony Headland dominates St. Mawes Harbour, Falmouth Bay, and the
mouth of the Carrick Roads; the view is even more magnificent than
that from Plymouth Hoe or Staddon Heights.
CHAPTER V
FALMOUTH AND TRURO
About a century since Lord Byron was at Falmouth, waiting a favourable
wind that would enable the sailing of the Lisbon packet. He seems to
have been detained here about a week, during which time he made
characteristic observations and embodied them in a letter to his
friend Hodgson. With some sportive malice there was evidently a spice
of truth in his remarks. He tells his friend that Falmouth "is
defended on the sea side by two castles, St. Maws and Pendennis,
extremely well calculated for annoying everybody except an enemy. St.
Maws is garrisoned by an able-bodied person of fourscore, a widower.
He has the whole command and sole management of six most unmanageable
pieces of ordnance, admirably adapted for the destruction of
Pendennis, a like tower of strength on the opposite side of the
channel. We have seen St. Maws, but Pendennis they will not let us
behold, because Hobhouse and I are suspected of having already taken
St. Maws by a _coup-de-main_. The town contains many quakers and salt
fish--the oysters have a taste of copper, owing to the soil of a
mining country; the women (blessed be the Corporation therefor!) are
flogged at the cart's tail when they pick and steal, as happened to
one of the fair sex yesterday noon. She was pertinacious in her
behaviour, and damned the mayor." One might have expected that he
would at least have had a word for the town's beauty of position and
for its magnificent harbour; but such things were features that he
usually ignored in his letters, and his avoidance of the poetical
always amounted to an affectation. Defoe, who had been here about
eighty years earlier, found something to say about the harbour as
being, "next to Milford Haven, the fairest and best road for shipping
that is in the whole isle of Britain." Of Falmouth itself he says that
"it is by much the richest and best trading town in this county,
though not so ancient as its neighbour town of Truro." Truro might
have the honour, but "Falmouth has gotten the trade." He says further
that "Falmouth is well built, has abundance of shipping, is full of
rich merchants, and has a flourishing and increasing trade. I say
'increasing,' because by the late setting up the English packets
between this port and Lisbon, there is a new commerce between Portugal
and this town carried on to a very great value." The origin of this
trading, he suggests, was very much assisted by a species of
export-smuggling, whereby British manufactures were carried from
England to Portugal without paying custom at either end. But the
custom-house soon put an end to this, or at least greatly modified it.
Among other notable visitors it is interesting to remember that
Disraeli was here in his younger days, in 1830, detained before
starting on his own somewhat Byronic voyage to the Mediterranean; he
found the town "one of the most charming places I ever saw." In
days when Falmouth was a port-of-call for nearly every outward-bound
vessel, many another distinguished traveller must have put in here and
explored the town while the ship waited its sailing orders; but it
must be confessed that the records of such visits are rather scanty,
and the literary or other associations of Falmouth are not of the
richest. There are some, however, that claim a mention; and although
Falmouth as a town can boast of no antiquity, yet this noble estuary
of the Fal lies in a centre that must have witnessed many remarkable
scenes forgotten by history, and as early as man began to trust
himself to the waters its harbourage must have had a profound value
and significance.
[Illustration: ON THE RIVER FAL.
_Photo by Gibson & Sons._]
Long before men had begun to speak of Falmouth, except by applying
that name to the estuary of the river, the headland on the western
side of the river-mouth was known as Pendinas, now Pendennis; it was
evidently entrenched, for its Celtic name means the "headland
fortress." There was a settlement at Penmerryn, or Penmarin, now
Penryn; and the spot on which Falmouth stands appears to have been
known as _Pen-y-cwm_, the "head of the valley," to which the syllable
_quic_ was added, thus forming the familiar Penny-come-quick, for
which it has been easy to find a plausible but erroneous derivation.
If this _quic_ is merely a corruption of _wick_, meaning dwelling or
village, it would be obvious that Saxon influence had been at work
here, as in the other old name for Falmouth, Smithic or Smethic,
interpreted as Smith-wick. But we know very little with certainty
about the place until the Arwenack manor was acquired by the
Killigrews, through marriage with its heiress, which seems to have
been somewhere about 1385, though some of the rather confused records
tend to show that the Killigrews had connection with Arwenack earlier
than this. The family came from Killigrew, meaning a "grove of
eagles," in the parish of St. Erme, and they had everything to do with
the founding and prosperity of early Falmouth, championing it against
the rival claims and animosity of Penryn and Truro. There has been
some attempt to prove that Gyllyngvase, which is the present Falmouth
bathing-place, was the scene of the burial of Prince William, son of
Henry I., who was drowned off Barfleur, to his father's lasting
sorrow; the supposition being that Gyllyng was a corruption of
William. This seems purely imaginary; there is nothing to show that
William's body was ever recovered, and if it had been brought to
England his father would certainly not have let it be buried in this
far-distant and lonely spot. We must probably go to the Celtic for the
derivation of Gyllyngvase. One of the Killigrews erected a fort on
Pendinas, which, under the sanction or by the command of Henry VIII.,
was expanded into Pendennis Castle, which it is said that king
visited. In 1552, on his return from the expedition to Guiana, Sir
Walter Raleigh was entertained at Arwenack, and was much struck by the
fine naval capabilities of Falmouth Harbour, laying the matter before
James I., and gaining that monarch's countenance for the Killigrews'
views for the furtherance of Falmouth in spite of the opposition of
its neighbours.
During the Civil War Pendennis Castle was held for the King by its
aged and gallant governor, John Arundel, and it afforded brief
shelter both to the fugitive Charles II. and to his mother, the Queen
Henrietta Maria. The Sheriff of Cornwall, who saw her at this time,
described her as "the woefullest spectacle my eyes ever yet look'd on;
the most worne and weake pitifull creature in the world, the poore
Queene shifting for one hour's liffe longer." She escaped to France,
adverse winds preventing her capture by the Parliamentary fleet. It
was in the following year that the young King took refuge at
Pendennis, before he sought an asylum at Scilly; the approach of
Fairfax warned him to fly in time. Then followed one of the most
strenuous sieges of the war, John Arundel, "John for the King,"
defending the place for about six months, and only surrendering on
honourable terms, when there was only one salted horse left as
provision. This brave old defender was in his eighty-seventh year. Two
hundred sick persons were left behind when the garrison marched out,
under the stipulation that none of them should be compelled thereafter
to fight against their king; and it is said that many died from eating
too heartily after their prolonged famine. Lord Clarendon tells us
that "the castle refused all summons, admitting no treaty, till they
had not victual for twenty-four hours, when they carried on the treaty
with such firmness that their situation was never suspected, and they
obtained as good terms as any garrison in England." Pendennis was the
last stronghold, with the exception of Raglan, to hold out for the
Royalist cause; and it was fitting that this most gallant defence and
dignified surrender should be placed to the credit of loyal Cornwall.
It tallies with the brave struggle of the previous century, on behalf
of the old faith and the old tongue. We may not wish that either
struggle had terminated differently, but they were both in keeping
with the tenacious character of the Cornish people. As a striking
proof of their desperate resolution, the defenders of Pendennis
themselves fired the manor-house of Arwenack, in order that it might
not be occupied by the Parliamentary troops, and these had to be
content with such trenches and defences as they could contrive from
the ruins. The mansion was never suitably restored, and there are only
a few relics of it to be seen at the present day in Arwenack Street.
Its beautiful avenue became a rope-walk, and the site of its park is
covered with buildings. Charles II. was not specially notable for
remembering those who had assisted him in the day of his
trouble--indeed, there were a great many for him to remember; but it
is pleasant to know that the son of the defender of Pendennis was
created a peer at the Restoration, while one of the Killigrews became
a baronet, and a charter of incorporation was granted to the infant
town. It was enacted that the settlements hitherto known as "Smithike
and Penny-come-quick" should become a corporate town under the name of
Falmouth. Sir Peter Killigrew had already obtained from the
Commonwealth a patent for a weekly market and two fairs, together with
the rights of ferry to Flushing; and the custom-house had been removed
to Falmouth from Penryn. In 1661 a quay was authorised, and two years
later a church was erected, with a dedication to King Charles the
Martyr. However incongruous such a dedication may now seem, it had
great significance at the time. By dint of effort, also, Falmouth was
created a distinct parish, freed from St. Budock and St. Gluvias. All
these steps were taken in face of much opposition, and against the
influence of Robartes, Arundels, and Godolphins, who supported Truro,
Helston, and Penryn in petitioning that "the erecting of a town at
Smithike would tend to the ruin and impoverishing of the ancient
coinage towns and market-towns aforesaid, not far distant from thence;
and they therefore humbly prayed the King's Majesty that the buildings
and undertakings of Mr. Killigrew might be inhibited for the future."
Such had been an earlier petition to James I., and the same spirit of
opposition pursued every development of the young town. Strife and
litigation pursued the Killigrews unremittingly, until the extinction
of the family in the direct line, somewhere about the middle of the
eighteenth century. There is one great literary glory attaching to
them. It was to Mistress Anne Killigrew that Dryden wrote his noble
elegiac ode, which Dr. Johnson thought the finest in the language.
With the dignity and melody that distinguished Dryden at his best, he
apostrophises the lady as one who had herself courted the muses of
poetry and painting--
"Hear then a mortal Muse thy praise rehearse
In no ignoble verse,
But such as thy own voice did practise here,
When thy first fruits of poesy were given,
To make thyself a welcome inmate there;
While yet a young probationer
And candidate of heaven."
The ode was addressed to Anne, daughter of Dr. Henry Killigrew, born
in 1660, who died of smallpox in 1685; she was a Maid-of-Honour to
the Duchess of York. A volume of her poems appeared in the following
year, with Dryden's ode as an introduction. In painting she seems to
have done portraits of James II. and his queen. She was buried at St.
John the Baptist, Savoy. It is Dryden's verse, and not her own, that
has immortalised her.
There is no need to follow in detail the somewhat unexciting tale of
Falmouth's growth. Its one event of national moment was the selection
of the port, in 1688, for the sailings of the Mail Packet service,
which proved to be of immediate consequence both to Falmouth and
Flushing, as the families of captains and crews soon chose one or
other of those places for residence, thereby bringing prosperity and a
keen rivalry. The story of the packets is very notable, and has been
worthily told by Mr. A. H. Norway. We may assume that it was one of
Mr. Norway's ancestors who lost his life while gallantly defending his
packet, the _Montague_, from the attack of an American privateer. At
first only three packets sailed, between Falmouth and Lisbon; but the
service soon extended to the West Indies, America, Barbadoes, and
elsewhere. They were not only a fine training-school for seamen, but
were in some sense an auxiliary to the British navy, frequently coming
in close contact with the King's enemies or with privateers, in which
conflicts they generally rendered a good account of themselves. They
seem at first to have been supplied for the use of the General Post
Office by contract, and sometimes belonged to their captains or to
companies of private shareholders; but about the year 1820 they were
taken over by the Admiralty, with the idea that a stricter discipline
was needed. The greatest days of the packets were before this
transference, and their diminishing splendour terminated entirely in
1850, when the port ceased to be a packet station, the mails having
been taken in charge by ocean liners. Plymouth has succeeded to the
position that once was Falmouth's. It is no exaggeration to say that
some of the actions of the packets and their dauntless crews recall
the palmy days of Elizabethan naval prowess and exploits such as that
of the immortal _Revenge_. The very name of the hero of that great
adventure was perpetuated by one of the packets, which accomplished
something worthy of his fine tradition. It is told by Gilbert how "in
the year of 1777 Captain William Kempthorne was opposed off the island
of Barbadoes in H.M. Packet _Granville_ to three American privateers,
two of whom were each of equal force to the _Granville_, and lay
alongside her in a raking position. After a desperate action, in which
the captain received a severe wound in the head and lost the roof of
his mouth, the enemy was compelled to sheer off, and the _Granville_
with her brave commander returned safe to England." This is only one
example among many. It is said that within the three years, 1812-14,
"thirty-two actions were fought between Falmouth packets and
privateers, which resulted in seventeen victories for the Cornish
against superior numbers of men and guns, while the remaining
contests, in which also great numbers lost their lives, were in
respect to valour, as glorious." One of these grand struggles may be
best told in Mr. Norway's words:--
"On November 22, 1812, the _Townshend_ packet, armed with eight
9-pounder carronades, a long gun of similar calibre for use as a
chaser, and a crew of twenty-eight men and boys under the command of
Captain James Cock, was within a few hours of dropping her anchor at
Bridgetown, Barbadoes, when the first light of morning revealed two
strange vessels cruising at no great distance. These vessels proved to
be American privateers, the _Tom_, Captain Thos. Wilson, and the
_Bona_, Captain Damaron. The former was armed with fourteen
carronades, some 18- and some 12-pounders, as well as two long
9-pounders, and carried 130 men. The latter had six 18-pounders, with
a long 24-pounder mounted on a traverse, and a crew of ninety men....
This enormous preponderance of force was greatly increased in
effective power by being divided between two opponents. A single enemy
might be crippled by a single shot; but if good fortune rid the
_Townshend_ of one antagonist in this way, there still remained the
other to be reckoned, more powerful at every point than herself.
"If ever circumstances justified surrender after a short resistance
they were present in this case. It might even be thought that
resistance was a useless sacrifice of life; but such was not Captain
Cock's view. He held it to be his plain duty not only to keep the
mails out of the hands of the enemy--which could be done effectually
by sinking them at any moment--but to use every means in his power to
preserve them for their proper owners, and not to abandon hope of
delivering them at the office of the post-office agent at Bridgetown
until every chance of doing so was gone. Now, there were still two
chances in his favour: first, that he might hold out until the noise
of firing attracted some of the British cruisers which were probably
in the immediate neighbourhood; and secondly, if that chance failed,
he might run the _Townshend_ ashore on some shore of the coast where
the privateers could not follow him. Both these chances were desperate
enough; but Captain Cock saw his duty clear before him, and cared
nothing for the consequences. All his preparations were quickly made,
and every man was at his post before the privateers came within range,
which they did about 7 a.m.
"At 7.30 the _Tom_ had placed herself abeam of the packet to larboard,
while the _Bona_ lay on the starboard quarter, and both their
broadsides were crashing into the _Townshend_ at pistol-shot distance,
all three vessels running before the wind. This lasted till eight
o'clock. The Americans, as was usual with them, made great use of
'dismantling shot,' _i.e._, chain- and bar-shot; the effect of which
upon the rigging of the _Townshend_ was most disastrous. It was not
long before her sails were hanging in ribbons, and her spars were
greatly damaged, and in some momentary confusion from this cause the
_Tom_ seized an opportunity of pouring in her boarders, while the
_Bona_ redoubled her fire, both of great guns and musketry, to cover
their attack. After a fierce tussle the Americans were driven back to
their own ship; but this success was won by the loss of four of
Captain Cock's best hands, who received disabling wounds in the fight.
Thereupon both privateers resumed the cannonade, maintaining the
positions which they had taken up at the commencement of the action,
and for another hour the _Townshend_ endured the fire of her enemies'
heavy guns, the courage of her commander and crew remaining as high
and stubborn as ever. But the packet was by this time so much
shattered that she could with difficulty be handled. Again and again
the _Tom_ bore down upon her, and hurled fresh boarders up her sides.
Time after time Captain Cock led his wearied men to meet them, and
each time drove them back.
"But the post-office men were now so reduced in numbers that it was
with the greatest difficulty that Captain Cock could continue to serve
the guns and at the same time collect sufficient men to meet the
constantly recurring boarding attacks. It was plain that this
situation of affairs could not last: there was no sign of succour on
the sea, and when Captain Cock looked aloft he could not but admit
that in the crippled condition of his ship all chance of running her
ashore was gone. The _Townshend_ was in fact a mere wreck. Her
bowsprit was shot in pieces. Both jib-booms and head were carried
away, as well as the wheel and ropes. Scarcely one shroud was left
standing. The packet lay like a log on the water, while the privateers
sailed round her, choosing their positions as they pleased, and raking
her again and again. Still Captain Cock held out. It was not until ten
o'clock, when he had endured the attack of his two powerful enemies
for nearly three hours, that he looked about him and realised that the
end had come. There were four feet of water in the hold, and the
carpenter reported that it was rising rapidly. The packet was, in
fact, sinking. Nearly half the crew were in the hands of the surgeon.
The rest, exhausted and hopeless of success, had already fought more
nobly than even he could have foreseen, and were now being uselessly
sacrificed. Still Captain Cock's pride rebelled against surrender; and
as he saw the colours he had defended so well drop down upon the deck,
it is recorded that he burst into tears. He had no cause for shame.
Such a defeat is as glorious as any victory, and is fully worthy of
the great traditions of valour on the sea which all Englishmen
inherit."
It would be easy to quote many such stories, which, together with the
siege of Pendennis, form the heroic memories of Falmouth. Otherwise,
the town's associations are chiefly provincial, not to say parochial.
The abiding glory of the place is its beauty of position, and the
magnificent views that it commands. Something of an old-world
atmosphere still lingers around the quays. One attraction is gone;
John Burton is no longer at the old curiosity shop bearing his name.
Memories of the Killigrews are preserved by the curious pyramidal
monument, erected in the Grove by Martin Killigrew in 1737, and now
standing at Arwenack Green. Perhaps there should be some memorial of
the Rev. John Collins, who, during the Commonwealth days, practised
here as a physician, having been ejected from his living at Illogan.
His diary proves how well he deserved remembrance. One entry tells how
he "did this day administer ---- to old Mrs. Jones for her ague."
Then, the following day: "Called on Mrs. Jones, and found she had died
during the night in much agony. N.B.--Not use ---- again." We may hope
he is now forgiven for his experiments. Falmouth, however, can only
claim him as a resident. There is little more to tell about Falmouth.
Its present docks, covering an area of 120 acres, were built in 1860.
There is some ship-building, some brewing, with oyster and trawl
fishing; the fishery engages nearly seven hundred persons.
Industrially, the town cannot hope for much, unless it should ever
become a naval base; but as a residential district it is very
delightful, combining the charms of sea and noble river. The Castle
Drive can hardly be surpassed, of its kind; and if we proceed past the
Gyllyngvase bathing-beach, there is a pleasant little lake known as
the Swanpool, which was once a swannery of the Killigrews.
For antiquity as for present-day industry we must go to Penryn, which
lies about two miles up the Penryn Creek and is devoted to the export
of granite. The busy but not very lovely little town has very much of
a granite tone about it, and can boast that it supplied the material
for Waterloo Bridge; it can also boast that it was in existence before
the Conquest--how much earlier is difficult to say. Its parish church
was so largely restored in 1883 that it is practically new; it is
dedicated to "Gluvias the Cornishman," who was a Welshman. Among the
gardens at the back of Penryn's chief street are some remains of
Glassiney College, founded in 1246 by Bishop Bronescombe of Exeter for
secular canons and vicars. It became perhaps the most important centre
of learning and literature in Cornwall, and was a nursery of the old
miracle-plays or interludes--some of which still survive in the
Cornish original and prove themselves to be no better, no worse, than
the average of such performances throughout the kingdom. Old Cornwall,
it must be confessed, did very little for literature; and if we
regret the extinction of the vernacular, it is not for any literary
treasures that remain embodied in it. But an event that took place at
Penryn is the theme of something a little better than the Cornish
interludes--namely, the "Penryn Tragedy," which inspired Lillo's play
_The Fatal Curiosity_. It is said that a Penryn man who had left
Cornwall in his early days and had become rich abroad, returned to his
home just as a present-day miner might return from South Africa. He
was recognised by his married sister, but, begging her keep the
secret, he proceeded incognito to his parents' house and asked their
hospitality for the night. Unhappily the old mother caught sight of
the treasure that he had about his person, and she persuaded the
father to kill the man in his sleep. Next morning the sister came to
share in their joy at the wanderer's return, and asked for her
brother. To their horror, the wicked old couple found that they had
murdered their own son. They had grace enough to commit suicide after
the discovery. The same tale seems to have been conveyed to Wales,
where it is related of a parish in Montgomeryshire; but a Welsh poem
that tells the story rightly attributes it to Cornwall. And yet it is
possible that the same event happened in Wales also; a few years since
the newspapers related an almost identical incident as having occurred
in Russia. Perhaps the story really belongs to folk-lore, reappearing
at times under a new guise and in a new locality.
In the possession of the Penryn Corporation is a silver chalice, given
by Lady Jane Killigrew "to the towne of Penmarin when they received
mee that was in great miserie." It seems that about this time (1633)
the lady was divorced, and took refuge from her domestic troubles at
Penryn, where the animosity of the townsfolk towards the Killigrews
caused her to be received with great favour; she afterwards married
Francis Bluett. A mistake has been made by many in attributing to her
the piracy committed two generations earlier by Lady Mary Killigrew,
who illegally boarded some foreign vessels lying at Falmouth Harbour
and carried away treasure. There was some bloodshed over the matter,
and a considerable scandal; so much, that it is said the lady was
sentenced to death by the authorities, but escaped through influence.
In any case, poor Lady Jane, who, whether she had been frail or not,
had enough private sorrows of her own, must not be saddled with this
additional load of blame for an act that she never committed.
Immediately opposite Falmouth, across the Penryn creek, the little
port of Flushing, with a climate supposed to be the mildest in
England, has survived to tell us of an extinguished glory. The passing
of the packet service brought comparative stagnation to Falmouth; it
actually crushed Flushing. It is a pleasant little place, and one
cannot wonder at its popularity with the naval men who resided here.
It is said to have been founded by Dutch settlers, who brought the
name with them. Some few of its old houses remain, suggestive of its
former life, and Flushing is left to luxuriate in the dreams of its
past. The church here is modern. Flushing is in Mylor parish, and
Mylor can claim a greater antiquity. There was once a royal dockyard
here. The dedication is to Melor, son of St. Melyan; both father and
son appear to have suffered martyrdom, or were victims of political
intrigue. The church was restored in 1869, but retains much of its
Norman character; and one of its best monuments perpetuates the memory
of the Trefusis family, whose name also attaches to the headland
eastward of Flushing. Lord Clinton is of this family. Mylor is most
pleasantly situated at the mouth of its own little creek, and looks up
the Carrick Roads towards Truro; but before taking the journey
thither, delightful in itself and delightful in its objective, it may
be worth while to cross the harbour for a peep at St. Mawes, which
somehow seems like an off-lying shoot of Falmouth. It is named
apparently from St. Maudez or Mauditus, of Ireland, though some have
asserted that the real dedication is to St. Maclovius of the Breton
St. Malo. The question is rather involved, and may not appeal to many.
The castle was built in 1542, about the same time as Pendennis, and
both forts were supposed to have been under the special fostering care
of Henry VIII., who realised the strategic importance of Falmouth
Harbour. Its first Governor was Michael Vyvyan, and its last Sir
Alexander Cameron. At the time of the Civil War it could not boast the
fine resistance that Pendennis offered, being easily commanded by
ordnance from the heights above; but as a defence on the seaward side
and a protection to the estuary its position is very powerful, and
must prove so should Falmouth ever become a naval base. At present the
castle has little but its size to recommend it; but the little town,
with its small jutting pier, has some attractiveness. An interesting
ingot of tin was discovered near here, many years since, showing how
the old tin-workers shaped their metal for transport. Truro can
hardly be said to be on the coast; but certainly no book on Cornwall
can ignore this town, which is, in fact, the capital of the Duchy
intellectually and ecclesiastically, however loudly Bodmin may claim
to be the assize town. Partly by reason of its shape, partly perhaps
from other causes, there has been little centralisation in Cornwall,
and the very selection of Truro to be the cathedral city was in some
sort an artificial and arbitrary arrangement. No doubt it was the best
that could have been made; but old Cornwall had no such centre, and
there were rival claims to be considered. It may not be incorrect to
say that Cornwall of to-day has several capitals: Penzance is the
commercial centre of the far west; Redruth and Camborne dominate the
mining districts; St. Austell is the metropolis of china-clay; while
Bodmin and Launceston perhaps more intimately represent agriculture.
Truro stands apart from them all, and represents the Church. In one
sense the real capital of Cornwall to-day is Plymouth, meaning by that
the Three Towns, as in old days it was Exeter. But of all existing
Cornish towns, none would be better qualified than Truro to play the
dignified part of the cathedral city; and, with its population of
about 13,000, Truro does this very well. Its honours sit well upon it,
and have been accepted with becoming pride. Undoubtedly the
pleasantest way of reaching the cleanly and agreeable little town is
by the boat from Falmouth, and the trip is one of the recognised
things that visitors to Cornwall are supposed to do. There can be no
question of the journey's beauty, though when it is contended that
this is the loveliest river in England, one remembers other beautiful
streams whose claims are at least equal. In Cornwall itself there is
the Fowey River, quite as rich in loveliness, if on a smaller scale;
and there is the Tamar, whose charm is so great that both Devon and
Cornwall are eager to claim it. Then there are the exquisite reaches
of the Dart, from its mouth to Totnes, to say nothing of its wilder
course beyond, among the fastnesses of the moors. In Monmouthshire
there is the "sylvan Wye." All these, and many other claimants, spring
to mind and enforce upon us the foolishness of any comparisons at all.
Beauty must be always complete and satisfying in itself, unless we let
our thoughts be disturbed by ideas of a possible better. It is certain
that the passage up the Fal, especially in suitable weather, is of
very real charm, with its numerous tempting creeks and pools, its
ferries and riverside hamlets, its sloping meadows and spreading
woodlands. But when we speak of going up the Fal to Truro, we are
speaking incorrectly; the true Fal turns eastward after passing King
Harry's Reach and runs to Ruan Lanihorne; the water on which we pass
to the Truro quayside is the Truro River. It has been spoken of by our
late Queen, among the many visitors who have admired it. She said, "We
went up the Truro, which is beautiful, winding between banks entirely
wooded with stunted oak and full of numberless creeks. The prettiest
are King Harry's Ferry and a spot near Tregothnan, where there is a
beautiful little boathouse." Tennyson was here a little later (in
1860) after a visit to the Scillies, and he made the river trip from
Falmouth to Truro. On the boat the poet was recognised, his portraits,
and perhaps some knowledge that he was in the neighbourhood, being
responsible for the discovery. Palgrave, who was with him, writes:
"Our captain presently came forward with a tray and squat bottle, and
said, with unimpeachable good manners, that he was aware how
distinguished a passenger, &c., and that some young men sitting
opposite, and he, would be much honoured if Mr. Tennyson would take a
tumbler of stout with them." The poet gave a gracious response, and
willingly drank the health of his admirers. But "presently the captain
reappeared, and this time it was the ladies in the cabin who begged
that the Laureate would only step down among them. But the height of
that small place of refuge, Tennyson declared, would render the
proposed exhibition impossible. Might he not be kindly excused? The
good women, however, were not to be balked; and one after another
presented her half-length above the little hatchway before us, gazed,
smiled, and retreated." It was well for Tennyson that he had overcome
some of his early shyness, or the ordeal might have tried him
considerably. There was no cathedral in those days, rising with
somewhat foreign aspect from near the waterside; but its germ was
there in the old parish church of St. Mary's, which now welds the
ancient and the modern into one beautiful and fairly harmonious whole.
It is difficult to over-estimate the value of this old church as a
component part of the new cathedral; and the atmosphere that it sheds
seems gently pervading the entire building, taking away the glare of
its modernity, softening what might otherwise be crudity, and giving a
vital sense of continuity to the worship of the bygone and the
present. It may have been impossible to include more of the old church
in the new edifice, but we are grateful that this south aisle
remains. It is generally supposed that the Cornish are a Dissenting
people, yet they all took kindly to the building of this minster, and
they all feel a pride in it. Gifts poured in from all parts of the
Duchy to assist in its erection, and, suitably enough, very little but
Cornish material was used in its construction--Cornish granite,
china-stone, polyphant, and serpentine, with Cornish copper in the
clock-tower. It might, perhaps, have been better if Perpendicular, the
prevalent church style in Cornwall, had been adhered to, instead of a
rather French-looking Early English; but even on this point opinions
may be divided.
The cathedral has made Truro a place of pilgrimage for all loyal
Cornish folk, and they may feel proud that in a materialistic age such
an emblem of faith has been fostered and reared. Local guide-books
will sufficiently explain the details, but every visitor should notice
the beautiful marble paving of the choir, and the fine baptistery in
memory of the missionary, Henry Martyn, himself of Truro. This revival
of the Cornish see, some thirty years since, formed a link between the
present generation and the old days, nine hundred years earlier, when
St. German's was episcopal; further still, it takes us back to the
times of the old saints, fitly commemorated here, who came from
Ireland and Wales and Brittany to bring the Cornish people a knowledge
of that in which they believed. The Truro cathedral is a fact, and
certainly a fact of considerable significance. Its first bishop was
the beloved Dr. Benson, his memory perpetuated in the Benson Transept,
with its graceful rose-window. One thing is impressed upon us by this
new minster--that present-day architecture, when meritorious, is an
imitation. The closer it keeps to old models, the better is the
result. Did church-building really say its last word four centuries
since?
For its greater antiquity we have to remember that Kenwyn, about a
mile inland, is the mother of Truro, and this place has been claimed
as a Roman station named _Cenion_. The Itineraries speak of the
stations on the rivers _Tamara_, _Voluba_ and _Cenia_. _Tamara_ is the
Tamar; _Voluba_ probably the Fowey; _Cenia_ the Truro or Kenwyn River.
But it is exceedingly doubtful that Rome ever had definite stations in
Cornwall at all. This does not affect the antiquity; Kenwyn was a
British settlement, if never Romanised. Truro is supposed to signify
the "town on the river"; its manor was held by Robert de Mortain after
the Conquest, and the place seems to have had a charter as early as
the days of Stephen. Its position, far retired up the river, is
eloquent of times when men dreaded to settle close to the sea--the sea
brought foes and deadly night attacks; it was when commerce became
more important that Falmouth sprang into being. We have similar
instances at Lostwithiel and Fowey, Totnes and Dartmouth, Exeter and
Exmouth, as well as a striking modern instance in Bristol and
Avonmouth. There was a castle at Truro, on the present site of the
cattle market, but it was "clene down" in the time of Leland; there
were also a Dominican friary and a house of Clare monks. As a port
Truro did its best to oppose the building and growth of Falmouth, but
the inevitable could only be delayed, not prevented. The town's
recompense came late, but it has come. Though it welcomed the fugitive
Charles II., the town itself does not appear to have seen any
fighting during the Civil War--it is certainly quite indefensible; but
at Tresillian Bridge, about three and a half miles east, at the head
of the creek so named, the desperate struggle of Cornish Royalists was
brought to a close by the surrender of Sir Ralph Hopton to Fairfax.
CHAPTER VI
FROM FALMOUTH TO THE LIZARD
The southward limit of Falmouth Bay is Rosemullion Head, which does
not rise to any great height, but it commands fine views, on one side
towards the Fal estuary, with Zose Point and the Dodman beyond, and on
the other commanding the mouth of the Helford creek. The "Rose" of
course means heath; and Mullion we shall meet again. Penjerrick, which
lies a mile or two inland towards Falmouth, will be visited by many
not only for its beautiful botanic gardens, but for its memories of
the Foxes; but our own steps must now be turned towards the Lizard.
Rosemullion is in the parish of Mawnan, whose church-town lies a
little south of it; the dedication appears to be to a certain St.
Mawnanus, but there is great difficulty in identifying him. From here
to the mouth of the Fal there is a raised beach, more or less perfect;
in fact, all along this Cornish coast there are plentiful signs that
the shore contours have been by no means permanent. When we reach the
Helford River we have come to another rival of the Fal, with creeks
and inlets, wooded banks and fields, differing in size but hardly in
degree of beauty. Strictly, the name Helford only applies to the
little ferry town; the river is the _Hel_, or Hayle, and affords
comfortable harbourage to many craft. There is a literary association
here of some interest; for Kingsley tells us how Hereward the Wake
sailed up this river to Gweek, hungry for adventure. "He sailed in
over a rolling bar, between jagged points of black rock, and up a tide
river which wandered and branched away inland like a land-locked lake,
between high green walls of oak and ash, till they saw at the head of
the tide Alef's town, nestling in a glen which sloped towards the
southern sun. They discovered, besides, two ships drawn up upon the
beach, whose long lines and snake-heads, beside the stoat carved on
the beak-head of one, and the adder on that of the other, bore witness
to the piratical habits of their owner. The merchants, it seemed, were
well known to the Cornishmen on shore, and Hereward went up with them
unopposed; past the ugly dykes and muddy leats, where Alef's slaves
were streaming the gravel for tin ore: through rich alluvial pastures
spotted with red cattle; and up to Alef's town. Earthworks and
stockades surrounded a little church of ancient stone, and a cluster
of granite cabins, thatched with turf, in which the slaves abode." If
this is a picture of Gweek, the church must be imaginary; the nearest
churches are those of Constantine and of Mawgan. This is
Mawgan-in-Meneage, so called to distinguish it from the
Mawgan-in-Pydar, near Newquay. The Meneage, which we find affixed to
several other parish names immediately north of the Lizard, clearly
derives from the Cornish _men_--a stone--and denotes the "stony
district"; just as Roseland signified the heath or moorland district.
Whenever we find _man_ in an early place-name, we can feel pretty
sure that it has no reference to the human species. Defoe, who took
Helford in the way of his journey to the Land's End, speaks of it as
"a small but good harbour, where many times the tin-ships go in to
load for London; also here are a good number of fishing-vessels for
the pilchard trade, and abundance of skilful fishermen. It was from
this town that in the great storm which happened November 27, 1703, a
ship laden with tin was blown out to sea and driven to the Isle of
Wight in seven hours, having on board only one man and two boys." He
proceeds to tell how the boat was loaded at "a place called Gwague
Wharf, five or six miles up the river," by which he must mean Gweek.
The captain and his mate stayed on shore for the night, not detecting
signs of anything unusual in the weather; but orders were given that
in case of wind the vessel should be moored with two anchors. As a
matter of fact, the gale soon increased so remarkably that the man on
board, with his two boy assistants, soon found it necessary not only
to drop their second anchor but also two others. "But between eleven
and twelve o'clock the wind came about west and by south, and blew in
so violent and terrible a manner that, though they rode under the lee
of a high shore, yet the ship was driven from all her anchors, and
about midnight drove quite out of the harbour (the opening of the
harbour lying due east and west) into the open sea, the men having
neither anchor or cable or boat to help themselves." Avoiding rocks as
best they could, they drifted past the Dodman and tried to make
Plymouth, but the first land they made was Peverel Point in Dorset,
and by seven o'clock next morning they were driving full towards the
Isle of Wight. One of the boys was for running the boat to the Downs,
where it would almost certainly have perished; but the other lad
remembered a creek in the Isle of Wight, where he thought there would
be room to run the boat in. Very wisely the man yielded to his advice,
and gave him charge of the helm. "He stood directly in among the
rocks, the people on shore thinking they were mad, and that they would
in a few minutes be dashed in a thousand pieces. But when they came
nearer, and the people found they steered as if they knew the place,
they made signals to direct them as well as they could, and the young
bold fellow ran her into a small cove, where she stuck fast, as it
were, between the rocks on both sides, there being just room enough
for the breadth of the ship. The ship indeed, giving two or three
knocks, staved and sank, but the man and the two youths jumped ashore
and were safe; and the lading, being tin, was afterwards secured. The
merchants very well rewarded the three sailors, especially the lad
that ran her into that place." A very fitting sequel, for it was
indeed a daring exploit. The storm was that tremendous tempest which
desolated the British coasts in 1703, commemorated by Addison in his
"Campaign":--
"So when an angel, by divine command,
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
Such as of late o'er pale Britannia pass'd,
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast,
And, pleased th' Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm."
That simile, then considered the height of sublimity, had a powerful
effect in furthering the writer's fortunes.
Helford is in the parish of Manaccan, which lies about a mile south of
it. The place was once known as Minster, which seems to evidence the
existence of a monastery. The creek and valley of the Durra stream are
very beautiful, and the church especially interesting. There is a
fig-tree of great antiquity growing out of the tower wall. Chancel and
south transept are Early English, and the south doorway very excellent
Norman. About a century since the Cornish historian and versifier,
Polwhele, was Rector at Manaccan, also having charge of the
neighbouring parish of St. Anthony, and though he liked the place less
than his former residence by the mouth of the Exe, he admitted that
"in the walks to St. Anthony, the tufted creeks, the opening sea, the
prospect of Pendennis Castle, there was picturesque beauty--there was
even sublimity." Polwhele was magistrate as well as parson, and on one
occasion the famous Captain Bligh (himself a Cornishman) was brought
before him, charged with plots of treachery by the officious Manaccan
constables; he had been detected surveying the harbour of Helford.
Bligh appears at first to have been in a great rage, but he melted
gradually, and after indulging in woodcocks for supper, with a variety
of wines, parted from his host on the very best of terms. Polwhele
also tells us of a brother-magistrate whom he invited to meet
Whitaker, the historian of the Cornish diocese, who was at that time
Rector of Ruan Lanihorne. The fellow-magistrate was a trifle lax in
his opinions, and on his expressing a sceptical view, "Mr. Whitaker
started up in a burst of passion. The justice turned pale, and his
lips quivered with fear. Not a culprit before him, at the moment of
commitment, ever trembled more; and Whitaker imperiously charging him
with infidelity, the old gentleman made a confession of his faith, to
an extent which surprised me." He seems to have been "at best an
Arian"; yet "he was on the whole a respectable man." Theology apart,
one cannot help sympathising with the culprit, and rejoicing in his
respectability. But times have greatly changed; men can now confess
something more than Arianism without trembling with fear.
Dennis, or Dinas Head, running to the sea beyond St. Anthony, has some
ancient entrenchments which were put to practical use during the Civil
War, being occupied by Richard Vyvyan of Trelowarren in the Royalist
cause; they were surrendered to the conquering Fairfax. The church of
St. Anthony is said to have been erected as a thank-offering, after
escape from shipwreck, by Norman settlers soon after the Conquest.
Beyond Gillan stretches Nare Point, a bold bluff of rock, and a mile
lower is the little fishing-village of Porthallow, which is attracting
some of the visitors who are now coming increasingly to the Lizard
district. At Porthoustock (locally often called Proustock), a little
more than a mile beyond, we have come into the immediate presence of a
great wreck region, for Manacle Point lies close below, and the
Manacles themselves foam yonder with perpetual menace, their bell-buoy
sounding a dismal but quite insufficient warning.
Ever since men began to navigate British waters, these half-covered
rocks and the whole of this Lizard coast must have been a deadly
peril. The number of their victims cannot be reckoned; for, as Sir
John Killigrew wrote three centuries since, "neither is it possible
to get parfitt notice of the whence and what the Ships ar that yearly
do suffer on and near the Lizard, for it is seldom that any man
escapes and the ships split in small pieces." The Manacles
(_meneglos_, "church rocks") lie about half a mile from the shore, and
extend for about a square mile; all but one are covered by the highest
tides, which of course renders them the more fatal. The name "church
rocks" has some connection with the far-seen landmark of St. Keverne
tower. If we could give the whole list of wrecks we should probably
find it rival that of the Scillies, perhaps surpass; the Manacles lie
even more directly in the route of navigation. It is just a century
since two vessels, the one homeward and the other outward-bound, were
wrecked almost at the same moment near here. One was the transport
_Dispatch_, returning from the Peninsula with many officers and men on
board; the other was the eighteen-gun brig _Primrose_, bound for the
seat of war. There is a graphic account in the now defunct _Cornish
Magazine_--a magazine that was obviously too good for the public, and
therefore died much regretted by its few but select admirers. It was a
bitter and rough January, 1809. "At half-past three on Sunday morning
the _Dispatch_, an old ship in bad repair, was driven on the rocks
near Lowland Point, and speedily became a total wreck. While men and
women were rushing through the gale with news of this disaster, and
men and horses were being dashed about by the roaring sea, there came
tidings that at the other end of the Manacles another ship filled with
soldiers was foundering. In those days there was no Lifeboat
Institution with its record of gallant services all along the coast.
But there were men of the sort that the grandest lifeboat crews are
made of, and six Porthoustock fishermen, taking the best boat they
could find, went out from their cove across the wind-torn sea towards
the rocks barely discernible in the early morning light. Little it was
that they could do, though, and worn out with their strivings against
the wind and sea, they returned with only one boy and the news that
the vessel disappeared almost immediately after she struck, at five
o'clock, and all except the boy were lost." In those two wrecks that
morning about two hundred lives were lost. The noble heroism of the
Porthoustock men came to the ears of Government, and ten guineas were
sent to each man. More than a hundred of the drowned were buried in
St. Keverne graveyard, an Act having just been passed that allowed
bodies cast up by the sea to be admitted to consecrated ground.
Another notable wreck was that of the emigrant ship _John_, in 1855.
This time the disaster may have been a result of carelessness, for the
weather was fine; in any case, the vessel got on the Manacles. Some
boats were launched and selfishly filled, but the captain apparently
thought there was no cause for alarm. Those in the boats took the
tidings to Coverack, but in the meantime a wind had sprung up; a
message was sent across and Porthoustock men set out to the rescue.
There were many children on board; the crew, unlike true Britons,
thought only of their own safety; the ship was settling fast, leaving
only the rigging for such survivors as could cling to it. After many
gallant attempts, and three journeys to and from shore, the brave
fishermen managed to save all that were left on the wreck, but 196
were drowned. There was another rich harvest for St. Keverne
graveyard. The memorable blizzard of 1891 of course paid its tribute
of wrecks to these shores. The largest loss was the _Bay of Panama_, a
Liverpool boat of 2,282 tons, making for Dundee with jute from
Calcutta. Eighteen of her crew were lost, some being frozen to death.
On this occasion a most wonderful feat of courage and endurance was
accomplished by a man of Porthoustock, that village of brave men. It
was important that telegraphic messages should be despatched from
Helston, and a man named James volunteered to carry them. He reached
Helston with infinite difficulty, and found the place practically
snowed up, all communication broken. Against strong advice he resolved
to push on to Falmouth, distant at least fourteen miles by road, the
roads almost impassable with snowdrifts. He began his journey by pony,
but soon had to leave the animal behind. Once he was near succumbing,
but a rest in a wayside cottage restored him; the last two and a half
miles he covered by crawling on his hands and knees, being too
exhausted to walk. Falmouth was reached at last, and the messages from
Porthoustock, St. Keverne, and Helston were delivered. But the tale of
wrecks is not finished. In 1895 the _Andola_ was broken here, its crew
saved by the lifeboat from Porthoustock. More recent, and the best
remembered of all, is the wreck of the _Mohegan_, in 1898. She was a
boat of 7,000 tonnage, leaving Gravesend with about 150 persons on
board. She struck one of the Manacles, and within twenty minutes was
submerged with the exception of masts and funnel. Rescue proved very
difficult, but the lifeboat saved forty-four; all the remainder were
lost. One of the Porthoustock lifeboat crew that did the rescuing had
been also active in taking succour to the _John_, forty-three years
earlier. It needs these records of heroism to relieve the sadness of
such a chronicle.
St. Keverne, whose church stands high at rather more than a mile's
distance from the sea, is a place of striking interest for its
situation and its traditions. It is not easy to say who Keverne was;
some, such as Leland, Whitaker, and Mr. Baring-Gould, say that he was
none other than St. Piran, retaining his original Gaelic name of
Kieran. But it is difficult to see why he should remain Kieran here,
while he became Piran or Perran in connection with all his other
Cornish churches; and there is the awkward fact that St. Piran's Day
is the 5th of March, while St. Keverne's is near Advent. Dr. Borlase
thought that the two are distinct persons; and, identifying St.
Keverne with the _Lannachebran_ of Domesday, he supposes a Celtic
saint named Chebran or Kevran. Tin has never been successfully worked
in this parish, and there was a local saying that "no metal will run
within sound of St. Keverne's bell," supported by a tradition that the
saint cursed the district because of the irreligion of its people.
Piran, the patron saint of tinners, would hardly have called down such
a curse, though he might have done so if greatly provoked. But if not
metalliferous, much of the parish is exceptionally fertile and
verdant, in contrast to the barrenness of the Goonhilly Downs. Without
attempting to decide authoritatively as to the personality of Keverne,
we may at least be amused by the curious story told about him, which
brings a strong touch of human nature into the record of one who is
otherwise so hazy. It is said that he was visited by St. Just of the
Land's End district, and that when the more western saint departed,
after freely indulging in Keverne's hospitality, he carried away
Keverne's drinking-cup--some say his chalice. Shortly after the
departure, Keverne discovered that his cup was missing, and he guessed
at once that his saintly friend had taken it. In great heat he
hastened after the guest, and while passing Crowza Downs he pocketed a
few large stones for future use. Presently he saw St. Just plodding
along in the distance, and shouted after him. St. Just was too deeply
absorbed in religious meditation to notice the cries. Finding shouts
were useless, Keverne began to throw his stones, and these proved more
effectual. St. Just dropped the chalice and hurried away home. Keverne
had three stones left, and he satisfied his still heated feelings by
hurling these after his visitor; which done, he took up his cup and
proceeded homewards. It is said that these stones lay in a field near
Germoe till last century, when they were broken up for road-metal, and
that they consisted of a kind of gritstone common enough to the Crowza
Downs, but quite unknown in the district where they lay. The field in
which they lay actually bore the name of Tremen-keverne, the "three
stones of Keverne"; and if we need further proof than that, we must be
sceptical indeed. The tale is valuable as a picture of Celtic
saintdom; no monkish fabulists would have told such stories of Latin
saints. Without approving of St. Just's action, he seems nearer to us
than if he had run about with his head under his arm or perpetrated
any other of the absurdities often attributed to the conventional
Romish saints. St. Keverne's is a large church, the largest in West
Cornwall, being 110 feet in length; and it was collegiate before the
Conquest, afterwards passing to the Cistercians of Beaulieu. There are
some curious traces of former rood-lofts which seem to speak of
eastward enlargements. The bench-ends bear the symbols of the Passion.
In the south aisle are the arms of Incledon, famous singer of a past
century, who began his career at Exeter Cathedral when eight years
old, and later became celebrated at Bath, at Vauxhall, and at Covent
Garden; he was a native of St. Keverne.
In this parish, about a mile and half southward, is the delightful
little fishing-village of Coverack, which is deserving and winning a
quiet popularity. There is no pretension about the place, though it
can boast one hotel, a modern chapel-of-ease, and the usual small
conventicles. Being sheltered from the north, and with a rich soil,
every cottage garden luxuriates in great hedges of mesembryanthemum;
and, as we find further west, the fuchsias grow like trees. Coverack
indeed is an oasis in a district much of which is stony and desolate.
The down-lands around are purple in its season with the beautiful
Cornish heather, and golden with gorse, while dodder grows freely over
the hedges; near the shore there is abundance of squills, sea-holly,
and sea-campion. The descent to the village is a sharp drop; visitors
usually alight above from their coach, and walk down the steep zigzag
road. It is not surprising to read that this secluded spot was
formerly notorious for smugglers, but now it peacefully devotes itself
to fishing, and to the entertainment of guests who can appreciate
quiet loveliness. Pilchards are still caught here, with the
old-fashioned seine-nets; but their numbers have much decreased. We
can realise what the pilchard has been to Cornwall when we read that
in 1847 over 40,000 hogsheads were exported to Genoa, Leghorn, Naples,
Venice, &c., estimated at more than a hundred million fish. The annual
catch now is about half this quantity, and some proportion of these
are retained for home consumption. When we pass Black Head we come at
last in sight of the true Lizard, with the fine reach of Kennack Sands
lying between; and for those who can appreciate a walk of surpassing
beauty, the best thing to do is to take the path at the top of the
cliffs, leading through Cadgwith to the Lizard Point. The walk takes
us into the true serpentine region; at Coverack serpentine is largely
blent with felspar and crystal. Perhaps in the future these sands of
Kennack will be thronged by thousands of holiday-makers, but they are
better as they are, haunted by seabirds and washed by tides of
ever-varying aspect. Several small streams run to the sea here, and at
Poltesco the sands are broken by a gorge of lonely and romantic charm,
with a charming cascade, opening into Carleon Cove. There was a
serpentine factory here once, but it is deserted; the water-wheel
turns no longer. It may be said that this walk from Coverack along the
cliffs is not easy; it is rugged, undulating, tortuous, and Cornish
miles sometimes seem very long. But it repays. When we reach Cadgwith
we seem to be genuinely at the Lizard. We have come to a port of crabs
and lobsters, and of painters.
[Illustration: COVERACK.
_Photo by Gibson & Sons._]
Cadgwith is certainly a most picturesque and attractive little
place, and if it does not share the luxuriant fertility of Coverack,
it has the compensation of being nearer to the wonders of the Lizard.
It is in the parish of Ruan Minor, and this is a dedication to a saint
whose name we also find at Ruan Major, Ruan Lanihorne, and Polruan
near Fowey. He also appears at Romansleigh in Devon. He seems to have
been an Irishman, some say converted by Patrick, who travelled widely,
and when in Brittany was accused by a woman of being a were-wolf; she
said he had eaten her child. The king of that part, who favoured the
saint, said, "Bring him hither. I have two wolf-hounds; if he is
innocent they will not harm him, but if there is anything of the wolf
about him they will tear him to pieces." The dogs came and licked
Ruan's feet; and the child whom he was supposed to have eaten was
discovered hidden away. However, the saint found it well to leave
Brittany for Cornwall. He is said to have been buried at Lanihorne,
but Ordulf, who dedicated his abbey at Tavistock to the honour of Mary
and St. Rumon, professed to have brought the saint's relics to his
Devon foundation and there enshrined them. It proves how slightly
Saxonised that part of Devon was, and how powerful was the Celtic
tradition, that Ordulf should have selected a Celtic saint for his
monastery. A portion of Cadgwith is in the parish of Grade, which is
supposed to be a dedication to the Holy Creed; but here, as at
Sancreed and St. Creed, Grampound, we may be safe in believing that
there was a living personality behind the dedication, not a mere
abstraction. Churches had definite founders in Celtic days, and there
was a certain St. Credan who may be responsible for all these. But
does the ordinary visitor care much about these questions of
dedication and saint-lore? Probably not. South of Cadgwith are some of
the grand caves and rock-freaks that have a more immediate appeal, and
north of the hamlet some of the best serpentine is obtained.
Serpentine is a blend of silica and manganese, so named from its
imagined resemblance to a snake's skin; its colour varies from green
to red and brownish yellow, and is often remarkably beautiful. It has
been used with striking effect, architecturally, in Truro Cathedral;
while with regard to its use for ornaments and decoration, the visitor
has many opportunities of judging for himself.
When we remember the seas to which these shores are exposed, it is
easy to understand how the coast has been eroded into its present
contorted and cavernous condition. Massive rocky frameworks have
resisted the action of the waves, but softer measures have yielded;
the shore has been licked into hollows, basins, caves, by continuous
water-action, and the process continues unendingly. One remarkable
excavation of this kind is the Devil's Frying-pan, covering about two
acres, which the sea enters through an archway of rock at high tides;
the pit is nearly 200 feet deep. Literally, it is a cave whose roof
has fallen in. Close to this is Dollar Hugo, a cave whose roof has not
fallen nor seems likely to, with a magnificent gateway of serpentine.
The name is sometimes spelt Dolor, suggestive of grief, but its origin
is not easy to trace; Hugo seems to be a corruption of the Cornish
word _fogou_, meaning a cave. Johns, who wrote a very interesting book
about the Lizard some sixty years since, said that "of all the caves
that I have ever inspected, this wears the most perfect air of
mysteriousness and solemnity. At the entrance it is large enough to
admit a six-oared boat, but soon contracts to so small a size that a
swimmer alone could explore it. Its termination is lost in gloom, but
as far as the eye can discriminate the water is unceasingly rising and
falling with a deep murmuring sound, which is reverberated from a
great distance, and falls on the ear with a most imposing effect. The
colouring of the rocks at the entrance is magnificent. The base is of
a deep rose-pink; the sides rich dark brown, with blotches of bright
green and rose colour; the roof purple and brown. The water is very
deep and of a fine olive green, and, being remarkably clear, the light
stones lying at the bottom are distinctly visible, among which at my
last visit we could descry great fishes, probably bass, pursuing
shoals of launces." By "launces" the writer meant what we should now
call the lancelet. Just south of Dollar is the old smugglers' cave
known as Raven's Hugo. Below this to the extreme point of the Lizard
the coast is a series of jagged cliffs and clefts, with tiny coves and
black chasms. For seaward and distant views it is best to take the
head of the cliffs, but for the caverns a boat should be used, and
this of course necessitates caution. We have now reached Lendewednack,
the true Lizard parish and the most southerly in England. Apparently
the dedication, like that of Towednack, near St. Ives, is to a St.
Winoc or Gwynog. There is a church with the same name (Landevenech) in
Brittany; yet there has been some attempt to prove that Winwaloe,
whom we find at Gunwalloe on the western side of the headland, was the
founder. This seems unlikely, unless it can be shown that Winwaloe and
Winnow or Winoc were the same person. The church is interesting in
itself, and beautifully placed, giving traces of many periods of
architecture, from Norman to Perpendicular. The font, which happily
was preserved by former coats of whitewash, is Early English; it bears
the inscription "Ric. Bolham me fecit." The lofty south doorway is a
very good specimen of Norman; the pulpit, which is modern, is of
serpentine, and there are serpentine tombstones in the graveyard. Like
St. Keverne, this is a burial-ground of the wrecked. It has also been
the sepulchre of persons dying from the plague, of which there was a
severe visitation in 1645. It is said that, about a century later, the
soil where its victims had been buried was dug to receive shipwrecked
seamen, and that, in consequence, the plague reappeared. The bells
have Latin mottoes and some curious bell-marks. The blending of
granite with darker local stone in the tower has a rather singular
effect; it makes the walls look like a chequer-board. Landewednack
claims to be the last place where a sermon was preached in the Cornish
tongue, in 1678; as was natural, the old language lingered longest in
isolated districts of the Lizard and Land's End. It may be guessed
that some of his younger hearers would not have understood the
preacher, for the language had already greatly decayed. It was never a
particularly rich dialect of the Celtic, and left no remains worthy to
perpetuate its existence. Norden, who wrote in the middle of the
sixteenth century, stated that "of late the Cornishe men have much
conformed themselves to the use of the English tongue, and their
English is equal to the best, especially in the eastern parts. In the
weste parts of the countrye, in the hundreds of Penwith and Kirrier,
the Cornishe tongue is most in use amongste the inhabitants." A little
later, a loyal Cornishman bewailed "our Cornish tongue has been so
long on the wane that we can hardly hope to see it increase again;
for, as English first confined it within this narrow country, so it
still presses on, leaving it no place but about the cliffs and sea, it
being now almost only spoken from the Land's End to the Mount, and
again from the Lizard towards Helston and Falmouth." The inevitable
happened, just as somewhat the same process has taken place in Wales,
in Ireland, and in the Scottish Highlands. In these three countries
the old tongue had the aid of a powerful literature. Welsh and Erse
may be very long in dying out, as we hope they will be; yet nothing
can prevent the people of Wales and Ireland becoming bi-lingual, and
this can only have one ultimate result. Commercially, a single
language is necessary to the nation, and there has never been any
doubt as to which that language must be. And some of those who cling
to their vernacular as a proof of their Celticism may be making a
great mistake; speech is never a proof of race, and survivals of other
blood than Celtic adopted dialects of the Celtic speech.
CHAPTER VII
THE LIZARD TO HELSTON
Mr. Norway says that it would be hard to find an uglier spot than
Lizard Town, but of course he fully admits the grandeur of the coast
of which it is the small metropolis. The name, which first applied
only to the most southern headland, was not given from any fanciful
resemblance to a Lizard, but appears to be a corruption of the Cornish
words _Lis-arth_, _lis_ being the secular enclosure, the palace or
court, as distinct from _lan_ the sacred enclosure, and _arth_ meaning
high. Lizard Town is a cluster of houses, growing in number to meet an
increasing popularity, of which Landewednack is the church town, about
half a mile distant; it is served by motor-buses from Helston, and in
time there will doubtless be a branch line of the railway here. Housel
Bay, formerly Househole, is the bathing-place, with a large modern
hotel standing close to the cliffs; on the east is Lloyd's signal
station, and on the west the lighthouse. Vessels that used to call at
Falmouth for sailing orders, or for other information, now receive
these instructions by signal from Lloyd's station here, flags being
employed by day and lights by night; a wireless telegraph has also
been established. All vessels, outward or homeward, are thus reported
at this most southern point of England. At the lighthouse there were
formerly two lights, whose double purpose was to warn seamen not only
of the Lizard but also of the Wolf rocks off Land's End; these rocks
have now a light of their own, and at the Lizard is displayed a single
electric lamp, of 1,000,000 candle power, revolving, whose reflection
is visible at over sixty miles' distance. It is said that when its
revolutions first turned its light towards the houses of Lizard Town,
some alarm was felt at this sudden searching gaze piercing into the
very heart of the dwellings; it was like the vivid illumination of a
flash of lightning, a great prying eye which no one could avoid. To
obviate this a screen has been placed on the landward side of the
lantern. The light stands about 200 feet above the sea; and in
addition to this there is a fog-siren, whose tremendous voice bellows
through thick weather at intervals of two minutes. West of the
lighthouse is the little fishing-cove and lifeboat station of Polpeor.
In old times this headland was lit by a bonfire beacon, kept burning
at night; and there is a story that a Government packet, passing in
the days of our French wars, noticing that the sleepy watchman had
allowed the fire to dwindle to a mere smoulder, discharged a
cannon-ball at the spot to arouse the neglectful watcher. It must be
remembered that the Lizard is rendered doubly perilous by a
sea-covered stack of rocks lying to the southward. Before oil was
introduced for the lamps it is said the lantern was lit by
coal-fires--a kind of first-hand use of gas. Below the lighthouse is
the striking Bumble Rock, and close to this the hollow known as the
Lion's Den, formed by a natural sudden subsidence in 1847. This
formation was an immediate object-lesson as to the manner in which
these remarkable hollows, caverns, and rock-freaks have been produced
in the course of time; and there can be no doubt that such natural
weathering alone accounts for the Belidden Amphitheatre, east of the
fine Penolver Point. Bass Point is the eastward bluff of this rugged
and bare old headland, known to ancient geographers as Ocrinum, the
southern extremity of the Britains.
[Illustration: THE LIZARD LIGHTHOUSE.
_Photo by Gibson & Sons._]
With many visitors, to speak of the Lizard is to speak of Kynance. It
is Kynance that the guide-books and the artists have chiefly
popularised; it is Kynance that is probably the most celebrated
beauty-spot on the whole south-Cornish coast. Is it worthy of its
reputation? Some visitors give an emphatic affirmative; others are a
little dubious. To some the spot is a little spoiled by its
popularity; during the season it is like a corner of a fashionable
watering-place, covered with tourists, refreshment booths, and sellers
of serpentine. But autumn and winter bring a grand solitude when all
traces of the tripper are washed away: the storms cleanse it with
their mighty lustrations; only the white sands, the black or richly
stained rocks remain, a haunt of homeless winds and crying gulls. The
cove is encircled by a group of off-lying rocks, insular at high tide;
it is only at low water that Kynance can be explored. The Gull Rock,
Asparagus Island, the Lion, the Steeple, the Kitchen, the
Drawing-room--these names of the crags and clefts have become
almost as familiar as household words; while every one knows that if
you post a letter in the Devil's Post-office, it will presently be
returned in a great outburst of water. It is of little use for the
local authorities to forbid such posting, as being dangerous to the
individual who waits too eagerly near for his reply; visitors will
still venture, and are sometimes drenched, if nothing worse, by the
natural blow-hole for their pains. There are other places here where
care must be exercised--steep sudden descents, unguarded chasms, nooks
and coves where it is easy to be entrapped by the tide; even the
active and skilful may get into trouble, and visitors who bring
venturesome boys must be prepared for alarms. It is natural that many
a parent of a family should prefer a level sandy shore for his summer
resort, and Cornwall happily has many such spots to offer, where
father and mother can recline restfully without constant anxiety for
their boys and girls.
Passing westward from Kynance there are numberless features of the
coast that might cause one to delay; and the coastguard's walk above
the cliffs is rendered plain by the white stones that are so necessary
at night. In one place is the intervening cleft called Gue Graze,
which may be scrambled across or skirted, leading to the precipice
that rises above the cavernous Pigeon Hugo; this cave can only be
approached from the water, and then very rarely. Fields of buttercups
and clover come near to the shore, but inland lies the moorland waste
of Pradanack and Goonhilly Downs. Beyond Pigeon Hugo are two notable
headlands, Vellan and Pradanack. This brings us to Mullion, another
small metropolis of what is considered the Lizard district, though we
have now left the true Lizard five or six miles behind us. This is
another region of shipwrecks, but if we can forget them Mullion Cove,
with its outlying islet, is purely delightful, and is reaping the
fruit of its charms by the establishment of hotels, boarding-houses,
and golf-links. Both Polurrian and Poldhu share some of this favour.
The coast here is quite as fine, some think even grander, than it is
around the Lizard; while the air, though temperate, has a bracing
freshness from the Downs. The true name of Mullion Cove is
Porthmellin, and it is probable that Mullion itself is a corruption of
Mellin, for the church is dedicated to Melyan or Melanus, the father
of Mylor. The church-town is about a mile distant from the Cove, and
its church, with "black-and-white" tower of granite and serpentine,
somewhat resembles that of Landewednack. The tower dates from 1500,
but portions of the remaining building are obviously earlier; it was
restored in 1870. There is a curious crucifixion over the west window,
with the figure of the Father standing behind that of the Son; and in
front of the altar are carved wooden figures which may have formed
part of a screen; one of these is supposed to represent St. Cleer, or
Cleher. The bench-ends are of rare excellence for this part of the
Duchy--in fact, they are among the finest in the West of England, and
to say that is to say much. They probably date from the fifteenth
century, and bear all manner of devices, letterings, symbols. One
series, in the western nave, gives the arms of the Passion, while
others bear fleurs-de-lis and different crosses. The gallery that
was formerly here has been removed. In the chancel is an inscription
to the memory of Thomas Flavel, vicar, who died in 1682, being well
known locally as a ghost-layer. Such duties were at one time a
recognised part of a clergyman's vocation. The epitaph of this
reverend exorcist is quaint enough to bear quotation:--
"Earth, take mine earth, my sin let Satan havet,
The World my goods; my Soul my God who gavet;
For from these four--Earth, Satan, World and God,
My flesh, my sin, my goods, my soul, I had."
[Illustration: BENCH-ENDS IN MULLION CHURCH.
_Photo by Gibson & Sons._]
There is a ballad of Goethe's ("De Zauberlehrling") which tells how a
magician's apprentice, who had learned enough of his master's craft to
be dangerous to himself, once succeeded in raising spirits during the
wizard's absence, but was quite unable to dismiss them. A similar tale
is told of Flavel's servant-maid. During her master's absence at
church she unwarily opened one of the books in his study, "whereupon a
host of spirits sprung up all round her. Her master discovered this,
though then occupied at church, closed his book and dismissed the
congregation. On his return home he took up the book with which his
servant had been meddling, and read backwards the passage which she
had been reading, at the same time laying about him lustily with his
walking-cane; whereupon all the spirits took their departure, but not
before they had pinched the servant-girl black and blue." It is said
that this parson used to charge five guineas for laying troublesome
ghosts; but as there are no longer ghosts at Mullion, it is not
advisable to attempt a revival of the business. Nor are there
smugglers, though the locality had once a reputation not only for
smuggling but for wrecking. It may not have been often that persons
deliberately drew vessels on the coast by false signals, but that this
was sometimes done seems indisputable. More often still, boats may
have been deceived by lights that were merely displayed as signals or
warnings during operations of the smugglers. But there was little need
to do anything that might lead to shipwreck; the deadly coast itself
was enough. To relate the stories of even a few might be monotonous,
after those of which we have already spoken at the Manacles. Of a
fresher interest is the station of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph
Company, at Poldhu (formerly written Poljew), whose four highest
towers or scaffolds, each over 200 feet in height, have become a
prominent local landmark. It is not easy to describe these; an
illustration can best convey the impression, and no immediate scrutiny
is allowed to the public. The activities of this station must remain
mysteries to the uninitiated, but it must be a weird and wonderful
experience to ascend those white winding stairways around the iron
poles during a strong wind. Poldhu has one of the fine modern hotels
that come as a surprise to the rambler in the district that has
hitherto been so lonely and desolate. Around the wireless station is a
network of posts, wires, and lower towers.
Poldhu was chosen in 1900 as the site of a station for the purpose of
establishing communication by wireless telegraphy with America, Mr.
Marconi being assisted at that time by Professor Fleming, of London.
No such distance had hitherto been attempted, and the employment of
very powerful magnetic waves was necessary. These were obtained, Mr.
Marconi has himself told us, "by means of a generating plant
consisting of an alternator capable of an output of about 25
kilowatts, which, through suitable transformers, charged a condenser
having a glass dielectric of great strength." A corresponding station
was erected at Cape Cod, but in the autumn of 1901 the masts and
aerial at Poldhu were wrecked by a storm, and this caused delay. In
November, 1901, Mr. Marconi crossed to Newfoundland with the hope of
opening communication; and in December he was satisfied that he
received signals from Cornwall, proving to him that messages might be
transmitted by electric waves from a distance of 2,000 miles. Two
months later further satisfactory tests were carried out between
Poldhu and the American liner _Philadelphia_. In 1902 a new station at
Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, was put into touch with Poldhu; and at this
time the four wooden lattice-towers, 210 feet in height, were raised
at the Cornish station, the buildings for the generating plant being
placed in the space between them. The superior equipment at Glace Bay
caused the communication from Canada to be excellent, while the
reverse was not so good; Canada had granted a subsidy, and England had
not. But the communication was established; and a message from
President Roosevelt, sent to Cape Cod and transmitted to Glace Bay,
was safely received at the Poldhu station. Although the efficiency of
this station was greatly increased by the addition of the numerous
wires, sloping umbrella fashion, Mr. Marconi decided to establish a
new long-distance station in Ireland; and the Poldhu station is now
used for transmitting news to vessels on the Atlantic, whereby, with
the addition of intelligence received from the Cape Cod station, most
of the first-class liners to America are enabled to publish daily news
journals throughout their voyage--a very wonderful thing, when we
remember how completely a sea voyage used to cut one away from news of
home. Though it is not at the moment the foremost of the Marconi
stations, therefore, Poldhu has all the merit of having been the
earliest permanent wireless station; and in the near future it is
probable additions will be made to its plant, so as to bring it up to
the standard of the Company's station at Clifden in Ireland, when it
will become available for regular commercial communications between
England and America.
[Illustration: MARCONI STATION, POLDHU.
_Photo by Gibson & Sons._]
A little river flows into the Poldhu cove, running down from the
charming wooded estate of Bochym, mentioned in Domesday as Buchent.
There was formerly some fine old tapestry and stained glass in the
mansion, but these have gone; however, its oak room with sliding panel
and secret staircase remains, and the garden has some remarkable
tropic growths. A number of prehistoric relics have been discovered on
this estate. Close to Bochym is another old manor, Bonython; it is
said that the poet Longfellow was descended from one of the Bonythons,
who was an early settler in America. We are now in the parish of St.
Cury, or Corentin. He is a saint better known in Brittany that in
Cornwall, but it must always be remembered that the two countries
are very closely connected in race and tradition; also even in
name, for there was a Cornouaille in Brittany which former chroniclers
have sometimes confused with the English Cornwall.
The church, which is chiefly late Decorated, has a very good Norman
doorway, and a most interesting hagioscope, resembling that of
Landewednack, with the difference that the Cury window is a single
light. Much change and mutilation seems to have taken place in this
church; a former vicar found many remains of alabaster figures hidden
among plaster and debris behind a slab. There is a very singular
aumbry or alms-box, formed in an oak bench-end near the door. The
rugged old building is finely placed, with a magnificent view over
land and sea. But the ordinary visitor takes more notice of
Grunwalloe, which is one of the most curiously situated churches in
the kingdom, standing where the sea-spray sometimes makes a clean
sweep over it. Its churchyard walls rise immediately from the sands of
Gunwalloe Church Cove--at times the very graveyard has been invaded by
dashing waves; and its little campanile tower is literally built into
the solid rock. Thus founded on rocks, it stands old and
weather-beaten, in a desolate district of sand-towans. The dedication
is to St. Winwaloe, and it must be left to more learned hagiologists
to decide who this Winwaloe really was, or whether he was identical
with the founder of Landewednack. There are about half a dozen
churches with detached belfries in Cornwall, but this of Gunwalloe is
perhaps the most striking; the campanile here stands 14 feet west of
the main building. It is difficult to account for the peculiarity, but
of course there are stories that attempt to solve the mystery. The
church itself is said to have been the votive offering of a survivor
from shipwreck; some, however, speak not of a single survivor, but of
two sisters whose lives were saved here, and who could not agree about
the exact position of the church they desired to erect as a
thank-offering. The result was a compromise. There are traditions of
buried treasure here, as well as of wrecked dollars; and in both cases
much time and money have been spent by treasure-seekers.
It is possible that the Goonhilly Downs, which occupy the high-lying
and barren interior of this Lizard district, really embody a
corruption of the name of Gunwalloe, though the name is generally
explained as meaning "hunting down." These downs belong to the true
_meneage_ or stony district, but in the past they seem to have been
covered with thickets and wild beasts. It is still a lonely, deserted
track of country, with prehistoric hut-circles and entrenchments,
crossed by two good roads, now often traversed by brake and motor and
cycle, leading from Helston to St. Keverne and the Lizard. Leland
speaks of "a wyld moor, called Gunhilly, wher ys brood of catyle";
perhaps the cattle were the once-famous Goonhilly nags referred to by
Norden. "There is a kinde of nagge," he says, "bred upon a mountanous
and spatious peece of grounde, called Goon-hillye, lyinge between the
sea-coaste and Helston; which are the hardeste naggs and beste of
travaile for their bones within this kingdome, resembling in body for
quantitie, and in goodness of mettle, the Galloway naggs." The breed
seems now to be extinct, though there are doubtless living
descendants; and Goonhilly remains an almost treeless table-land,
broken by streamlets where it meets the sea. There are many to whom
this inland portion of the Lizard country may seem dreary enough, but
others will be touched by its indefinite charm of breezy expanse, the
beautiful colour of its Cornish heath, the loneliness of its pools and
hollows, the call of its curlews, the hum of its summer bees.
Just below Gunwalloe fishing-cove are the fine Halzaphron cliffs, on
which a transport was wrecked about a century since, and the bodies
then buried are said to have been the last shipwrecked persons to be
laid in unconsecrated ground. Public opinion rebelled against the
so-called heathen burial given to such remains, and an Act was passed
in Parliament sanctioning their interment in the churchyards of the
parishes on which they were cast. Whatever advantage there may be in
lying in consecrated earth is now freely granted; the unknown drowned
are given the benefit of the doubt, and their bodies committed to the
dust in Christian fashion. In parishes like these of the Lizard, and
on the north Cornwall coast at places like Morwenstow, this duty of
giving Christian sepulture has been no sinecure.
We come across traces of an ancient Cornish family at Carminow, the
eastern creek of Loe Pool; but the most tangible relics of the
Carminows now remaining are the two effigies in the church of
Mawgan-in-Meneage, in which parish we find ourselves once more after
having made the tour of the Lizard peninsula. Various tales are told
of the Carminows; it is said they claimed descent from King Arthur--it
is even said that a Carminow fought against the Romans at their first
landing, which would carry them far eastward of Cornwall. Hals thought
that the Mawgan figures were brought from the old chapel of their
manor-house, which stood here by the Carminow creek; but Blight is of
opinion that the effigies were removed from Bodmin. In Loe Bar we have
a formation slightly resembling the famous Chesil Ridge of Dorset, and
the bar at Slapton Sands in Devon; but this Loe Bar is on a much
smaller scale. Being formed of very fine pebbles, the waters of Loe
Pool are in ordinary times able to percolate to the sea; but after
much rain there is more water than can thus be carried off, and it was
formerly the custom to cut the Bar at such times that the superfluous
flood might rush through. A culvert has now been constructed for this
purpose, so that the cutting of the Bar is now superseded. A writer
who was at school at Helston tells us that "when the floods became
serious, and the Loe too near Helston to be pleasant, there was a
solemn function performed by the men of Helston, with the Mayor at
their head, called breaking the Bar. The Loe was so full that a small
trench cut between it and the sea let out the waters; there was then a
rush of water and the Loe became connected with the sea by a deep
chasm through which the tide flowed. I have never seen the Bar broken,
but I have seen the deep chasm in the bar of sand with the tide
flowing in and out. The natural forces which originally made the Bar
restored it, and in the course of some months it became the same as
before." Mr. Hind says he was told by a sailor that "when he was a boy
Loe Bar used to be broken once a fortnight"; but we sometimes
exaggerate the things that we remember of our boyhood, and certainly
the cutting can never have been as frequent as this. C. A. Johns, who
knew Helston well, says that it was rarely necessary to cut the Bar
more than twice a year, sometimes not even once; and further,
describing a cutting, he says: "In a few hours a deep mighty river is
bursting out with inconceivable velocity, and engaging in violent
conflict with the waves of the ocean; as the two meet they clash
together with terrific uproar, while the sea for twenty, or even
thirty miles, is tinged of an ochreous hue. Even at the Scilly Islands
the cutting of the Loe Bar has been notified by the altered colour of
the water." As the pool belonged to the lord of Penrose, it was
customary to present him with a purse containing three-halfpence to
obtain his permission for the cutting of the Bar. All this is a thing
of the past, but Loe Pool remains as the only sheet of water in
Cornwall worthy to be termed a lake, with banks finely wooded and
carpeted with flowers. In shape it is more like a broad river than a
lake, and it is in fact the land-locked estuary of the Cober, cut off
from full intercourse with the sea by this pebbly and sandy spit.
Helston claims that it was once a seaport, with vessels sailing close
up to its walls; and the formation of the Loe Bar, which destroyed all
access, is said to have been one of the accidents of the doomed
Tregeagle, whose story will be told later. The Pool is about seven
miles in circumference, and affords some excellent fishing; it is the
one great attraction that Helston can boast. When Tennyson wrote his
"Morte d'Arthur," the germ from which all his Arthurian Idylls
sprang, and in some respects the finest portion of them, he described
how the knight Bedivere carried
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