Nooks and Corners of Cornwall Part 15

LAUNCESTON

These upper reaches of the Tamar are well stocked with trout, and Launceston which, though not on the river, has a stream of its own, not to speak of a special and personal ca.n.a.l, is a good centre for anglers as well as a most interesting old ruin of a place. Its ancient name was Dunheved, and a castle of some sort was crowning this great hill when William the Conqueror gave Cornwall to his half-brother, Robert of Mortain. The most noticeable thing about these Cornish fortifications is the frequency and ease with which they fell into a ruinous condition.

Seeing that the walls are at their thinnest 3 ft. thick and elsewhere 10, one would have thought them capable of withstanding a little wind and weather. But the contrary was the case. The present ruins are mostly late Norman and Transition Norman of Henry III.'s time, but already in 1312, not a hundred years after they had replaced the older building, we find them calling urgently for repair; while, when the Black Prince came down to Cornwall in 1353 to make acquaintance with his duchy, for he took that as seriously and conscientiously as everything else, the stronghold was in a parlous condition. Yet it occupies a commanding position and was evidently a place of considerable strength. No doubt the good young Prince restored this Castle Terrible with its great wall--the base court--containing three gateways, one of which is still standing, and its dungeon of Doomsdale; this castle to which "the vill of Truro yearly rendered one laburnum bow and the manor of Scilly three hundred puffins!"

Imagine the arrival at the b.u.t.tery hatch of those three hundred puffins!

We think them a leathery, fishy kind of food, and nowadays the servants would leave in a body if required to eat them. But those were the good old times, and in guardroom and kitchen no doubt they had puffin roasted and puffin boiled and puffins in their pasties until the lady of the castle said to her lord: "My love, in this weather, of course, you can't expect those puffins to keep; really the Scillies are most inconsiderate, one hundred at a time would have been sufficient!" and then they had puffins potted and variously preserved until the garrison groaned in chorus the old grace:

"_Puffins young and puffins old, Puffins hot and puffins cold, Puffins tender and puffins tough, I thank the Lord I've had enough._"

At the time of the Civil Wars the Castle, nodding in age-long sleep and slow decay, was restored and fortified. Charles I. and his troops pa.s.sed through the town in August 1644; and Richard Grenville, new-made Lord of Lostwithiel, was imprisoned here, when his turbulence had exhausted the royal patience. Now the county gaol is at Bodmin; but in those days of dungeons and fetters the folk were incarcerated in the fortress--what is now a playground being the place of execution.

The ruins are certainly the most interesting part of Launceston, and it has ruins not only of the ivy-grown castle, but of a priory founded in 1126. Its faint remains, with the exception of a doorway built into the White Hart Hotel, lie in a valley between the town and St. Stephen's.

When the privilege of sanctuary was abolished except in churches and churchyards, Launceston was one of the seven towns that were made sanctuaries for life, except for heinous crimes. The result, however, was not altogether pleasant for the aforesaid towns, which, much to their dismay, presently found themselves harbouring all the criminals and rapscallions of the country. Preferring the room of these would-be citizens to their company, the towns pet.i.tioned James I. for "desecration" and the right of sanctuary was finally abolished.

The Church of St. Mary Magdalene was built by Sir Henry Trecarrel in 1524 on the death of his only child. It is of granite, and has the peculiarity of being worked all over with picks instead of chisels. The ornamentation is florid and excessive. A granite carving of the Crucifixion, however, and other interesting monuments form part of the churchyard wall. The vestry was once a shop that separated the tower from the church, which though it seems strange to our modern notions was by no means unusual in olden days.

THE OLD HIGHWAYS

The oldest road in the county is no doubt the one that runs from Tor Point by way of the princ.i.p.al towns to the Land's End, but a great part of this ground has already been trodden. Another ancient road leaving Launceston goes via Bodmin Moors to Bodmin, branching off right and left at Altarnon. It then crosses Tregoss Moor, pa.s.ses St. Enoder and Mitch.e.l.l, and joins the first near Redruth. This road, running as it does like a backbone down the centre of the county, we propose to take.

Egloskerry, Treneglos, and Trewen have churches which are mildly interesting. In the first are two good Norman tympana, one over the north doorway, representing a dragon, and one, now placed over the interior of the south doorway, carved with the Agnus Dei. Here also is a mutilated stone figure supposed to represent one of the Blanchminster (_anglice_, Blackmonster) family. At Treneglos is another fine Norman tympanum, having cut on it the tree of life with a lion on each side; and Trewen has a good mediaeval bell inscribed, "St. Michael, pray for us!"

At Lancast J. C. Adams, the discoverer of the planet Neptune, was born.

He was also the Senior Wrangler of his year at Cambridge, and one of the exceptions to the old rule that Senior Wranglers never distinguish themselves after leaving college. Another Cornish Senior Wrangler was Henry Martyn, the missionary, to whose memory the baptistery in Truro Cathedral is dedicated.

ST. CLETHER

Basil or Trebasil, in the parish of St. Clether, was for long the seat of the Trevelyans. Among the ruins of the house is a large moorstone oven, now used as a pigstye, while in the immediate neighbourhood are four granite crosses in a good state of preservation. The Trevelyans, like most of the Cornish gentry, were Cavaliers, and on one occasion a party of Roundheads made s.h.i.+ft to seize the squire in his own house.

"If you come on," said he, "I will send out my spearmen against you."

As there seemed nothing at the back of this threat, come on they did.

Whereupon he up with a teeming beehive and threw it among them. Not a man-jack waited for the onslaught of those spearmen.

ALTARNON

At the junction of this northerly road with those running south to Liskeard and west to Bodmin, lies Altarnon, the largest parish in Cornwall. The patron saint is Non, the mother of St. David, and her church is full of interesting memorials of the past. It possesses not only an exceptionally large collection of sixteenth-century bench-ends, but an oak rood screen, which antiquarians declare to be "by far the finest specimen of fifteenth-century woodwork in Cornwall and one of the very best existing examples of perpendicular oak-work in England." There are also two paintings on wood (date 1620), a fragment of ancient gla.s.s in the east window, locally supposed to contain a portrait of St. Non, a communion rail of 1684, and other objects of interest. On several of the bench-ends may be seen carvings of the little corn man or "neck," that is to say, the figure that is plaited out of the heads of wheat in the last sheaf at a harvest, and which is sometimes to be seen preserved over the winter in a cottage.

Nor is the carefully restored church all that Altarnon has to show. St.

Non's Well was celebrated for the cure of lunacy, and Carew gives a startling account of the proceedings. "In our forefather's days, when devotion as much exceeded knowledge as knowledge now cometh short of devotion, there were many bowsening places for curing madmen; and amongst the rest one at Altarnunne, called St. Nunne's Pool, which saint's altar it may be, _pars pro toto_, gave name to the church. And because the manner of this bowsening is not so unpleasing to hear as it was uneasy to feel, I will deliver you the practice as I received it from the beholder.

"The water running from St. Nunne's Well fell into a square and close-walled plot which might be filled at what depth they listed. Upon this wall was the frantic person set to stand, his back towards the pool, where a strong fellow, provided for the nonce, took him and tossed him, and tossed him up and down, along and athwart the water, until the patient, by foregoing his strength, had somewhat forgotten his fury.

Then was he conveyed to the church and certain ma.s.ses sung over him; upon which handling, if his right wits returned, St. Nunne had the thanks, but if there appeared small amendment, he was bowsened again and again, while there remained in him any hope of life or recovery."

The well is now dry, and the "square and close-walled plot" in ruins, for which--lest it should occur to our medical men to try these old remedies--thanks be to whom thanks are due.

TREBARTHA

The Lynher which rises in Altarnon flows southward to Trebartha, where it forms a fine cascade and is crossed by the road to Liskeard. Not far from this bridge is the manor of Treveniel, whose lord claimed the right, whenever the Mayor of Launceston mounted his horse on the occasion of the duke coming into Cornwall, of holding the stirrup. It seems strange that any gentleman should set store by this right, which is, after all, a relic of some forgotten form of tenure. What elderly children we remain, squabbling over our foolish plays, in spite of the twentieth century, the new humanitarianism, and all the other solemnities!

THE TRETHEVY DOLMEN

Before marching on Liskeard, Charles I. drew up his troops on the north side of Caradon Hill. The copper mines on the south-west of this moorland eminence have yielded ore to the value of several millions of money, but are no longer worked. Near them is the Trethevy dolmen, the largest in Cornwall, the cover stone being 14 ft. long and 9 ft. wide.

An old writer described it as "a little house raised of mighty stone, standing on a little hill within a field." In comparison with some of the foreign dolmens, however, it is but small. Several of the French cromlechs are large enough to be converted into chapels, while one at Copenhagen, called the "Chamber of Giants," will allow of twenty people walking about in it.

THE CHEESEWRING

To the north of Caradon Down are three stone circles known as the Hurlers and not far from them the remarkable granite stone known as the Cheesewring. This curious natural phenomenon stands on the side of a hill, the summit of which is encircled by a large entrenchment of unhewn stones, while over against it is Kilmar Tor (1297 ft.), third highest peak in Cornwall. It looks like large blocks of tabular granite poised on smaller ones till the base of the Cheesewring is only about half the size of what it supports, this irregularity being due to weathering. A part of the top is broken. In consequence of careless quarrying close by, the pile has had to be artificially supported.

Antiquaries once thought the Cheesewring a memorial to the dead, from which in the course of centuries the covering earth had been washed away. In this neighbourhood there are many such cairns and monuments. A barrow near by was opened in 1818 and in it an extended skeleton and a gold cup were found. This cup was of Scandinavian type, 3-1/2 in. high, and weighed nearly three ounces, which suggests that some sea rover found his last resting-place in these heathy solitudes.

ST. CLEER

From near the Cheesewring a moorland road leads down to St. Cleer, which is divided from St. Neot by the lovely valley of the River Fowey. This parish contains a number of antiquities of varying ages, in fact, as has been said, "dead faiths and dead beliefs lie about this countryside like withered leaves in autumn." At Trewartha Marsh is a prehistoric settlement which probably belongs to the early iron age. Some of the oblong huts are small, but others are fully 50 ft. long, while in the group is what was possibly a public hall with stone benches along its sides, and at the end a chair with arms. A few hut circles and an ancient circular pound are also to be seen.

Doniert's stone, supposed to have been raised in memory of King Alfred's friend, Dungarth of Cornwall, is near Redgate; and in the village of St.

Cleer is a Latin cross which stands beside a holy well reputed to have been used like that at Altarnun for the "bowsening" or cure of maniacs.

This well has a beautiful little chapel built over the clear spring.

"_Tell me the street to Heaven.

This? Or that? Oh, which?

What webs of streets!_"

NOGUCHI.

The fifteenth-century tower of St. Cleer is unusually fine, and the church contains a Norman north doorway, and an early English font of great beauty.

ST. NEOT

To the north of both St. Cleer and St. Neot lie the wild and uncultivated moors, and the saints must have been brave men who sought the solitude of this granite strewn district. It is little wonder that strange, and to our thinking, absurd legends, should have grown up about them. St. Neot, as has been already said, was a cousin of King Alfred, and it appears that in those days even minor royalties worked for their living. The saint's oxen were stolen--he evidently farmed the land--so the stags of the neighbouring forest performed all the necessary labour, and for this good deed were endowed with a white mark wherever the yoke of labour had touched their brown hides! This and similar stories are depicted on one of the beautiful stained gla.s.s windows of the church.

This parish, like so many others in Cornwall, is rich in ancient crosses, there being no less than three, all having incised crosses on them, in the vicarage garden. In the churchyard is one on which is quite the finest interlaced work on granite in the county. It has been mounted on the stone, on which legend says St. Neot, who was a small man, stood in order to unlock the church door. From which story it appears that in those days the churches were kept locked!

Little St. Neot must have been glad to welcome his great kinsman, when as the Book of Hyde (1200 A.D.) says: "Alfred went to Cornwall and repaired to the Church of St. Gueryr, where St. Neot reposes, for the purpose of alleviating his illness." Let us hope Neot was not too saintly to feel a cousinly interest in the King's health and that the two compared their widely differing lives and asked after old friends and what had been the history of this one and that; and that they ate in peace of the wheaten bread which St. Neot, after his farming operations, would be able to offer, and the fish with which another legend daily provided him, and so parted, the one to his burden of life, the other staying on, content with uneventful peace.

The glory of St. Neot's Church is its collection of stained gla.s.s. It dates from 1528, and though not quite the oldest in the county, it is said that none comparable with it for beauty and richness exist either in Cornwall or Devon.

The old road from Bodmin to Plymouth, that interesting prehistoric highway by which the early Cornish probably sent their tin for s.h.i.+pment abroad, runs through the village. Long before Alfred came to hob-n.o.b with his cousin, before the Romans so much as knew that Britain existed, and while the mammoth in the valley of the Thames was still shaking his great hairy sides over the littleness of man, the rough stuggy ponies, whose descendants still feed on Goonhilly Downs, were carrying their heavy packs along this track, over the old clapper bridges, past heath, mora.s.s, forest, and settlement, at the call of need.