Nooks and Corners of Cornwall Part 5

HARLYN BAY

In 1900, when digging for the foundations of a house, an oblong slate kist, lying north and south, and containing a "crouched" burial, was found. The drift sand lay some 8 to 10 ft. above the grave, within which the skeleton lay on his side, his hands over his eyes, his knees bent under him in what seems to us an att.i.tude of devotion; as he lay the first ray of the rising sun would strike athwart his face. Further investigation showed that the discovered kist was only one of a group of interments, and that the graves covered some 90 ft., giving signs of a long continued series of burials, rather than of a great number within a short period. The date of interment is considered to be that of the later iron age, no great antiquity it is true, but some few thousand years ago. The kind and courteous owner, Colonel Bellers, allows access to this prehistoric graveyard--locally known as the b.o.n.e.ries--and near by is a small museum for the preservation of interesting finds. Some of the kists have been left _in situ_ and, to preserve them from wind and weather, have been covered with a sort of cuc.u.mber frame, and the stranger looks down through the gla.s.s on to the brown bones in their enduring coffins of slate. Here lies a chieftain, for over his kist were heaped rough lumps of quartz crystal; here a mother and child, little bones and bigger; and here, in a heterogeneous mixture of all sorts and sizes, is a hint of tragedy. Were they the result of a battle--of a cannibal feast--or of justice done!

A tooth from this strange and lonely graveyard was enclosed in a little box and sent to a friend in London with instructions to place it unopened in the hands of a clairvoyant. No information was vouchsafed with the tooth, and the mystified go-between was only asked to take down what was said, and this he did. At first the clairvoyant seemed rather puzzled. "I can see a wide, sandy bay with rocks and cliffs, a rough tumbling sea, and at the head of the bay a dense wood; but the people are not like any I've ever seen before. They seem to be skin-clad savages with black hair. There are quite a lot of them. One is running across the sands and others are rushing after him; they have weapons in their hands and he is fleeing in deadly terror. Ah, he has run into the wood--now they've all disappeared!"

Was the last scene in that prehistoric man's life being re-enacted before the clairvoyant's gaze? Had he contravened his fellows' unknown laws and so been hunted to his death?

After a little the seer continued: "I see the bay again, but it's a little different, more sand and fewer trees. Some men in present-day dress are standing by a hole in the ground. They----" and a description was given of the people who had been present at the opening of the kist.

"I think the hole is a grave, though it seems too short to be that" (the kist being a "crouched" burial was, of course, much shorter than an ordinary grave), "at any rate there are bones in it."

Of the gold ornaments found in Cornwall the most remarkable are the two torques found near Harlyn; bronze fibulae have also been found here, but a good many of these finds are now in the Truro Museum. Harlyn, in spite of the grisly nature of its chief attraction, is an incomparable bay of wide firm sand, rock pools, and low safe cliffs. As it is sheltered by Trevose Head, the bathing is safe. A little way along the cliffs is a disused fish-cellar, over the door of which is the motto: "Lucri dulcis odor"--sweet is the smell of gold! But the fish have left these sh.o.r.es and the big black boats--boats that are oddly reminiscent of the Viking's ships at Christiania--lie rotting in the sun.

TREVOSE HEAD

Trevose Head (lighthouse), blunt and rounded, with an ear on each side of its broad head, is a somewhat eerie place. On its western slope is a large and sinister blow-hole, and much of the land seems to have slipped a little and to be slipping more. It is here, by the rabbit burrows, that so many worked flint arrow-heads and fish spears have been found; while on its eastern side are caves inaccessible to the ordinary person, but if report says truly once of great use to the smuggler. The cliffs are of catacleuse, a dark and durable stone, of which on the cave side there are quarries.

Beyond Trevose Head, with its view from Cape Cornwall to Lundy Isle, the land curves inward past the rocky ridges and big rolling sand-dunes of Constantine. A shepherd's family is said to have held for many generations a cottage on Constantine under the lord of Harlyn Manor by the annual payment of a Cornish pie made of limpets, raisins, and sweet herbs. Food is cheap in Cornwall, but wages are correspondingly low. A farm pays its labourers--it calls them the cowman, the bullockman, and the horseman--from 13_s_. 6_d_. to 18_s_. a week, and with that, though conditions differ a little on different farms, they generally give a cottage, 100 ft. of potato ground, the run of a pig on the land, 100 battens of tamarisk wood--almost the only wood on this part of the coast--and, most prized of all, the right to let lodgings. On this the labourers sometimes manage to save. In one absolutely authentic instance, a couple, labourer and farm-servant, who married at twenty-one and eighteen, contrived to rear a healthy family of three and before they were forty to save enough to buy a piece of land, build a lodging-house, and go into business on their own account. "Never refused a day's work in my life," said the woman, "but we lived on what he brought home, and saved what I made." And what he brought home had been from thirteen to fifteen shillings a week. "Nor I never bought any tinned stuff," she said. "There's a deal of money goes that way, if the young women nowadays 'ud only believe it. Why, a tin of pears, where's the nourishment in that, and think of the price. Nearly a shilling gone."

And that woman baked her own bread, did, not only her own "bit of washin'," but that of the one or two houses in the neighbourhood, went out charing and cleaning, and took lodgers! They were thrifty folk, never dreamed of buying a newspaper, and as a consequence had to save every sc.r.a.p of letter-paper, grocery bags, and oddments in order to have the wherewithal to light the fire in the slab range. The pig was their great stand-by. His meat, frugally cut, distributed in pasties with a careful hand, lasted them the greater part of the year, and then there were the lodgers. The tourist is not over-welcome to the farmer on account of his carelessness with regard to gates. He lets the young stock in among the corn and pa.s.ses on oblivious of the damage he has caused, but he is a G.o.dsend to the labourer's capable wife.

CONSTANTINE

Constantine is another lovely and lonely bay. The jagged ridges of stone run out at either end of the wide arc, a deep blue in sunlight, black in cloudy weather, and between them lies a rainbow beach of sh.e.l.ls. The owners of the property have set their faces against hotels, and on the stretch of sand-dunes are only the ruins of a one-time wrecker's cottage, and a small black hut. The man who gave his name to the place was supposed to be a descendant of King Lear (here spelt Llyr), who was converted in his old age by the Padstow saint, Petrock. The sand which destroyed his oratory is also said to have destroyed a populous village, but seeing the desolation on every hand, this is a little difficult to believe. At any rate the neighbouring churches seem to have benefited by the saint's misfortune, for St. Merryn as well as Little Petherick gathered up any trifles she thought might come in useful, and the beautiful font at the former church is said to have been taken from her.

One thing only was left to

"_that ruined church Whose threshold is the sacrificial stone Of a forgotten people!_"

Under the archway of the western door, a heavy-rounded lump, lies the old stone. It was probably a source of pride to Constantine ap Llyr. He had taken from the heathen their greatest treasure, their sacrificial stone, which had been brought from a distance, for there is no stone of that nature in the neighbourhood, and he had set it in his threshold where it should be trodden underfoot of men. And now the old church and the yet older stone lie alike forgotten, and there is peace.

On Constantine Island--again only so-called--a little, very ancient house was discovered some years ago. The walls were of slabs of stone and the greatest height of the interior was 7 ft. From the discovery of two hearth-stones, one inside and one on the outside of the building, it was thought that the place was only used as a dwelling in bad or cold weather, and that otherwise its prehistoric owner kept it as a storehouse. Unfortunately the little ruin has been removed piecemeal by the hungry visitor.

A FOGOU

Not only are there many caverns along this coast, but several fogous or artificial caves have been discovered. These fogous may have been used for smuggling or as hiding-places in time of war, but the fact that some are obviously connected with old cliff castles and strongholds, points to a greater antiquity; in fact, they may have been prehistoric storehouses. In a secluded valley, near Porthcothan, a little further along this coast, is an interesting example. The cavern is 36 ft. long and about 6 ft. high, the breadth being about 5 ft. The sides are lined with rough stones, simply piled up, and the roof consists of stone slabs. From this chamber a pa.s.sage leads to another similarly constructed. It is said to have been much longer, in fact over 1000 yards, one gallery leading to Trevethan, whence another opened on to the beach at Porthmear.

BEDRUTHAN

To the south of Park Head, a fine cliff on which are several tumuli, is the Church of St. Eval, the tower of which was so useful a landmark that when it grew ruinous in 1727, some Bristol merchant subscribed towards the rebuilding. It is near Bedruthan Steps, where a fine sh.o.r.e is strewn with detached rocks and islands. One of the former is named "Queen Bess," from a fancied resemblance, ruff, farthingale and all, to the royal spinster; another "The Good Samaritan," because a vessel of that name was wrecked there. This vessel had been an East Indiaman laden with the silks and spices of a warmer clime, and a good deal of the cargo was saved, so much indeed that nowadays when a la.s.s finds her finery growing the worse for wear, she says, "It is time for a Good Samaritan to come."

On the cliff above Redruthan Sands is an ancient earthwork known as Red Cliff Castle, which is supposed to have been British. It would be interesting to learn whether it is in any way connected with the numerous great caves which honeycomb its rock foundation. So far, however, no fogou has been discovered here.

VALE OF LANHERNE

From Mawgan Porth, the far-famed Vale of Lanherne lies inland some two miles or so, a contrast to the rough wild coast and its splintered rocks. Beyond the church and nunnery, in their peaceful setting of small-leaved Cornish elms, among the branches of which the rooks build above the little rippling stream, are the lovely woods of Carnanton. It used to be said that amid all the religious communities represented in Cornwall long ago, there was never a nunnery, but this is no longer the case. In the reign of Henry VII. an Arundell of Lanherne purchased Wardour Castle, in Wiltshire, and when his younger son Thomas, married a sister of Queen Catherine Howard, the old man settled on him the Wardour house and estate. In course of time the elder branch came to be represented by a daughter only, and she marrying her cousin of Wardour the estates were re-united. In 1794 Henry, eighth Lord Arundell of Wardour, gave the old home of his race--it had been in the family since 1231--to some English Theresian nuns, who had fled from Paris in fear of what was to come. The present house is not very old, though a part of it dates from 1580, which part contains a secret chamber, wherein a priest once lay concealed for some sixteen months. It is said that the silver sanctuary lamp in the convent chapel has burnt continuously and that the Roman Catholic services have been held without intermission since pre-Reformation days. A picture supposed to be by Rubens, "The Scourging of our Blessed Lord at the Pillar," is shown, also other reputed old masters. Adjoining the house is a little garden, used as a cemetery, in which three priests and several nuns have been buried, and which contains a tenth-century four-holed cross of Pentewan stone, the shaft of which is covered with interlaced work.

Mawgan Church, which is close to the nunnery, is remarkably rich in bra.s.ses, many of which are now attached to the old screen through the shameful ignorance of a late rector. There were here formerly some interesting palimpsest bra.s.ses of foreign workmanship, but large portions of these have been removed by the Arundells--whom they concerned--to Wardour Castle. On the south side of the churchyard is one of those pathetic memorials only too common along this coast. The white painted stern of a boat lies close to the convent wall, and on it is inscribed: "Here lie the bodies of ... who were drifted on sh.o.r.e in a boat, frozen to death, at Beacon Cove, in this parish, on Sunday, the 13th day of December, MDCCCXLVI." A beautiful Gothic cross of fifteenth-century work stands at the west end of the church. It is the most elaborate example of a lanthorn cross in Cornwall and contrasts well with the restored granite cross, dating from the earliest period of such monuments, which is to be seen in the additional churchyard.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The fairies seem to be identical with the Tuatha da Danaan of Ireland.

CHAPTER IV

NOOKS AND CORNERS FROM THE VALE OF LANHERNE TO HAYLE TOWANS

_Hurling and St. Columb Major: Colan: The Grat.i.tude of the Stuarts: Trevalgue: A Good Centre for Crantoch, St. Cubert, and Trerice: St.

Agnes and the Giant: Portreath: the Ba.s.sets: G.o.drevy: Gwithian: The Pilchards._

HURLING AND ST. COLUMB MAJOR

At the head of the lovely Vale of Lanherne is a district which has long been the centre for the old game of "hurling," and although football has largely taken its place, it is still sometimes played on Shrove Tuesday.

The ball is smaller than that used for cricket, is light to handle, and has a coating of silver. The one now in use is inscribed with this couplet:

"_St. Columb Major and Minor do your best, In one of your parishes I must rest._"

During the short reign of Edward VI. the ferment against the reformation doctrines came to a head in Cornwall. The people rose under Humfrey Arundel and marched to Exeter, only however to meet with a crushing defeat. Four thousand were slain, and their leaders taken and hanged at Tyburn. Martial law was then proclaimed, and Sir Anthony Kingston, Provost Marshal, was sent down into Cornwall. Among other stories told of him is that of his expeditious visit to St. Columb. Arrived at the little market town he promptly seized "Master Mayow" and directed that he should be hanged as a rebel. "Mistress Mayow, intending to plead for her husband's life, spent so long a time in prinking herself that by the time she reached the presence of the judge, her husband was dead."

In the neighbourhood of St. Columb are nine menhirs in a line, called the Nine Maidens, or in Cornish "Naw Voz"; also Castle-an-Dinas, a large triple entrenchment on a high tableland enclosing six acres of ground and two tumuli. Hither came the Royalist leaders in 1646 to discuss the question of surrender, and here King Arthur is supposed to have stayed when on pleasure bent. The waste land around is known as Goss Moors, and there he hunted not only the red deer but the wolf.

"The Green Book of St. Columb" is one of the historical treasures of the county. It is so called from the colour of its leather binding, and is a book of parish accounts dating from the reign of Elizabeth.[2] Curious to relate, the rectory-house is surrounded by a moat. The church, which is very large for Cornwall, contains some good bra.s.ses and bench-ends, the bra.s.s of Sir John Arundell and his two wives (1545) being probably the finest example in the county. This church has had hard usage. In 1676 a barrel of gunpowder which lay in the rood-loft was fired by some mischievous boys. Three of them were killed, and a great deal of other damage was done. Some few years later the tower was struck by lightning, and the people, made wiser by misfortune, were careful to erect a less lofty one, which, however, was itself struck a few years since.

COLAN

Halfway between the two St. Columbs is the little church of Colan, which contains the interesting bra.s.s of ffrancis Bluet, 1572, and Elizabeth, his wife, with effigies of both and of their thirteen sons and nine daughters. Below it is a smaller bra.s.s containing these words:

"_Behold thyselfe by us; Suche one Were we as thow: And thou in tyme Shalt be: even doust As we are nowe._"

THE GRAt.i.tUDE OF THE STUARTS

Lady Nance's Well was once the resort of pilgrims, who threw crosses of wood into the water. If they swam all would go well during the ensuing year, but, alas, if they should sink! Another well and the remains of its covering building are to be seen at Rialton, a priory which once possessed extensive rights, but of which only the ruined buildings remain. They lie in a beautiful valley east of the village of St. Columb Minor. At this latter the communion plate, which was presented by Francis, second Earl of G.o.dolphin, and bears his arms, is ma.s.sive, the flagon holding nearly a gallon! By the west door is a large painting of the royal arms, presented by Charles II. to the parish, as marking his sense of their loyalty to his father, and it might be as well to give here the letter of thanks written by Charles I. to his loyal county of Cornwall and still to be seen painted on wood in so many of the churches. It was written immediately after the fall of Exeter.

"C. R. To the inhabitants of the Co. of Cornwall.

"We are so highly sensible of the merit of our county of Cornwall, of their zeal for the defence of our person and the just rights of our crown, in a time when we could contribute so little to our own defence or to their a.s.sistance, in a time when not only no reward appeared, but great and probable dangers were threatened to obedience and loyalty; of their great and eminent courage and patience in their indefatigable prosecution of their great work against so potent an enemy, backed with so strong, rich, and populous cities, and so plentifully furnished and supplied with men, arms, money, ammunition, and provision of all kinds; and of the wonderful success with which it pleased Almighty G.o.d, though with the loss of some most eminent persons--who shall never be forgotten by us--to reward their loyalty and patience by many strange victories over their and our enemies in despite of all human probability and all imaginable disadvantages; that as we cannot be forgetful of so great desert so we cannot but desire to publish it to all the world and perpetuate to all time the memory of their merits and of our acceptance of the same; and to that end we do hereby render our royal thanks to that our county in the most public and lasting manner we can devise, commanding copies hereof to be printed and published, and one of them to be read in every church and chapel therein, and to be kept for ever as a record in the same; that as long as the history of these times and of this nation shall continue, the memory of how much that county hath merited from us and our crown may be derived with it to posterity.

"Given at our camp at Sudeley Castle, 10th of Sep., 1643."