Nooks and Corners of Cornwall Part 16

DOZMARe

On the high land north of St. Neot and a little beyond Brown Gilly (1058 ft.) lies Dozmare, the only inland lake of Cornwall. This tarn, which by old writers was called the Dead Sea from the lifeless appearance of its waters, lies on an elevated plateau in a dreary sad-coloured region. It is nearly square and in circ.u.mference about a mile. Tennyson told Mr. J.

J. Rogers that the Loe Pool was where he pictured the throwing away of the sword Excalibur. His description suits that and does not suit Dozmare, while the moormen talk only of "Jan Tergeagle," that unjust steward who does penance for his evil deeds in so many parts of Cornwall. It is said that he has been set to bale Dozmare--supposed to be bottomless--dry, and has been given to aid him in his task a limpet sh.e.l.l pierced with a hole through which the water drips as he lifts it.

It is perhaps "flogging a dead horse" to mention that in the hot summer of 1869 Dozmare dried up, thus proving that it was far from bottomless.

By disclosing a number of unfortunate trout and eels, it also showed it was by no means "dead." To a moorman the suggestion that Tregeagle has evidently accomplished his task, however, has but little weight. His imagination overleaps the trifling fact of the dry summer and its consequences, and only looks before and after. The pool seems mysterious, it has a healthy legend, and to that legend any one hearing the wind howl over these wastes on a December night may well give credence.

What was the origin of the moated grange? In Dozmare is a subaqueous pile of stones on which once stood a crannog or lake dwelling, while many arrow heads and worked flints have been found in the neighbourhood.

Did the folk who built their homes over a pool find the water so great a protection that their children going east and west, and being unable to discover any more convenient lakes, built a stockaded house, and for its greater safety must by their personal labour surround it with the element in which they had always trusted? Is the moated grange then only the direct descendant of the lake dwelling?

CHAPTER XI

NOOKS AND CORNERS FROM BROWN w.i.l.l.y TO CAMBORNE

_Brown w.i.l.l.y and Row Tor: Michaelstow, St. Tudy and St. Mabyn: St.

Breward and Blisland: h.e.l.land: Bodmin: Lanivet: Mitch.e.l.l: Cornish Names: Blackwater and Illogan: Redruth and St. Day: Carn Brea: Camborne: A Word in Farewell._

BROWN w.i.l.l.y AND ROW TOR

Dozmare Pool is only a short distance from the main road on the further side of which lie the chief heights of this moorland district, Row Tor (1296 ft.) and Brown w.i.l.l.y (1375 ft.). From Tintagel these hills look like gently rounded brown ma.s.ses on the skyline, but on nearer approach the scene changes from cultivation to a waste of rock and bog and heath.

Rowtor, which is the northernmost of the two peaks, is covered with ma.s.ses of granite which have been weathered into fantastic shapes. It was looked upon by the ancients as a sacred hill, probably on this account, and there are remains of a stone circle on the slope and of other prehistoric monuments. In 1371 Sir Hugh Peverell had licence for a chapel of St. Michael at "Rogh-torre," of which the foundations can be traced, while the stone arch of the doorway is to be seen built into the Britannia Inn, near Camelford. This chapel was probably built on the site of an earlier edifice not necessarily Christian.

Brown w.i.l.l.y (Cornish, bron welli, the highest hill) is a beautiful conical hill rising from the Bodmin ma.s.s of granite. The beacon of loose stones on the summit was raised by the ordnance surveyors, and it is said that on a fine day the peak of Snowdon can be seen through field gla.s.ses. The Fowey rises at the foot of this hill and flowing through the moorlands between St. Cleer and St. Neot is, in spite of its beauty, most unkindly called the Dranes.

In the immediate neighbourhood of Brown w.i.l.l.y and Row Tor are several other tors and heights; Bre Down, to the north, 1125 ft.; Garrah, south of Brown w.i.l.l.y, 1086 ft., with hut-circles and other prehistoric remains. Not far from it is King Arthur's Hall (see page 41). Catshole Tor is 1133 ft. and Toborough 1143 ft., while the beacon above Tresilon rises to 1174 ft.

MICHAELSTOW, ST. TUDY AND ST. MABYN

To westward of these hills, on a good road leading down to Bodmin, are the parishes of Michaelstow, St. Tudy, and St. Mabyn, each of which possesses some interesting church silver, the last mentioned having, in particular, a standing vessel dated 1576, which is surmounted by a statuette and now used as a communion cup. This little place is situated amid romantic sylvan and river scenery, while its church on the top of a hill serves as a waymark. At Michaelstow, on the north of the church, are traces of a lean-to building with an opening into the chancel, and it has been suggested that this was an anchor hold. Near by is Helsbury Beacon, 700 ft. above sea-level, and crowned with a fine circular earthwork which has a barbican on the east.

ST. BREWARD AND BLISLAND

Over St. Breward Church antiquarians are in dispute, for some of them think it shows traces of an original cruciform Saxon church altered by a Norman arcade. It is not otherwise interesting; while Blisland, to the south, has a beautiful modern screen, some fine slate monuments, and good woodwork. To reach it the traveller pa.s.ses Pendrief, a logan-stone, once so finely balanced that it was rocked by the wind. It is now immovable. The royal arms and the arms of Cornwall were engraved on it to commemorate the jubilee of George III. This neighbourhood is particularly rich in that puzzling antiquity, the stone circle. At Carwen there is not only one--and it might have been thought one would have been enough for a place--but several, also others at Kerrowe Down, Challowater, and on Hawks Tor, the last-named example being 152 ft. in diameter.

h.e.l.lAND

Of h.e.l.land, princ.i.p.ally known for its two circular earthworks called "The Castles," is told this story. The vicar being called away unexpectedly, left his neighbour of Blisland to make arrangements for the customary services. He did so with the Archdeacon, and in due course the Vicar of h.e.l.land received the following telegram:

"The Archdeacon of Cornwall is going to h.e.l.l, and you need not return."

BODMIN

These moorland parishes cover about ten square miles. They are not entirely sterile, some parts being capable of cultivation and others giving good pasture for cattle; but, on the whole, the impression left is of a bracing and breezy waste, one of the happy s.p.a.ces not yet brought under the dominion of man. And with never a turn the broad white road runs uphill and down dale and so to Bod Mynydd, the dwelling under the hill, the only name that appears on the earliest maps.

In Domesday Bodmin was the largest town in Cornwall, having actually sixty-eight houses, not to speak of a market. Curfew is still rung in Bodmin Church at 8 P.M., and being situated conveniently in the centre of the county the hilly, straggling town has gradually increased in importance. The Cornish were such an unruly folk, so fond of rebellion and blood-letting, that no town of theirs but had its vicissitudes; nor were the troubles of Bodmin only due to their restless energy. In 1348 certain carriers brought a string of pack mules laden with rich merchandise into the town. The bales contained embroidered robes of velvet and satin, pearl-sewn gloves, plumed hats and silken hose, all at a reasonable price. Bodmin folk were used to smuggled goods, had even had the treasures of wrecked s.h.i.+ps hawked through their streets. They saw no reason therefore to be cautious; and the goods were purchased, the carriers paid; and forthwith the men led their mules out of the little town and took the road back to Plymouth. The silver pennies were safe in their pouches, and it would be better not to wait.

Before long a sickness broke out among the people of Bodmin, a sickness unlike any that they had known before, which was not strange when we consider that the fine clothes had belonged to Londoners who had perished in the Black Death. News travelled slowly in those days and Bodmin had not known. But whereas when the carriers came there had been three thousand people in the town, when the sickness pa.s.sed there were but half that number.

Bodmin suffered again after the religious rising of the people in Edward VI.'s reign. According to fact, Sir Anthony Kingston, Provost-Marshal, was sent down from London to punish the rebels. According to tradition he is said to have carried out his instructions with a grim pleasantry all his own. "Boyer, Mayor of Bodmin," runs the story, "had been amongst the rebels against his will; to him the Provost sent word that he would dine with him; therefore the Mayor made great preparations. A little before dinner the Provost took the Mayor aside and whispered him in the ear that an execution must be done in the town that day, and desired that a gallows might be set by the time dinner was over. Presently, when the meal was at an end, the Provost, taking the Mayor by the hand, asked to be led to the place where the gallows was, and looking at it asked the Mayor if he thought it strong enough.

"'Doubtless,' said the Mayor.

"'Come then, my friend,' said the Provost with a bitter grin, 'get thee up speedily, for thou hast prepared it for thyself.'

"Whereat the Mayor, quivering with fear, cried: 'Surely, good sir, thou dost not mean what thou speakest?'

"'In faith,' said the Provost, 'I speak what I mean, for thou hast been a busy rebel.'

"So he was hanged to death."

Near Bodmin lived a miller who had been active in this same rebellion, and he, getting wind of these proceedings, told a st.u.r.dy fellow, his servant, that he had occasion to go from home; and therefore bid him to take his place for a time, and if any did come to inquire for the miller he should say that he was the miller and had been so for three years. In course of time the Provost came and was met by the servant, who said with consequence: "I am the master and have been so these three years."

"Lay hold on him, my men," cried the Provost, "and hang him on this tree."

At this the fellow, sore amazed, cried out the truth. "Nay, nay, my good friend," said the Provost, "I'll take thee at thy word, and if thou be-est the miller thou knowest thou art a rebel and if thou be-est the miller's man, thou art a lying knave; and howsoever thou canst never do thy master better service than to hang for him."

And so, without more ado, he was despatched.

During the Civil War Bodmin suffered so greatly that Charles II., pa.s.sing through, said it was "the politest town he had ever seen, as one half of the houses appeared to be bowing and the other half uncovered."

Hardly the sort of comment that might have been expected, when it was owing to a kindness for him and his that the town was in so ruinous a condition, but if Charles's wit was in the right place the same can hardly have been said of his heart!

When Perkin Warbeck entrenched himself at Castle Kynock, an ancient camp on Bodmin Downs, his horse was said to have extended from Cardinham to Lanhydrock; and it was to Glynn, a place between those two, that Charles I. fled one night, when it had been borne in upon him that he and he alone stood between his people and peace; and that even the loyal and devoted were considering whether it would not be better to have him as a prisoner than as a leader. "Character is Fate" should have been the motto of the Stuarts, a family that acted foolishly because it was their nature so to act and to whom not the most terrible lesson of all could teach wisdom.

To the south of Bodmin is St. Lawrence, a place with gruesome a.s.sociations. There were a fair number of leper hospitals in Cornwall, but it brings the fell disease near to us when we reflect that the last inmate of St. Lawrence only died (though not from leprosy) in 1800.

LANIVET

At Lanivet Church the communion plate is kept in a rare antique pyx of "cuir bouilli," said to be of the fourteenth century. In the churchyard is a Saxon tomb and a yet older inscribed stone; also a remarkable wheel cross, a four-holed cross with interlaced and scroll work, and a curious stone slab. St. Benet's, once a seat of the Courtenays, is built on the site of a reputed Benedictine monastery, the greater part of the front having belonged to the original building. The walls are about 4 ft.

thick. Unfortunately the stones of the cloisters, as well as the upper part of the tower, were used some years ago for building a farmhouse!

MITCh.e.l.l

Near St. Enoder, not in itself interesting, is the old borough of Mitch.e.l.l (formerly written Modeshole), which in the time of Edward I.

was the property of Sir Walter de Raleigh. Though now an inconsiderable village it was said in Saxon days to have been a fair-sized town, and as a borough its reputation for corruption and quarrelling is black even compared with the other rotten boroughs of the county. Sir Walter Raleigh was member for Mitch.e.l.l when he carried his motion for war against Spain; and in 1807 it was represented by Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Wellington.

CORNISH NAMES

Some of the Cornish saints have very curious names. On the Tamar is a church sacred to St. Dilp, but more remarkable is that of St. Erme, sacred to--Hermes. _Saint_ Hermes, too! The G.o.d of thieves, that little old ancient run-about! 'Tis said the early Christians made good use of all existing material, such as the Venus month for the Virgin Mary and so forth, but--_Saint_ Hermes! In this church is an interesting bra.s.s, with kneeling effigies and seven-quartered s.h.i.+eld of arms, to Robert Trencreeke, "counseler at lawe," 1594.