Cornwall Part 5

In the very midst of the town is the splendid old church, and near it, but so tucked away it is not easily discovered, is Place House, the seat of the Treffrys, an old Cornish family. The oldest parts of this have stood since 1457 and it is said that here once was a palace of the old Earls of Cornwall, which is quite probable, as they could hardly have chosen a better spot.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FOWEY]

If we pa.s.s on by the long narrow main street we come out eventually on heights terminating in Gribbin Head. But Fowey is not recommended for people with weak hearts unless they intend to sit upon the charming verandah of the hotel as suggested in the first chapter. Wherever one turns there are steep hills to negotiate, and the magnificent views gained across the deep inlet must be bought by hard labour. Yet having said that it is but fair to add that nowhere in Britain are there sights to beat these. The harbour lies like a Norwegian fiord between its hills, and the water ranges in all imaginable blues and greens as the light wanes and changes, while there are ever coming and going craft of many kinds. Fowey is not a fishing village; anyone who said it was would have to reckon with Sir A. Quiller-Couch! The harbour is visited by ships in search of cargo such as the china-clay which forms so large a proportion of the export, and the graceful vessels, often sailing-ships, which come to fetch it, are towed in and out by the little tugs which work unceasingly about the narrow straits. And the inlet is one of the most popular for yachts all along the coast. There is here reproduced a most interesting chart of Fowey Harbour, drawn in Henry VIII.'s time, and now in the British Museum. This reproduction is taken from Lysons'

_Magna Britannica_. As will be seen, it shows Lostwithiel, Liskeard, and even Bodmin, with a pictorial representation of the stags grazing in Restormel Park. Even at that date the twin forts guarding the narrow entrance to the harbour were "decayed."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

In Henry III.'s reign Fowey men rescued some of the ships of the men of Rye, and Fowey was therefore honoured by the Cinque Ports "with armes and privileges." In the time of Edward III. Fowey supplied more ships to the King's Navy than any other port in England, which is an amazing fact. At the Siege of Calais there were forty-seven ships from this little place! The men of Fowey were always known as bold sailors, having been brought up upon the water it seemed their natural element. So stung were the French by the wasps issuing from this nest that they made a descent on Fowey in 1457 when Lady Treffry, whose husband was not at home, led the defence and helped to beat back the attackers to their ships.

In later times Fowey earned a base reputation for being the harbour of pirates and eventually was punished by being obliged to transfer its ships to Dartmouth.

Those who like boating and sea-fishing will find plentiful opportunity here to indulge in both.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BODINNICK FERRY, FOWEY]

Just opposite Fowey town a deep bite into the land cuts off a projecting tongue, reached from the west by ferry, and the piled houses upon it, falling down their mountain-side, lack something of the beauty they might easily have had in such a situation. But further down, where at Bodinnick ferry pa.s.sengers are carried to and fro there is much to admire. Bodinnick is an inland village which has fallen by accident upon a seash.o.r.e, at least that is the impression it gives. The walls are lined with bladder seaweed, the seaweed that goes "pop" to the delight of children. This hangs in black ma.s.ses above the incoming water, but over it rise woods and trees, and ivy and ferns, and all the paraphernalia of a country lane. The ivy in fact tumbles riotously down on the top of the seaweed! The cottages, maintaining their balance with difficulty on the perilous slope rising from the ferry, are covered with rose bushes. Candytuft and violets come out in their season to creep over the rough stone walls; white pigeons flutter overhead and glimpses of large-leaved plants of a kind more often a.s.sociated with a tropical climate, peep at one from backyards. There is nothing conventional or suburban about Bodinnick! It takes no trouble to clear away the bits of broken crockery or rusty tins; perhaps it likes the feeling of homeliness they give, and the sleepy cats appear to like it too.

From Fowey there is one road and only one, which leads across the headland westward to Par sands, but there is a choice of two routes by railway, one running along beside the inlet, which is of course the mouth of the River Fowey, and giving lovely views of the wooded reaches about the mouth of its tributary the Lerryn, which, following the custom of rivers in this district, has a considerable inlet to itself. While Penpoll Creek, nearer the sea, affords a comfortable harbourage even in a very high wind. But the one road and the two railways do not sum up all the ways of getting out of Fowey, for you may persuade the burly round-eyed old salt who has spent his life in crossing and recrossing hundreds of times, to put you over at Bodinnick, and then you can wander at your own sweet will by any of the innumerable tracks over the great rectangle bounded on the west and north by Fowey River (which turns at a right angle about Bodmin Road), and on the east by Looe River. This lump of land is cut up and seamed by valleys and broken by hills. On the sea-line, about halfway across, is the tiny fishing village--really a fishing village this time--of Polperro, than which no quainter thing exists in Britain. You drop down, down, down, to Polperro until you can look up and see the cows grazing high overhead as you might in an Alpine valley, and then you plunge into the miniature confused streets of the town, and following them at random may or may not come out at the little port, and walking along the rude jetty see the outer harbour and the small beach. The smell of fish is strong in the air; the fishing-boats lie in neat rows, supported by legs to prevent their heeling over when the tide runs out. The houses cl.u.s.ter on the steep hillside in terraces, and below them a collection of blue-guernseyed stout-booted men, with wholesome sea-tanned faces, lounge about as if they were the idlest set in Christendom, though their work demands the hardest toil and greatest endurance of any calling man can follow.

Polperro is strangely like a little town in Brittany and has something about it also which recalls the inland villages tucked away in the spurs of the Alps or Apennines above the Riviera. It is easy to imagine that anyone having visited it and trying to recall where he had looked upon such a scene, would search his memory for tours abroad and never think of England.

A good road leads up out of this valley on the Looe side and once the hill is surmounted it may be remarked with surprise that at the cost of going a little round it actually tries to keep on the level; that is not a practice habitual to Cornish roads, which seem to take a pure delight in a switchback manner of progress. This road was cut in 1849, the means of arriving at Polperro before that being something like falling down the face of a cliff. Polperro was the home of Jonathan Couch, the naturalist, grandfather of the novelist Sir A. Quiller-Couch, who lives a short way off at Fowey. Mr. Thomas Couch's _History of Polperro_ embodying his father, Jonathan Couch's, notes, and published in 1871, may still be read with interest. He pictures himself standing on the height of Brent. "Immediately below are the harbour, valley and town of Polperro; the Peak with its striking jagged outline and ma.s.sive black colouring; the sail-loft resting in a recess on its side; the ledges of rocks here and there hollowed into caverns, and the quays, between which are the fishing-boats riding quietly in tiers. Further up among the hills which shut this scene in you see strange, and apparently confused, groups of houses, having a general tint of whitewash, and, above them, on the southern side, the little Chapel of St. John."

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOOE]

Though many new and better-cla.s.s houses have been built, this description still holds good. The cliffs all round are very sheer and steep, dropping straight into the water, which is deep up to the base.

In some of the little old houses there are low, dark rooms smelling strongly of fish and brine, with the beams showing. Mr. Thomas Couch says: "In the old home of the Quillers [his mother's family] there was hanging on a beam a key, which we, as children, regarded with respect and awe, and never dared to touch, for Richard Quiller, Jane's father, had put the key of his quadrant on the nail with strong injunctions that no one should take it off until his return [which never happened]; and there, I believe, it still hangs." This doubtless gave "Q" his idea for the key on the beam in that curiously unequal story, _Dead Man's Rock_.

The two Looes, East and West, facing each other across the mouth of the river,--which here _looks_ like the mouth of a river and not a fiord as at Fowey--are easily understood. You can see them both from the bridge, whereas in Fowey on first arrival it is very difficult to know where you are and I doubt if anyone really knows even after staying there awhile, for there is no place where you can get a comprehensive view unless it is from the opposite sh.o.r.e at the expense of much toil and trouble. The Looes lack the picturesqueness of Fowey but on the other hand you can get about much more easily and there is bathing on the front. The woods lying inland have a great and peculiar charm. Not very far above the bridge the river bifurcates, the two branches being east and west to match the twin-town. Here in the wide sandy estuary sea-birds congregate, and the boats are drawn up in rows beneath the overhanging trees, which come right down to the very lip of the water. It is difficult to contemplate without amus.e.m.e.nt the golden era before the Reform Bill when this little place returned four members to Parliament, two for the handful of houses each side of the river! It is difficult--but perhaps not quite so difficult--to realize that Looe sent twenty ships to help King Edward III. to besiege Calais.

But these inlets we have been sketching are small indeed compared with the mighty harbours of many ramifications such as those at Devonport and Falmouth. Devonport has already been touched upon elsewhere, and we can pa.s.s on now to Falmouth with its wide opening in Carrick Roads and the long thin fingers or tongues of water diving deep into the heart of the land. One of these goes up to Truro and it is one of the popular excursions from both towns to sail up and down in the summer steamboats from one to the other. Falmouth itself lies along both sides of the neck of land ending in Pendennis Point, and, though on a much larger scale, is in that respect not unlike St. Ives in situation. The southern side boasts the beach and what may be called Villadom for its share, and the northern looks upon the harbour and faces over to the hamlet of Flushing where the ferry runs continually. There are steep streets in Falmouth as everywhere else in Cornwall, and even the main street pa.s.sing all along beside the water, mounts a tough hill toward Penryn. The glimpses of the crowded harbour and the variety and picturesqueness of the boats and ships that find their way in are a never-failing source of interest and pleasure.

Before the days of steam Falmouth was of more importance than it is now, and many a sailing ship started from here with a cargo of pa.s.sengers who had travelled as far as possible on land before committing themselves to the uncertain sea. But Falmouth is particularly known for having been the starting-place of the Royal Mail Packets which went to America, the Indies and other parts of the globe. The mails were sent down by the authorities, who chartered armed brigs with a crew of thirty men and sent them off to run all the risks of the sea and to fight if need be in defence of their valuable cargo. Many a stubborn fight there was too and many the weeping widow of Falmouth who mourned her man in vain. It is supposed that Falmouth first became a station for "packets" in 1688, and the number sailing from the port was increased from time to time until in 1763 there were boats going to Lisbon, the West Indies and New York continually. Therefore for about 150 years, until 1850, Falmouth was the port for the mail-packets, but when steam power was applied to ships she lost the mail service which was transferred to Southampton.

There is a school of artists here, an offshoot from the Newlyn school, which seems to have been the parent swarm of many a cl.u.s.ter.

The castle on the headland, now in the hands of the military, dates from the time of Henry VIII.

Facing Pendennis Point are the jagged jaws of another peninsula singularly like a crocodile's head. On the lower jaw is St. Mawes, a pretty little place with a rising hill behind. This peninsula is called by the pretty name of Roseland, which has however nothing to do with flowers, being derived from Rhos, the Celtic word for heath or gorse.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLUSHING--FROM FALMOUTH]

About a mile along the southern sh.o.r.e of Falmouth is the Swan Pool, a sheet of fresh water cut off from the sea by a narrow bar of sand, and supposed by the Falmouth folk to outrival completely the better-known Looe Pool near Mullion.

The whole of the Lizard peninsula is nearly shorn through by the Helford River, which almost reaches across to Looe Pool. If this is the heel of Cornwall, it, like the heel of Achilles, is vulnerable, and nearly severed by the slash! There is less to say about the Helford River estuary than any other. Beyond the fact that it was once a well-known harbourage for pirates it does not seem to have any striking t.i.tle to fame.

It is rather odd that though Cornwall is so liberally endowed with coast-line, so that at no part of the Duchy is one really far from the sea, yet she should have in addition these delightful winding waterways cutting deeply and widely into her south coast and affording excellent means of transit.

VIII

CORNISH TOWNS

If an enquiry were made among the Cornish towns as to which of them it were fittest to mention first, it can be easily imagined that one and all would claim the honour for themselves. And truly each has something to say for itself. Penzance is the town best known to the majority of visitors, because the railway ends there, and "London to Penzance" has become almost as common a phrase as "London to Cornwall." But so far as we are concerned we need not bother about Penzance as we have already given it full s.p.a.ce. Truro could advance good claims for she is the seat of the Bishop's See and possesses the modern cathedral, the only one in the Duchy, and also she is the educational centre with fine county education offices. Bodmin, however, is really the county town as the a.s.sizes are still held there, an honour she has disputed with Launceston for many centuries, the a.s.size Courts having swayed to and fro between them. Even now there is talk of removing them from Bodmin owing to the difficulty of getting there. Bodmin is not on the main Great Western line but only connected with it from Bodmin Road by a branch line. Launceston can outshine the others by reason of her fine ruin of the ancient castle and an historical record second to none, but at present official recognition she cannot claim.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TRURO]

Beyond these three we need not go. The coast-towns have been already visited, and as for smaller ones inland, such as Liskeard, Camelford, Redruth, Cambourne, Callington and Helston, they cannot hope to compete.

Truro is just the picture of what one imagines a market-town to be. On market-days its open s.p.a.ces are filled with country carts and the quaint little covered-in omnibuses, like those used by the peasantry of France on their immensely long straight roads. There is a buzz and clamour of talk outside the doors of the old Red Lion Inn, or, as it now seems to be the fashion to say--hotel. This is the house in which Samuel Foote, actor and dramatist, was born in 1720; his father was at one time Mayor of Truro. The house is worth seeing on its own account, for it has a ma.s.sive carved oak staircase--alas, thickly overlaid with varnish, and some moulded ceilings unusual in an inn.

Truro is well watered, as it stands between two small rivers which join in the creek by which steamboats go down to Falmouth through pretty wooded scenery. The town itself is quite tolerably flat for a Cornish town, but long hills run up out of it on all sides. The oldest part of the cathedral is that which was the parish church, incorporated into the new building. About the cathedral there have been many opinions, but a modern cathedral can hardly escape severe criticism considering that it has to compete with all the dignity and reverence of those which have stood hundreds of years! The white stone shows up well, and though the town is more or less in a basin the tall spires are seen from the surrounding hills to advantage. There are good shops in Truro and much that is of interest, including the very fine collection in the Museum of the Royal Inst.i.tution of Cornwall, now housed in a worthy building. Here anyone who has wandered in the hills and over the barren moors and seen the relics of h.o.a.ry antiquity so freely scattered, can look with seeing eye on the more valuable specimens which have been found and are now cared for and preserved where they will not be stolen or lost.

Even in Domesday Book Truro is mentioned, and at that time there were two towns, Great and Little Truro, standing under the shadow of a fortress held by the Earls of Cornwall, now vanished, though its site is known and pointed out near the station. The town's charter was granted in 1130 and renewed in 1589, so it is not much matter for wonder the inhabitants look upon it as the first city in Cornwall, and, in olden times, so bore themselves that they earned for their city the nickname of "Proud Truro."

The cathedral was in great part due to the energy of Bishop Benson, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, who was made first Bishop when the See was created. Bishop Benson "delighted in the Cornish people and was never tired of observing and a.n.a.lyzing their character." He did much for Truro in many ways.

Bodmin stands almost in the middle of the Duchy with two long fingers, that of the inlet of Fowey on the south and that of the inlet of the River Camel on the north, pointing directly at it. It is a very quiet little town but has somehow managed to preserve its charm. The fine old parish church, almost worthy to take rank as a cathedral, is in the midst, easily to be seen. The church is the largest in Cornwall and parts of it date from 1125. It once had a very striking spire, destroyed by lightning in 1699. Bodmin means the Monks' Town, and even though it has the enormous barracks built in the usual style, just outside, it still keeps something of the monkish atmosphere. Bodmin scorns Truro's claims of long descent, turning to Athelstan as its founder. Athelstan, who founded here in 926 a Benedictine Priory of which some traces even now remain. The town is in a beautiful and well-wooded neighbourhood, and anyone taking the trouble to climb Beacon Hill just outside will be rewarded. It was at Bodmin in 1498 that Perkin Warbeck, who had disembarked near Land's End, gathered 3,000 men together and started his disastrous campaign by launching himself against Exeter. In Bodmin meet, or rather "meet with a gap between," the two rival railways--the Great Western and London and South Western; the latter station is a terminus, and the line running northward connects the town with Wadebridge and Padstow. The former comes from Bodmin Road where it joins the main line, and continues also to Wadebridge.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BANKS OF THE FAL, FALMOUTH]

Between Bodmin and Launceston stretches the wild tract of country known as Bodmin Moor. A more desolate region it would be hard to find or one more covered with relics of primitive man. Norden has said in writing of Cornwall, "The rockes are high, huge, ragged and craggy not only upon the sea-coaste ... but also the inland mountayns are so crowned with mightie rockes as he that pa.s.sing through the country beholding some of the rockes afar off may suppose them to be greate cyties planted on the hills, wherin prima facie ther appeareth the resemblance of towres, howses, chimnies and such like."

Though he flatters the Cornish highlands in calling them mountains, yet it is true enough that the tors out-cropping in this region do take on most curious shapes. The most remarkable of all is the unstable-looking Cheesewring, southwest of Launceston, and rather difficult of access.

Here stones are piled one on the top of the other, each larger than the last, till the effect is that of a gigantic and misshapen mushroom. But it was not built deliberately, it just happened so. How--no one knows, but the suggestion is that the ma.s.s was once banked in by earth, which was washed away, leaving the bare pinnacle of stone. In the midst of the moor Brown w.i.l.l.y and Rough Tor rise with considerable picturesqueness, and their surfaces are strewn with the old beehive huts of a people whose history is lost.

But those who are not familiar with the country should not wander far from the road as the bogs and marshes are really dangerous. They find their culmination in the odd little lake called Dozmare Pool a.s.sociated with the story of King Arthur. This has no apparent outlet, and was once reported to be of fabulous depth.

Launceston stands in a category by itself; though both the preceding towns are fairly hilly, it outdoes them magnificently in that respect!

The streets up from the station are so steep that only by one of them, graded for the purpose, can vehicles mount at all. The others are merely for foot-pa.s.sengers. Yet if looked at on a map which does not give contours, it will be seen that Launceston in reality is one very long straggling street running from end to end with various branches. This street dips down into the hollow where the railway is and mounts the other side. Baring-Gould says of Launceston, "Scarcely another English town has such a picturesque and continental appearance," but that is a matter of opinion. The name, meaning Church-Castle-Town, is very explanatory, for the church and castle are the two outstanding objects of interest. The former is most curious, for every foot of the walls outside is covered by granite carving, mostly of secular subjects and hacked out instead of chiselled.

At the east end beneath the east window is a recess with a figure of Mary Magdalene much worn and tormented, and no wonder, for it is one of the Launceston superst.i.tions that anyone who can chuck a pebble so as to lodge on the statue's back--no easy feat as the slope is slippery--will have a year's good luck, and many there be that try! The church is dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene and is, as churches go, of no great age.

Curiously enough it was not at first the parish church but merely the development of a chapel.

The present building dates from 1511 and the tower is older. What is very singular, and accounts for the choice of subjects on its quaintly carven walls, is that they were not designed for a sacred building at all. They were done for Henry Ashe of Trecarell, a wealthy Cornishman who had a great mansion and was rebuilding it regardless of cost; but in the midst of the work his only son, a child, was drowned and the mother died almost immediately from the shock, so the wretched father pa.s.sed on the granite carvings, designed for a gateway to his mansion, to the church, where they now attract many curious visitors and adorn, not only the walls but the very fine projecting south porch. The rose, the pomegranate, the Prince of Wales's feathers are frequently repeated with the arms of Trecarell and Ashe. In order to give it an ecclesiastical finish certain sentences in Latin such as "Oh how terrible and fearful is this place. Surely this is none other but the house of G.o.d and the gate of heaven!" are embossed on shields round the base.

A much more ancient church is that of St. Stephen away on the opposite heights beyond the valley. Some authorities think that the name Launceston really means Llan Stephan, the church of St. Stephen, and there is some colour for this, as it is possible the original town was around the older church and that the other grew up near to the castle.

Baring-Gould boldly claims that the present town has no right to the name at all, but should be called Dunheved meaning "Swelling Hill." The castle keep certainly stands on a most appropriate swelling hill, just the place for such a fortification, with a magnificent view over miles of country.

The present remains, the great keep with its rings of stone, is of Norman origin, but there was most certainly a Saxon castle here before it. It stands in delightful grounds, freely open to all, and a very sanctuary for birds. A winding stair runs within the wall and even in the present roofless condition it needs but little imagination to transport oneself back into feudal times, when the womenfolk cowered within the small rooms behind the solid masonry, and the warriors guarded the loopholes, watching, waiting for attack.

Launceston is peculiarly rich in churches; besides the two mentioned there is St. Thomas, in the valley between, where have been discovered the ruins of a priory. From this the doorway of the White Hart Hotel in the market-place came.

Down a side street is one of the old city gates, the only one remaining to show that Launceston was once walled. The chief point of interest about this, however, is apparently the very substantial tree, which, in most mysterious fashion, has found root-hold in the stone crevices and continues to flourish many feet above the ground.