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 Chun
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-un, Dauns Mor,
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 AEgured; and an old bell at Lanhydrock has on it "AEthelstan
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]