Cornwall Part 4

"When Lundy is high it will be dry When Lundy is plain it will be rain When Lundy is low it will be snow!"

If the word of the inhabitants is to be trusted the last contingency must come seldom indeed!

The name Boscastle comes from Bottreux or Botreaux-castle, spoken quickly and run together. The site of the castle, which had ceased to exist by Queen Elizabeth's reign, is still pointed out. The town lies in two parishes and the church of Forraburry, belonging to the one, stands well up on the western cliff.

Care must be taken in climbing about the sh.o.r.e for the cliffs are very steep. Just to the north or east is Pentargon Bay, cutting deeply into the land, and near it the Seal Caves though seals seldom come there now.

The waves dash in with tremendous force, especially with a westerly wind, which is common, when some grand sights may be seen. The black walls of the slate rock and the white spray of the shattered waves and the strange blue tint of the sea compose some pictures finer than any that have yet found their way on to a painter's canvas.

VI

THE SANDY BEACHES OF THE NORTHERN COAST

What a splendid series of resorts lie along the northern coast of Cornwall! Take them in order as they come. St. Ives, Newquay, Padstow, and Bude, leaving aside for the moment the smaller ones, or those like Boscastle and Tintagel, which stand in a cla.s.s by themselves and have been already referred to. All these four have certain characteristics in common but each has a distinct individuality. That is one of the charms of Cornwall, nothing is cut to a pattern. By far the best-known is of course the first mentioned, St. Ives, with its splendid bays or "porths," with acres of firm sand, and its unrivalled golf-links at Lelant. It seems odd that a place should be able to face due east in Cornwall, yet somehow part of St. Ives manages to do it, that part of it which is on Porthminster Bay and is most favoured by visitors. The town is curiously placed, for the older part lies on a neck or isthmus protruding northward between two magnificent bays, and it is the curve on each side of the neck that makes the east and west side face respectively Porthminster or Porthmeor. From the east you look straight across to G.o.drevy Point and lighthouse.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. IVES]

St. Ives could never pall because it is not all to be seen or understood at a glance, and those who stay there longest admit they know it least.

Seen from almost any point there is a view which demands attention, whether it be the green ruggedness of the island--only technically an island--against the soft blue of the sea, with the terraced lines of drab houses rising in tiers in front of it, or the harbour with its boats and screaming gulls and the old weather-worn church ab.u.t.ting on it. The prevailing tones of all the buildings are drab and grey; drab stone, drab stucco, drab paint with pale slate-grey roofs; a little red brick or tile would be an improvement from an artistic point of view.

It is an odd feature of Cornwall that however bare and treeless some parts are, and they could hardly be barer in the Hebrides, yet the towns are generally warmly encompa.s.sed by trees. It is so at Penzance and it is so here. Woods rise behind the houses, and the richness of the evergreens makes a shelter even in winter, while the ferns are inexhaustible in number and of great variety. The season is only for two months of the year, August and September, during which months the place is packed and the numerous inhabitants who live upon the yearly G.o.dsend of the "foreigners'" money, are hard put to it to supply accommodation; but all the year round there is a certain number of visitors who find in the clean fresh air, the glorious golf-links, second to none, and the wide views, just what they need. It is true that tiresome change at St.

Erth junction has to be faced before reaching the town, but this is nothing compared with the days when the junction was the very nearest point of rail, and the rest of the journey had to be completed by road.

This was altered in 1877 and the innovation was a great factor in the growth of the town. The road approach from this direction is well graded and has a good surface, but from the Zennor side so much cannot be said.

A new road is being cut through and the approach improved, but even when it is completed, there must still be the long and precarious descent through a squalid part of the town to face.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A STREET IN ST. IVES]

The region of the visitors is mainly above the station, facing Porthminster Bay, where terraces of houses exist for the sole purpose of providing accommodation, but there is a secondary part above Porthmeor Bay where rows of neat little houses claim their share. Down on the harbour front and curving round behind it is the old town with its indescribable jumble of what can scarcely be called architecture; where outside staircases, and overhanging first-floor rooms with no visible means of support, twisted archways and narrow pa.s.sages are inextricably mingled. The names of some of these places are quite delightful, Puddingbag Lane, Chy-an-Chy, Street-an-Garrow, Bunkers' Hill, and the Digey, while away westward is Clodgy Point. The old inhabitants must have had a genius for nomenclature.

St. Ives is the haunt of a colony of artists who rival those at Newlyn, and what with artists, fishing and visitors, the rest of the inhabitants manage somehow to live. But the fishing is not what it was; gone are the golden days when the shoals of pilchards announced by the "huers" from the Malakoff bastion were sufficient to provide a good livelihood for the whole town:

"The pilchards are expected on the coast in October, when their appearance gives rise to general excitement at a place like St. Ives.

Often have been described the patient watching of the _huers_ on the cliffs, who with a huge trumpet at length announce their joyful discovery, and by the waving of bushes telegraph the movements of the shoal marked by the colour of the sea and its hovering escort of gulls; the rush of men, women, and children to the sh.o.r.e with shouts of _heva!

heva!_ which is Cornish for the cla.s.sic _Eureka_; the marshalling of the seine boats; the shooting of the huge nets; the enclosure of the luckless victims by myriads; then the hurried orgy of capturing, pickling, and storing, stimulated by its promise of prosperity to the whole place."

Alas! they come but scantily now and there is not much of any sort of fishing to be had. Though just enough to account for the brown-sailed boats lying in the harbour and the blue-jerseyed men belonging to them without which, it may be presumed, the artists would find some paucity of material and perhaps disappear also.

St. Ives would not be a Cornish town if it lacked hills and there are plenty to give exercise to leg muscles; but yet there are some places almost flat, and one has only to descend to the sands to secure a perfectly horizontal walk!

This is not a guide book and there is no need to go into detail about the ancient church in the very midst of the workers, or the restored tiny chapel out on the "island" that really once was an island, which overlooks as in blessing the drying nets that blacken the green of the gra.s.s on the slopes below. The chunk or bite out of this island on the east is Porthgwidden Cove, and the Foresand runs from here to Penolva Point whence begin Porthminster Sands. On the hill behind the town rises the hideous Knill monument where the little girls dance around on July 25 every fifth year, in memory of the conventional alderman who left such directions in his will, and yet after all is not buried here.

The impression carried away from St. Ives is of light and freshness and s.p.a.ce, and of width of sand that would attract attention anywhere, but which here in Cornwall is phenomenal; and of enough modern comfort and cleanliness to make things very pleasant though within reach lies the old kernel of the town in piquant contrast.

The name Porthminster means "church of the sands" and it is curious that the church should thus be referred to in one of the princ.i.p.al place-names when the St. Ives' people had originally to go to Lelant for their services, marryings and buryings. Finding this state of things intolerable they pet.i.tioned for a church of their own and completed it in 1426. It was built close to the sh.o.r.e for the obvious reason that the stone of which there was abundance in the neighbourhood, could be more easily brought by water than overland, but it was not so near the sea as now, for in the seventeenth century "there was a field between the churchyard wall and Porth c.o.c.king Rock, and sheep grazed on it."

The church of Lelant was rapidly being overpowered by the sand which has swallowed up many ancient oratories or "cells" built low down on the sh.o.r.e, and it was only saved by the planting and rapid spreading of the coa.r.s.e rush gra.s.s which binds the surface of the towans together in a kind of mat and prevents the sand from drifting.

St. Ives with its eastern aspect is fresh even in the summer, and yet strange to say not very cold in winter, as the flowering shrubs which grow so well testify.

Newquay is not at all like St. Ives; it has no quaint muddled fishing town behind the "visitors' front," and it lies all along the top of high cliffs so that its main street is almost level, or at any rate, level for Cornwall. At one end is Towan Head not unlike St. Ives'

Island, and from thence the bay runs in great scoops or curves cut off from each other except at low tide. These sandy bays, surrounded by high cliffs, resemble to some extent those at Broadstairs, and the aspect of Newquay is the same as that at Broadstairs for it faces mainly north. It is airy and s.p.a.cious and light, and its signmark of originality lies not in its front so much as in its back, the long estuary of the Gannel River which forms a kind of back-door entrance. But villas and boarding-houses are rapidly springing up along the Gannel estuary, facing south, with their backs to Newquay proper, and thereby a bit of very fine wild land is being spoilt. There are excellent golf-links along Fistral Bay and huge hotels have sprung up to reap what harvest of visitors there may be, indeed it is a stock joke to say of Newquay, as may be said with much truth about Oban, "every second house is an hotel."

[Ill.u.s.tration: FROM LELANT TO G.o.dREVY]

No one who looks at the map even cursorily can fail to note the extraordinary number of places in Cornwall beginning with the prefix St.

This would be natural in Roman Catholic Ireland but it is whimsical in Methodistical Cornwall. It is, however, but one of the many signs of the very ancient history of the place which gives it so much charm. These reminders keep cropping out constantly among the modern surroundings, as the granite outcrops on the Bodmin moors and again at Land's End and the far-lying Scilly Isles, which are too but granite peaks.

Newquay for all its newness lies in a district of ancient memories. Only a mile or two away eastward are St. Columb Minor and Major, in fact Newquay itself is really in the parish of St. Columb Minor. Not far from St. Columb Major there is one of the most perfect remains of an ancient castle of the earthwork kind. It is called Castle-an-Dinas, or, locally, King Arthur's Castle. It is enclosed by three rings of earth and stone, of which one was probably strengthened by a moat, and the inmost part covers an acre and a half. But a little way from St. Columb Major on the other side is St. Mawgan at the end of the Vale of Lanherne, one of the well-wooded rich Cornish valleys which are so much admired by the inhabitants. Cornish people go for their picnic-parties and pleasure days to a valley as most people would to the seaside.

Newquay Bay is really one crescent or horn of a much larger bay extending right up to Trevose Headland, and within this sweep lies Watergate Bay and Bedruthan Steps with its detached rocks and fine natural scenery. Dividing Watergate and Newquay Bays is Trevalgue Head, an island connected with the mainland by a footbridge. Here the sea-pinks flourish abundantly covering all the ground with their frilled blossoms when in flower. They do well almost anywhere in Cornwall, but exceptionally well here, and the sheet of pink-tinged ground, caught as a foreground to a vivid summer sea, is a sight not to be forgotten. The only thing that spoils the fine cliff effects is that the whole coast here and northwards is composed of slate--a substance which does not lend itself to beauty of line or colouring.

But by far the most "saintly" a.s.sociations of Newquay are on the other side. Across the Gannel is Crantock called after St. Crantock, St.

Patrick's great friend, one of the three bishops chosen to revise the laws of Ireland after the country was converted to Christianity.

Crantock landed here and built his church. A mile or two away on the sh.o.r.e is the Holy Well, still visited by curious men and maidens, and within the memory of those living held to have a miraculous power of making rheumatic men sound again. Holy wells in Cornwall are almost as plentiful as saints, possibly the one is always a.s.sociated with the other as the outward sign of wonder-working power.

The extraordinary stretch of sand called Perran Beach would be remarkable anywhere, but it is more remarkable still on the rock-bound coast of Cornwall. Norden, with unconscious Irishism, describes Perran as being "almost drowned with the sea sande." The whole region for three miles in length and as much in breadth is sand alone. Inland a few plantations of pines struggle to survive just beyond its zone, and the little slate-roofed houses have a strangely glaring unfinished look; the hedges which divide up the land show here and there straggly scrubby bushes all bent violently eastward by the prevailing winds, and in the dreary corner of sandhills between them and the sea is somewhere to be found the tiny chapel of St. Piran, which is very interesting because it is the very earliest ecclesiastical building to be found in the land. It dates from the eighth or ninth century and is only twenty-five feet long. It was covered with sand as if buried in a snow drift and for seven centuries was completely lost. It is probably to this it owes its preservation. Sir A. Quiller-Couch's irreverent but amusing story concerning it in his _Delectable Duchy_ is known to most people. St.

Piran, or Kieran as he is called in Irish, came over from Ireland in the sixth century and settled down here, where many wonders grew up about his name and his fame spread far and wide. Hundreds of people who never enter a modern church find themselves strangely impressed by this little ruined church buried amid the sand dunes with its record of between thirteen and fourteen hundred years of sanct.i.ty behind it. The very name Perranporth and its neighbour Perranzabuloe are so peculiarly and distinctly Cornish that they draw the inquisitive to them. The latter means Perran in the Sand. There is some very curious rock-scenery near Perranporth, where all the fantastic freaks of caves and natural arches, so common in Cornwall, can be seen at their best.

Far deeper than the inlet of the Gannel at Newquay is that of the River Camel, near the mouth of which Padstow stands. This is an estuary filled with water at high tide and lying in long melancholy reaches of sand at low tide. Padstow cl.u.s.ters round a very old-fashioned little port, where seafaring men congregate and discuss the weather and prices. There is not a great deal of fishing and only a little general trade, as the mouth of the river requires ticklish navigation. There is an enormous hotel standing on a height, and a very attractive church with an old Elizabethan mansion of the Prideaux-Brune family behind it. But all the sands are on the other side of the estuary, at Rock, whence the ferry-boat paddles to and fro about every hour. The rolling dunes have been utilized for fine golf-links and the all-encroaching sand has done its best to swallow up the little chapel of St. Enodoc, as it once succeeded in doing with St. Piran's; so far it has been kept at bay, but it still drifts in whenever it gets the chance. The links run out in the direction of Pentire Point, one of the fine coast headlands. It is very remarkable in Cornwall how constantly names are duplicated, one might imagine it would give rise to difficulties to find a Pentire Point here, and an East and West Pentire Point at the mouth of the Gannel near Newquay, many miles south, and just below this Pentire Point is Hayle Bay, and opposite Lelant near St. Ives we have again Hayle at the mouth of the river. Newlyn by Penzance is well known, and Newlyn East south of Newquay not so well. We have St. Just in Penwith and St. Just in Roseland. There are doubtless many other instances.

Of all the four seaside places discussed in this chapter Bude has perhaps most strongly its own character. Whoever heard of a seaside place with a sweet-water ca.n.a.l running down the beach? Ca.n.a.ls are not usually a.s.sociated with beauty and the very word ca.n.a.l is enough to frighten off many people. But the ca.n.a.l at Bude is quite peculiar. It only serves the purpose of a harbour for the ketches or fishing-boats apparently, and a very awkward harbour it makes too when a distracted ketch hara.s.sed by the strong flowing tide and baffled by a teasing wind, noses this way and that and fails to hit the narrow entrance. Then, a thing of beauty and distress, she heels over on the beach as the tide runs out, and the natives gather round to speculate whether she will "break her back" or not.

Bude possesses a breakwater too, but the oddest breakwater! For, instead of curving round like most normal ones, it sticks out straight into the sea and forms a favourite public promenade, with the added excitement that in rough weather you may very easily be swept off the hog's back of rounded stones and dashed to pieces against the rocky ma.s.ses on either side.

Owing to the fact that Bude Bay is on a coast facing sheer west, the quarter of the wildest winds, the waves drive in with great force sometimes. The thunder of the surf on the sh.o.r.e may be heard like the deep pedals of an organ and all the air is hazed by the flying scud. To see the sun drop like glowing copper straight into the sea, behind ridge upon ridge of the "wild white horses" is most impressive. The strata of the rocks on the sh.o.r.e are most weirdly bent and contorted. It is difficult to conceive the state of convulsion which twisted them into the shape of innumerable up-ended triangles, one within the other, fitting like puzzle-boxes, or bent them right back like gigantic hooks.

There is one great layer of rock which looks like the back of a whale, half a-wash, with all the ribs showing.

Bude is peculiar in the fact that it has all sorts of scenery combined in one place. The high downs covered with short gra.s.s lie north and south, and between them is the bay covered at high tide but showing a fine stretch of easily accessible hard sand at low water; while, as may be gathered, the rock scenery is well worth seeing. Here, as at so many places along this coast there are excellent golf-links, in this case in the very centre of the straggling town on the "Summerleaze." There is a second golf-links on the heights above Wrangle Point, belonging to the old Falcon Hotel by the bridge.

About two miles inland is Stratton, the scene of the victory of Sir Bevil Grenville over the Roundheads, a victory which was within an ace of being a defeat. The Earl of Stamford had marched into Cornwall, with forces of about seven thousand men, and camped at Stratton, where he was attacked by Sir Bevil with half the number and defeated. Grenville came of a famous Cornish family which numbered among its members Sir Richard, who with his little ship the _Revenge_, tackled the great Spanish galleons and managed to damage many of them before he fell mortally wounded as is recorded in Tennyson's much-quoted poem!

Further north still, the very last place of note on the Cornish coast, is Morwenstow, visited by hundreds of people because of its a.s.sociation with its one-time vicar, the Rev. Robert Stephen Hawker, a muscular Christian of a peculiarly pungent personality. His generosity and kindliness toward his fellow-men was unstinting, but he was withal full to the brim of eccentricity. He married while still a youth of twenty at the University, his G.o.dmother, who was twenty-one years his senior, and they lived happily together until her death in extreme old age. Hawker believed in ghosts and was exceedingly superst.i.tious; there are many curious stories still current as to his doings, and the life of him by the notable novelist Baring-Gould is well worth reading.

VII

THE INLETS OF THE SOUTH COAST

Fowey is perhaps the best known by name of all the Cornish towns. This is due in some measure to its being the home of Sir A. Quiller-Couch, who has made it familiar to thousands in his stories of _Troy Town_ and _The Delectable Duchy_. But people who go to Fowey should be prepared to find it unlike anything anywhere else. Fowey Harbour is a long narrow slit penetrating into the land and closed in on each side by very steep hills which drop down sharply to the water. On the west lies Fowey town close to the mouth of the harbour, built on the hillside. It consists of one long narrow street, so constricted that only here and there, where the houses fall back a little, has it been found possible to drop in a few feet of pavement, otherwise foot-pa.s.sengers take their chance with the traffic. There are houses on each side. Those on the seaward side are built right on to the water so that many of them have ladders hanging from their backyards by which the men can climb down into their boats. Pa.s.sing casually along the main street and glancing into an open doorway one sometimes sees the pa.s.sage falling downwards like an open shaft, the lower end a rectangle of blue dancing water!

On the other side the levels, if they can be called levels--for there is hardly a foot of level land anywhere--rise high overhead. In following any of the quaint crooked streets it is possible at one moment to look up at school children playing in a courtyard high overhead and five minutes later to survey the same children shortened in perspective by being seen from above!