FROM HAYLE TO PERRAN
A good road runs from Hayle to Gwythian, skirting the Phillack towans,
and then passes onward to Portreath. For the most part it keeps near
the sea, so that the cyclist need not feel he is losing everything
worth seeing; but the pedestrian, if he does not mind a few rough
places, will do better still by taking the cliff path. Camborne and
Redruth, lying some miles inland, are not likely to tempt the
traveller, unless he be a mining expert intent on studying newest
methods, or unless he be a lover of Rugby football, of which, in the
proper season, he might see some good games. Cornwall, having deserted
hurling for the more modern development of the ball game, has won high
position, and these two mining towns are the chief centres of the
sport. Something other than football, however, attracts most of those
who come to Cornwall, and one such attraction ought to be the lovely
view of St. Ives Bay to be enjoyed from the Godrevy headland. The reef
of rocks lying off this eastward point of the bay has been a deadly
trap for navigation, and the lighthouse, on an island close to the
mainland, was first erected in 1857. One early wreck on these crags is
connected with memories of the beheaded Charles I. On the day of his
execution a fierce storm broke on the coast, easily interpreted by
loyal Cornishmen as a judgment of God. A vessel containing the royal
wardrobe and other furnishings was riding at the time in St. Ives Bay,
being bound for France, and this was driven by the tempest on the
Godrevy rocks. Of the sixty persons on board all were lost with the
exception of a man and boy; these, with a wolfhound, swam to the islet
on which the light now stands and were carried to St. Ives as soon as
the storm permitted their rescue. With all the assistance that a
powerful light can give the Godrevy stones are still perilous. The
lighthouse is finely placed and its white tower is a conspicuous mark
along the coast. The eastward projection of this headland is Navax
Point. A little beyond is the deep and narrow gorge of Hell's
Mouth--not the only spot so named in Cornwall--whose dim caverns and
beach are said to be more frequented by seals than any other part of
the Cornish coast; but the seals will soon be a thing of the
past--they are foolishly and cruelly shot by men whose instinct is to
shoot everything. The caves were once haunted by smugglers also, and
their operations were admirably seconded by Nature. There is a
sprinkling of little islets along the shore here, one of which is
Samphire Isle. About a mile inland, on the left of the road, is Tehidy
House, with its parks and plantations of nearly one thousand acres,
said to have once reached to the foot of Carn Brea. This is the seat
of the Bassets, one of the most memorable of Cornish families, having
played a great part in the Duchy's history. The Bassets were among the
earliest Norman settlers in England and can be traced in Cornwall as
early as the time of Robert de Mortain, half-brother of the
Conqueror. They do not appear to have gained a permanent settlement in
Cornwall, however, till the reign of Henry II., when Thomas Baron
Basset, of Hedendon, Oxfordshire, married Adeliza de Dunstanville and
so took root at Tehidy. The family intermarried with the best local
families--Grenvilles, Trelawneys, Godolphins, Rashleighs, Prideaux.
Francis Basset, who was associated with Grenville in the glorious
victory of Stamford Hill, Stratton, was knighted by Charles I. after
the fight of Braddoc Down. Some of his letters to his wife at this
time are preserved, and they compare with Bevil Grenville's for
touching simplicity and whole-hearted affection. His joy at the
victories, which seemed to have established the Royal cause on a firm
basis--at least in the West--is expressed in several of these.
"Peace," he exclaims, "and I hope perpetual. Sadd houses I have seen
many, but a joyfuller pleasanter day never than this. Sende the money,
as much and as soone as you can. Sende to all our ffriends at home,
especially, this good news. I write this on my saddle. Every friend
will pardon the illness of it, and you chiefly, my perfect joy." To
this he adds in a postscript: "The Kinge and army march presently for
Plymouth. Jesus give the King it and all. The King, in the hearing of
thousands, as soon as he saw me in ye morning, cryed to mee, 'Deare
Mr. Sheriffe, I leave Cornwall to you safe and sound.'" The letter is
addressed "To my Lady Bassett, at her Tehidy, joyfull. After the
success near Lostwithiel." It was not long, however, before this
joyfulness was turned to mourning. Grenville and many another gallant
Cornishman fell in battle; stronghold after stronghold gave way before
the irresistible Fairfax; and Basset himself, after a brave defence
of St. Michael's Mount, had to yield and withdraw to a kind of exile
at Scilly. This dauntless loyalist was closely connected with the town
of St. Ives, which he represented in Parliament, and to which he gave
the silver goblet mentioned in the previous chapter. Tehidy House,
which was enlarged and nearly rebuilt in 1865, is beautifully situated
and contains an excellent collection of pictures, including specimens
by Reynolds, Vandyck, Lely, and Gainsborough. A later notability was
Francis, Baron de Dunstanville and Basset, of Tehidy, born at Walcot
in 1757, whose virtues were so greatly appreciated by the Duchy that
his monument was erected on the summit of Carn Brea, where it stands
as a striking landmark, rising 90 feet from its pedestal; this was
placed in 1836. The top can be reached by an inner stairway, and
commands a magnificent view of land and water. With the death of Lord
Francis the title de Dunstanville became extinct. Carn Brea cannot
actually be said to belong to the coast, being several miles inland,
but it is a dominant feature in any view from a far distance, and it
claims a visit partly on account of this monument and partly for its
prehistoric remains. This mass of granite, rising to a height of about
740 feet, bears traces of immemorial occupation that have been both a
delight and a puzzle to antiquaries. Those familiar with the works of
the artist Cruikshank will remember that the giant Bolster used to
take this hill with one stride from St. Agnes Beacon, and in addition
to this tale of giants there was the usual chatter about Druids and
Druidic monuments in connection with Carn Brea. It is safest to leave
the Druids alone--they are at a discount now; the place is
interesting enough without them, and the view from the summit is
magnificent, reaching as it does from sea to sea. Clusters of hut
circles and signs of neolithic military entrenchment are very obvious,
and a number of pure gold coins have been discovered here. There is
also a mediaeval castle, restored, and, of course, the inevitable
logan-stone. Nearer to Redruth is one of the Cornish "places of play"
(_plan-an-guare_), known as Planguary. These rounded hollows, such as
the famous Gwennap Pit, were formerly used for sports and dramatic
performances; they played an important part in the social life of the
past, and Cornwall had its own speciality in miracle-plays or
interludes. Carew tells us that "the Guary Miracle is a kind of
interlude compiled in Cornish out of some Scripture history. For
representing it they raise an earthen amphitheatre in some open field,
leaving the diameter of the enclosed plain some forty or fifty feet.
The country people flock from all sides to see and hear it, for they
have therein devils and devices to delight the eye as well as the ear.
The players speak not their parts without book, but are prompted by
one called the ordinary, who followeth at their back with the book in
his hand and telleth them softly what they must pronounce aloud. The
dramas were acted at one time for several days together and were
similar in character to the English mysteries of the same period."
The parish of Illogan was the birthplace of the engineer Trevithick,
who was born here in 1771. His father, a prominent manager of local
mines, was a Methodist, often visited by Wesley. The boy, educated at
Camborne, was bright and precocious; he is said on one occasion to
have irritated his master by offering to do six sums to his one--a
proposition which no pedagogue is likely to appreciate. He was
powerfully developed physically, and at eighteen could lift ten
hundredweight. In 1794 he became engineer at the Ding Dong Mine, where
he introduced many improvements; and a few years later he was busily
engaged in designing a genuine steam-carriage, which was finished and
made its first short trip on Christmas Eve, 1801, carrying the first
passengers ever known to have been conveyed by steam. Locally this
contrivance was known as the "puffing devil," or as "Cap'n Dick's
Puffer." The next step was to produce an engine running on rails. This
was done in 1804, when Trevithick completed a machine which carried
ten tons of iron, five wagons, and seventy men for a distance of nine
and a half miles, the speed being about five miles an hour. Clumsy and
slow as it was, this was a very marked advance on anything that had
previously been accomplished. But the engineer's genius for invention
was not balanced by adequate business capacity, and he lacked the
means of perfecting and forwarding his devices; they had to wait. He
went to Peru in 1817, and suffered heavy losses through the war of
independence. At this time he was nearly drowned in the Magdalena
River, but was rescued by a Venezuelan officer, who drew him ashore
with a lasso. It is pleasant to learn that he made the acquaintance of
George Stephenson at Carthagena, and received generous help from one
who might have been considered his rival. He died poor and in debt at
Dartford in 1833, when the workmen with whom he had been labouring
clubbed together to give him a suitable funeral. There is now a
memorial window to his memory in Westminster Abbey. His character
seems to have been warm and sanguine, tender-hearted, and easily
depressed. He was notably one of those men into whose labours "other
men enter"--successful to a point, but lacking in the finishing
touches that bring fame and triumph; with all his courage he wanted
persistence. But when we think of Watt and Stephenson in connection
with steam transit we must never forget that the Cornishman Trevithick
deserves at least an equal share of honour.
Illogan is a mining centre, and thickly populated, though when we
speak of population in Cornwall we must remember that the inhabitants
of the whole Duchy number far less than those of such towns as
Birmingham, Liverpool, or Manchester. The church here was rebuilt in
1848, when all the old monuments were carefully replaced. Portreath is
the thriving little port of the district, and is also popular with
Camborne and Redruth folk as a watering-place. But the presence of
active and prosperous mining does not make for beauty; a mine only
becomes picturesque when it has been deserted and taken back into the
bosom of Nature. Otherwise, Portreath has many attractions, and the
coast is grand. The port has four docks and a pier of about 260 yards
long. Lord de Dunstanville built the first dock here. Copper ore is
exported, and there is an import of coal and iron. What with
commercialism and pleasure, Portreath (formerly named Basset's Cove)
should do well; but the industries certainly bring some disfigurement,
and the stream that flows to the sea discolours the ocean waves with
its ruddy stain. From here to St. Agnes the coast is broken into
coves, one of which, Porth Towan, is popular with excursionists; but
the tripper cannot be here at all times, and when he is absent the
shores are left to majestic loneliness, their caves haunted by seals
and their crags by crying sea-fowl. We do not escape from the mining
when we come to St. Agnes, but we come to a district of notable
memories, and those who climb the Beacon can look towards St. Ives on
the one side and Newquay on the other. We must not suppose that the
Beacon is associated with any memories of the saintly maiden whom
Keats and Tennyson have poetically glorified; St. Agnes here is
pronounced St. Anne's, and it is supposed that this Ann is the
so-named goddess of the Irish Celts, but the identification is rather
difficult. More vivid is the legend that speaks of the love of the
giant Bolster for this saint, and the manner in which she contrived to
get rid of him. As a married man, the giant believed in the virtues of
quick change; he found that a new wife each year was a fairly
satisfactory allowance, and it is reported that he killed the old ones
by throwing stones at them. St. Agnes was much perturbed by his
attentions; she did not approve of his matrimonial methods, and she
had some sympathy with the existing Mrs. Bolster. "At last she
conceived a device, not very saint-like but perhaps necessary. Would
he fill a little hole in the cliff with his blood as a proof of his
affection? Of course he would. He cut his arm and let the blood run;
but the life-stream flowed and flowed, and his strength ebbed away,
and the hole did not fill. At last, when the sea had become red with
his blood, he died. The saint had deceived him; the small hole in the
rock led down into a cavern, and the cavern led to the sea; not even
the ocean could have filled it." Chapel Porth is named as the scene of
this incident. The village of St. Agnes lies at the eastward foot of
the Beacon, and Trevaunance, on the coast, is its port. It is a
neighbourhood where natural beauties contend with the ugliness of
industrialism, and usually emerge triumphant. There is a story told of
St. Agnes in connection with Wesley, which proves how rapidly
folk-lore may spring up; it is even more remarkable, because more
modern, than the manner in which Devonians have associated mythology
with the name of Francis Drake. It is said that "when Wesley visited
this part of Cornwall preaching, he was refused shelter elsewhere than
in an ancient mansion that was unoccupied because haunted by ghosts.
Wesley went to the house, and sat up reading by candle-light. At
midnight he heard a noise in the hall, and on issuing from his room,
saw that a banquet was spread, and that richly apparelled ladies and
gentlemen were about the board. Then one cavalier, with dark, piercing
eyes and a pointed black beard, wearing a red feather in his cap,
said, 'We invite you to eat and to drink with us,' and pointed to an
empty chair. Wesley at once took the place indicated, but before he
put in his mouth a bite of food or drank a drop, said, 'It is my
custom to ask a blessing; stand all.' Then the spectres rose. Wesley
began his accustomed grace, 'The Name of God, high over all'--when
suddenly the room darkened, and all the apparitions vanished." There
is yet another memory at St. Agnes. The painter Opie (said to have
been born Hoppie) was born at Harmony Cottage in the year 1761, his
father being a carpenter. At ten years of age he began to teach others
in the village school; and at twelve he opened an evening school for
poor children. Having already developed an extraordinary taste for
drawing, it is related that he once purposely irritated his father in
order to catch the expression of anger for a picture. He soon began to
practise in a humble way as a portrait-painter, and was advised by Dr.
Wolcot ("Peter Pindar") to raise his price to half a guinea a head;
from which we may guess that his previous terms had been excessively
modest. Wolcot was a good friend to Opie, though their intercourse did
not remain very cordial; but for a time they even entered into some
sort of partnership together, in London, and there can be no doubt
that the painter was thus introduced to a wider circle than he would
otherwise have reached. He became the "Cornish Wonder," and felt able
to tell Wolcot that he could get on by himself. This may sound like
ingratitude, but we do not know enough of the story to form a
judgment. When Northcote returned to London from abroad Joshua
Reynolds said to him, "My dear sir, you may go back; there is a
wondrous Cornishman who is carrying all before him." "What is he
like?" asked Northcote. "Like? Why, like Caravaggio and Velasquez in
one." Opie began to exhibit at the Royal Academy in 1782, and in the
same year he married a lady who eloped from him. Divorcing her, he
married, many years later, the novelist Mrs. Opie. The flood of his
popularity waned considerably, as such sudden fashions do, but still
he had plenty of work, and a solid reputation grew on a sounder basis.
In 1787 his "Assassination of David Rizzio" procured his election as
A.R.A., and a year afterwards he became full member. The lectures that
he delivered at the Academy were admirable both in matter and in
manner, and are worthy of ranking even with those of Reynolds, whose
life Opie wrote. Dying in 1807, after a second married period of great
happiness, the painter was buried at St. Paul's. Among those whose
portraits he painted were Dr. Johnson, Fox, Burke, Dr. Parr,
Northcote, and many other celebrities of his day. Apart from his own
special art, he was passionately devoted to poetry, and is said to
have had a wonderful memory for recitation. The house at which he was
born is situated about half-way between St. Agnes and Perranporth.
Trevaunance Porth, which now has some insignificant accommodation for
shipping, is notable for the difficulties that opposed even such small
harbourage. The manor belonged to the Tonkin family, who spent much
money in the attempt to build a pier, but the force of the sea always
frustrated them. About the year 1700 Winstanley, the famous builder of
Eddystone, constructed an excellent quay and basin, but a gale
destroyed this after a very few years. Tonkin, the parochial historian
of Cornwall, whose work is valuable in spite of its errors, laid out a
considerable sum in an effort to repair the quay, and to raise the
money he had to part with a small piece of land, which speedily repaid
its purchaser by the richness of its mineral wealth. A jetty built
later withstood the sea better than its more ambitious predecessors
had done.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF ST. PIRAN.
_Photo by Gibson & Sons._]
Beyond St. Agnes Beacon the coast is largely composed of clay-slates,
or killas, presenting much desolate grandeur; the slate showing the
jagged scars of its unending resistance to oceanic forces. At Cligga
Head this slate is blended with decomposed hard granite. Off the
shore, about two miles out, rise the two isolated rocks known as the
Man and his Men--sometimes also called the Cow and her Calf. "Man" and
"Men" are simply corruptions of the Celtic _maen_, a stone. Between
St. Agnes and Perranporth the passage along the cliffs is interrupted
by the extensive enclosures of a modern dynamite factory, and the
pedestrian who has known this walk of yore is not likely to bless this
manufacture of a deadly explosive. But there is a great industrial
demand for dynamite in the district, and it is well that its
production should be relegated to a neighbourhood where accidents
would do the least possible damage. At Perranporth we approach a grim
sand-driven tract of country sacred to the name of one of Cornwall's
most typical saints, the Irishman St. Piran. Perranporth itself, since
the advent of the railway, is drawing some visitors away from Newquay,
in quest of equal beauty and greater quiet. The village stands on the
cliffs above a small cove, from which there is some fishing, and
northward runs a fine stretch of sand. There are capabilities here for
almost unlimited growth, and the district, inland and seaward, is full
of charm. The coast is hollowed and arched into wonderful caverns,
where the deep blue and green waters break with gentle swell or dash
with infuriated violence. The church is a chapel-of-ease to
Perranzabuloe (_Piran-in-sabulo_); there are barrows and sand-dunes,
and a vague floating rumour of an immemorial past. In fog or grey
weather the spot can be dreary, weird, desolate; but in times of fair
sunrise or sundown it is glorified with a marvellous beauty, with
restful nooks where a dreamer may enter upon a heritage of beatific
vision. St. Piran, the dominant personality of the district, is the
patron of the tin-miners, but neither they nor others know much about
him; he is a ghost of the far past, but a ghost with a dim halo around
his head. He belongs to the sixth century, and was therefore a little
later than the saints of the Land's End country. In Ireland he is
reputed as St. Kieran of Saigir, but the British Celts, according to
their usual custom, changed the Gaelic _K_ into _P_. His Irish record
is much more full than his Cornish, but it must not delay us, except
to remember that he rescued an Irish girl, Bruinsech, from a chief who
had kidnapped her, and that she travelled to Cornwall, probably in his
company, to become the Buriena of St. Buryan. Piran is said to have
journeyed across the seas on a millstone, which is a mythical way of
saying that he brought his altar-stone with him. He is supposed to
have landed on these drifting sands that perpetuate his name, and to
have founded his first cell here, the oratory that still remains in
much mutilated ruin among the towans of Perran. So far as site is
concerned, this may be true enough; but the oratory, whose bare
foundations are now surrounded by a sheltering rail, is probably at
least two centuries later than the day of St. Piran, though it is just
possible that the huge skeleton found here might be his. There is no
reason why a saint may not also be a giant. But who shall establish
the identity of a mouldering skeleton? Only a fragment of gable, a
half-buried inscribed slab, and some loose rugged stones, have been
left to speak of what may be the earliest religious foundation in
England; but even in this matter of antiquity there are competitors.
We may suppose that the present oratory was raised over Piran's
original cell somewhere about the eighth century; and about two
centuries later it was found that the encroaching sands rendered its
further use impossible. It was deserted, and a second church raised a
little further inland, of which the site is now marked by a cross.
Visitors may be warned that both sites are very difficult to discover
without a guide. This second church became collegiate in the time of
the Confessor, with a dean and canons, being enriched by the offerings
of pilgrims who came from all parts of Cornwall to the shrine of St.
Piran. The establishment was presented by Henry I. to the canons of
Exeter. We may judge that at this time the first chapel was entirely
buried in the sands. In 1420 the second church was rebuilt; the older
church, even its site, was forgotten. At the close of the eighteenth
century the second church itself was threatened by the same peril; the
planting of reed-grass was not then understood as a means of binding
the sand. This time the parishioners moved their church to a greater
distance, establishing their church town at the present Perranzabuloe,
where the materials of the second church were largely used in the
erection of a new one; they also carried thither an old hexagonal
font, which is thought to have come from the original oratory. In
the year 1835 a shifting of sand revealed this earliest church, whose
memory only survived in vague tradition; the secret came to light
after a burial of eight or nine centuries. The discovery made a
considerable stir, and was announced to the public in books written by
two clergymen, W. Haslam and Trelawney-Collins, neither of whom,
however, is a quite reliable guide. Mr. Collins used the occasion as
an opportunity for proving that the Church in England was a Protestant
Church more than nine hundred years before the Reformation; while the
zeal of Mr. Haslam led him to an unfortunate attempt at restoring the
oratory. Then followed neglect, and the tourists who came hither were
left to pilfer and carry away the sacred stones piecemeal; now, when
it is almost too late, such depredation is stopped. The church was a
ruin when it was found; it is something almost less than a ruin now.
As revealed by the shifting sand, it presented an almost exact
resemblance to the oldest oratories in Ireland; its length was about
29 feet, its breadth 16 feet, with an arched doorway, and one little
window, walled up, above the altar. The masonry was of the roughest
description, the stones appearing to have been put together with
little selection; and the floor was a rude kind of concrete, china
clay being used instead of lime. Some skeletons were found within the
church, and many more without; in fact, human remains are still cast
up by the sands. Perhaps this was once a spot of thick population; or,
more probably, the fame of St. Piran may have rendered it a popular
burying-ground. A notice has been placed here, warning against any
disturbance of the soil or of the remains of the dead. The feast-day
of St. Piran falls on the 5th of March, and is not yet quite
forgotten; it was once an occasion of such merry-making as to furnish
a local saying--"As drunk as a Perraner." There is an unhappy
tradition that St. Piran himself died in drink, which we may connect
with the other rumour that he discovered Cornish tin in an effort to
distil Irish whisky. We have reason to believe that Celtic saints were
very human, but we need not credit every idle legend. The saint seems
to have been something of a farmer, possessing many horses and cattle.
We may question the statement that he lived to the age of two hundred,
and then dug his own grave in the sand; but the possibility that the
large skeleton found here was really his has some support from the
fact that it was headless when discovered, and this tallies with an
entry in the will of Sir John Arundell of Trerice: "To provide
honourable protection for St. Pieran's head, the sum of 40s." Those
who wish to find the ancient oratory had better first reach the site
of the second church, marked by a high granite cross; from this the
older remains lie about a quarter of a mile westward, towards the sea.
Another _plan-an-guare_, resembling that of Redruth, lies near the
hamlet of Rose (_ros_, a moorland); it is about 130 feet in diameter,
and has faint traces of seven tiers of seats, which afforded
accommodation for two thousand spectators. Originally it was probably
a natural subsidence, strengthened by artificial earthworks; and
whatever its first use may have been, it became a popular amphitheatre
for public performance of miracle-plays. There are many water-mills in
this district, and they provide a feature not common in Cornwall.