MAWNAN--HELFORD RIVER--MAWGAN-IN-MENEAGE--MANACCAN--ST. ANTHONY IN
ROSELAND--THE MANACLES ROCKS--WRECK OF THE "MOHEGAN"--ST. KEVERNE.
Resuming the coast from Falmouth and leaving that town by Swanpool, an
easy woodland road leads past the little sandy bay of Maen Porth and,
avoiding Rosemullion Head, comes to the hamlet of Mawnan Smith, whence
most travellers go direct down to the crossing of the Helford River at
Durgan. But the church and the original village of Mawnan, such as it
is, lie straight ahead.
The church of Mawnan is far remote from the ordinary tourist track.
Very few are those who, exploring the rugged and greatly indented
coasts of Cornwall, endure to the end and do not presently take some
of the distant headlands and the obscure nooks and corners on trust;
and Mawnan stands above a remote little Land's End of its own that
overlooks the otherwise solitary mouth of the salt estuary called the
Helford River. You come past a few houses and then, through a farmyard,
to the church.
The inquisitive tourist may be recommended to visit that church, not
that it possesses anything above the average of architectural interest
in Cornwall, but because it is a prime example of what is done in the
High Church way in the nooks and corners. Obviously it is ardently
desired to put back the clock of progress at Mawnan, for the interior
of the church is lavishly decorated with texts and admonitions in the
old Cornish language, which became extinct so long ago that nobody
outside the ranks of scholars has the least recollection of it; and it
is quite certain that the villagers of Mawnan do not understand it,
any more than they would Coptic or Chaldee. So when they read on these
walls, among other things, "Da thym ythgu nesse the Thu," they are
obliged to take on trust the translations of this phrase and others,
that are thoughtfully provided on cards. This particular example means,
it would appear, "Good it is to me to draw near to God"; to which one
might offer the criticism, that the way would probably be rendered
easier by the adoption of a language more readily understanded of the
people. No one, however, would be in the least likely to criticise
these things if they were done only out of archæological zeal; but
they are evidences of obscurantism, and, taken with other things,
eloquent of an attempt to recover a lost priestly domination. The other
evidences are not lacking; notably among them the notices displayed
of some precious "Society of King Charles the Martyr," among which it
is sought to restore the old "Office for January 30th," introduced
by Bishop Duppa of Winchester at the Restoration in 1661; an Office
long ago removed from the Prayer Book, which is so much the better by
the loss of it. There is not so much to complain of in the passage
that runs, "Preserve from sacrilegious invasions those temporal
blessings which Thy Providence hath bestowed on Thy Church"; for, put
in other words, this is nowadays a prayer against Disestablishment
and Disendowment; and we have all of us the right of praying for our
continued existence. But few will be found to defend the supplication,
"Give us grace by a careful and studious imitation of this Thy blessed
Saint and Martyr," meaning thereby Charles the First. There are few who
are not sentimentally sorry for that unhappy King, born to trouble, and
earning more by his own actions; and we hate Cromwell and his men. But
those must be very few indeed who are prepared to regard Charles as a
Saint and a Martyr, and when any attempt is made to make him one we
forget our sympathies for a cultured and good-living King, unfortunate
enough to be born into distracted times and to be born without tact,
and unequipped with the sense of keeping faith with his opponents; and
we say that Charles was absolutely untrustworthy and a danger to the
nation, and that he deserved his fate.
[Illustration: THE HELFORD RIVER.]
The Helford River is a miniature Falmouth Harbour, with subsidiary
creeks. It is about six miles long and from half a mile to a quarter
of a mile wide, and is frequented only by a few small yachts and
sailing-boats. Above the passage-house at Durgan comes the singularly
retired hamlet of Port Navas, in a small creek, with a few thatched
cottages smothered in roses and jessamines. Yet the place is not so
retired and remote from the sophisticated world but that one of the
cottages boldly displays the notice "Afternoon Teas"; not merely "teas"
that are meals, but "afternoon teas" that are, in London at any rate,
understood to be, not so much teas taken in the afternoon (and when
else should they be taken?), as a sparing cup and an insufficient cake,
in conjunction with a great deal of more or less scandalous small-talk:
Polwheverill Creek runs up on the right to the granite-quarrying
village of Constantine, but the main Helford River continues past the
oyster-beds of Merthen to the hamlet of Gweek, where its farthest point
is reached.
[Illustration: MAWGAN-IN-MENEAGE.]
Returning round its southern shores, Mawgan-in-Meneage stands amid
great swelling green hills, wooded in rich parklike manner, at the
head of a tiny inlet. The St. Mawgan who has given his name to this
place, and to Mawgan-in-Pydar, on the north coast of Cornwall, was
the sixth-century Welshman, Maucan (the name means "master"), who was
head of a religious collegiate establishment in Pembrokeshire, and
there instructed many of the missionaries to Ireland and Cornwall, who
afterwards became sainted, in the copious hagiology of the West.
Ecclesiastically, this village of Mawgan is "in Kerrier," but it is
generally styled "in Meneage": the second syllable pronounced as in the
word "vague."
But "village" is only a conventional term, as applied here. There are
but half a dozen scattered cottages to keep company with the large and
beautiful church.
[Illustration: HAGIOSCOPE, MAWGAN-IN-MENEAGE.]
I sketched this view of Mawgan church in "soft weather," with rain
oozing down--not falling--a way it has in Cornwall. And a rustic came
to the stable opposite and opened the door, and said, "Come forth, my
son." I expected a boy to come out in reply to that somewhat Biblical
and patriarchal invitation, but it was a horse! So, just as in
Brittany, where you only get the "vraie Breton bretonnante" far away
from the towns, you find your characteristic expressions in the remote
nooks and corners of Cornwall.
The greater part of Mawgan church is of the late Perpendicular period.
A curiously constructed hagioscope, at the angle of the south transept,
is equally remarkable for the large blocks of granite used in it, and
for a low side window, now blocked up by the addition of a vestry.
There is a somewhat similar, but not so good, hagioscope at Cury.
A long way down Helford River from Mawgan comes Helford, a hamlet in
the parish of Manaccan. Helford is at the opposite side of the ferry to
Durgan, and lies down in a deep hollow of the hills. Many charmingly
rustic cottages and a delightful old farmhouse face an inner creek. It
is hot and steamy at Helford, and great pink ivy-geraniums ramble over
the house-fronts, sprawl over the thatch, and peep inquiringly into
bedroom windows.
Manaccan sits upon the hill-top. The great uncertainty often existing
as to the origin and meaning of place-names is well illustrated here.
Manaccan is well within the district of Meneage, which, by fairly
general consent, is taken to mean the "stony district," but there are
those who declare it to be in its origin "mynachau," that is to say,
"monkland." "Manaccan" has also generally been considered to mean "the
monks," but as the church is dedicated to Saints Menaacus and Dunstan,
it seems more likely that the place takes its name from the first
of these. Menaacus, Mancus, or Marnach, an early bishop, is buried,
according to William of Worcester, in the church of Lanreath, near
Fowey, and Lanlivery church is also dedicated to him.
The church is partly Early English, and has a very good Norman south
door. A curious feature is the very flourishing fig-tree that grows out
of the wall at the junction of the tower and nave, on the south side.
Manaccan stands on a lofty hill, softly clothed in rich fields and
luxuriant trees, not in the least characteristic of the stony Meneage
district in which it is situated.
From the heights of Manaccan a steep road, heavily shaded by tall
elms, leads to a parting of the ways, whence you may go direct to St.
Keverne, or turn aside to the left for the Durra Creek of Helford
River, which is some two miles in length, ending in what map-makers
style "Dennis Point," a corruption of "Dinas," an ancient British
word signifying a fortress of the earthwork and wooden palisade type,
constructed at the extremity of a headland, with the approach across
the neck of it cut off by a ditch. There is one of these strongholds
on either side of the entrance to the creek from the sea. Rabbits hold
the fort to-day, but should there come a time when invasions threaten
these parts, there can be little doubt of the eternal and unchanging
requirements of strategy bringing these salient points again into
use, just as, when the last conflicts in the great civil war were
disturbing the nation, the Royalists established themselves here, only
to be turned out by Fairfax.
[Illustration: ST. ANTHONY IN MENEAGE.]
The Durra Creek is generally passed by. Tourists hasten on to St.
Keverne, and know nothing of the lovely rugged woodland road that
runs beside the water to the church--one can scarce say the village
for there are but two or three houses, including the vicarage--of
St. Anthony-in-Meneage. St. Anthony stands at the very verge of high
water, where a little beach ends, on the landward side, in grassy banks
and blackberry tangles, from which spring great elms. Trees close in
everywhere, with the grey granite tower of the church in their midst
and a lovely old vicarage adjoining, wrapped, as it were, in flowers.
There is not, nor ever could have been, any need for a church at this
spot, and thus the legend accounting for its origin may very well be
true. According to this story, some notables voyaging from Normandy
in mediæval times were in great peril of shipwreck, and vowed St.
Anthony a church if he would only bring them in safety to shore. They
made land here, in the Durra Creek, and accordingly the church was
built at the place where they set foot. There are numerous legends of
this kind in Cornwall, and all around our coasts; and there is, in
general, no occasion to doubt their truth, the absolute uselessness,
as a rule, of these votive churches being presumptive evidence of the
genuine character of their story. At the same time, it is impossible
to believe that St. Anthony, or the saints to whom those other churches
are dedicated, personally intervened because they were promised
churches in places where they could not possibly advance the cause of
religion. Surely we ought to have a better opinion of the saints than
to believe them animated by such appeals to personal vanity.
The church of St. Anthony-in-Meneage fell gradually into decay. It was
"awl davered," as they say in these parts, _i.e._ mildewed, and was
not restored until recent years, when its mouldy interior was cleaned
and the rotting woodwork removed. The usual cheap and nasty fittings
of pitch-pine have been installed in their place. It was impossible to
spare the decayed woodwork, of which two fragments remain in the tower.
The vicar, at the time when the present writer was here, brought them
forth to show a boating-party who had landed on the beach, and the
party gushed plentifully over them. "How beautiful! how interesting!"
they exclaimed; insincerely, because any beauty or interest they may
once have had has utterly vanished, and left merely two almost formless
logs, not good enough for firewood. The really interesting object no
one understood or appreciated. This was the beautiful granite font of
the thirteenth century, an exceptionally interesting example, one of
the somewhat rare inscribed fonts. It is adorned with shield-bearing
angels and has the inscription, "_Ecce Karissimi de Deo vero
baptizabuntur spiritu sancto_," with the initials, Q.P., B.M., B.V.,
P.R., repeated. No one appears ever to have explained the significance
of those initials, but it may perhaps be considered that they are not
only those of the donors, which seems obvious enough, but that they are
also those of the storm-tossed voyagers who gave the church.
[Illustration: INSCRIBED FONT, ST. ANTHONY-IN-MENEAGE.]
Inside the protecting shoulder of Nare Point lies Porthallow, a fishing
cove, and beyond it, in the next bight, is Porthoustock, whose fishing
is now mixed with the exportation of granite. Up out of Porthoustock,
over the hill and on to the next point, and you have come to the most
recently tragical outlook upon the Cornish seas, for there, offshore,
lie the Manacles rocks. No one but a seaman would take particular note
of them, for they do but rise unobtrusively from the water.
Their odd name, forbidding and ominous though it be, and apparently
allusive to the fast hold they often keep upon vessels unlucky enough
to go out of their course among them, is only accidental; their
original title having been, in the Cornish language, "maen eglos," the
"church stone." Why they were so called does not appear. A bell-buoy,
floating out there, giving out a harsh knell, might seem to justify the
name, but the rocks were so called long centuries before the Trinity
House placed their buoy here. There is no sadder sound than that of
a bell-buoy, tolling on the brightest day with the note of a funeral
knell; a likeness well justified here, for many have been cast away on
the Manacles, notably in the wreck of the _Dispatch_ transport, January
25th, 1809, when sixty-four were lost; and in that of the _John_
emigrant ship, May 1855, with the loss of nearly two hundred.
The terrible wreck of the American steamship _Mohegan_, on Friday,
October 14th, 1898, is the latest tragedy associated with the fatal
Manacles. The vessel was on its way to New York, and had left London
the day before, carrying fifty-three saloon passengers, a crew of one
hundred and seven, and a stowaway. Between half-past six and seven
o'clock, when the saloon passengers were at dinner, every one on
board was suddenly terrified by a violent crashing and grinding and a
succession of shocks, indicating only too surely that the vessel had
run upon a reef. All the ship's lights went out, and the horror of
darkness was added to the peril of the occasion.
The sun sets at nine minutes past five in the evening on October 14th,
and it is normally quite light for an hour later. It is therefore
incapable of explanation how, in something like another half-hour, the
_Mohegan_ should have been as much as ten miles out of her course,
especially as the south-westerly trend of the land towards the Lizard
must have been very noticeable. Nor are these coasts ill-lighted.
The Eddystone and Falmouth harbour lights, which the _Mohegan_
had already passed, and the Lizard light ahead, form a remarkable
triangular display for the guidance of the mariner. But it should be
noted, perhaps, that the last half-hour of daylight may be especially
dangerous. The lighthouses have already lit their warning beams, but
they are only faintly to be seen in the still radiant western sky, and
only gather strength when the afterglow has died away and darkness
falls upon the restless sea and the sombre coast. Another explanation
of the captain being so far out of his reckoning was sought in the
_Mohegan_ being a new ship, and her compasses possibly not true; but
nothing can actually be known, for all the officers of the ship were
drowned. A strong south-easterly wind was blowing at the time, and the
bell-buoy on the southern ledge of the Manacles at such times rings
loudly; but no one on board appears to have heard its warning. Only two
boats could be launched, so swiftly did the _Mohegan_ sink, and one
of them was capsized. The Porthoustock lifeboat saved many, but one
hundred and six were drowned.
[Illustration:
_Gibson & Sons, Penzance._]
WRECK OF THE _GLENBERVIE_, ON LOWLANDS POINT.]
A landsman, looking out on some calm day from the low headland that
stretches insignificantly out to sea south of St. Keverne cannot easily
comprehend the dangers of the scatter of rocks extending seaward for
nearly a mile and a half. The spot is by no means dramatic. It is even
commonplace, and has no hint of the scenes of terror and despair that
have been enacted out yonder. And the photographs of the wreck that
were afterwards plentifully taken are probably the tamest among such
things, showing merely the funnel and the four masts standing upright
from the waves and disclosing that the _Mohegan_ sank on an even keel
in comparatively shallow water. Those views, taken from the water,
on a calm sea, only, in the present writer's imagination, add to the
pity of the occasion, for in shallow water and so near land, it seems
exceptionally hard that so many should have lost their lives. The
remarkable attraction of the Manacles rocks for vessels was illustrated
the following year, when the _Paris_ strayed among them, happily
with no disastrous results. The Glasgow barque _Glenbervie_ struck in
moderate weather one night, in January 1902, on the Ray, a rock two
miles distant, off Lowlands Point, and although the crew were saved,
the vessel became a total loss.
The narrow and miraculous escapes from among this tangle of reefs have
been many. The _Cornish Magazine_, now extinct, once published an
article, in which the writer spoke of a Porthoustock fisherman telling
him, from memory, the names of thirty vessels of all kinds, from
steamships down to ketches, that had been totally lost here. He told a
thrilling tale of a ship drifting inshore in a fog, and of the captain
anchoring until the fog cleared away, when he sailed off in safety, to
the astonishment of the many who had collected on the cliffs. There
was also the story of the steamship which came so close to the cliffs
that the noise of her engines could be distinctly heard on shore, but
she, too, got away. Many have been the ships among the Manacles, and
no word ever said about it; their captains even going the length of
covering over the name of their vessels with a sail, lest their mistake
in navigation should be published to the world.
The village of St. Keverne lies rather over a mile inland.
"St. Keverne" is another form of "St. Piran." It has also been spelled
"Keveran" and "Kieran." Its church is very large and roomy, and is one
of those few in Cornwall that have a spire. The fine inscribed font
has demi-angels at the angles, holding crossed swords.
[Illustration: ST. KEVERNE.]
In the churchyard, among other memorials of shipwreck, is the granite
cross, bearing the simple inscription, "MOHEGAN, R.I.P." marking where
lie many of the dead who were lost in that wreck. Near by is the
touching epitaph upon "Charles Cyril Brownjohn, London, aged 23. S.S.
_Mohegan_, Oct. 14, 1898. The devoted and only son of a widowed mother.
He never said an unkind word to her in his life."
I do not think there were ever any distinguished persons born at St.
Keverne. One notoriety, Sir James Tillie, was born here, and one other
was vicar, as would appear from the records of 1467, in which, among a
number of piratical Cornishmen, who had helped themselves to a quantity
of merchandise from a Breton ship, we find the vicar, whose share of
the booty was three tuns of wine. An order was given to arrest these
enterprising persons, but they could not be found; and so St. Keverne
apparently had a new, and let us hope, a better, vicar.