The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cornwall, by Sabine Baring-Gould
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Title: Cornwall
Author: Sabine Baring-Gould
Release Date: December 3, 2011 [EBook #38190]
Language: English
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CAMBRIDGE COUNTY GEOGRAPHIES
General Editor: F.H.H. GUILLEMARD, M.A., M.D.
CORNWALL
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
~London~: FETTER LANE, E.C.
C.F. CLAY, MANAGER
[Illustration: Coat of Arms]
~Edinburgh~: 100, PRINCES STREET
~Berlin~: A. ASHER AND CO.
~Leipzig~: F.A. BROCKHAUS
~New York~: G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
~Bombay and Calcutta~: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.
[_All rights reserved_]
_Cambridge County Geographies_
CORNWALL
by
S. BARING-GOULD
With Maps, Diagrams, and Illustrations
Cambridge:
at the University Press
1910
~Cambridge~:
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
CONTENTS
PAGE
1. County and Shire. Meaning of the Word 1
2. General Characteristics 3
3. Size, Shape, Boundaries 5
4. Surface and General Features 8
5. Watershed, Rivers 13
6. Geology and Soil 19
7. Natural History 26
8. Around the Coast. From Morwenstow to Land's End 31
9. Around the Coast. From Land's End to Rame Head 41
10. The Coast--Gains and Losses 51
11. The Coast--Tides, Islands, and Lighthouses 57
12. Climate--Rainfall 61
13. People--Race, Dialect, Population 67
14. Agriculture--Main Cultivations. Stock 72
15. Industries and Manufactures 79
16. Minerals and Mining 80
17. Fisheries 88
18. Shipping and Trade 94
19. History 97
20. Antiquities: Prehistoric, Roman, Celtic, Saxon 106
21. Architecture: (_a_) Ecclesiastical 114
22. Architecture: (_b_) Military--Castles 125
23. Architecture: (_c_) Domestic and Monastic 128
24. Communications--Roads, Railways 132
25. Administration and Divisions, Ancient and Modern 135
26. Roll of Honour 140
27. The Chief Towns and Villages of Cornwall 148
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Luxulyan Village 3
Dozmare Pool 4
The Tamar, near Calstock 6
Grimsby Channel and Eastern Islands, Scilly 8
Bodmin 9
Rough Tor 11
St Keyne's Well, Liskeard 12
On the Camel 13
Wadebridge 15
Royal Albert Bridge, Saltash 16
The Cheesewring 24
In a Cornish Garden 29
Bude Breakwater 32
King Arthur's Castle, Tintagel 34
Bodruthan Steps 36
Newquay Harbour 37
The Wharf, St Ives 39
Land's End 41
Newlyn Pier 42
St Michael's Mount 43
Kynance Cove and the Lizard 45
Mullion Cove 47
Falmouth, from Flushing 48
Polperro 49
Looe 50
Perranporth Rocks 54
Round Island, Scilly 58
The Longships Lighthouse 59
Eddystone Lighthouse 60
Miners: Camborne 70
"First and Last House," Land's End 73
Flower Farming, Scilly 77
Poldhu Hotel and the Marconi Station 79
King Edward Mine, Camborne 81
China Clay Quarries, Porthpean 84
Delabole Slate Quarries 86
Shipping Slate, Port Gavin 87
Pilchard Boats, Mevagissey 89
The Huers' House, Newquay 91
Pilchard Boats, St Ives Harbour 93
Landing Fish, Newlyn 94
The St Vincent's Anchor, Falmouth 95
The Nine Maidens, St Columb Major 99
St Mawes, Falmouth Harbour 105
Lanyon Cromlech 108
The Merry Maidens, St Buryan 109
St Cleer: Monument to Doniert, son of Caradoc, died
A.D. 872. 112
Mawgan Cross 113
St Buryan Cross 114
Buried Church, Perranporth 117
Norman Doorway, St Germans Church 118
Tympanum, Egloskerry Church 119
Lanteglos Church 120
Launceston Church 121
Landewednack Church 123
Dupath Well, Callington 124
St Mawes Castle 127
Cothele 130
The Old Post Office, Tintagel 132
A Cornish Stile 134
The Old Guildhall and Pillory, Looe 138
Captain Bligh 141
Sir Humphry Davy 143
John Opie 146
Fowey 150
Helston from Bullock Lane 151
Launceston 152
Looe 153
Cross in Churchyard, St Columb 156
Truro 158
Diagrams 160
MAPS
Cornwall, Topographical Front Cover
" Geological Back Cover
England and Wales, showing Annual Rainfall 63
The illustrations on pp. 3, 4, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 24, 32, 36, 37,
39, 41, 42, 47, 48, 49, 50, 54, 59, 60, 70, 73, 79, 81, 84, 86, 89, 91,
93, 95, 99, 105, 112, 113, 114, 117, 118, 120, 121, 123, 127, 138, 150,
151, 152, 153, 156, 158 are from photographs supplied by Messrs F. Frith
& Co.; those on pp. 8, 43, 45, 58, 77, 94, 108, 109, 134 by Messrs
Preston, Penzance; those on pp. 141, 146 by Mr Emery Walker, and those
on pp. 6, 29, 34, 87, 119, 124, 130, 132 by Messrs Hayman & Son,
Launceston.
=1. County and Shire. Meaning of the word.=
If we take a map of England and contrast it with a map of the United
States, perhaps one of the first things we shall notice is the
dissimilarity of the arbitrary divisions of land of which the countries
are composed. In America the rigidly straight boundaries and rectangular
shape of the majority of the States strike the eye at once; in England
our wonder is rather how the boundaries have come to be so tortuous and
complicated--to such a degree, indeed, that until recently many counties
had outlying islands, as it were, within their neighbours' territory. We
may guess at once that the conditions under which the divisions arose
cannot have been the same, and that while in America these formal square
blocks of land, like vast allotment gardens, were probably the creation
of a central authority, and portioned off much about the same time; the
divisions we find in England own no such simple origin. Our guess would
not have been wrong, for such, in fact, is more or less the case. The
formation of the English counties in many instances was (and is--for
they have altered up to to-day) an affair of slow growth. King Alfred
is credited with having made them, but inaccurately, for some existed
before his time, others not till long after his death, and their origin
was--as their names tell us--of very diverse nature.
Let us turn once more to our map of England. Collectively, we call all
our divisions counties, but not every one of them is accurately thus
described. Cornwall, as we shall see, is not. Some have names complete
in themselves, such as Kent and Sussex, and we find these to be old
English kingdoms with but little alteration either in their boundaries
or their names. To others the terminal _shire_ is appended, which tells
us that they were _shorn_ from a larger domain--_shares_ of Mercia or
Northumbria or some other of the great English kingdoms. The term county
is of Norman introduction,--the domain of a _Comte_ or Count.
Although we use the term county for Cornwall, we should not in accuracy
do so, as just stated, for it is a Duchy, and has been such since March
17, 1337, when Edward of Woodstock, eldest son of King Edward III, was
created Duke of Cornwall. Nor can it be called a shire, for Cornwall was
a territory to itself. In 835 Athelstan drove the Britons across the
Tamar and made that river the boundary between the Briton and the West
Saxon of Devon.
The ancient name of Cornwall and Devon was Totnes, i.e. _Dod-ynys_, "the
projecting island," and the Celtic population was that of the Dumnonii.
It was not till the tenth century that the name Cornweales appears,
signifying the Welsh of the Horn of Britain. The Latin form of Cornwall
is Cornubia. The ancient British settlers in the present department of
Finistère called that portion of Gaul Cornouaille.
=2. General Characteristics.=
On many accounts Cornwall may be regarded as one of the most interesting
counties of England, whether we regard it for its coast scenery, its
products, or its antiquities. It has lain so much out of the main
current of the life of England that it was hardly mixed up with the
politics of the nation till the time of the Civil War.
Its situation, projecting as it does into the sea, by which it is washed
on all sides but one, has naturally caused the natives to take to the
water, and has made Cornwall to be the mother of a hardy breed of
fishermen and sailors. But the county being also rich in mineral wealth
has from an early age caused a large portion of the manhood of the land
to seek their livelihood in mines; and the peculiar conditions of
Cornwall have thus determined the professions of a large proportion of
its males to be either on the water or under ground.
[Illustration: Luxulyan Village]
The interior of the county cannot be regarded as beautiful, consisting
of a backbone of elevated land, wind-swept, and over a large area
covered with mine-ramps and the skeletons of abandoned machine-houses
standing up gaunt amidst the desolation. But the valleys are always
beautiful, and the Bodmin moors, if not so lofty and broken as
Dartmoor, are yet fine, and Brown Willy, Rough Tor, and Kilmar are
really noble tors.
On the Bodmin moors is Dozmare Pool, the only lake, excepting Loe Pool,
that exists in Cornwall. It is small and shallow. There were others
formerly, now encroached on or smothered by morass.
[Illustration: Dozmare Pool]
In Cornwall it is quite possible to take a stride from the richest
vegetation into the abomination of desolation. It has been said in
mockery that Cornwall does not grow wood enough to make coffins for the
people. The old timber was cut down to supply the furnaces for smelting
tin, and it is true that there is not in Cornwall as magnificent timber
as may be seen in other counties, but the valleys are everywhere well
wooded, and the Cornish elm, that grows almost like a trimmed poplar,
stands up lank above the lower trees and coppice.
=3. Size, Shape, Boundaries.=
Cornwall bears a certain resemblance to Italy, each is like a leg or
boot, but Italy stands a-tiptoe to the south, whereas Cornwall is thrust
out to the west. But, whereas Italy is kicking Sicily as a football,
Cornwall has but the shattered group of the Scilly Isles at its toe.
It touches but one other county, Devonshire, on the east; on all other
sides it is washed by the sea, the Atlantic on the north and the English
Channel on the south. The heel is the curious projection of the Lizard,
and the toe is Land's End. On the east the river Tamar forms mainly the
boundary between itself and Devon, except just north of Launceston,
where a small portion of Devonshire juts into Cornwall, bounded on the
south by the river Attery, and comprising the parishes of North
Petherwin and Werrington. This is due to the land in these parishes
having belonged to the Abbey of Tavistock, and the monks desiring to
have all their lands comprised in one county. The area of Cornwall is
886,384 acres, or 1385 square miles.
[Illustration: The Tamar, near Calstock]
It is the most westerly county in England, and also the most southerly.
Its greatest length from the N.E. corner beyond Morwenstow to the Land's
End is 80 miles; and its greatest breadth between Marsland Mouth and
Rame Head is 46 miles. But it shrinks towards the toe, and between St
Ives' Bay and Mounts Bay it is not five miles across.
The Scilly Isles, situated twenty-five miles S.W. from the Land's End,
are a part of Cornwall, and have an area of 4041 acres. Formerly, a part
of the township of Bridgerule, with 1010 acres on the Devon side of the
Tamar, belonged to Cornwall, but has now been dissevered and annexed to
Devonshire.
The north coast is sadly deficient in harbours. Bude Haven can
accommodate only the smallest vessels, Boscastle is a dangerous creek,
Padstow Harbour is barred by the Doom Bank lying across the entrance,
and there is none other till we reach St Ives' Bay. On the south coast
are Mounts Bay, Falmouth, Charlestown in St Austell Bay, Par, Fowey,
Looe, Cawsand Bay, and the Hamoaze that opens into Plymouth Sound. Of
these only Falmouth Harbour, once the great station for the packet
boats, is good.
The Scilly Isles comprise 145 rocky masses, six only are large islands,
and five only are inhabited. The other inhabited islands about Cornwall
are very small, these are St Michael's Mount and Looe Island. The
promontory of Lleyn in Cardiganshire presents a curious resemblance to
Cornwall, and as Cornwall has its detached group of islands in Scilly,
so Lleyn has its Bardsey.
[Illustration: Grimsby Channel and Eastern Islands, Scilly]
=4. Surface and General Features.=
[Illustration: Bodmin]
To the east and north-east is the large granite mass of the Bodmin
moors. It is these striking granitic masses, here and further west--at
the Land's End, at St Breage, in the district north of Helston, and
again north of St Austell--which form the bolder features of the
county. A remarkable depression lies between Marazion and St Ives' Bay,
utilised by the railway from Hayle to Marazion road. It almost seems as
if the whole of Penwith, the portion west of this trough, had at one
time been an island, with a channel of sea between it and the mainland.
On the other hand, at a remote period there can be no doubt that there
extended far out broad low-lying lands which are now covered by the sea,
for forest beds have been found in Mounts Bay, in Padstow Bay, at St
Columb Major, and elsewhere, showing that there has been a subsidence of
the land. This has given rise to the fable of a drowned realm of
Lyonesse, but this Lyonesse never existed in or near Cornwall; it was
Léon in Brittany. But if there has been subsidence, there has also been
an elevation of the land, as is shown by the raised beaches that can be
traced along the coast. In the south are found flint pebbles in these
raised beaches, showing that the wash at one period was not as now from
west to east, but the reverse. It was from these flint pebbles in the
elevated beaches that prehistoric man in Cornwall obtained the material
for the fabrication of his tools and weapons. The elevation of the land,
which dried up the channel between the Land's End and the mainland,
preceded the depression which sunk the now submerged forests.
To the north of the great granite boss that forms the Bodmin moors a
ridge of cold moors rises, setting its back against the Atlantic and
feeding the rivers that flow south with the rain that pours over it.
Very little can be grown on these heights: they produce a little barley,
but are mainly covered with rushes, coarse grass, and furze bushes. No
considerable heights are reached till we come to Carnmarth and Carn
Brea, each only 700 ft. above the sea. Then there is no distinct height
till we reach Godolphin and Tregonning hills of 560 ft. and 600 ft.
Towards Land's End there are greater heights--700 ft. and a little over,
but this is naught compared with Brown Willy, 1368, and Kilmar, 1297, in
the east. But it must be understood that grand mountain, or even fine
hill scenery is not to be met with in western Cornwall. Its glory is in
its magnificent coast-line; and its beauty is to be found in its lovely
valleys and coombes.
[Illustration: Rough Tor]
The general features of a country depend on its geological structure.
Granite formation, slate rock, sandstone, limestone, chalk--all have
their special characters, unmistakable. When we are among the granites
in the west of England we expect a tent-like shape of hill with a tor of
rock at the summit; the sides strewn with a "clatter" of fallen rock,
and clothed in heather and furze. When we come to the slates, and the
overlying cold clays, we expect little except in the gorges and valleys
cut through the strata by the streams. Of sandstone, or of chalk,
forming breezy rolling downs, there is none in Cornwall, nor of
limestone with its bold scars, such as are met with in the western
hills of Yorkshire. We must take what we can find--and much can be found
in Cornwall if we do not expect too much, nor look for what is not
there, and under existing geological conditions could not be there.
[Illustration: St Keyne's Well, Liskeard]
=5. Watershed, Rivers.=
From what has been already said, it will be seen that the great spinal
column of Cornwall is in the north and that consequently the principal
rivers must flow to the south. It is true that the Camel and its
tributaries rise in the north and flow north to debouch into Padstow
estuary, but that is the only river of the smallest consequence that
directly feeds the Atlantic.
[Illustration: On the Camel]
The Camel rises in the wind-swept, sodden, clay land above Boscastle,
and dribbles down to Camelford, passing under Slaughter Bridge and the
stone of LATEINOS which traditionally mark the scene of King Arthur's
last fight and death. After leaving Camelford, it plunges through a
beautiful wooded valley, under Helsbury Castle occupying a bleak conical
hill--a castle of the Dukes of Cornwall, but consisting only of a stone
camp of prehistoric date and a ruined chapel in the midst dedicated to
St Sith or Itha, an Irish saint. It passes Lavethan, a hospitium of the
monks of Bodmin, and between wooded banks through Pencarrow and Dunmeer
woods, and having run south, it now turns north to meet and mingle
waters with the Allan, which has cleft for itself a very similar and
equally beautiful valley. The Allan rises near the slate quarries of
Delabole, and glides down by St Teath, and by St Mabyn on its bleak
stormbeaten height, itself snug between beautiful hanging woods and with
sweet old-world manor houses clustering near, and meets the Camel at
Egloshayle. Thence they flow away into the Padstow estuary under the old
15th century bridge at Wadebridge, past the Camelot of legend--the only
streams of any consequence that flow north.
With regard to the Tamar, we may call it as we please a Devonshire or a
Cornish river. It divides the counties through the principal part of its
course, but it has its source in Morwenstow, on a wretched moor, in
Cornwall. Not much can be said in its favour till it reaches Bridgerule.
From that point past North Tamerton (and Vacey, which although on the
left bank was included in Cornwall, and has two formidable earthworks)
it glides down to Werrington, where it meets the waters of the Attery
and passes under Polson Bridge within sight of Launceston. Thenceforth
the Tamar is in the full bloom of beauty. Carthamartha (Caer Tamar)
stands at its junction with the Inny. Below Polson Bridge it has
accepted the Lyd from Devon. Then through the lands and woods of the
Duke of Bedford at lovely Endsleigh, under the bold crags of Morwell, up
to which the tide reaches, then past Calstock and Cothele, and in
serpentine writhes about Pentillie Castle, and so into the Hamoaze--the
most beautiful river in England, excepting possibly the Wye.
[Illustration: Wadebridge]
The Inny, one of the feeders of the Tamar and altogether Cornish, must
not be omitted, for it is a beautiful stream. It rises in the elevated
land by Davidstowe and ripples down near Altarnon, passing in a
picturesque valley the Holy Well and chapel of St Clether and the
ancestral seat of the Trevelyan family at Basil; then, still in its
beautiful valley, past Polyphant, famous for its quarries of a stone
that admits of the most delicate carving, until it reaches the Tamar at
Innyfoot. It is a river rich in trout. An old Cornish song of the
Altarnon volunteer has the verse:
O Altarnon! O Altarnon! I ne'er shall see thee more,
Nor hear the sweet bells ringing, nor stand in the church door,
Nor hear the birds a-whistling, nor in the Inny stream
See silver trout glance by me, as thoughts glance by in dream.
It is not however the Inny but a tributary that actually passes
Altarnon.
[Illustration: Royal Albert Bridge, Saltash]
The Lynher falls into the Hamoaze, running for much of its course
parallel to the Inny. It rises in the Bodmin moors and flows through the
beautiful grounds of Trebartha where it receives a feeder from Trewartha
marsh that leaps to meet it in a pretty cascade. Trewartha marsh has
been turned over and over for tin and gold, and the Squire of Trebartha
formerly furnished his daughters with gold rings made from the precious
ore found in it. A curious settlement of the Celtic period exists above
the marsh. It has however been much mutilated by farmers, who have
carried off the stones for the construction of pigstyes. The Lynher
flows through the park of the Earl of St Germans, past the beautiful
church with its Norman west front, and then is lost in the united waters
of the Tamar and the Tavy.
Under Brown Willy is a pool called Fowey Well, which is traditionally
held to be the source of the Fowey river. This however is not the case.
It rises under Buttern Hill (1135 ft.) crowned by cairns, but as the
Fowey Well has no outlet visible, it is supposed to decant by a
subterranean stream into the river. Leaping down from the moors, the
Fowey enters a wooded valley and, turning abruptly west, flows through
another well timbered valley. Running beside the railway, and then
turning sharply south, it passes the old Stannery town of Lostwithiel,
to which the tide reaches, and plunging into a narrow glen with St
Winnow on one side and Golant on the other, finally reaches the sea at
Fowey harbour.
There are two Looe rivers, one rising in the Bodmin moors receives the
overflow of Dozmare Pool, and flowing deep below Liskeard receives the
West Looe above the estuary. Duloe, which has a small but interesting
circle of upright stones, stands between them and is supposed to be so
called as between the two Looes. Before reaching Duloe the river has
passed under St Keyne, famous for its Holy Well commemorated by Southey
in a well-known ballad.
There is no river of any importance till we reach the Fal. Rising on
Goss Moor, not far from St Columb, and passing Grampound and Tregony,
now an utterly decayed place, it meets the Tressilian and the Truro
rivers, and all three, insignificant hitherto, suddenly acquire
importance and spread out into the beautiful estuary of the Fal or
Carrick Roads. Here are Penryn creek, Mylor creek, and Porthcuel
harbour, commanded by the castle of St Mawes. None of these owe their
importance to the sweet waters they bring down; all their value is due
to the tide that flows up to Truro.
The entrance to the Roads is found between Zoze Point and Pendennis
Point, the latter at one time defended by a strong castle. Almost
halfway between the points is the dangerous Black Rock, to which a
former Trefusis conveyed his wife and there left her to be overwhelmed
by the rising tide. Happily she was rescued by some fishermen. The
Helford river is but a creek, noted for its oyster beds, into which a
little stream dribbles.
=6. Geology and Soil.=
By Geology we mean the study of the rocks, and we must at the outset
explain that the term _rock_ is used by the geologist without any
reference to the hardness or compactness of the material to which the
name is applied; thus he speaks of loose sand as a rock equally with a
hard substance like granite.
Rocks are of two kinds, (1) those laid down mostly under water, (2)
those due to the action of fire.
The first kind may be compared to sheets of paper one over the other.
These sheets are called _beds_, and such beds are usually formed of sand
(often containing pebbles), mud or clay, and limestone, or mixtures of
these materials. They are laid down as flat or nearly flat sheets, but
may afterwards be tilted as the result of movement of the earth's crust,
just as you may tilt sheets of paper, folding them into arches and
troughs, by compressing their ends. Again, we may find the tops of the
folds so produced wasted away as the result of the wearing action of
rivers, glaciers, and sea-waves upon them, as you might cut off the tops
of the folds of the paper with a pair of shears. This has happened with
the ancient beds forming parts of the earth's crust, and we therefore
often find them tilted, with the upper parts removed.
The other kinds of rocks are known as igneous rocks, which have been
melted under the action of heat and become solid on cooling. When in the
molten state they have been poured out at the surface as the lava of
volcanoes, or have been forced into other rocks and cooled in the cracks
and other places of weakness. Much material is also thrown out of
volcanoes as volcanic ash and dust, and is piled up on the sides of the
volcano. Such ashy material may be arranged in beds, so that it partakes
to some extent of the qualities of the two great rock groups.
The production of beds is of great importance to geologists, for by
means of these beds we can classify the rocks according to age. If we
take two sheets of paper, and lay one on the top of the other on a
table, the upper one has been laid down after the other. Similarly with
two beds, the upper is also the newer, and the newer will remain on the
top after earth-movements, save in very exceptional cases which need not
be regarded by us here, and for general purposes we may regard any bed
or set of beds resting on any other in our own country as being the
newer bed or set.
The movements which affect beds may occur at different times. One set of
beds may be laid down flat, then thrown into folds by movement, the tops
of the beds worn off, and another set of beds laid down upon the worn
surface of the older beds, the edges of which will abut against the
oldest of the new set of flatly deposited beds, which latter may in turn
undergo disturbance and renewal of their upper portions.
NAMES OF SUBDIVISIONS CHARACTERS OF ROCKS
SYSTEMS
{ { Metal Age Deposits }
{ Recent { Neolithic " } Superficial Deposits
{ Pleistocene { Palaeolithic " }
{ { Glacial " }
{
{ { Cromer Series }
T { { Weybourne Crag }
E { Pliocene { Chillesford and Norwich } Sands chiefly
R { { Crags }
T { { Red and Walton Crags }
I { { Coralline Crag }
A {
R { Miocene Absent from Britain
Y {
{ { Fluviomarine Beds of }
{ { Hampshire }
{ { Bagshot Beds }
{ Eocene { London Clay } Clays and Sands chiefly
{ { Oldhaven Beds, Woolwich }
{ { and Reading Groups }
{ { Thanet Sands }
{ { Chalk }
{ { Upper Greensand and Gault} Chalk at top
{ Cretaceous { Lower Greensand } Sandstones, Mud and
{ { Weald Clay } Clays below
{ { Hastings Sands }
{
{ { Purbeck Beds }
S { { Portland Beds }
E { { Kimmeridge Clay }
C { { Corallian Beds }
O { { Oxford Clay and } Shales, Sandstones and
N { { Kellaways Rock } Oolitic Limestones
D { Jurassic { Cornbrash }
A { { Forest Marble }
R { { Great Oolite with }
Y { { Stonesfield Slate }
{ { Inferior Oolite }
{ { Lias--Upper, Middle, }
{ { and Lower }
{
{ { Rhaetic }
{ { Keuper Marls }
{ { Keuper Sandstone } Red Sandstones and
{ Triassic { Upper Bunter Sandstone } Marls, Gypsum and Salt
{ { Banter Pebble Beds }
{ { Lower Bunter Sandstone }
{ { Magnesian Limestone and }
{ { Sandstone } Red Sandstones and
{ Permian { Marl Slate } Magnesian Limestone
{ { Lower Permian Sandstone }
{
{ { Coal Measures } Sandstones, Shales and
{ { Millstone Grit } Coals at top
{ Carboniferous { Mountain Limestone } Sandstones in middle
{ { Basal Carboniferous } Limestone and Shales
{ { Rocks } below
{
{ { Upper } Devonian } Red Sandstones,
{ Devonian { Mid } and Old Red } Shales, Slates and
P { { Lower } Sandstone } Limestones
R {
I { { Ludlow Beds } Sandstones, Shales and
M { Silurian { Wenlock Beds } Thin Limestones
A { { Llandovery Beds }
R {
Y { { Caradoc Beds } Shales, Slates,
{ Ordovician { Llandeilo Beds } Sandstones and
{ { Arenig Beds } Thin Limestones
{
{ { Tremadoc Slates }
{ { Lingula Flags } Slates and
{ Cambrian { Menevian Beds } Sandstones
{ { Harlech Grits and }
{ { Llanberis Slates }
{
{ { No definite } Sandstones,
{ Pre-Cambrian { classification } Slates and
{ { yet made } Volcanic Rocks
Again, after the formation of the beds many changes may occur in them.
They may become hardened, pebble-beds being changed into conglomerates,
sands into sandstones, muds and clays into mudstones and shales, soft
deposits of lime into limestone, and loose volcanic ashes into
exceedingly hard rocks. They may also become cracked, and the cracks are
often very regular, running in two directions at right angles one to the
other. Such cracks are known as _joints_, and the joints are very
important in affecting the physical geography of a district. Then, as
the result of great pressure applied sideways, the rocks may be so
changed that they can be split into thin slabs, which usually, though
not necessarily, split along planes standing at high angles to the
horizontal. Rocks affected in this way are known as _slates_.
If we could flatten out all the beds of England, and arrange them one
over the other and bore a shaft through them, we should see them on the
sides of the shaft, the newest appearing at the top and the oldest at
the bottom, as shown in the table. Such a shaft would have a depth of
between 10,000 and 20,000 feet. The strata beds are divided into three
great groups called Primary or Palaeozoic, Secondary or Mesozoic, and
Tertiary or Cainozoic, and the lowest Primary rocks are the oldest rocks
of Britain, which form as it were the foundation stones on which the
other rocks rest. These may be spoken of as the Pre-Cambrian rocks. The
three great groups are divided into minor divisions known as systems.
The names of these systems are arranged in order in the table and on the
right hand side the general characters of the rocks of each system are
stated.
With these preliminary remarks we may now proceed to a brief account of
the geology of the county.
[Illustration: SECTION FROM SNOWDON TO HARWICH, ABOUT 200 MILES.]
In Cornwall there is a succession of nodes of granite rising to the
surface, a continuation westward of the mass of Dartmoor. It has surged
to the surface in four large masses continued westward by the Scilly
Isles. These granitic masses have upheaved the superincumbent beds of
stratified rocks, partly melting them. These distinct nodes are: the
Bodmin moors, the St Austell elevation, the Carn Menelez, and the Land's
End district. Smaller masses of granite occur in the double heights of
Godolphin and Tregonning, St Michael's Mount, Carn Brea and Carn Marth,
and Castel-an-Dinas.
[Illustration: The Cheesewring]
The Elvans are dykes of quartz-porphyry which issue from the granite
into the surrounding slates, and are often mistakenly supposed to be a
bastard granite.
The granite in its upheaval has strangely altered and contorted the
superposed beds. There are as well intrusive veins of igneous rocks. In
the Lizard district is serpentine, a compact, tough rock often of a
green colour, lending itself to a high polish, and forming magnificent
cliffs with a special gloss and colour, as well as maintaining on the
surface a special flora.
The prime feature in Cornish geology is the upheaval of the granite,
distorting, folding back, and altering the superincumbent beds.
In the north-east of Cornwall from a line drawn from below Launceston,
on the Tamar, to Boscastle the rocks belong to the culm measures of
North Devon. All the rest of the peninsula, except the protruding
granite and the serpentine of the Lizard, pertains to the Devonian
series of sedimentary rocks, in which the first signs of life appear;
consisting largely of clay-slate, locally known as Killas, alternating
with beds of red or grey grit and sandstone. Although these slaty rocks
must be some thousand feet in thickness, they have been so broken up and
turned over by the convulsions of the earth that their chronological
sequence cannot easily be determined. In these convulsions they have
been rent, and through the rents have been driven hot blasts that have
deposited crystalline veins, or injections of trap and other volcanic
matter, altering the character of the rock through which they have been
driven. By the Menheniot Station on the G.W.R. is a hill of serpentine
thrown up at one jet, and now largely quarried for the sake of the
roads.
The culm measures already alluded to consist of black shales and slates
with seams of grit and chert, much undulated through enormous lateral
pressure. The granite, the lowest and most ancient formation of all, was
itself consolidated under vast pressure from above, and was not in a
molten condition when forced to the surface. Had it been so, it would
have resolved itself into lava. It was cold when upheaved, tearing apart
the superincumbent stratified sedimentary rocks, which disappeared from
the summits, and on all sides about these upheavals were twisted,
contorted, thrown back, and fissured.
Atmospheric effect and natural gravitation is constantly carrying the
soil from the upper land, from the hills into the bottoms, and
consequently it is in the latter that we find the richest land, best
calculated to repay the toil of the agriculturist. On the high moors
there is little depth of so called "meat earth," below which is clay and
grit, hard and unprofitable, commonly called the "calm" or the "deads."
But adjoining the granite is the wash from it of its dissolved felspar,
the china-clay that furnishes the inhabitants of the St Austell district
with a remunerative and ever-growing industry, of which more presently.
=7. Natural History.=
Various facts, which can only shortly be mentioned here, go to show that
the British Isles have not existed as such, and separated from the
Continent, for any great length of geological time. Around our coasts,
for instance, and specially in Cornwall, are in several places remains
of forests now sunk beneath the sea, and only to be seen at extreme low
water. Between England and the Continent the sea is very shallow, and St
Paul's Cathedral might be placed anywhere in the North Sea without
submerging its summit, but a little west of Ireland we soon come to very
deep soundings. Great Britain and Ireland were thus once part of the
Continent and are examples of what geologists call recent continental
islands. But we also have no less certain proof that at some anterior
period they were almost entirely submerged. The fauna and flora thus
being destroyed, the land would have to be restocked with animals and
plants from the Continent when union again took place, the influx of
course coming from the east and south. As, however, it was not long
before separation occurred, not all the continental species could
establish themselves. We should thus expect to find that the parts in
the neighbourhood of the Continent were richer in species and those
furthest off poorer, and this proves to be the case both in plants and
animals. While Britain has fewer species than France or Belgium, Ireland
has still less than Britain.
Small though England may be, she can nevertheless show most striking
differences of fauna and flora in different districts. On the moors of
the north, for example, the heaths and berries underfoot, and the larger
birds of prey and grouse which now and again meet our view offer a
marked contrast to--let us say--the furze-clad chalk downs of Sussex,
where the wheatear and whinchat and the copper butterflies and "blues"
are familiar objects. These differences depend upon a number of
conditions, often mutually interdependent--upon variations of soil,
rainfall, temperature, and so forth. Cornwall presents unusual
peculiarities in many ways, and we may now consider how far these have
affected the creatures and plants within her borders.
Firstly, Cornwall is remotely situated--one of the extreme points of
Western Europe--and, whether the fact be dependent on food conditions or
not, we find that there are several species of bird, common in other
parts of England, which do not occur within the county, such as the
nightingale, the wood warbler, garden warbler, redstart, and others. It
would almost seem as if some of these species had not found their way
thither since the re-peopling of the land by its present fauna, but were
in gradual process of doing so, for there is no doubt that many birds
rare or unknown in the Duchy half a century ago are now not uncommon,
and appear to be steadily moving westward. That the starling is doing so
is perhaps not remarkable, for this bird has enormously increased in
numbers of late years and has spread everywhere, even up into northern
Scotland, but it is curious that birds like the stock-dove and all the
woodpeckers and other non-gregarious sorts should show this tendency.
[Illustration: In a Cornish Garden]
Next, Cornwall is from its position constantly exposed to high winds,
and to heavy gales in winter, combined with an unusually heavy rainfall
and an "insular" climate tending to warmth and equableness. These
factors, added to the granitic formation of much of its area, have made
it a country of bleak moorland varied with thickly-wooded deep
valleys--dampness being the leading characteristic of both. With such
physical conditions, then, we should expect to find the Duchy not very
varied in its native trees, perhaps, but particularly abundant in ferns,
and this is the case, for 39 species are recorded, while lichens are not
less rich. It bears in many ways a resemblance to the climate of
Portugal, for here the camellia flourishes and displays its beautiful
flowers to perfection, and the tea plant does so well that there seems
no reason why it should not be grown for profit. It is not a land of
warblers, nor can it show the rich and varied wildfowl fauna of the
Fenlands, but there is no county in England where, in the marshy glens,
woodcocks are more abundant. The moorlands, too, abound in snipe, and at
one time blackgame were common, but the larger birds of prey have for
the most part vanished, though an occasional buzzard may be seen and the
raven is not yet extinct.
Lastly, it is to be noted that Cornwall is the nearest part of England
to America. However difficult it may be of explanation, the fact remains
that the Duchy is very rich in rare birds; so rich, indeed, that their
recorded occurrence cannot by any possibility be merely accidental.
Thus, no less than 24 species have occurred in Cornwall which have never
been found in Devonshire. But more than this, a very large number of
these--18 or more--are purely American species. The question is, whence
do they come? Professor James Clark, who has discussed the point at some
length in the _Victoria County History_, is, apparently, loth to believe
that they can come directly across the Atlantic, and it is by many
thought that they are driven back by heavy south-westerly weather when
dropping down the English Channel, having come by a circuitous route
from Northern Europe. But against this is the undeniable fact that it is
in the immediate neighbourhood of the Land's End that the chief rarities
and stragglers are obtained, while many species have been shot in the
Scilly Islands which have never been recorded from Cornwall itself.
So far as its botany is concerned, Cornwall does not differ very
markedly from Devonshire, but it has a large number of rare or peculiar
plants. The highlands and north coast are rather poor in species; it is
on the banks and estuaries of the streams that the richest flora is
seen. A number of foreign plants are found, mostly in the neighbourhood
of Falmouth and other ports. The balsam, _Impatiens Roylei_, from
India, grows extremely abundantly between Liskeard and Looe, and near
Tintagel, and a species of May-weed (_Matricaria discoidea_) has become
a troublesome pest near Falmouth. Loe Pool in the Lizard district is
noticeable for the number of rare and local plants it possesses. The
Scilly Islands own certain plants peculiar to them; thus, _Trifolium
repens_, var. _Townsendi_ and _Ornithopus ebracteatus_ are said not to
be found elsewhere in England, and _Carex ligerica_ only in Norfolk.
The chief feature of the mammals of the county is that the grey seal,
_Halichaerus gryphus_, is quite numerous in the Scilly Islands; that the
polecat, though nearly extinct, is still found; and that both badgers
and otters are very abundant. It is a curious fact that certain
freshwater fish common in other parts of England, such as pike, roach,
chub, and bream, are unknown.
The bird which bears the distinctive appellation, the Cornish chough (it
is not confined to the county, but is also found in Wales), is now not
nearly as common as formerly, but like the raven it still breeds on some
parts of the coast.
=8. Around the Coast. From Morwenstow to Land's End.=
[Illustration: Bude Breakwater]
This noble coast--so terrible to sailors--begins with the fine Henna
Cliff at Morwenstow. Morwenstow Church contains an early font and has
fine Norman arches. Here is Tonacombe, an interesting early Tudor house
quite unspoiled. At Morwenstow lived the Rev. Robert Hawker, a poet and
character. Bude Haven is a growing seaside place, with golf-links and
tolerable bathing. Stratton, of which parish it actually forms or did form
a part, has a fine well-cared for church, and above the town is Stamford
Hill, where was fought a battle in the Civil War, on May 16, 1643. Sir
Bevil Grenville and Hopton commanded the Royalist Army, and the Earl of
Stamford the Parliamentarians. The latter were defeated with the loss of
300 men killed and 1700 taken prisoners. One of the old guns marks the
site, and an inscription in commemoration of the battle is affixed to
the Tree Inn. Widemouth Bay has good sands and promises at some future
day to become a sea-bathing place superior to Bude. At Dazard the cliffs
are fine; at St Gennys is Crackington Cove with a small beach. Beyond
this, High Cliff (705 ft.) is reached, the loftiest headland on the
coast. The coast is magnificent to Boscastle. Near this is Pentargon, a
beautiful bay into which a little stream leaps in a waterfall. Boscastle
is a narrow creek into which only in calm weather can small vessels
enter. It is sheltered by a headland in which is a blow-hole. In a
lovely valley is the towerless church of Minster. In caves about
Willapark seals breed. From hence to Tintagel the cliffs are of slate
and are quarried, the slate being let down into boats in the water, when
weather permits. Before reaching Tintagel we come to St Neighton's
(Nectan's) Kieve, a small waterfall in a glen, where maidenhair fern
once abounded.
Tintagel village is separated from the church by a deep glen. The church
is on a windy height, and is interesting for its antiquity. Tintagel
castle stands on a headland, once an island, but the cliff and a portion
of the castle have fallen into the narrow gulf and choked it. The sea
has bored a tunnel through the headland, and very little of the castle
remains. The walls were of the local slate-stone set in mortar made of
sea-shells. In this castle, traditionally, King Arthur was born. There
are slate quarries in the neighbourhood, and further inland are the
Delabole quarries, from which slate is conveyed to all parts of England.
[Illustration: King Arthur's Castle, Tintagel]
The small Trebarwith Cove is passed and then we reach Port Isaac Bay,
which takes its name, not from the patriarch, but from a Cornish word
that signifies a port for corn.
[Illustration: Bodruthan Steps]
Porthqueen has its pilchard cellars cut out of the rocks; and at the
western end of its bay Pentire Head stands out boldly into the Atlantic
with a cliff castle at its extreme point. Pentire to some extent
shelters Padstow Bay, but the entrance to the harbour is made dangerous
by the Doom Bar lying across it. Here the rounded, sand-powdered Bray
Hill is supposed to have buried under the drift sand the remains of a
Roman town, but that there was such a Roman settlement is very doubtful.
Further inland is the church of St Enodoc recently dug out of the sand,
and the path to the porch has singular "Lord's Measures" that have been
collected and are here planted. They were measures for grain. Of Padstow
something shall be said elsewhere. Before reaching Trevose Head is
Harlyn Bay, where from under the sand has been dug out a cemetery of the
iron age, the skeletons crouching with their chins to their knees, in
slate kists or coffins, with bronze ornaments, glass and amber beads,
and iron instruments. Here also by the falling of the earth or sand some
gold ornaments of the Celtic period were laid bare. On Trevose Head is a
lighthouse. In Constantine Bay are the remains of a church half buried
in sand, and with bones strewn about it. The font from this abandoned
church has been transferred to St Merryn. It is of black Catacluse
stone, as are the piers and arches of the church, giving it a sombre
look. Passing the little Porthcothan we come to the noble cliffs of
Bodruthan Steps, perhaps the finest bit of the north-coast scenery, and
then reach Mawgan Porth, the estuary of the tiny stream that waters
the vale of Lanherne. Here is the ancient mansion of the Arundells,
dating from 1580, granted by Lord Arundell to Carmelite nuns, who came
to England, at the outbreak of the French Revolution, in 1794. They have
remained here ever since in seclusion. Near the door into their chapel
is an old cross with inscription and interlaced work. The church has a
beautifully proportioned tower, a good rood-screen, and many monuments
of the Arundells, as well as a remarkable Gothic cross. A grove of
Cornish elms like whips occupies the bottom of the valley. The church
and parish are St Mawgan in Pyder.
[Illustration: Newquay Harbour]
Newquay with its sands is a rapidly growing watering-place, with staring
hotels. Crantock church, which once had its canons, is interesting; it
has been carefully restored and has a fine rood-screen and loft. On the
stalls is carved a dove with a chip of wood in its beak, and the story
goes that St Carantoc--who assisted St Patrick in drawing up the Senchus
Môr, the code of laws for Christian Ireland--was guided to the site for
his church by seeing a dove carry off the shavings of his staff which he
was cutting. Perran Bay has sent its sands flying inland, causing a
widespread extent of _towans_ or dunes, which have overwhelmed first of
all the old church of St Piran or Cieran of Saighir in Ireland, who was
buried in it, and then a second church built further inland, which also
in turn had to be abandoned. These sand-dunes are a rabbit warren. The
old church of St Piran, extremely rude in construction, has been
excavated, but the only carved work found has been removed to the museum
at Truro. The church resembles one of the early Christian chapels in
Ireland. Bones are scattered about around it.
St Agnes--or St Aun's Head as it is locally termed--is but 617 ft. high,
but it stands boldly above the sea.
Portreath is a busy little place to which coal-barges come from Cardiff
with coal for the Camborne and Redruth mines. Tehidy Park, which stands
above it, is an old seat of the Bassets. After passing Navax Point the
broad Bay of St Ives opens out, with a lighthouse at each horn, and here
again begin the towans or sand-dunes. Hayle is at the mouth of a small
stream of the same name, and signifies "saltings." We come now to the
town of St Ives, with an interesting church and an old cross. St Ives
till about 1410 was but a tiny fishing village and was in the parish of
Lelant. Perkin Warbeck landed near here in 1497.
Near this is the Knill monument erected in 1782 by the eccentric John
Knill, who left money for an annual procession to it, and a dance of
children around it. He intended it to have been his mausoleum, but he
died and was buried in London.
[Illustration: The Wharf, St Ives]
Zennor has a curious little church with carved bench ends, on one of
which is represented a mermaid, and Zennor "quoit" is thought to be the
largest cromlech in England.
The Gurnard's Head has sheer cliffs on east and west, composed of slaty
felspar, horneblende and greenstone, whereas the rocks of Zennor are of
granite and slate in juxtaposition, and with dykes of granite
penetrating the slate. Hills of rock and heather and furze bend round
in a crescent terminating on one side at Carnminnis, on the other at
Carn Galva, enclosing a great basin that reaches to the cliffs. On the
isthmus connecting the headland with the mainland is a ruined chapel,
with the altar-stone entire. Three miles westward is Morvah with the
interesting Chûn Castle above it, of rude stone forming three concentric
rings, and not far off is Chûn cromlech.
We come now to Botallack with its famous mine, carried to a depth of a
thousand feet and extending a considerable distance under the sea. In
time of storm the booming of the waves overhead and the clashing of
stones rolled by the billows is so great that the bravest miners are
driven from their work. Tin mining is now but languidly carried on.
Although the heights are not great, yet this portion of coast is
remarkably fine.
Cape Cornwall exhibits the junction of the slate with the granite. Here
also extensive mining has been carried on, and Boswedden, like
Botallack, burrowed far under the sea. Near the church of St Just is one
of the circles or amphitheatres in which miracle plays were performed.
The "Merry Maidens" is a prehistoric stone circle in the neighbourhood
with ten stones erect and five fallen.
Whitesand Bay enjoys some slight shelter from the S. and E. winds. It is
said that this bay was the landing-place of Athelstan after his conquest
of Scilly, of King Stephen in 1135, and of King John when he returned
from Ireland. In Sennen Cove is a cluster of fishermen's cottages.
Land's End is the end of Penwith, the "chief headland," and the Bolerium
of the ancients. It commands a magnificent view, extending to Cape
Cornwall over Whitesand Bay, of the Longships rocks with their
lighthouse, and in clear weather of the Scilly Isles. The Wolf
lighthouse is planted on a dangerous rock of felspathic porphyry some
eight miles S.W. from the shore. The Land's End bristles with sharp
fangs of rock, and somewhat resembles the back of an alligator.
[Illustration: Land's End]
=9. Around the Coast. From Land's End to Rame Head.=
The south coast-line of Cornwall presents a great contrast to that of
the north, except for the portion from the Land's End to Mounts Bay and
the Lizard. We have no more the wind-swept background of heights,
barren and often tortured by miners, turned into a waste of heaps of
rubble and studded with ruined engine-houses. We find instead a gentler
sea-board, pierced by long estuaries, and with valleys of rich
vegetation running down to the sea. We speedily leave the granite and
the culm measures, and are among the rocks of the Devonian series, less
stern and forbidding in colour. In St Levan parish at Trereen Point is
the Logan Rock, a block of granite weighing over 65 tons, once so nicely
balanced that it could be made to rock by the finger of a child. In 1874
a young naval officer, with the assistance of a boat's crew, upset it.
This raised a storm of indignation in Cornwall, and the Admiralty
ordered him to replace it, which he did, at great expense.
[Illustration: Newlyn Pier]
Mousehole is a village of fishermen and boatmen, and was the residence
of Dolly Pentreath, the last person in Cornwall who spoke the Cornish
language, as also of some of the unfortunate sailors who joined Captain
Allan Gardner in 1850 in his ill-fated missionary expedition to South
America. All the members of the mission died of starvation in Tierra del
Fuego.
[Illustration: St Michael's Mount]
Newlyn has become noted as a place of residence of a school of artists.
It is on the wide and beautiful Mounts Bay over against St Michael's
Mount.
[Illustration: Kynance Cove and the Lizard]
Penzance ("the Holy Head") has become a great resort of residents for
the winter, owing to the mildness of the climate. Marazion or Market Jew
does not derive its name from "the Bitter Waters of Zion" as has been
absurdly asserted; Marazion has the same significance as Market Jeu
(i.e. Jeudi), Thursday Market. Here is a submerged forest. St Michael's
Mount is a rock that rises out of the sands and can be reached, when the
tide falls, by a causeway. It is incomparably inferior both in elevation
and in the dignity of the buildings that crown it to the Mont St Michel
in Normandy, but is nevertheless a picturesque adjunct to the scene.
Some writers suppose that it is the Ictis to which the natives conveyed
the tin and trafficked with the Phoenicians, but it is totally unsuited
by nature to serve as a market-site, and there is no certain evidence
that the Phoenicians ever came to Cornwall. About Marazion daffodils,
narcissus, and violets are cultivated largely for the London market. At
Perran Uthnoe the cliffs again appear, and we reach Prussia Cove, once
the haunt of smugglers. Inland, Godolphin and Tregonning's granite hills
are conspicuous, and near the coast is Pergersick Castle, a picturesque
ruin of which strange legends are told. Porthleven is a small fishing
village, where the people live on the annual arrival of the pilchards.
Loe Pool is a beautiful sheet of water cut off from the sea by a bar of
sand. It was when standing on this bar, and watching the wreck of a
vessel close in shore when those on the land were unable to communicate
with it, that Henry Trengrouse conceived the idea of a rocket apparatus,
to be not only employed on land, but also to be carried by every ship.
He, of course, met with opposition from the Board of Trade and the
Government, and he spent his life and his fortune in experiments, and in
endeavours to push his apparatus.
[Illustration: Mullion Cove]
We now reach the superb serpentine cliffs of the Lizard with the
beautiful coves of Polurrian, Mullion, and Kynance. At Lizard Point is
one of the most famous of all lighthouses, the departure-point or
landfall of thousands of ships in the course of the year. The peninsula
of the Lizard is interesting, though the land does not rise much above
300 ft., and is monotonous moorland. All its charm is in its coast-line.
The terrible Manacles rocks have been the scene of many a wreck. Helford
river is a creek running up to Gweek in one arm and nearly to
Constantine in another. We now reach Falmouth Bay, into which opens the
Carrick Road. A curious peninsula, Roseland, runs to Zoze Point, where
there is a lighthouse. Portscatho is a small place at the opening of
Gerrans Bay, of which the eastern horn is Nare Point. Carn Beacon is
traditionally held to have been the burial-place of Geraint, King of
Devon and Cornwall. There were more than one of this name. The cairn has
been opened and was found to contain a stone cist of the bronze period,
and not, as tradition said, his golden boat with silver oars. Veryan Bay
between Nare Point and the Dodman has in it no good harbour. Dodman
stands nearly 380 ft. above the sea.
[Illustration: Falmouth, from Flushing]
Mevagissey Bay is a shallow hollow between Chapel Point and Black Head,
the latter crowned by one of the cliff castles found on almost every
headland. Then comes St Austell Bay with that of Tywardreath opening out
of it. Charlestown has latterly become of importance, as from thence
much china-clay is shipped.
We reach now the narrow estuary of the Fowey river, with Fowey town
consisting of one narrow street beside the tidal creek, and with Polruan
on the further shore. The coast now becomes very bold, and Polperro,
five miles beyond, was once a notorious haunt of smugglers.
[Illustration: Polperro]
At Looe, the two rivers bearing the same name fall into a bay, and
seaward stands up Looe Island, crowned by the ruins of a chapel. This
island was also a haunt of smugglers, and it was found necessary to
establish a coastguard station on it to keep them in control. East Looe
and West Looe each sent two members to Parliament before the passing of
the Reform Bill.
[Illustration: Looe]
Between Looe and Rame Head is Whitesand Bay, so called from the
whiteness of the sand. The quicksands have made it dangerous for
bathers, but the cliff scenery is beautiful and romantic. There is a
tiny watering-place at its western end, Downderry. At Tregantle is the
most important of the western defences of Plymouth. A peninsula is
formed by the Lynher river which discharges into the Hamoaze, and the
neck of land between it and the sea is about two miles in breadth.
Tregantle stands 400 ft. above the sea and commands every approach to
Plymouth Sound.
Rame Head projects into the sea from Maker Heights and is the
termination of a range of cliffs from Looe, and from hence a fine view
can be had of the Cornish coast as far as the Lizard.
On the east of Penlee Point is Cawsand Bay, once infested with
smugglers, sheltered by Rame Head from westerly gales. A rock with a
cave in it and a white incrustation is regarded here with some
superstitious reverence, and fishermen throw a few pilchards or herrings
to it as an oblation when returning from fishing.
=10. The Coast--Gains and Losses.=
At a vastly remote period a valley lay between Britain and Gaul--before
ever they were Britain and Gaul--and through this well-wooded valley
flowed a river. The coast-line of Britain then lay from one to two
hundred miles to the west, where is now the great drop in the ocean
depths from 100 fathoms to 300 or 400. Cornwall was a Mesopotamia, a
land between two almost parallel rivers, one occupying the bottom of
what is now the English Channel, the other being the Severn. At that
time the Bristol Channel was another great valley. From Brown Willy to
the Scilly Isles ran a lofty mountain range, towering into the sky, of
which the present Bodmin moors, Carn Brea, Carn Marth, Tregonning Hill,
etc., are but the abraded stumps. Not only were they much higher, but
their present roots stood 300 ft. higher than at present.
Then ensued a sinking of the land, and the Atlantic flowed into the
valley to the south and joined the North Sea; and at the same time the
Bristol Channel was formed. Thus the present coast was approximately
outlined.
At some period shortly after, a vast inundation swept over the land from
the north, and carried down the degraded granite, depositing the tin
beds in the hollows. As early as 1830, Mr Carne noted: "The peculiar
situation in which nearly all the stream tin of Cornwall is found is
highly illustrative of the direction in which the current of the deluge
swept over the surface. All the productive streams are in the valleys
which open to the sea on the southern side of the Cornish peninsula;
whilst most of the richest veins are situated near the northern coast."
The deposit of tin stone, or tin ground, lies directly on the _shelf_,
or primitive surface of rock, and is carried far out in the estuaries,
and overlaid by marine deposits.
In 1828, in Carnon Creek, a cairn was discovered 16 to 18 ft. below the
surface, and that surface 4 to 5 ft. below low water mark. In it was a
crouched skeleton. This shows that there must have been a subsidence of
the land of something like 30 ft. at least since the period when man in
the late stone or early bronze age inhabited Cornwall.
The submarine forests grew on the top of the tin ground. Of these many
have been noted and recorded, not only on the south coast, but on the
north as well. The trees were oak and hazel, alder and elm, but they
never reached a large size.
Above this bed lie the raised beaches, some 40 or 50 ft. above high
water mark. The tin-beds in the Cornish valleys towards the sea do not
exhibit such an upheaval. Generally the raised beach rests on the
original rock, and consists of rolled stones, frequently of large size,
mixed with smaller gravel and sand. The "Head of Rubble," with some
intervening perplexing beds of sand, may be noticed on the coast. This
Head is from 40 to 50 ft. in depth. It is composed of angular fragments
of rock, often large, many of quartz, with no signs of stratification.
The Rubble bed in Cornwall has yielded no organic remains, but elsewhere
in it have been found the bones of the mammoth, elephant, woolly
rhinoceros, reindeer, etc. It was not formed by the disintegration of
the subjacent rocks, but by aqueous transport. It owes its origin to a
powerful force of water, acting violently and rapidly. It caps the
heights, and is not in the valleys where the tin ground has been
deposited. It has not therefore been found to overlie it. It was due to
a sudden and brief overrush of water, and the fragments of stone carried
before the flood did not travel sufficiently far to have their angles
rubbed down.
[Illustration: Perranporth Rocks]
As may well be supposed, the action of the sea on the coast-line has been
affected largely by the character of the rocks against which the waves
have lashed themselves to foam. Where the rocks are of granite or slate,
the tide and the waves have very little effect upon the outline of the
coast; it is in those places where the softer rocks prevail, and where
exposure to the prevalent wind induces breakers of great volume, that
the loss of land by the action of the sea is greatest. In fact, the
tides rarely run beyond one or two miles per hour, except round
headlands, and it is where the rocks are of a yielding character that
the coves and bays are formed. This is not always the case. Where the
sea has found a fault in the rock it will burrow incessantly till it has
bored out for itself a cavern, and the head of this falling in produces
a tiny cove. The hard quartzose and trap rocks of Trevose Head, the
greenstone rocks of Pentire, near Padstow, the hard slates of St Agnes,
the greenstone and hardened schist of the Gurnard's Head, and the
granite of the Land's End, defy the action of wave and tide. But it is
otherwise where, for instance, the Head of Rubble occurs. "In Gerrans
Bay it is plain that the cliffs of Head were at one time much further
out than they are now. The tops of the earthy cliffs are split with
cracks and miniature chasms, showing that great masses are constantly
being detached by atmospheric causes, while the great heaps of earth at
the foot of the cliffs show how for centuries masses of earth have
rolled down from their tops on to the beach below[1]." As to the kingdom
of Lyonesse, which was supposed to extend from the Land's End to beyond
Scilly, it never existed in the historic or prehistoric period. Another
fable that may be dismissed, is that St Michael's Mount was surrounded
by a vast tract of woodland, in which were villages, and where settled
hermits. It did rise above a forest, but that was in a prehistoric
period. But if the sea gains on the land but imperceptibly in one way,
it gains in another on the north coast, by the action of the wind
carrying the sand inland, and overwhelming field after field. It is not
a little curious to mark, nevertheless, how a small dribble of a stream
will arrest the onward march of the sand-dunes.
[1] D.C. Whitley, "The Head of Rubble," in _Journal of the R.
Inst. of Cornwall_, XVII. p. 67.
At Constantine by Padstow as already said the old church is enveloped in
sand-hills, so is that of St Enodoc. The Perran Sands have so encroached
that they extend over a mile and a half inland and have in process of
time swallowed up two churches and a village. The Gear Sands have even
climbed a hill to the height of 300 ft. The Godrevy, Upton and Phillack
towans have moved inland from St Ives' Bay and engulfed the residence of
the ancient kings of Cornwall at Riviere.
The same phenomenon has not taken place in the south, but there the
estuaries have been silted up by the wash from the stream tin works.
Formerly boats could come up to Tregony. Now the Fal is choked with
detritus for miles down. Restronguet creek bore vessels to
Perranarworthal. Now it is completely silted up, only a trickle of water
running down through desolate morasses and flats resulting from the
workings of the miners.
=11. The Coast--Tides, Islands, and Lighthouses.=
Off the mouth of the English Channel the tidal-stream is materially
influenced by the indraft and outset of the channel, and is found to run
northward and eastward with a falling tide at Dover, and southward and
westward with a rising tide at that place. At spring tides the tide
rises in Padstow Bay 22 ft., at Bude a foot higher, at the Lizard only
14-1/2 ft., at Scilly 16 ft. Nowhere on the Cornish coast is there the
enormous rise seen at St Malo, where ordinary tides rise from 23 to 26
ft., and spring tides 48 ft. above low-water mark.
On account of the varying force with which the channel and spring tides
blend south of the Scilly group the stream is incessantly altering, but
north of this towards the Bristol Channel, the stream becomes more
regular, and while the water is ebbing at Dover, it sets northward
turning sharply round Trevose Head into the Bristol Channel, and so when
the tide is flowing at Dover, it is running with equal speed in ebb out
of the channel and along the coast towards Scilly.
[Illustration: Round Island, Scilly]
The Scilly Isles are the sole group of any importance around the coast.
They are situated 40 miles due west from the Lizard Point and 25
west-south-west from the Land's End, and are reached by steamers from
Penzance. There are now but five of the isles inhabited, St Mary's,
Tresco, St Agnes, St Martin's, and Bryher. Formerly Sampson was also
inhabited, but the inhabitants were removed to St Mary's. The total
acreage of the islands is 3560; and the formation is granite. This group
is in fact the rubbed-down stump of the last great peak of the chain
running south-west from Bodmin moors. The heights in the islands are
inconsiderable, but very bold and picturesque scenery is obtained among
the many islets, each of which has its special character. At St Mary's
is a pier built in 1835-8; and a harbour called the Pool for small
craft, while further out between the islands is a good roadstead for
large vessels. The Scilly Isles were noted as a resting-place for
innumerable birds, some very rare, in their annual migrations, but of
late years gun-practice at sea marks has scared a good many away, and
they visit the islands in far fewer numbers than formerly.
[Illustration: The Longships Lighthouse]
The coast of Cornwall is remarkably free of shoals. The only dangerous
sandbank is the Doom Bar at the mouth of the Bay of Padstow; but there
are shallows in Mounts Bay and other places.
[Illustration: Eddystone Lighthouse]
Trinity House, the first general lighthouse and pilotage authority in
the kingdom, was composed of a body of merchants and seamen founded in
1519 by Sir Thomas Speet, controller of the navy, when it was granted a
charter by Henry VIII. Since that period the duty of erecting and
maintaining lighthouses and other sea-marks has been entrusted to the
Corporation by Royal Charter and Acts of Parliament. Trinity House
maintains ten lighthouses about the coast of Cornwall, of which the most
important, besides those of the Scilly Isles, are the Longships, white
and red occulting; the Wolf rock, white and red group flash; the Lizard,
white flash; the Eddystone, white flash.
=12. Climate--Rainfall.=
The climate of a country or district is, briefly, the average weather of
that country or district, and it depends upon various factors, all
mutually interacting--upon the latitude, the temperature, the direction
and strength of the winds, the rainfall, the character of the soil, and
the proximity of the district to the sea.
The differences in the climates of the world depend mainly upon
latitude, but a scarcely less important factor is this proximity to the
sea. Along any great climatic zone there will be found variations in
proportion to this proximity, the extremes being "continental" climates
in the centres of continents far from the oceans, and "insular" climates
in small tracts surrounded by sea. Continental climates show great
differences in seasonal temperatures, the winters tending to be
unusually cold and the summers unusually warm, while the climate of
insular tracts is characterised by equableness and also by greater
dampness. Great Britain possesses, by reason of its position, a
temperate insular climate, but its average annual temperature is much
higher than could be expected from its latitude. The prevalent
south-westerly winds cause a drift of the surface-waters of the Atlantic
towards our shores, and this warm water current, which we know as the
Gulf Stream, is the chief cause of the mildness of our winters.
Most of our weather comes to us from the Atlantic. It would be
impossible here within the limits of a short chapter to discuss fully
the causes which affect or control weather changes. It must suffice to
say that the conditions are in the main either cyclonic or anticyclonic,
which terms may be best explained, perhaps, by comparing the air
currents to a stream of water. In a stream a chain of eddies may often
be seen fringing the more steadily-moving central water. Regarding the
general northeasterly moving air from the Atlantic as such a stream, a
chain of eddies may be developed in a belt parallel with its general
direction. This belt of eddies or cyclones, as they are termed, tends to
shift its position, sometimes passing over our islands, sometimes to the
north or south of them, and it is to this shifting that most of our
weather changes are due. Cyclonic conditions are associated with a
greater or less amount of atmospheric disturbance; anticyclonic with
calms.
The prevalent Atlantic winds largely affect our island in another way,
namely in its rainfall. The air, heavily laden with moisture from its
passage over the ocean, meets with elevated land-tracts directly it
reaches our shores--the moorland of Devon and Cornwall, the Welsh
mountains, or the fells of Cumberland and Westmorland--and blowing up
the rising land-surface, parts with this moisture as rain. To how great
an extent this occurs is best seen by reference to the accompanying map
of the annual rainfall of England, where it will at once be noticed that
the heaviest fall is in the west, and that it decreases with remarkable
regularity until the least fall is reached on our eastern shores. Thus
in 1906, the maximum rainfall for the year occurred at Glaslyn in the
Snowdon district, where 205 inches of rain fell; and the lowest was at
Boyton in Suffolk, with a record of just under 20 inches. These western
highlands, therefore, may not inaptly be compared to an umbrella,
sheltering the country further eastward from the rain.
[Illustration: ENGLAND & WALES ANNUAL RAINFALL]
The above causes, then, are those mainly concerned in influencing the
weather, but there are other and more local factors which often affect
greatly the climate of a place, such, for example, as configuration,
position, and soil. The shelter of a range of hills, a southern aspect,
a sandy soil, will thus produce conditions which may differ greatly from
those of a place--perhaps at no great distance--situated on a wind-swept
northern slope with a cold clay soil.
The character of the climate of a country or district influences, as
everyone knows, both the cultivation of the soil and the products which
it yields, and thus indirectly as well as directly exercises a profound
effect upon Man. The banana-nourished dweller in a tropical island who
has but to tickle the earth with a hoe for it to laugh a harvest is of
different fibre morally and physically from the inhabitant of northern
climes who wins a scanty subsistence from the land at the expense of
unremitting toil. These are extremes; but even within the limits of a
county, perhaps, similar if smaller differences may be noted, and the
man of the plain or the valley is often distinct in type from his fellow
of the hills.
Very minute records of the climate of our island are kept at numerous
stations throughout the country, relating to the temperature, rainfall,
force and direction of the wind, hours of sunshine, cloud conditions,
and so forth, and are duly collected, tabulated, and averaged by the
Meteorological Society. From these we are able to compare and contrast
the climatic conditions in various parts.
Cornwall, being so surrounded by the sea, and so peculiarly under the
influence of the Gulf Stream, may be looked upon as possessing a local
"insular" climate in a marked degree. The south-west wind almost
invariably brings rain and warmth together, for the high cold granitic
moorlands are naturally calculated to arrest these warm airs and chill
them, causing thereby a downfall of the suspended water. But Cornwall
does not enjoy the amount of sun heat to ripen fruit that is obtained on
the east coast of England, and it is exposed to furious gales from the
west. "The gale from the west," says Polwhele, "is here no gentle
zephyr; instead of wafting perfume on its wings, it often brings
devastation." On the north coast every tree that is exposed to it is
dwarfed and bowed like a curling wave, and the foliage in spring is
often cut and browned by the salt spray. Even tombstones in the
churchyards on the heights have to be backed up with masonry, and the
churches are low, as if cowering from the blast. According to a Cornish
proverb: "There falls a shower on every week day, and there are two on a
Sunday." In Scilly, however, there is more sunshine and less rain than
on the mainland. The myrtle, geranium, fuchsia, and hydrangea grow
luxuriantly; the red geranium at Penzance will cover the front of a
house, and palms and other exotics thrive there and at Falmouth. The
fields of narcissus and daffodils cultivated for the market would be
more beautiful if the blooms were not systematically picked before fully
open, to be sent to London. No gardens in England exhibit such a wealth
of exotics as those of Tresco, Carclew, Enys and Penjerrick, and some
others in the district of the Fal estuary, which seems peculiarly
favourable for the growth of sub-tropical species.
In 1906, the mean temperature of England and Wales was 49·3° Fahr.,
while that of Cornwall was 51·2. The mean temperature of England in 1907
was 48·5, of Cornwall 50·6. But there exists a considerable difference
between north and south. At Redruth it was in 1906, 50·1, whereas at
Truro it was nine degrees higher.
The east wind prevails in October and is strong in March, the south-east
in June, the south-west is felt in every month save April, but very
little in December. The west wind is most prevalent in August, least so
in May. The north wind predominates in December and July.
The rainfall chart here given shows that Cornwall lies for the most
part in an area where from 40 to 60 inches are annually recorded, though
a strip of the north coast from St Ives to Padstow and again from
Boscastle to the northern limit of the county shows a fall of less than
40 inches. This is because the uplands have robbed the rainclouds of a
considerable portion of their contents, and accordingly it is on these
high moorlands that we find the greatest rainfall. Thus on the moors
between Launceston and Bodmin from 60 to 80 inches fall, and even this
latter figure is exceeded in the neighbourhood of Rough Tor and Brown
Willy.
From observations taken at the Royal Institution of Cornwall at Truro,
from 1850 to 1881 it appears that the rainiest months are November and
December, and next to them January and July; April and May are the least
rainy.
=13. People--Race, Dialect, Population.=
The original population of Cornwall would seem to have been what is now
commonly called Ivernian, the same as Iberian, the underlying race
everywhere in Western Europe from the western isles of Scotland to
Gibraltar. When the Romans invaded and conquered Spain, they found there
already in the east the Celts and in the west the Iberians, and they
designated the more or less fused population, Celtiberians. So in
Cornwall, there was this dark-haired, dusky-skinned race, and the
Brythons, Celts, of the people of the Dumnonii. There were extensive
settlements by Irish in the Land's End district, the Lizard, and along
the north coast, in 490-510, owing to the expulsion of the Ossorians and
the Bairrche from their lands in Ireland. The Saxon also crossed the
Tamar and peaceably settled in East Cornwall.
The language spoken was Brythonic, akin to, and originally identical
with Welsh and that spoken in Lower Brittany. It was distinct in some
points from the Goidelic of Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Highlands
of Scotland. The main difference was that the _C_ in the latter became
_P_ in the former. Thus _Ken_ or _Cen_ in such names as Kenmare and
Ciaran would in Cornish become Penmare and Piran.
In the reign of Edward I, Cornish was spoken in the south Hams of
Devonshire, but in the sixteenth century it was dying out even in West
Cornwall. Norden, writing in 1580, says: "Of late the Cornish men have
much conformed themselves to the use of the English tongue, and their
English is equal to the beste, especially in the eastern partes.... In
the weste parte of the countrye, in the hundreds of Penwith and Kirrier,
the Cornishe tongue is most in use amongste the inhabitants." At
Menheniot about 1540 the Creed and the Lord's Prayer were first taught
the people in English. In 1678, at Landewednack, the last Cornish sermon
on record was preached. In the reign of George III (1777) died Dolly
Pentreath, the last to speak the language.
Two modern Cornish dialects exist. That in the east very naturally is
assimilated to the Devonshire; but in the west it has formed itself in
comparatively recent times. The more common prefixes of names of places
are:--_Tre_ an enclosure or homestead, _Lan_ also an enclosure for a
church, _Ty_ a dwelling, _Bod_ a habitation, _Chy_ a house, _Pol_ a
pool, _Pen_ a head, _Huel_ or _Wheal_ a mine, _Ros_ a moor, _Men_ a
stone, _B[=a]l_ a mine, _Bos_ is a corruption of _Bod_ and is sometimes
reduced to _Bo_; _Car_ stands for _Caer_ a fortress; _Dun_ has the same
signification. _Burn_ stands for _Bron_ a hill, _Camborne_ should be
_Cambron_, the crooked hill; _Cara_ is _Carreg_ a rock, and this is
often found cut down to _Car_; _Carn_ is a cairn or heap of stones or
mass of rock; _Enys_ or _Innis_ an island or peninsula. _Fenter_
occurring in many combinations is _fenten_ a well or spring; _Goon_ is
the Welsh _Waun_ a grassy down; _Hal_ is a moor, _Parc_ an enclosure,
_Dinas_ a chieftain's castle, _Lis_ a court of justice.
It is possible that certain river names may derive from the original
tongue of the earliest race. Some seem to be more akin to Goidelic than
Brythonic dialect, as _Fal_ (Gaelic _foill_, slow), and _Fowey_ (Gaelic
_fobhaidh_, swift); but there are not sufficient of these to assure us
that the Goidels preceded the Brythons in Cornwall.
In East Cornwall there must have been a considerable influx of Saxon
settlers, for there we light upon such names of places as are compounded
with _ton_ the home-farm, _worth_ and _worthy_ a fortified settlement,
_stoke_, _stow_, _sto_ a stockade, an earthwork surmounted by a defence
of posts; _ham_ a meadow by the waterside. In West Cornwall such names
are few.
[Illustration: Miners: Camborne]
The people are courteous and kindly, and very independent. In South
Africa, whither many thousand miners have migrated, they are not
popular, and are fain to disguise whence they come by pretending to
hail from Furness. The reason is that the Cornish cling together and do
not care to associate with others, and that they lack that breadth of
sympathy which makes men give up their time and devote their energies to
the common good. The Cornish miner cares nothing for the country and for
those among whom he has placed himself, if only in three years he may
have made enough money to return home to his wife and children. He does
not go out to settle, and this explains the lack of interest he has in
what interests and concerns the colony.
The Cornish are a broad-shouldered race, above the average in stature,
and it is stated that west country regiments, when drawn up on parade,
cover a greater space of ground than would those of other counties, the
numbers being equal.
The census of 1901 gives as the population of the administrative county
322,334 persons, of whom 149,937 were males and 172,397 were females.
There had been an increase in the number of males since 1891, and a
decrease in the number of females. Of inhabited houses there were
72,660. The population of Cornwall in 1801 was 192,281, and it went on
increasing steadily to 1861, but from that date it has been as steadily
on the decrease. In military barracks there were 629 officers and men,
in naval barracks 90, and on H.M. ships in home waters 2053; in
workhouses 1308, in prison 75.
In 1901 there were 21,335 marriages, 88,636 births, and 55,790 deaths.
There were 6434 wives whose husbands were absent, either at sea or
mining in South Africa or South America. In agriculture 23,671 were
engaged, in fishing 3734, in mining 13,426; in building and carpentering
9667. Of the 149,937 males enumerated in the county of Cornwall, 128,184
were natives of the county, 8007 had come from Devonshire, and there
were resident in Cornwall 976 foreigners. Of blind there were 447, of
deaf and dumb 163, of lunatics 798, of imbeciles 516.
Whereas the number of people to the square mile in England is 558, that
in Cornwall is only 230.
It must, however, be born in mind that the Administrative County and the
Geographical County are not coextensive. Thus, parts of the Registration
County of Cornwall are in the Administrative County of Devon, such are
Broadwood Widger, Northcott, North Petherwin, St Giles in the Heath,
Virginstow and Werrington, with a total population of 2460 persons; and
on the other hand parts of the Administrative County of Cornwall are in
the Registration County of Devon; these are Calstock and North Tamerton
with a population of 6203 persons.
Thus the population and acreage in 1901 in the Registration County would
be, population 318,591, acreage 886,384, but in the Geographical or
Administrative County the population would be in the same year 322,334
and the acreage 868,208.
=14. Agriculture--Main Cultivations. Stock.=
The lack of hot sunshine makes Cornwall an unsuitable county for
cereals, but the mildness of the climate and the rainfall render it on
the other hand favourable for dairy produce and for stock.
[Illustration: "First and Last House," Land's End]
A recent writer, Mr W.H. Hudson, in his book on the Land's End, thus
describes a Cornish farm. He speaks of the neighbourhood of Penrith, but
the description applies to many other parts of the Duchy, though not to
East Cornwall, where it is scarcely applicable at all, and is precisely
the part where there exists least of the Celtic and most of the English
element. "Life on these small farms is incredibly rough. One may guess
what it is like from the outward aspect of such places. Each, it is
true, has its own individual character, but they are all pretty much
alike in their dreary, naked, and almost squalid appearance. Each, too,
has its own ancient Cornish name, some of them very fine and pretty, but
you are tempted to rename them in your own mind Desolation Farm, Dreary
Farm, Stony Farm, etc. The farmhouse is a small, low place, and
invariably built of granite, with no garden, or bush, or flower about
it. The one I stayed at was a couple of centuries old, but no one had
ever thought of growing anything, even a marigold, to soften its bare,
harsh aspect. The house itself could hardly be distinguished from the
outhouses clustered around it. Several times on coming back to the house
in a hurry, and not exercising proper care, I found I had made for a
wrong door, and got into the cow-house or pig-house, or a shed of some
sort, instead of into the human habitation. The pigs and fowls did not
come in, but were otherwise free to go where they liked. The rooms were
very low; my hair, when I stood erect, just brushed the beams; but the
living room or kitchen was spacious for so small a house, and had the
wide old open fireplace still so common in this part of the country. Any
other form of fireplace would not be suitable where the fuel consists of
furze and turf."
But it must be allowed that the large landed proprietors have everywhere
built commodious, though almost invariably ugly, new farmhouses.
Considering the vast extent of grass land there is in Cornwall, and the
amount of butter, cream, and milk derived therefrom, it has become more
and more clear to thinking farmers that the pasture is becoming
exhausted, its feeding powers worn out, and that they must replenish the
soil with the lime and phosphates that have been taken out of it to
nourish and rear the cattle. The consequence is, that of late years the
more intelligent farmers are largely employing artificial, i.e. chemical
manures, and the results have been most satisfactory. You cannot eat
your cake and have it. If you take so much annually out of the ground
you must put in an equivalent annually, or you exhaust the soil; and
animal manure is not sufficient. In the country a great deal of turf
and furze is burnt, where there is proximity to the moors. The writer
just quoted says: "in some parts of Cornwall they have good peat, called
'pudding turves,' which makes a hot and comparatively lasting fire. In
the Land's End district they have only the turf taken from the surface,
which makes the poorest of all fires, but it has to serve. But to make a
blaze and get any warmth furze was burnt. In a few moments the dry stuff
would ignite and burn with a tremendous hissing and crackling, the
flames springing up to a height of seven or eight feet in the vast
hollow chimney. For a minute or two the whole big room would be almost
too hot, and lit up as by a flash of lightning. Then the roaring flames
would sink and vanish, leaving nothing but a bed of grey ashes, jewelled
with innumerable crimson and yellow sparks, rapidly diminishing."
The total acreage under crops and grass in 1908 was 608,691; of these
356,497 acres were arable land, the rest, 252,194 acres, permanent
grass: 17,120 acres grew wheat, 30,696 barley, and 66,033 oats; 4441
acres grew potatoes, 15,271 turnips and swedes, 11,528 mangold, 8059
rape, and 1658 small fruit. Of small fruit culture just over 621 acres
were devoted to strawberries, nearly 276 to raspberries and nearly 553
to currants and gooseberries. Apples were grown on 4865 acres, cherries
on 199, plums on 182.
The number of horses used for agricultural purposes was 25,706. The
total of horses, colts and unbroken, was 34,821. Of cattle there were
219,890, and of these 59,298 were cows in milk. The total number of
sheep was 410,055, and that of pigs 104,813. Of mountain and heath land
used for grazing there were 71,438 acres. In Cornwall there are 9249
acres of coppice and 22,197 of other woods, but no more than 981 of
plantations. While 548,787 acres are tended by tenants, only 59,904
acres are occupied by the owners. Whereas in Surrey the percentage of
those occupying their own land is 33 per cent., that in Cornwall is 9·7,
in Devon 10·9, and in Hampshire 24·4.
In Cornwall, in 1908, the number of agricultural holders above one acre
but not exceeding five was 2859; of those above five and not exceeding
50, there were 6810. Of those above 50 and not exceeding 300 acres there
were 3682, but of those holding more than 300 acres there were but 118,
whereas in Essex there were 564, in Suffolk 540, in Hampshire 595, in
Wiltshire 660 and in Northumberland 731.
Of late years, especially in the Scilly Isles, flower gardening, the
growth of narcissus, jonquils, daffodils, and various sorts of lilies,
also of violets, anemones, and marguerites, has been carried on with
great success, and the produce is carried by steamer and train to London
and other large towns.
During six months in the year, when and where the flower culture
prevails, it forms the staple of conversation in parsonage, manor house,
farm, and cottage. From January until May men, women, and children are
directly or indirectly engrossed in this one labour. The bulbs are moved
at least once in three or four years. Left longer, they decrease in
size, and become weakly; the flowers also degenerate. A suitable manure
is at hand, the kelp washed up by the sea costing nothing but the labour
of gathering and transporting.
[Illustration: Flower Farming, Scilly]
Anyone standing in a field which is in full bloom and waiting to be
picked over, would think that the men have a hopeless task to face, if
they purpose gathering all their flowers. But they move down the beds
swiftly, snapping the stems, and throwing the flowers into big baskets,
which are carried off to the homestead as they fill, and in an
incredibly short time the beds are thinned. When the baskets are brought
into the farmhouse they are emptied, and if the weather has been wet and
stormy the flowers are packed roughly into pots and pans of every
description, and set on shelves to dry off and assume their proper
colour. If the weather has been fine this preliminary toilet is
dispensed with, and the girls and women bunch and tie at once. Twelve
stems go to a bunch always, and the aim is to arrange the flowers so
that they shall present a compact lozenge shape, crisp and tight.
Varieties are never mixed when tied, the bunches are passed on to
another department, where the uneven stems are sliced off, and the
flowers set in water to await packing.
Packing the flowers is a serious business. The boxes are lined with
paper, little pillows are made for the flowers to rest upon, and then
the bunches are deftly laid, so many this way, so many that, and a few
in the centre, and behold, stems are altogether hidden, and only a mass
of bloom fills the box. The end papers are turned in, a ticket placed on
the top, declaring the variety of flower and the number of bunches; the
cover is nailed down, and the operation is complete.
=15. Industries and Manufactures.=
Cornwall is too far from the coalfields to be a manufacturing county on
a large scale. There are, however, some few industries and manufactures
carried on in Cornwall. The wonderful wireless telegraphy installation
which Mr Marconi has established at Poldhu does not, perhaps, strictly
speaking, come under this head, but it would be impossible to omit
mention of it and of the great services it daily renders to vessels
crossing the Atlantic.
[Illustration: Poldhu Hotel and the Marconi Station]
A considerable industry is in the making of casks, mainly for the
exportation of pilchards. Woollen manufacture is carried on in a small
way, also the construction of mining and other machinery. Shipbuilding
occupies about 870 men. Some brick-making is done, but not to any
considerable extent. The real employments supplying the vast majority of
the people with bread are mining and quarrying, and agriculture and
horticulture.
=16. Minerals and Mining.=
The authentic history of tin-mining in Cornwall begins with the year
1156. It is not mentioned in Domesday, and probably the Conqueror was as
ignorant that tin was to be found there as were the Romans. In the year
above given the tin mines are mentioned in the Pipe Rolls. In 1198
appears a letter from the Warden of the Stannaries to the Justiciar. In
1156 most of the tin was raised on Dartmoor, but the output now began to
rise rapidly. In 1201 King John issued a charter to the Stannaries. In
1305 the Cornish Stannaries were in part dissociated from those in
Devon.
As already stated, in the beds of the valleys running down from the
central ridge are deposits of tin, brought there from the lodes degraded
by weather and flood in the central spinal ridge. The specific gravity
of the tin ore is 6.8, and as the water rolled away from the heights, it
deposited the tin that it had brought away with it. "The ores of tin,"
wrote Pryce in 1776, "are shode and stream ... scattered to some
distance from the parent lode, and consisting of pebbly and smoothly
angular stones of various sizes, from half an ounce to some pounds in
weight. Stream tin is the same as shode but smaller in size and
arenaceous."
[Illustration: King Edward Mine, Camborne]
Polwhele describes an early stream work disclosed about a century ago.
The ore was of the purest kind and contained two-thirds metal. The
pebbles from which the metal was extracted were in size from sand-like
grains to that of a small egg. The depth of the primeval bed was 20 ft.
This appeared to have been worked at a remote period, and before iron
tools were employed, as large pickaxes of oak, holm, and box were found
there. But archaeological research at the period when he wrote was
carried on in such a haphazard way that we cannot trust the reports then
made, and it is quite possible that the workings were comparatively
late, possibly of Mediaeval times.
All the early work was in stream tin. The Cornish tin had this
disadvantage--that it was not pure like the Dartmoor tin, but was so
associated with sulphur that after smelting it had to undergo a second
process, and that a delicate one. It had to be "roasted," to get rid of
the sulphur, for only thus could the tin be made available. Associated
with sulphur it is brittle. We may well doubt whether in early times the
double process was understood. Moreover, we know that when we have the
first notices of tin in the west, it was Dartmoor and not Cornwall which
rendered the largest supply.
Shaft-mining did not come in before 1450, when the stream tin was
exhausted. The use of the adit cannot be traced back beyond the
beginning of the seventeenth century. The only way of draining the mines
was by rag and chain pumps, each consisting of an endless chain,
broadened at intervals by leathern bindings, to fit snugly into a pipe
from 12 to 22 ft. long, worked by a windlass at the surface. To drain a
mine of great depth a series of these pumps was necessary.
When hydraulic draining-engines were first employed is not known, but
even so late as the close of the eighteenth century some mines were
drained by the rag and chain pump worked by 36 men.
Up to the sixteenth century, wooden shovels and picks are known to have
been employed, and shovels were merely iron-shod. There is in the
British Museum a MS. calendar of Haroldstone in S. Wales, of the early
sixteenth century, in which are representations of the works of the
months, and in it the labourers in the fields are shown as using wooden
spades shod with metal.
German mining was carried on upon better principles than the English,
and Sir Francis Godolphin sent for an experienced German engineer to
instruct the miners of Godolphin and Tregonning in the superior systems
employed in Saxony. It was then only that the hydraulic stamps were
introduced.
In 1742 one steam-engine only was found in the county; but speedily
after came a great advance. Savery and Newcomen brought in their steam
pump; that of Newcomen was introduced at Chasewater in 1777.
Notwithstanding that the methods of descent into the mines by a series
of long ladders had been superseded by the man-engine, first introduced
in 1842, it was a long time before the old ladders at different
successive stages were abandoned.
Owing to the introduction of tin from the Straits Settlements, where it
is found in the condition of stream tin and can be easily worked, the
tin mining in Cornwall, necessitating real mining and the following of
lodes, has proved unremunerative and has been abandoned, and now but few
mines are worked for the metal. Another cause has fatally affected
Cornish mining--the fraudulent practice of the promoters of the mines.
It was no uncommon practice for the "captains," when a rich lode was
struck, to cover it up, and follow false lodes, till the investors in
the venture lost heart and refused to advance more money, when the
captains would carry on the work in the real lode, if they could raise
the capital, but this they often failed to do, the mine having fallen
into discredit, or the water having broken in.
But if tin mining be practically dead in Cornwall, another industry has
risen with leaps and bounds. It is that of the china-clay and
china-stone, employed in the manufacture of porcelain, in the sizing of
paper and of cotton materials, in the manufacture of alum, etc. The
glazed paper so largely employed in our illustrated papers is made up
largely with china-clay. Some years ago the Italian government employed
this paper for its official documents, but found that after a few years
under the influence of damp weather the records had dissolved into a
lump of clay.
[Illustration: China Clay Quarries, Porthpean]
China-clay consists of decomposed felspar, quartz and white mica. In
1817 the amount shipped for manufacturing pottery was comparatively
small, but of late years it has grown, and employs over 3000 persons.
The china-clay is the same as the Chinese _Kaolin_; its value was
discovered by a Plymouth Quaker, Mr Cookworthy, in 1745.
Porcelain was introduced into Europe from the East in 1518, when it
acquired the name of China. For a long time it was supposed that the
kaolin or fine white clay of which it is composed, was found only in the
Celestial Empire, and specimens of this brought to Europe fetched a high
price. At the beginning of the eighteenth century it was discovered in
Saxony in an odd way. A merchant named Schnerr, being on a journey, was
struck with the whiteness of some clay near Schneeburg, and collecting
some of it used it for powdering his wig. It succeeded, but had this
disadvantage, that wigs dressed with this new powder were very heavy. An
apothecary named Bötcher noticed the increased weight of the wig,
analysed the powder, and discovered that it was identical with Chinese
kaolin. He began to make Dresden China in 1709, and the process was
carried on with the greatest secrecy, the exportation of the earth being
forbidden under heavy penalties.
In 1748 Cookworthy discovered kaolin on Tregonning Hill, more was found
at Boconnoc, and Cookworthy and Thomas Pett began to make china in 1768.
At present St Austell is the great seat of this industry, and the
produce is shipped at Charlestown and Polmear.
[Illustration: Delabole Slate Quarries]
The important slate-quarries of the Duchy, of which the Delabole
quarry is the most renowned, have already been mentioned.
At Calstock and Gunnislake a few years ago there were numerous miners
engaged in the manufacture of arsenic from the waste product of the
abandoned copper mines. But now this has become an extinct industry.
[Illustration: Shipping Slate, Port Gavin]
Wulfram or tungsten, a metal used as an alloy for hardening steel, was
also a waste product from the tin mines, but it is now utilised. At St
Ives, pitchblende is now being worked for radium.
=17. Fisheries.=
If mining be a decayed industry in Cornwall, that of fishing shows no
diminution. In an old book of natural history published in 1776, the
principal fishery of pilchards is described. "Pilchards appear in vast
shoals off the Cornish coasts about the middle of July, and disappear at
the beginning of winter; though a few of them sometimes return again
after Christmas. The fishing employs a great many men on the sea, and
men, women, and children on land, in salting, pressing, washing, and
cleaning; in making boats, nets, ropes, casks; and all the tradesmen
depending on their construction and sale. The usual quantities exported
each year, for ten years, from 1746 to 1756 inclusive, on the average is
as follows: Fowey has exported 1732 hogsheads annually; Falmouth 14,631;
Penzance and Mounts Bay 12,149; St Ives 1282; in all amounting to 29,795
hogsheads." And the same writer thus describes the fish. "The pilchard
greatly resembles the herring, but differs from it in some particulars;
it is a third less, and the body is proportionably broader: it has a
black spot near the upper corner of the gills, and the belly is not so
sharp. It has no teeth, either in the jaws, the tongue, or the palate."
It is now held that the pilchard is identical with the sardine, but in a
different stage of growth.
The pilchards are taken generally from the middle of August to the
middle of September, when large "schools" are seen coming up the
Channel. Each fishing station generally has two or more companies or
clubs of twenty or thirty men; each company owning various boats and
generally two of the gigantic seines employed, which cost £250 or more.
These nets are about 250 fathoms or more long and about 15 fathoms deep,
and three boats go to each seine. The first boat, which is also the
largest, is called the seine-boat, as it carries the net and seven men
in it; the next is termed the "vollier," or "cock-boat," and carries
another seine, called the tuck-seine, which is 100 fathoms long and 18
deep, this boat also carries seven men; the third boat is called the
"lurker," and contains three or four men, and in this boat is the
master.
[Illustration: Pilchard Boats, Mevagissey]
The pilchards were at one time supposed to come from the Polar Sea, but
it has now been ascertained that the main body retires for the winter
into deep water to the westward of the Scilly Isles. About the middle of
spring they quit the deep seas and begin to consort in small shoals
which gradually increase to the end of July or the beginning of August,
when they combine in one mighty host and begin their migration eastward.
They strike the land a little north of Cape Cornwall, where they break
up into two portions, one following the north coast of Cornwall, the
other the south.
When the shoal is approaching, men and boys who have been lying on the
cliffs doing nothing start into activity and rush to the boats. The
gulls may be seen hovering over the advancing army, and a change appears
in the colour of the water. At once the "huers," as the signallers are
called, get out their signals--a ball at the end of a stick--and proceed
to direct the pursuing boats according to the movements of the school.
The seine-boat leads the way followed by the vollier, and the crew of
the foremost boat pass a warp, that is, throw a rope, which is fixed to
the end of the seine on board the vollier, and then shoot the net
overboard, which, having leaden weights at bottom, sinks, while the top
is buoyed up with corks. The seine-boat is rowed in a circular course
round where the fish are "stoiting" or jumping, and when they have
reached the vollier, the fish are enclosed. They then join the two ends
of the seine together with a cord to prevent the fish from breaking out,
and whilst this is being done a man is engaged in frightening the fish
away from the still open end by means of a stone fastened to a rope.
When the two ends of the net are laced together, grapes, i.e. grapples,
are let down to keep the net expanded and steady till the fish have been
taken up. This latter process is called "tucking the seine." The boat
with the tuck-seine on board passes the warp of that seine to one of the
other boats and then shoots this net within the big seine. It is then
drawn up to the edge of the water, when it is seen to be one quivering
mass of silver. The fish are now taken or dipped out with baskets into
the boats. When the boats are filled, if more fish remain in the large
seine, it is left in the water, till by successive tuckings all the fish
have been removed. In addition to seining large numbers of pilchards are
taken in drift nets.
[Illustration: The Huers' House, Newquay]
Formerly pilchards were smoked, and went by the name of _fumados_,
which name has been corrupted into "fair maids." A not over-complimentary
saying in Cornwall is that "pilchards and women when they are bad
are very bad, and when good are only middling." Pilchards constitute
an important article of food to the poorer classes on the coast, but
doubtless the Cornishmen get very tired of them as an article
of diet. Large quantities are exported to Spain and Italy. Some are made
into "sardines" in oil in the local factories.
A peculiarity of the county is that ecclesiastical dues in the nature of
tithes are levied on the persons employed in the pilchard fisheries.
The number of hogsheads packed for export every year varies
considerably, but the yearly produce averages from 20,000 to 30,000
hogsheads. In certain years the amount has reached nearly 50,000. In
1901 the fishery found employment for 3734 men, in 1905 in Penzance
alone for 1275. Beside pilchards, there are mackerel, hake, cod, etc.
[Illustration: Pilchard Boats, St Ives Harbour]
The quantity of fish taken, other than mackerel, herrings, pilchards,
and sprats in 1905 at Looe was 5841 cwt., at Mevagissey 4893, at
Falmouth 3213, at Porthleven 6132, at Newlyn 37,468. Of mackerel,
herrings and sprats, at Looe 10,403 cwt., at Mevagissey 40,236, at
Falmouth 5991, at Porthleven 26,945, at Newlyn 493,956. The total value
of the fish taken in the year at Looe was £5377, at Mevagissey £13,818,
at Falmouth £17,718, at Porthleven £11,454, at Newlyn £232,466.
Turning to the north coast, in the first category were taken at Sennen 1074
cwt., at St Ives 2431, at Padstow 4051. In the second category, at
Sennen 605 cwt., at St Ives 80,557, at Padstow but 318, at Port Isaac
2526.
The value of the fish taken at Sennen was £2065, at St Ives £39,941, at
Padstow £6660, at Port Isaac £2169.
[Illustration: Landing Fish, Newlyn]
=18. Shipping and Trade.=
There are no great seaports in Cornwall. Falmouth was by far the most
considerable when the packet service ran from it to the West Indies,
Portugal, and New York. The station was established in 1688. In 1705
five packet-boats left it for the West Indies and in 1709 as many for
Lisbon; not till 1755 did two sail for New York, but the number was
increased to four in 1763.
In 1782, eighteen packets sailed from Falmouth for the West Indies and
America. Up to 1823 the packets had sailed under contract between the
General Post Office and the commanders, who received their appointment
from that establishment and engaged to provide, equip, and man a proper
ship for the purpose, for a sum of £1800 per annum. These vessels were
from 180 to 210 tons register. But after 1823 the above system was
changed, for the service was placed under the orders of the Admiralty
instead of the Post Office; and as vessels were wanted they were
supplied by men-of-war.
[Illustration: The St Vincent's Anchor, Falmouth]
In 1827 thirty-nine packets left Falmouth; in 1834 six steamers were
employed. But in 1850 Falmouth ceased altogether to be a packet station.
This was greatly to the detriment of the town. It still remains as a
port of call for outward-bound sailing-ships. Further up the river is
Penryn, which was a town and a port before Falmouth was thought of. The
silting up of the river does not now allow other than small boats and
barges to reach it.
Letters came down on mail coaches, from London through Exeter, by
Launceston to Bodmin, and thence to Truro and Falmouth. The rate
appointed for the coaches, including stoppages, was bound to be thirteen
miles an hour. The mail spun along night and day, without a halt save
for change of horses. The stages on an average were eight miles, and the
horses, four-in-hand, went at a gallop. The guard wore the royal livery
of scarlet, and always had his blunderbus handy, in case of an attempt
by highwaymen to hold up his coach.
Charlestown and Polmear in St Austell Bay are only important for the
trade in china-clay exported thence; Marazion and Penzance, and St
Mary's in Scilly only for the conveyance of flowers to London. But these
ports and such as are on the north coast are convenient as mouths
through which Welsh coal can be imported to feed the cellars and fires
in the peninsula. Pilchards also are exported from these little ports to
Italy and Spain; and anciently a considerable trade was carried on
between them and France, Spain, and Portugal in wine, and a considerable
amount of wine and spirits entered the county through small creeks and
coves, into which smugglers conveyed their kegs. The gentry and
taverners were kept well supplied with liquor that never paid duty.
=19. History.=
The original population of Cornwall was probably Iberic, of the same
primitive race as the dark-haired population of Ireland, before the
island was invaded and subjugated by the Celts.
The branch of the Celts in Britain and Cornwall was Brythonic, and there
is nothing certain to show that the Goidels were in Cornwall before the
Brythons. It is true that some few river names, and again inscriptions
are Irish, but these latter pertain to the settlement in Cornwall of
Irish expelled from Ossory and Wicklow in the fifth century.
Popularly the dark hair and dusky complexions of some of the Cornish is
attributed to Spaniards wrecked from the Armada. But no Spanish wreck
came on shore in Cornwall. The first loss the Armada sustained was east
of Plymouth. On its way back to Spain none of the vessels came near
Cornwall. Several were wrecked on the coast of Ireland and their crews
massacred to a man by the natives.
Posidonius travelled after B.C. 123 and visited Spain, where he
collected a variety of information on points of geography and natural
history, and after spending thirty days at Gades returned to Italy. He
learned among other things something about the collection of tin in
Bolerium, a name afterwards appropriated by Ptolemy to the Land's End.
He says: "The inhabitants of that promontory of Britain which is called
Bolerium are very fond of strangers, and from their intercourse with
foreign merchants are civilised in their manner of life. They prepare
the tin, working very skilfully the earth in which it is produced. The
ground is rocky, but it contains earthy veins, the produce of which is
ground down, smelted, and purified. They make the metal up into slabs
shaped like knuckle-bones, and carry it to a certain island lying in
front of Britain called Ictis. During the ebb of the tide the
intervening space is left dry, and to this place they carry over
abundance of tin in their waggons.... Here then, the merchants buy the
tin from the natives, and carry it over to Gaul; and after travelling
overland for about thirty days, they finally bring their loads on
pack-horses to the outlet of the Rhone." It is very doubtful whether
Posidonius ever visited Britain. What he relates is doubtless due to
information received by him, either at Gades or at Massilia.
According to Timaeus, the contemporary of Pytheas, the isle of Vectis
was six days sail from Britain, "in an inward direction." Vectis, there
can be little doubt, is the Isle of Wight, formerly connected with the
mainland by a ridge of chalk since broken through by the waves. Ancient
mariners coasted, and those who came to Britain for tin followed the
Gallic shore till they could see the white cliffs of Dover, when they
crossed, and coasted down channel to the Isle of Wight.
There is no evidence that the Phoenicians ever visited Cornwall. Nor has
a single relic of Phoenician art or coin been found in Cornwall. The
traders with Britain were the Veneti of the Morbihan, in Brittany.
Moreover, as General Pitt Rivers has pointed out, bronze celts (axe
heads), which have been unearthed in Cornwall, are never found in any
parts where the Phoenicians have been.
It has been assumed with much confidence that Cornwall or the Scilly
Isles must have been the Cassiterides of the ancients. But even this is
doubtful. The Cassiterides were described as lying west of Spain, and
the description applies to the Azores; it may have been due to ignorance
or design that they were represented as islands prolific in tin.
[Illustration: The Nine Maidens, St Columb Major]
That tin was worked in Cornwall from a very early period can hardly be
questioned, in 1823 at Carnon a deer-horn pick was discovered 40 ft.
below the surface, but as a crucifix was also found there 30 ft. below
the surface, this only shows how the creeks have had their floors
turned over and silted up.
Though tin was exported from Cornwall, bronze was not manufactured there
till a comparatively late period. Bronze came from the East, and the
great centre whence radiated the trade in bronze weapons was the basin
of the Po.
What seems to be abundantly clear is that the export of tin from Britain
had come to an end by the first century of the present era. Caesar, on
invading Britain, heard nothing about it, and when Britain was finally
conquered, the Romans who worked the lead mines in the Mendips, and gold
and copper in Wales, totally neglected Cornwall, holding it to be
worthless. They never settled there, only traversed it to the Land's
End, leaving behind them a couple of square camps, some coins, few and
far between, and some Samian ware; but this shows little more than that
a traffic went on between the Britons of Cornwall and the Romans and
Romano-British beyond Exeter. The fact that the Romans had no idea that
tin was to be found in the peninsula shows that the mining for it had
ceased there for some time previous. The Brythonic Celts are held to
have invaded Britain B.C. 300; and it is probable that from that date
the industry in tin mining carried on by the Ivernian natives declined
rapidly and expired, leaving not a tradition behind.
It is noteworthy that the Dumnonii were behind the British peoples in
the east. They had no coinage, whereas those in the south-east had
theirs, copied from a stater of Philip of Macedon. No Greek coins had
reached the Dumnonii, and they had consequently none to copy, however
clumsily.
In the battle of Deorham, 577, the Britons were defeated with great
slaughter, and the West Welsh of Devon and Cornwall were cut off from
further communication with their brethren of Wales. The Saxons steadily
advanced, but for long the Parrett was the boundary. In 823 a battle was
fought between the Saxons and Britons at Gavulford, now Galford, a point
on the old road from Exeter to the west, where the hills draw together,
and whence it is commanded by a huge camp. The Britons now called the
Danes to their aid, and twelve years afterwards a battle was fought on
Hingeston Down, above Calstock, in which Egbert was victorious. This was
in 835. Hitherto the Britons had occupied one portion of Exeter, but
Athelstan, after defeating the Cornish King Howell, not only expelled
them from the city but fixed the Tamar as their boundary. Then he passed
through Cornwall, and even visited the Scilly Isles. The Count of Poher
in Brittany, of whose son Alan Barbetorte was the godson of Athelstan,
fled from Brittany with a crowd of his countrymen from the devastations
of the Northmen, and Athelstan gave them homes in England. It is
probable that he planted some in the Lizard, and others about Camborne,
for we find there church dedications to distinctively Breton saints, and
we know, moreover, that the fugitive Bretons brought with them the bones
of their patron saints. As they spoke the same tongue as the Cornish, it
would be natural for Athelstan to send them there.
In 981, the Danish pirates plundered the monastery of St Petrock, and in
997 ravaged the territories of their old allies from one end of Cornwall
to the other with fire and sword. Shortly before this, in 993, Olaf
Tryggvason of Norway, with Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark, after having
attacked London, devastated the east coast, burnt Sandwich and Ipswich,
and stormed Bamborough, then harried the Scottish coast, the Western
Isles, the Isle of Man, and Ireland, where "he burned far and wide,
wherever inhabited." He then came to the Scilly Isles, where he put into
Tresco harbour. There the monks of the abbey founded by Athelstan so
impressed him, that he consented to be baptized.
In 1068, the county was plundered by Godwin and Edmund, sons of Harold,
after a battle in Somersetshire, and on their way back to Ireland.
In 1322, the craze for going on pilgrimage took possession of Cornish
men, women, and children, and they set off for the Holy Land, whence few
returned.
In 1497, in consequence of the dissatisfaction occasioned by the levy of
a burdensome tax, the commoners of Cornwall, headed by Thomas Flamank, a
gentleman, and Michael Joseph, a Bodmin blacksmith, rose in rebellion.
Having prevailed on Lord Audley to be their general, they marched as far
as to Blackheath in Kent, where they were defeated with much slaughter
by Lord Daubeny. In the same year Perkin Warbeck landed, according to
some at Whitesand Bay, near the Land's End, according to others in St
Ives' Bay, and marching to Bodmin, found the Cornish ripe for a new
rebellion. At the head of 3000 men he marched to Exeter, but was unable
to take it. He made his way to Taunton, where, despairing of success, he
deserted his army and fled, but was taken and executed.
In 1548, another rebellion broke out occasioned by the changes in
religion, which the Cornish resented. Their leader was Hugh Arundell,
Governor of St Michael's Mount. They proceeded to besiege Exeter, but
although the city was sorely distressed for want of provisions it held
out till relieved, and in a battle fought at Woodbury, they were
defeated with immense slaughter. Cornwall remained quiet in the reign of
Elizabeth, save that it sent out whole fleets of privateers to prey on
the Spanish traders and treasure vessels.
The Armada was off the Lizard on the 29th to 30th July, 1588. An English
fishing-boat was hanging near them, counting their numbers. They gave
chase, but the boat shot away down wind and disappeared. It carried the
news to Drake at Plymouth, who at once prepared to sail forth.
In the Civil War, Cornwall was almost unanimous on the side of the King.
Lord Robartes, however, threw in his lot with the Parliament. On the
side of the King were Sir Bevil Grenville, Sir Ralph Hopton, Godolphin,
Slanning, and Trevanion. A battle was fought at Boconnoc on January 19,
1643, in which General Ruthven and the Roundheads were defeated. Another
battle in which the Royalists were successful was at Stamford Hill above
Stratton, May 16, 1643.
Charles I visited Cornwall, and was so impressed by the devotion and
loyalty of the people that he addressed to them a letter of recognition,
copies of which may be seen in some of the churches. Prince Charles
spent a great part of the autumn and winter of 1645 in Cornwall; on
March 2, 1645-6, he embarked at Pendennis Castle for the Scilly Isles,
where he "was much straitened for provisions." He quitted Scilly on
April 16, and landed next day in Jersey, whence he sailed for France.
Queen Henrietta Maria had left Pendennis for France in July, 1644.
Cornwall took no active part in the Revolution; in the European War, it
sent forth many gallant sailors, among whom in the first place may be
reckoned Admiral Boscawen, "old Dreadnought." But since the Civil War
the history of the Duchy has been mainly one of social and industrial
advance. The principal events stirring the community were the
introduction of steam-engines to pump the mines, affrays with smugglers,
and the excitement and unlimited bribery and corruption at elections in
the rotten boroughs till these latter were swept away by the Reform Bill
of 1832. About these rotten boroughs a few words must be said. The old
boroughs that existed before the reign of Edward VI were Truro, Helston,
Lostwithiel, Bodmin, Liskeard, and Launceston. But the advisers of
Edward VI, conscious of insecure tenure of the throne and doubting
whether the country was willing to go with them in their sweeping
alterations in religion, and desirous of counteracting the growing
importance of the House of Commons, considered that their object would
be best attained by conferring the right of returning members of
Parliament upon the obscure dependent villages of Cornwall. Accordingly
Saltash, Camelford, West Looe, Bossiney, Grampound, Penryn, Mitchell,
and Newport were elevated into boroughs, each returning two members to
Parliament.
[Illustration: St Mawes, Falmouth Harbour]
Under Queen Mary, St Ives received the same privileges, and under
Elizabeth six more were made boroughs with the same rights, St Germans,
St Mawes, Tregony, East Looe, Fowey, and Callington. Some of these
places, as Mitchell, Tregony, and St Mawes, were mere hamlets. They all
soon passed away from the direct control of the Crown and fell into the
hands of borough mongers who returned what members they liked, by gross
bribery, expecting to be repaid with Baronetcies and with lucrative
sinecures by the Ministry of the day they supported.
=20. Antiquities: Prehistoric, Roman, Celtic, Saxon.=
The first men who inhabited our island were the merest savages. They had
no knowledge of the use of metals, they could not make pottery; they had
not domesticated the cow, the sheep, or the dog. They used extremely
rude flint weapons and tools. They were contemporary with the cave bear,
the woolly rhinoceros, the mammoth, and the cave hyæna, all which beasts
then lived in Britain; and at that time the temperature was much colder
than at present. This period is called the Palaeolithic, or Old Stone
Age.
The next race that entered our island found the temperature much as it
is now. They were comparatively civilised. They still used flint
implements, but of a very superior type, and far better finished than
those of the earlier race. Moreover they were agricultural, grew corn,
had cows and sheep and dogs, and made pottery. This race it was which
erected the so-called cromlechs, stone circles, and tall upright stones.
The remains of their villages of circular stone huts are very numerous
on the moors. This period is called the Neolithic, or New Stone Age.
After a time bronze was introduced, by trade, and was at first as
valuable as gold is to us. But after a while it became much more common.
Its introduction marked the commencement of the Bronze Age.
To the Bronze Age succeeded the Iron Age. This metal was introduced by
the conquering Celts, of whom there existed two branches, one called
Brythonic, of which were the Britons, now represented by the Welsh, the
Cornish, the Cumbrians, and the Bretons of Brittany; the other called
Goidelic, and now represented by the Irish, the natives of the Isle of
Man, and the Scots. The Celts with their iron weapons speedily overcame
and enslaved the earlier race, usually called Ivernian. The latter was
dusky and dark haired, but the Celt probably had yellow or red hair,
blue or grey eyes, and a fair complexion.
No satisfactory evidence has been produced that Palaeolithic man
occupied Cornwall, but the traces of Neolithic man at the stage when he
became acquainted with the use of bronze are abundant. By him were
erected the rude stone monuments that are scattered over the county, and
he had his favourite sites for trimming flints into scrapers and
arrow-heads. One of the most notable of these was the shore of Dozmare
Pool.
Of the rude stone monuments the dolmen or cromlech is sepulchral, the
dolmen when large having been a tribal or family mausoleum, and the
kistvaen, which is far smaller, contained the bones of one individual
alone. The dolmen is composed of three or more upright stones sustaining
one or more coverers, and was often buried under a cairn. The finest in
Cornwall are Zennor and Lanyon Quoits, the Trethevy Stone, and Chûn
Quoit.
Stone circles are numerous. Their purpose has not been determined, but
on Dartmoor, where they have been examined, they exhibit a floor strewn
with charcoal. They have, moreover, usually numerous cairns or barrows
associated with them. The finest sacred circle is that of the Stripple
Stones on the Bodmin moors, but this has of late years been sadly
mutilated. The "Merry Maidens," in St Buryan's parish near Penzance, is
a magnificent circle. Other circles are those of Boscawen-ûn, Dauns Môr,
Wendron, the Trippet Stones on Blisland moor, Fernacre and Stannon on
the St Breward moors, the Hurlers near the Cheesewring, the Nine Maidens
in St Columb Major, Duloe, etc.
[Illustration: Lanyon Cromlech]
Menhirs or "longstones" are upright monoliths, probably set up in
memorial of the dead. Of these there are many in Cornwall but none of
great height. The Pipers in St Buryan are the loftiest, 13 ft. 6 in. and
15 ft.
[Illustration: The Merry Maidens, St Buryan]
Of stone alignments Cornwall is almost wholly barren, but one at St
Breock can be claimed with confidence. This is the more remarkable as
they abound on Dartmoor. But the reason probably is that the stones have
been carried off to serve as gateposts, and in some cases are embedded
in walls of fields. They were probably erected in commemoration of the
dead and are always associated with cairns and interments.
Subterranean chambers, constructed of upright stones with coverers, were
possibly store chambers for grain. The best preserved is at Trelowarren.
Upright holed stones are met with in Madron, St Buryan, St Just,
Sancreed, Constantine, Wendron, etc. Their purport is unknown.
Very curious are the clusters of communal huts at Chysauster,
Bosporthennis, etc. They probably belong to the Iron Age, whereas the
hut circles scattered over a hill side, or within a pound, pertained to
the early Bronze Age.
Arrow heads, lance heads and scrapers have been found in tolerable
abundance on the Bodmin moors, on Carn Brea, at St Agnes, etc., and
celts (axe heads) of greenstone and diorite have occurred, but not with
great frequency.
At Harlyn Bay has been found a cemetery of the Iron Age, all the bodies
in slate cists, crouching. In the cairns and kistvaens (stone coffins)
on the other hand the bodies have been burnt. Numerous urns of the
well-determined Bronze Age type have been recovered from cairns.
The camps of stone and earth in Cornwall are very numerous. They all--or
nearly all--date back to the same period of the early bronze, but may
have been used by later peoples. They are of two descriptions, the cliff
castles, where a headland is protected by banks and dykes on the side of
the mainland, and circular or oval camps crowning heights, with
concentric rings of circumvallation. Where the hill top does not admit
of the circular form the earthworks adapt themselves to the contour of
the hill.
Roman remains are conspicuously rare in Cornwall. Some fragments of
Samian ware, coins, and a bronze and silver metal vessel have been found
in Bossens, a camp in St Erth, and the head of an ensign at St Just. A
second Roman camp is Tregeare, near Bodmin. An inscribed milestone of
the time of Constantine the Great is in the churchyard of St Hilary. The
metal bowl at Bossens was inscribed by Aelius Modestus to the god Mars.
Of the Celtic period, gold lunettes have been found at Harlyn; a gold
cup near the Cheesewring in a cairn along with a corroded iron weapon; a
portion of a gold armlet at Penzance and of a brooch at the Lizard.
Of Saxon remains the principal are the hoard at Trewhiddle, a silver
chalice, finger-ring, pins, etc. Coins have been found; among them one
of Ethelred, struck at Launceston. On the altar slab formerly at
Treslothan, now supporting a sundial at Pendarves, is inscribed the
Saxon name of Ægured; and an old bell at Lanhydrock has on it "Æthelstan
sumpta an[ima] sua." These are scanty remains, fewer even than the
Roman.
[Illustration: St Cleer: Monument to Doniert, son of Caradoc, died A.D.
872]
Cornwall is, however, rich in Romano-British inscribed stones, dating
from the eighth century down. At St Cleer is the memorial stone to
Doniert (Dungarth) son of Caradoc. In Lewannick churchyard are stones
with inscriptions not only in Latin characters but also with Ogams at
the angle, showing that the Irish had settled there. Some of the
inscribed stones are certainly earlier than the eighth century, to which
cautious antiquaries have brought them down.
[Illustration: Mawgan Cross]
Crosses of granite are common, and some are very early, certainly
earlier than Athelstan's passage through Cornwall in 938. But others are
much later. They vary considerably in size and in shape. Some were used
as preaching stations before churches had been built, but others marked
the tracks over the moors, and some may have indicated boundaries. Some
are excessively rude, some have the figure of the Saviour carved upon
them, and these are comparatively late. Others--as that of St Neot--have
elaborate scroll-work on them like those in South Wales.
[Illustration: St Buryan Cross]
=21. Architecture: (_a_) Ecclesiastical.=
A preliminary word on the various styles of English architecture is
necessary before we consider the churches and other important buildings
of our county.
Pre-Norman or, as it is usually, though with no great certainty termed,
Saxon building in England, was the work of early craftsmen with an
imperfect knowledge of stone construction, who commonly used rough
rubble walls, no buttresses, small semicircular or triangular arches,
and square towers with what is termed "long-and-short work" at the
quoins or corners. It survives almost solely in portions of small
churches.
The Norman Conquest started a widespread building of massive churches
and castles in the continental style called Romanesque, which in England
has got the name of "Norman". They had walls of great thickness,
semicircular vaults, round-headed doors and windows, and massive square
towers.
From 1150 to 1200 the building became lighter, the arches pointed, and
there was perfected the science of vaulting, by which the weight is
brought upon piers and buttresses. This method of building, the
"Gothic," originated from the endeavour to cover the widest and loftiest
areas with the greatest economy of stone. The first English Gothic,
called "Early English," from about 1180 to 1250, is characterised by
slender piers (commonly of marble), lofty pointed vaults, and long,
narrow, lancet-headed windows. After 1250 the windows became broader,
divided up, and ornamented by patterns of tracery, while in the vault
the ribs were multiplied. The greatest elegance of English Gothic was
reached from 1260 to 1290, at which date English sculpture was at its
highest, and art in painting, coloured glass making, and general
craftsmanship at its zenith.
After 1300 the structure of stone buildings began to be overlaid with
ornament, the window tracery and vault ribs were of intricate patterns,
the pinnacles and spires loaded with crocket and ornament. This later
style is known as "Decorated," and came to an end with the Black Death,
which stopped all building for a time.
With the changed conditions of life the type of building changed. With
curious uniformity and quickness the style called "Perpendicular"--which
is unknown abroad--developed after 1360 in all parts of England and
lasted with scarcely any change up to 1520. As its name implies, it is
characterised by the perpendicular arrangement of the tracery and panels
on walls and in windows, and it is also distinguished by the flattened
arches and the square hoods over the doorways, by the elaborate
vault-traceries (especially fan-vaulting), and by the use of flat roofs
and towers without spires.
The mediaeval styles in England ended with the dissolution of the
monasteries (1530-1540), for the Reformation checked the building of
churches. There succeeded the building of manor-houses, in which the
style called "Tudor" arose--distinguished by flat-headed windows, level
ceilings, and panelled rooms. The ornaments of classic style were
introduced under the influences of Renaissance sculpture and distinguish
the "Jacobean" style, so called after James I. About this time the
professional architect arose. Hitherto, building had been entirely in
the hands of the builder and the craftsman.
Cornwall does not furnish stately and richly adorned churches as does
Devonshire, and even more so, Somersetshire. This is due to the
intractable material available, granite, which unlike that of Brittany
did not lend itself to rich sculpture. Only the Elvan stone, already
described, could be worked with delicacy, and this is easily corroded
by the weather, and the Catacluse stone is black. The beautiful
Polyphant stone of Lewannick does not seem to have been largely
employed. Although so close to Launceston, when the church there was
reconstructed by Sir Henry Trecarrel, in the reign of Henry VIII, he
employed only granite, which was sculptured with infinite labour, and
with poor effect.
[Illustration: Buried Church, Perranporth]
The most ancient churches in Cornwall were probably exceedingly rude.
Only two of the earliest remain and these are in ruins, Perranporth and
St Gothien, very much resembling churches of the most primitive period
in Ireland.
[Illustration: Norman Doorway, St Germans Church]
There are some important remains of Norman architecture, notably the
west front and part of the nave of St Germans, some portion of
Blisland, the south door of Kilkhampton, the westernmost arches of
Morwenstow, Tintagel, and some tympana of doorways with rude sculpture.
In many of the churches the early fonts remain. Originally baptisms took
place in tanks or barrels sunk in the earth; then, when adult baptisms
ceased, square or circular troughs were placed on the floor, and later
were raised on pedestals; and not infrequently the pedestal is an
addition, at a later date, to the basin of the font itself.
Of the Early English period, the remains are scanty. St Anthony in
Roseland is the most perfect example in Cornwall.
[Illustration: Tympanum, Egloskerry Church]
Of the Middle Pointed, or Decorated period, are Padstow, St Columb
Major, Sheviock, Lostwithiel--where the very peculiar spire is
singularly beautiful and foreign in character--and portions in Lanteglos
by Fowey, and St Ive near Liskcard.
[Illustration: Lanteglos Church]
But, as in Devonshire, so in Cornwall, there was an outburst of church
building in the Third Pointed or Perpendicular period. Then only--since
the early sculptors of the crosses--did architects and carvers attack
the granite, and most of the churches were then rebuilt. The finest are
St Kewe, Mawgan in Pyder with a beautiful tower, Probus with a richly
sculptured tower of the reign of Elizabeth, St Austell--also with a good
tower, the carvings in Elvan--St Neot, Stratton, and Buryan. One
remarkable feature is in the porches, where tracery of an ogival
character is introduced in the arch. The Rev. W. Haslam, in the
_Transactions of the Exeter Dioc. Arch. Society_, says of the Cornish
churches that they "are low, and somewhat flat in the pitch of the roof,
and without buttresses to break the long plain horizontal lines which
are so conspicuous. All these are features of the Perpendicular style,
I admit, but not to the extent to which they are carried in Cornwall.
Besides this, the general form of a Cornish church is plain; externally,
the plan of the larger ones is a parallelogram, divided into three low
ridges of roof: there is a porch on the south side; this is the only
break in the horizontal line I allude to. The smaller churches have
generally but one aisle, and these have a transept also, but sometimes
two transepts; but even these do not relieve the plainness of the
exterior. This is not the character of one church, or two, or three; but
more or less of all. It is their character, and I attribute it to the
boisterous nature of the climate in that narrow county, exposed as it
is, with very little shelter, to violent storms from the sea on both
sides."
[Illustration: Launceston Church]
No great elaboration of tracery was possible with granite, and the
architects abandoned the thought of making the churches attractive
externally, devoting their attention to the internal decoration. The
appearance of a large Cornish church now is that it is a long low shed,
lacking in height and dignity. But the architect divided it in two by
the screen, and thus brought it into proportion. Unfortunately, however,
in very few have the beautiful rood-screens been left, which were
generally spared in the Devonshire churches. Those of Cornwall in no way
fell short of those in Devon, but the Puritans first of all, and then
the barbarians of the Georgian period swept them away, and the churches
in the nineteenth century fell into the hands of local architects who
left them "naked, swept"--but not "garnished." They were, let us hope,
the last of the Cornish wreckers. A few, but only a few screens remain.
In the interior of the Cornish churches the chief feature is the absence
of a chancel arch, which is almost universal. The arch was unnecessary
when the roodloft extended upwards and was backed by a painted board. In
some of the churches there are interesting bench ends. At St Austell,
the miners' tools are represented on them; on some rabbits running in
and out of their burrows are figured, and seagulls are frequent.
In painted glass Cornwall is not rich, except in the 15 windows of St
Neot near Liskeard, and in that in the north aisle, and the fragments in
the south aisle of St Kewe.
The church towers in Cornwall are for the most part square without
buttresses, and with four pinnacles. One peculiarity of these pinnacles
is that they are often cut on a curve to lean outwards, probably to
mitigate the stiffness of effect.
[Illustration: Landewednack Church]
A few words must be devoted to the new Cathedral at Truro erected from
the designs of the late Mr J.L. Pearson in a French Gothic style of
architecture. It consists of a choir of five bays, with retrochoir,
transepts, nave with north and south aisles, baptistery and south-west
porch, richly sculptured; a central and two western towers. Attached to
the south side of the choir is the fine old parish church of St Mary, or
a portion of it. There is an elaborately sculptured reredos over the
altar. Notwithstanding its faults Truro Cathedral is a notable monument
of the enthusiasm and self-denial of the Cornish people.
[Illustration: Dupath Well, Callington]
The Holy Wells of Cornwall are a distinct feature of the county. In all
Celtic lands, previous to the introduction of Christianity, there was a
great veneration for wells, and the early missionaries took advantage of
this to turn them into baptisteries, or in other ways to consecrate
them. Holy wells abound in Cornwall, but they have not always much
architectural character. That of Dupath, by Liskeard, is the finest, but
there is also another that is fine at St Cleer, and one most interesting
and unique at St Clether, where, indeed, there are two, for the water
from the first flows into a chapel and is carried under the old stone
altar, to decant into another well outside the chapel. The Madron Holy
Well was for long famous for cures.
=22. Architecture: (_b_) Military--Castles.=
Before the Norman Conquest there were no masonry built castles in
Cornwall, only stockades of wood surmounting earthworks or piled up
masses of stone uncemented. The usual Saxon _Burh_ was a mound,
surmounted by a structure of timber, reached by a bridge or ladder from
a base-court that was encompassed by moat and mound and stockade. The
Norman system of building a castle was to erect a round or square keep,
a massive structure of stone, on the mound that had formerly been
surmounted by a wooden structure, and to surround the base-court with a
stone wall. Within this were erected the necessary domestic buildings.
Very generally the entrance to the court was strongly defended by a
second tower. The style of castle was greatly altered in the reign of
Edward I but of such Edwardian castles there are no examples in
Cornwall, save the poor fragment of Tintagel. The Normans built a castle
at Launceston, and there the circular keep standing on a lofty tump of
rock, artificially shaped, is of their construction, but the ruined
buildings below, with the gateways and walls of the base-court, are
later.
The castle of Trematon also consists of a "motte" surmounted by a
circular keep, and a base-court with square tower at the entrance, with
an archway.
Tintagel Castle is reduced to a miserable ruin, part on the mainland,
part on the islet, with the intervening portion blocked up by fallen
rocks, forming a narrow isthmus. The deep chasm that formerly separated
the two portions of the castle was anciently spanned by a drawbridge.
The work appears to be of the thirteenth century. On the island are the
remains of a chapel with its altar slab still in place. Tintagel became
a residence of the Earls of Cornwall, and in 1245, Richard son of King
John received in it his nephew David, Prince of Wales. It was
subsequently used occasionally as a prison. In the reign of Elizabeth,
that penurious queen, deeming the expense of keeping it up too onerous,
allowed it to fall into ruin.
St Michael's Mount was crowned with a castle and a church. The oldest
portion is the central tower, of the fourteenth or fifteenth century;
other portions are later additions, and much very bad modern work has
tended to its sad disfigurement. Edward the Confessor planted a
monastery on the rock, and granted it to Mont S. Michel in Normandy; at
the Conquest it was made over to Robert Earl of Mortain, but the
Benedictines of Mont S. Michel continued to have a cell there with a
prior. It was consequently at once a religious house and a military
post.
Restormel, near Lostwithiel, consists of a keep crowning a hill, with a
gatehouse on the west, a projecting tower on the E.N.E., and a chapel.
It is not older than the reign of Henry III and was the stronghold of
the Cardinhams and then of the Traceys, from whom it passed to the Earls
of Cornwall. The circular keep is only 30 ft. high. The castle was
already ruinous in the time of the Civil War, but it was put in repair
and held by the Parliamentary forces till taken by Grenville.
St Mawes is a small but perfect castle, erected by Henry VIII.
[Illustration: St Mawes Castle]
Pendennis Castle was another erection of Henry VIII, on the site of
earlier fortifications. The circular tower dates from his time, but it
was added to considerably in the reign of Elizabeth. In 1644 Pendennis
afforded shelter to Queen Henrietta Maria, when embarking for France,
and hither came Prince Charles in 1646 on his way to Scilly.
Helsborough, near Michaelstow, was a fortress belonging to the Earls of
Cornwall, but it shows no tokens of having ever been walled with
masonry. The only structural remains to be seen are the ruins in the
midst of a Perpendicular chapel.
On Carn Brea is a tower, another on Roche rock; and St Catherine's
Castle, erected by order of Henry VIII, defended the entrance to the
harbour of Fowey.
=23. Architecture: (_c_) Domestic and Monastic.=
In England generally castles belonged only to the Crown or to great
nobles, and no gentleman was suffered to castellate or embattle his
walls without a special licence from the Crown. In Cornwall all the
castles pertained to the Crown or the Duke of Cornwall, and private
persons had to content themselves with purely domestic mansions. Till
the reign of Elizabeth the dining-hall reaching to the roof was the most
conspicuous feature, and opening out of it was the ladies' bower, a
small oak-panelled room. The inconvenience arising from a house being
cut in half by the hall led in the reign of Elizabeth to an alteration,
and the halls were ceiled over, so that the upper portion could be used
for bedrooms and passage. Before her reign the usual form of a house was
quadrangular, that is to say a court surrounded by buildings entered by
a gate, with the hall and principal portions of the house opposite the
entrance gate. But in the reign of Elizabeth it became the fashion to
form the house in the shape of the letter E. In her father's reign it
often had the shape of the letter H with the open ends closed by slight
walls.
Cornwall possesses very few stately houses. At the close of the
seventeenth century a schoolmaster at Trebartha filled a folio with
sketches of the ancient manor-houses of the neighbourhood of the Tamar;
picturesque old mansions of the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth.
Nearly every one has disappeared. The squirearchy of Cornwall, flush of
money, through tin, pulled down their old residences and built mansions
in the Georgian period, totally devoid of interest. Of the old houses
few remain except as farm houses. They were, however, never so
magnificent as those in the counties where bricks and easily dressed
stone existed. But still there remain Cothele, unaltered, the beautiful
house of Lord Mount Edgcumbe on the Tamar; Basil, the manor-house of the
Trevelyans, much mutilated by the barbarous hand of a modern architect;
Trecarrel, near Launceston, an old Tudor mansion with a noble hall,
never completed; Place, near Padstow, formerly Prideaux Castle, the
Elizabethan residence of the Prideaux Brunes, very stately, and with a
dining room rich in carved oak; Lanherne, built in 1580, a small
manor-house of the Arundells and now a convent; Lanhydrock, built by
the first Lord Roberts--they called themselves later Robartes; Place
House, Fowey, with rich sculpture; Trerice, the old seat of the
Arundells; Tregudick with its Elizabethan hall; Penheale, once the seat
of the Speccots, in Egloskerry; Tonacombe, an unaltered house of the
reign of Henry VII, in Morwenstow; Penfound in Poundstock, small but
charming; and Lanreath, with a carved oak parlour, the ancient house of
the Grylls family. There are others, now farmhouses, and only spared on
that account, deserted when the squires moved elsewhere and did not pull
down their ancestral residences.
[Illustration: Cothele]
A monastic building consisted of a church, with a cloister court
adjoining, about which were the dormitories, a library, and a refectory
or room in which all had their meals in common. There would be often two
courts, one outer, the other with the cloister about it in which the
monks mainly lived and in the centre of which was the monastic
graveyard. The garden of pot herbs and herbs for medicinal purposes was
an essential feature of all monastic settlements, as was also the
stewpond or ponds for fish. The necessity under which the monks lay of
being near water, both for their fish and for sanitary purposes and for
drinking, led to all monastic establishments lying low down in valleys
by running streams.
Of monastic remains there are few. At Launceston the foundations of St
John's Priory have been laid bare. At Glasney in Penryn a few walls
alone represent what was once a stately priory. Of the great house at
Bodmin hardly a wall stands, but some remains of the sanatorium exist at
Lavethan. At Lanivet are the remains of St Benet's Monastery, till 1859
the most picturesque and best preserved of the monastic buildings in
Cornwall, except St Michael's Mount. An engraving of the remains was
published by Lysons in 1814, which shows the house to have been
beautifully situated, and as beautiful as its situation demanded. At the
date mentioned it was mutilated and spoilt.
Cornwall cannot boast picturesque cottages. Some few remain that possess
some charm, as the old Post-office at Tintagel, some slate-hung
dwellings in West Looe, the Lugger Inn, Fowey, and the almshouses at St
Germans. There are as well some that call for an artist to use his
pencil at Saltash. But, on the whole, the county is poor in the domestic
architecture of farm and cottage, and house fronts in the towns, with
rare exceptions, are not of any artistic character.
[Illustration: The Old Post Office, Tintagel]
=24. Communications--Roads, Railways.=
The great road from London to Falmouth ran through Launceston, Bodmin,
and Truro, and was kept in good order, and over it raced the mail
coaches that conveyed letters on to the packets at Falmouth. This was
the main artery of communication for more than a century, till Falmouth
was abandoned as a mail-packet station by the Government. From 18 to 20
fine vessels performed this service, carrying letters and papers to all
parts of the world, until the extension of railways caused the service
to be transferred to Southampton.
Whether there were systematically constructed Roman roads in Cornwall
has been doubted. One curious ancient road--the Giant's Hedge--is found
near Lanreath, and appears to have been a portion of a road raised on a
bank that started from a ferry over the Tamar and was carried into the
west of Cornwall. There was a road also that came from Exeter and
crossed the Tamar at Polson Bridge and then turned north to Camelford.
Another ran past Stratton to the estuary of the Camel opposite Padstow,
where Romano-British remains have been found on Bray Hill. But it is
possible enough that these roads were of British and not of Roman
construction.
In the Middle Ages little or nothing was done to keep the roads in
repair. Even in the eighteenth century all that was thought necessary
was to throw down a load of boulders into the ruts, rake them in, and
leave coach and cart wheels to grind them up. But the roads were taken
in hand at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and the turnpikes
served to provide funds for keeping them in order, while Macadam's
invention of breaking the stones before laying them on the roads
assisted enormously in facilitating transit along them.
[Illustration: A Cornish Stile]
The roads in Cornwall are now for the most part excellent, metalled with
elvan, and cyclists and motorists can have little to complain of on that
score.
Two railway companies have penetrated the county; the G.W.R. in the
south crosses the Tamar by the famous Saltash tubular bridge, and runs
to Penzance, by Truro. There is a branch to Bodmin, another to Fowey,
and another crosses the county to Newquay. After reaching Truro, the
line deserts the south, but sends a branch down to Falmouth. It runs to
Redruth and Camborne and reaches the sea at Hayle. It sends a short
branch up to St Ives, but the main line turns south again to end in a
terminus at Penzance. The L. & S.W.R., after sending out a branch to
Bude, reaches Launceston, and then supplies the dreary country from
Launceston to Camelford with communication. From Camelford it runs to
Wadebridge; and down the estuary to Padstow, a branch to the south
serving Bodmin.
In addition to the branches already mentioned are others to Looe and
Helston.
Penzance is reached from Paddington in 8-1/2 hours and Newquay in
half-an-hour less.
The L. & S.W.R. leaving Waterloo reaches Launceston in 5-1/2 hours, Bude
in 6 hours, and Wadebridge in under 7 hours. From Wadebridge coaches run
to Newquay.
A steamer maintains communication with the Scilly Isles from Penzance.
=25. Administration and Divisions, Ancient and Modern.=
Before the Conquest the divisions of the county were probably those
afterwards forming the old deaneries, and followed the limits of the
Celtic tribes under their several chiefs. Of these there were
eight:--East and West, Kerrier, Penwith, Powder, Pyder, Trigg Major, and
Trigg Minor, but at the Conquest a redistribution was made in hundreds.
These were Conarton, Fawiton, Pawton, Riatton, Stratton, Tibesta or
Tibesterna, and Winneton. There may have been an Anglo-Saxon
redistribution. But it was a rearrangement that did not last, and never
commended itself to the people, and it is not easy now to ascertain what
the limits were. Conarton was Penwith. Perhaps Tibesta was Powder and
Winneton Kerrier. East and West composed one district of Wyvelshire.
Cornwall was first an Earldom, and then accordingly a County, but when
raised to be a Dukedom it became a Duchy. It had two chief officers, the
Earl and the Sheriff, the latter appointed by the crown.
The county was divided up into hundreds for administrative purposes.
Each hundred was supposed roughly to contain a hundred free families.
Each hundred had its own court, and every township its assembly under
the reeve. But the tinners were under their own laws and officers, and
their court, called the Stannary Court, sat formerly at Lostwithiel.
Every manor also had its court.
All the hundreds of Cornwall, except Penwith, from time immemorial
belonged to the Earls of Cornwall. The hundreds and Petty Sessional
Divisions are now coextensive, and are as follows:--1. Hundred of East
(Northern Division). 2. Hundred of East (Southern Division). 3. Hundred
of Kerrier. 4. Hundred of Lesnewth. 5. Hundred of Penwith. 6. Hundred of
Powder, East. 7. Hundred of Pyder, West. 8. Hundred of Pyder, East. 9.
Hundred of Stratton. 10. Hundred of Trigg. 11. Hundred of West.
Cornwall formerly returned four county members in two divisions, but
under the provisions of the "Redistribution of Seats Act, 1885," it now
returns six members in six divisions. 1. The western or St Ives
division. 2. The north-western or Camborne division. 3. The Truro
division. 4. The Mid or St Austell division. 5. The south-eastern or
Bodmin division. 6. The north-eastern or Launceston division. Under the
provisions of the above-mentioned Act, the boroughs of Bodmin, Helston,
Launceston, Liskeard, St Ives, and Truro were deprived of independent
representation and merged in the county, and Penryn and Falmouth lost
one member.
In 1877 the diocese of Truro, taken from that of Exeter, was formed,
comprising the whole county of Cornwall, together with the parishes of
Broadwood-Widger, Virginstow, Werrington, St Giles on the Heath, and
North Petherwin, which are in the county of Devon. The Stannary Court is
now at Truro, but its occupation is almost gone.
The Poor Law Unions are Bodmin, Camelford, Falmouth, Helston,
Launceston, Liskeard, Penzance, St Austell, Redruth, St Columb, St
Germans, Scilly Isles, Stratton, and Truro.
The County Council formed under the Local Government Act of 1888
consists of a chairman, aldermen, and councillors; but for the local
government of the towns and parishes another Act was passed in 1894, and
new names were given to the local bodies. In the large urban parishes
the chief authorities are now entitled District Councils, while the
smaller parishes have their Parish Councils or only Parish Meetings.
[Illustration: The Old Guildhall and Pillory, Looe]
The county is in the western circuit; the assize and quarter sessions,
which were formerly held at Launceston, a most inconvenient place for
the purpose, being at the extreme limit of the county, are now held at
Bodmin.
In Cornwall there are 223 civil parishes and the municipal boroughs are
eleven, Bodmin, Falmouth, Helston, Launceston, Liskeard, Lostwithiel,
Penryn, Penzance, Saltash, St Ives, and Truro.
The civil parishes and those that are ecclesiastical are not always
conterminous. Of the latter there are 236. There are two Archdeaconries,
Cornwall and Bodmin, and twelve deaneries, St Austell, Carnmarth,
Kerrier, Penwith, Powder, and Pydar in the Archdeaconry of Cornwall, and
Bodmin, East, Stratton, Trigg Major and Minor, and West in that of
Bodmin. There is a Bishop at Truro and a suffragan who takes his title
from St Germans.
=26. Roll of Honour.=
It would, perhaps, be invidious to say that Cornwall has produced men of
more brilliant and varied achievements than any other county in England,
but she can certainly show a very notable roll of honour. As might be
expected from her geographical position, aided by good harbours, she has
produced some great seamen who have done gallant service for England. At
the head of these must come Sir Richard Grenville, hero of the
_Revenge_, whose action off the Azores in 1591 has rendered him one of
England's immortals. Trapped by the huge Spanish fleet off Flores, Sir
Richard had many of his crew sick on shore, but declined to leave till
they had been brought on board. The _Revenge_ engaged fifteen large
Spanish men-of-war and stood at bay from three in the afternoon all
through the night till the following morning, when the last barrel of
powder was spent. Ralegh told of it, as did Gervase Markham in 1595, and
Tennyson nearly 300 years later in the stirring lines:--
"Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came,
Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame;
Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame.
For some were sunk and many were shattered, and so could fight us no more--
God of Battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?"
His grandson, Sir Bevil Grenville, "the Mirror of Chivalry," was a
scarcely less notable warrior on land and fell in the Royalist victory
of Lansdowne near Bath in 1643. Admiral Edward Boscawen, "Old
Dreadnought," third son of Viscount Falmouth, distinguished himself at
the taking of Cartagena and in the Cape Breton expedition, but his most
memorable deed was the defeat of the French Toulon fleet in Lagos Bay in
1759. Captain Bligh, noteworthy as the captain of the _Bounty_, of
which the mutiny is one of the most familiar tragedies of the sea, was
perhaps in great measure the author of his own misfortunes, for he was a
man of very overbearing temper, but his journey of 3618 miles in an open
boat after having been set adrift with others by the mutineers was a
remarkable feat. The Pellew family has added at least two names to the
roll of distinguished sailors. Edward Pellew, when in command of the
_Nymphe_, manned by Cornish miners, captured the French man-of-war
_Cléopâtre_ under peculiarly gallant circumstances, the first of a
series of brilliant exploits which led to his being created Baron
Exmouth. Later, in 1816, he bombarded Algiers, reduced the Dey to
submission, and put an end to the Barbary corsairs. His brother, Admiral
Sir Isaac Pellew, commanded the _Conqueror_ at the battle of Trafalgar.
[Illustration: Captain Bligh]
Cornwall being a land of mines has developed machinery and furthered
invention in this direction. The most notable of the inventors she has
produced is Richard Trevithick, who first made the high-pressure engine,
and is still more remarkable as the early pioneer of motor traffic,
putting his road locomotive on the Camborne highway on Christmas Day,
1801, and obtaining a speed with it of 12 miles per hour. In 1812 he
laid before the Navy Board his invention for a screw propeller for
ships, only to meet with a refusal. Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, born in
1793, also ran steam-motors on the roads until they were forbidden by
Act of Parliament, and the work of a lifetime and his fortune of £30,000
vanished into thin air. The oxy-hydrogen blowpipe and the steam-jet
were invented by him. The wreck of H.M.S. _Anson_ on Looe bar with the
loss of over 100 lives in 1807 had a great effect on one of the
spectators, Henry Trengrouse, a Helston cabinet-maker, who thereupon
invented the rocket life-saving apparatus and spent £3000--all his
means--in experiments and in vain endeavours to induce Government to
adopt the system. Another great benefactor to mankind was Sir Humphry
Davy, the son of a poor gilder near Penzance. His safety-lamp he nobly
refused to patent lest the sphere of its usefulness should be
restricted, and he is fittingly honoured with a statue in his native
town.
[Illustration: Sir Humphry Davy]
More than one distinguished traveller finds place among Cornish
worthies. Richard Lander, the son of a Truro innkeeper (1805-34), stands
at the head of them. He went with Clapperton to Sokoto and on his death
took up his work, tracing the mouth of the Niger on a second expedition,
and dying on a third at Fernando Po. Peter Mundy, born about 1596 at
"Penrin, a pretty towne in Corne Wall," as he describes it, was one of
the most remarkable travellers that the West of England has produced,
whether in virtue of his long trading voyages to the Far East, or of his
continental wanderings, of which he kept a not less careful record.
James Silk Buckingham, who died in 1855, wrote eighteen books of travel,
but was mainly noteworthy for his endeavours to do away with the
monopoly of the East India Company.
Among statesmen must be noticed Sir John Eliot, born at Port Eliot in
1592, and at one time friend of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham,
with whom he later broke, and taking up a strong line in the Parliament
of 1628 against arbitrary taxation helped to force the Petition of Right
from Charles. He was ultimately committed to the Tower, where he died
three years later in 1632. To give an adequate sketch of the life of
Sidney Godolphin would be to give the history of the times of Charles
II, James II, William of Orange and Anne, with each and all of whom he
was closely implicated. An extraordinarily able financier, his
character was such as to permit him to serve either party
indifferently. "Sidney Godolphin," said Charles, "is never in the way
and never out of the way." Lord High Treasurer under Queen Anne, he was
made Earl of Godolphin, only to be disgraced in 1710 and die shortly
after.
Samuel Drew, the "Cornish Metaphysician," who was born at St Austell,
had been a smuggler and a shoemaker in his earlier days, but developed
into a Wesleyan preacher and became the author of an essay on the
Immortality of the Soul. Of more normal mould was Humphrey Prideaux,
born at Padstow in 1648, who wrote a _Life of Mahomet_, and _The Old and
New Testament Connected_, which reached its 27th edition only a few
years ago. He became Dean of Norwich and died in 1724.
Cornwall has produced several local antiquaries, as the Rev. Richard
Polwhele, who died in 1838; the Rev. William Borlase, d. 1772; William
Hals, the historian of the Duchy; and William Sandys, who died in 1874.
She has had but few true poets, but the Rev. Robert Stephen Hawker,
though not actually born in Cornwall, spent all his life there and may
certainly come under this heading. He became Vicar of Morwenstow in
1834, and remained there till his death in 1875, having during this time
transformed his parishioners from a set of lawless wreckers to a decent
community. His poems were almost all connected with Cornish subjects,
and one of the best known of them is that on Bishop Trelawney's
imprisonment--"A good sword and a trusty sword," with the refrain--"And
shall Trelawney die? There's twenty thousand Cornishmen; Shall know the
reason why."
[Illustration: John Opie]
"A wondrous Cornishman, who is carrying all before him" is Sir Joshua
Reynolds' description of John Opie the painter, who was born the son of
a poor carpenter near Truro in 1761, became an R.A. and portrait-painter
of great note, and died in 1807. His second wife was Amelia Opie the
novelist, daughter of the Norwich physician, Dr Alderson. Henry Bone,
the enamellist, is also of sufficient distinction to deserve mention
here.
Of the astronomers of modern times few have attained the eminence of
John Couch Adams, the discoverer of the planet Neptune, who was born at
Laneast in 1819. As a shepherd boy he loved to lie on his back and watch
the stars, and he at once devoted himself to the study of astronomy when
he was sent to school at Saltash. He became Senior Wrangler at Cambridge
in 1843, and soon after taking his degree, being struck with
irregularities in the motion of Uranus, he made a series of calculations
and observations which resulted in the discovery of the new planet, the
French astronomer Leverrier having simultaneously recorded its
existence. A distinguished geologist and one of the pioneers of
scientific cave exploration was William Pengelly, whose great work was
the thorough examination of Kent's Cavern near Torquay, a labour which
lasted from 1865 to 1880. Last, but by no means least worthy of mention
in our list, must come Davies Gilbert, a great discerner of rising
genius, to which he was ever ready to lend help and encouragement. The
patron of Davy, Trevithick, Hornblower, and Goldsworthy Gurney, he was
himself a man of remarkable and varied abilities, scientist,
mathematician, and antiquary, and President of the Royal Society. He
died in 1839.
=27. THE CHIEF TOWNS AND VILLAGES OF CORNWALL.=
(The figures in brackets after each name give the population in
1901 and those at the end of each section are references to the
pages in the text.)
=Bodmin= (5353), now held to be the county town. Formerly there was a
priory here, founded in 938. The church, the largest in Cornwall, is
Perpendicular, except the tower and a part of the chancel, which are
earlier. In it is the fine monument of Prior Vyvyan (1533). Bodmin is a
municipal borough, market, and union town, and head of a county court
district. The Assizes are held here. The town is pleasantly situated
nearly in the centre of the county. A branch of the G.W.R. leads from
Bodmin Road station on the main line. The L. & S.W.R. has also a branch
to Bodmin from Wadebridge. The prison stands about half a mile
north-west of the town; and the County Lunatic Asylum a little to the
west. Bodmin has also a Hospital and Dispensary, and Barracks for
military. (pp. 9, 14, 18, 24, 67, 96, 102, 104, 111, 131, 132, 135, 137,
139.)
=Bude= (see Stratton).
=Callington= (1714), a small market town, formerly a parliamentary
borough returning two members. Callington is in the ecclesiastical
parish of North Hill, and the church is merely a chapel of ease. It is
in the Perpendicular style, and has the unusual feature in Devon and
Cornwall of having a clerestory. The L. & S.W.R. has constructed a light
railway from Beer Alston to Callington and Calstock. (pp. 105, 124.)
=Calstock= (5874) is a large village and township. The church is at a
distance from the village or town. Gunnislake, two miles north of
Calstock, is in the parish. Both places have declined in numbers and
prosperity through the abandonment of the mines in the neighbourhood.
(pp. 15, 69, 72, 87, 101.)
=Camborne= (14,726), a market town with a station on the main line of
the G.W.R. It is a great seat of mining operations. (pp. 38, 81, 101,
135, 137.)
=Camelford= (1384), a small market and union town, in a bleak and
wind-swept situation, consisting of one street. It is the head of a
county court district and magisterial division. It is in the parish of
Lanteglos, nearly two miles distant, and has not in it even a chapel of
ease. Camelford was an ancient borough with mayor and corporation. (pp.
14, 105, 133, 135, 137.)
=Falmouth= (3207), a seaport, market, and union town and a municipal
borough. It is the head of a county court district. Falmouth was
incorporated by charter 1661. It has the advantage of possessing one of
the finest and most capacious harbours in the country. As many as 350 to
400 sail have taken refuge here in winter at various times. There are
docks, factories, and building yards. Of late an attempt has been made
to turn Falmouth into a winter resort for invalids, and the coast is
advertised as "The Cornish Riviera," but it is a Riviera without the sun
of the Mediterranean. (pp. 30, 31, 48, 66, 88, 92, 94, 95, 96, 132, 135,
137, 139.)
=Fowey= (2258), once a borough, is a market town and a shipping port
with a station on a branch of the G.W.R. The church of St Finbar is a
noble edifice in the Perpendicular style but with portions on the north
dating from 1336. Place House, the seat of the Treffry family, is a
beautiful, richly-sculptured mansion of the reign of Henry VII. Fowey
consists of one very narrow street. The town was created a borough by
Elizabeth, returning two members, but was disfranchised in 1832. (pp.
49, 88, 105, 119, 128, 130, 131, 135.)
[Illustration: Fowey]
=Grampound= (491) deserves mention only as having returned two members
to Parliament before the Reform Bill, and as formerly a borough. (pp.
18, 105.)
=Helston= (3088) is a municipal borough, market, and union town, and the
resort of all who want to buy or sell in the Lizard district. It was not
formed into an ecclesiastical parish till 1845. A branch of the G.W.R.
reaches it. Below the town is the beautiful Loe Pool. The principal
streets form a cross, and have a constant flow of water through them.
(pp. 8, 104, 135, 137, 139, 143.)
[Illustration: Helston from Bullock Lane]
=Launceston= (14,310), the ancient capital, is a municipal borough,
market, and union town, and head of a county court district. The town
occupies a height, and above it towers the ancient castle, but a portion
of the town, Newport, lies in the valley at the foot. Both the G.W.R.
and the L. & S.W.R. have stations at Launceston. The church of granite
is richly sculptured throughout; but in a debased Perpendicular style.
It replaced an older church of which the tower alone remains. (pp. 7,
15, 25, 67, 96, 104, 111, 117, 121, 126, 129, 131, 132, 135, 137, 139.)
[Illustration: Launceston]
=Liskeard= (4945), a municipal borough, market, and union town, head
also of a county court district, with a station on the G.W.R. Liskeard
returned two members to Parliament till disfranchised by the
Redistribution Act of 1885. The church of St Martin is the largest in
the county next to that of Bodmin; it is in the Perpendicular style but
retains portions of earlier work. Liskeard mainly flourishes on the
granite quarries of the Cheesewring; it did at one time flourish still
more on the mines of tin and copper in Caradon. (pp. 12, 18, 31, 104,
119, 122, 125, 137, 139.)
=Looe= (2588) is composed of two towns, East Looe and West Looe,
separated by a creek and united by a long bridge. East Looe was formerly
a borough returning two members. It is the terminus of a branch line of
the G.W.R. There is a good tidal harbour, to which vessels of large
tonnage can be brought up for the shipment of ore and granite, conveyed
thither from Caradon and the Cheesewring, and thence coal is conveyed to
Liskeard and its neighbourhood. The old town hall is a picturesque
building. West Looe was also originally a borough returning two members.
(pp. 31, 49, 50, 92, 105, 131, 135, 138, 143.)
[Illustration: Looe]
=Marazion= (1252) or Market Jew derives its name from a Thursday market
there held. In ancient times the place was supported by the pilgrims
resorting to St Michael's Mount. The town was pillaged by the French in
the reign of Henry VIII. From Marazion St Michael's Mount is reached. At
the base of the Mount lies a fishing village of 38 houses, and a little
harbour. From the sea the hill rises to a height of 230 ft., the body of
the island is granite but its north base is of slate. The castle is the
property of Lord St Levan. Marazion is a station on the G.W.R. (pp. 9,
44, 96.)
=Mevagissey= (2088), a seaport town situated on a fine bay six miles
south of St Austell, the nearest railway station. The natural harbour is
safe and sheltered. A new harbour has been constructed. The inhabitants
depend almost wholly for subsistence on the fishery of pilchards. (pp.
48, 89, 92, 94.)
=Newlyn= (1302) is not a town, it is an ecclesiastical parish formed in
1848 out of the parishes of Paul and Madron. It has a harbour, and is a
seat of fishery. Many artists have been attracted hither by the mildness
of the climate and the picturesqueness of the quaint old streets, and of
the fisherfolk. (pp. 44, 92, 94.)
=Newquay= (2935) is a new and rising sea-bathing and holiday resort, to
which run two branches of the G.W.R. It possesses a beautiful stretch of
sands, and is near some of the finest coast scenery in Cornwall. (pp.
37, 91, 135.)
=Padstow= (1566) is a quaint old seaport on the estuary of the Camel. It
has a fine church with a beautiful carved font. Above the town is
Prideaux Place, an Elizabethan mansion. The town lies in a valley and
consists mainly of one street. It is a market town, and is connected
with the L. & S.W.R. by a branch line. (pp. 35, 55, 56, 57, 67, 92, 94,
119, 129, 133, 135, 145.)
=Penryn= (3256), a market town and municipal borough, situated on an arm
of Falmouth harbour that is being gradually silted up. The parish church
is dedicated to St Gluvias. It formerly returned two members to
Parliament. Here was formerly a monastic establishment, at Glasney, but
of this only a few fragments of wall remain. There is a station on the
branch to Falmouth of the G.W.R. (pp. 96, 105, 131, 137, 139, 144.)
=Penzance= (12,155), the most westerly town in England. The name
signifies the Holy Head; it is a seaport, municipal borough, and union
town. The climate is here most warm and relaxing. Penzance was
incorporated in 1614 and has a corporation consisting of a mayor, six
aldermen, and eighteen councillors. There are some fine public
buildings, and a good museum for the birds, minerals, and antiquities of
Western Cornwall. Hence starts the steamer that communicates with the
Scilly Isles. From Penzance excursions are made to the Land's End
district, which abounds in magnificent coast scenery, and in prehistoric
megalithic monuments. (pp. 44, 57, 66, 88, 96, 108, 111, 133, 135, 137,
139, 143.)
=Probus= (1207) is a large village rather than a town, and is situated
two and a half miles from Grampound station on the G.W.R. It is chiefly
remarkable for its church tower, sculptured throughout, and erected in
the reign of Elizabeth. (p. 120.)
=St Agnes= (4291), a market town, reached by a branch of the G.W.R. The
church is Decorated, and has a spire, an unusual feature in Cornwall.
(pp. 55, 110.)
=St Austell= (3340), a market and union town with a station on the
G.W.R. A place that flourishes on the china-clay works in the
neighbourhood. The church has a noble tower and is in the Perpendicular
style. It possesses an exceedingly curious and early font. Near St
Austell is Menacudle, perhaps the most picturesquely situated and best
preserved of the Holy Wells in Cornwall. (pp. 9, 24, 26, 48, 85, 120,
122, 137, 139, 145.)
=St Blazey= (2931), a market town with a station on the Newquay branch
of the G.W.R.
=St Columb Major= (2640), an ancient market town two and a half miles
from the St Columb Road Station on the Newquay branch of the G.W.R. and
also in connexion with the L. & S.W.R. at Wadebridge by coach. The
church is fine, Perpendicular in style, and has an interesting cross in
the churchyard. The chancel, formerly ten feet longer, was wrecked by
an explosion of gunpowder stored in the church, in 1676. There is a
picturesque old building with state hangings, originally a residence of
the Arundells of Trerice, near the churchyard gate. The old Cornish
hurling is still practised at St Columb. (pp. 9, 18, 99, 108, 119, 137.)
[Illustration: Cross in Churchyard, St Columb]
=St Germans= (2126), a large village rather than a town, with a station
on the G.W.R. It returned representatives to Parliament from 1562 till
the passing of the Reform Act in 1832. The church is especially
interesting from its noble Norman west front. It lies in the park of the
Earl of St Germans. The almshouses in the town are especially to be
noted for their picturesqueness. (pp. 105, 118, 131, 137, 139.)
=St Ives= (6699), a municipal borough on the shore of St Ives Bay, and
the terminus of a branch of the G.W.R. from St Erth. The corporation now
consists of a mayor, four aldermen, and twelve councillors. The borough
formerly returned two members to Parliament. The town is irregularly
built with narrow streets and has "a very ancient fishlike smell." The
church is interesting, it possesses curious carved bench-ends, and an
old cross outside, of an unusually elaborate description. The population
is almost entirely dependent on the fishing industry; but of late a St
Ives school of painting has grown up, and artists have settled here to
study sea effects, and seafaring people. (pp. 38, 39, 67, 87, 88, 92,
93, 94, 102, 105, 135, 137, 139.)
=St Just in Penwith= (5646), a market town seven miles west of Penzance,
the nearest railway station. The town consists of several streets
diverging from a triangular space in the centre. The church, well cared
for, is Perpendicular in style. (pp. 110, 111.)
=St Mary's, Scilly= is a town and the focus of life in the Isles of
Scilly. The total population of these isles is 2092. The Isles belong to
the Duchy of Cornwall but have been leased to Mr Dorrien-Smith. A large
business is done in the sending of flowers and early potatoes thence to
London. There is a good pier and harbour. (pp. 57, 59, 96.)
=Saltash= (3357), built on a steep slope falling to the Hamoaze,
returned two members to Parliament till disfranchised in 1832. The Royal
Albert Bridge here crosses the Tamar, erected in 1857-9, carrying the
trains of the G.W.R. into Cornwall. Saltash has a station. It was
formerly the great place of crossing from Devon to Cornwall and _vice
versa_ by ferry boats. (pp. 16, 132, 133, 139, 147.)
=Stratton= and =Bude= (2308). Stratton is a small market and union town,
and Bude its modern prosperous daughter is two miles off, the terminus
of a branch of the L. & S.W.R. whereas Stratton has no station. It is a
sleepy, decaying place; it possesses a fine church in which is the altar
tomb of a Crusader, and another to Sir John Arundell of Trerice. On the
other hand Bude is a growing and thriving watering-place, and possesses
a small harbour. (pp. 32, 33, 57, 103, 120, 133, 135, 136, 137, 139.)
=Truro= (2215, but with Kenwyn 5836, and with St Clement 3283 more).
Truro is a city, the seat of a bishop, a municipal borough, head of an
union and county court district, and a port. The city is situated in a
valley and comprises the parishes of St Mary, Kenwyn and St Clement. At
high water the tide forms a fine lake two miles in length reaching from
Truro quay to Malpas, and the channel is of sufficient depth to be
navigable for vessels of upwards of 70 tons. Truro was formerly one of
the towns having the privilege of stamping tin, and is the seat of the
Stannary Court. In 1876 Cornwall was cut off from Devon for
ecclesiastical purposes and Truro constituted the seat of the bishop,
and in 1880 the present cathedral was begun. Truro possesses a Passmore
Edwards Free Library, and it is the seat of the Royal Institution of
Cornwall which has here a museum and a library. (pp. 38, 66, 96, 104,
123, 124, 132, 135, 137, 139, 144, 146.)
[Illustration: Truro]
=Tywardreath= (2215) is a little town where once was a Benedictine
priory. It has a coastguard station and a police station. (p. 48.)
=Wadebridge= (2186), a market town on the river Camel, partly in the
parish of St Breock and partly in that of Egloshayle. It has a station
on the L. & S.W.R. whence also runs a branch to Bodmin and another to
Padstow. A stone bridge originally of 17 but now of 15 arches, erected
in 1485, connects Wadebridge with Egloshayle. The chief trade of the
town consists in the exportation of granite, china-clay, and
agricultural produce, and the principal imports are coal and timber.
(pp. 14, 15, 135.)
=28. DIAGRAMS.=
[Area of Cornwall as compared with that of Rutland]
[Population of England and Wales]
[Population of Cornwall]
[Proportionate Land Cultivation in Cornwall]
[Proportionate Area of Corn Crops]
[Proportionate numbers of Livestock]
[Comparative Proportion of Cereals]
[Proportionate Area of Permanent Pasture]
[Proportionate Weight and Value of Fish landed]
CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
[Illustration: Geological Map of Cornwall]
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cornwall, by Sabine Baring-Gould
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