the Lizard, nor rocks fretted into fantastic shapes by the sea; but an
imperturbable front of iron, an unyielding bulwark, a stern England that
rules the waves. This is a fitting climax to our coast. On each side of
us cliff curves beyond cliff, and headland stretches beyond headland. To
the right are the blue waters of Whitesand Bay, where Athelstane landed
from the conquered Scilly Isles and John from unconquered Ireland, and
far away Cape Cornwall bounds the view. With swelling hearts we stand
on the cliff and look out over the buried land of Lyonesse, and beyond
the Longships Lighthouse, to the wide seas on which Drake and Raleigh
sailed away to the Spanish Main, and Rodney to victory, and Grenville to
the death that made him deathless, and Blake to Teneriffe, and Nelson to
Trafalgar. The salt wind blows in across those seas and sings in our ears:
“When shall the watchful Sun,
England, my England,
Match the master work you’ve done,
England, my own?
When shall he rejoice agen
Such a breed of mighty men
As come forward, one to ten,
To the song on your bugles blown, England--
Down the years on your bugles blown?”
[Illustration: THE LAND’S END.]
NORTH CORNWALL
SUMMARY OF RUN THROUGH NORTH CORNWALL
DISTANCES.
Land’s End
St. Ives 19 miles
Newquay 33 ”
St. Columb Major 7 ”
(Bedruthan Steps and back 14 ”)
Bodmin 15 ”
Liskeard 14 ”
Launceston 20 ”
Back to Bodmin 22 ”
Wadebridge 7 ”
Tintagel 17 ”
Bude 19 ”
Morwenstow 11 ”
---------
Total 198 miles
ROADS.
Some very steep gradients, but hills on the whole less constant.
Surface: main roads mostly good; lanes rough.
V
NORTH CORNWALL
“I believe I may venture to aver,” wrote Tonkin of Cornwall two hundred
years ago, “that there are not any roads in the whole kingdom worse kept
than ours.” This is not the case now. The main roads of Cornwall are
excellent, and are far better kept than the average road of Somerset,
for instance. No doubt the quickest way from Sennan to St. Ives is by
Penzance and St. Erth Station; for this road, which is in the direct
route from Land’s End to John o’ Groat’s, leaves little to be desired.
But the more interesting way is through St. Just, and Morvah, and Zennor.
We cannot expect so good a surface here, yet from Sennan to Morvah, where
the country is so much disfigured by mines that we are glad to hurry,
the road is capital; and it is only as the scenery becomes beautiful that
the surface grows rough. There is a very steep descent beyond St. Just,
followed at once by a climb of which the stiffest gradient is about one
in five and a half.
It is in St. Just that we pass--on our left as we drive through the Bank
Square--the ancient amphitheatre known as the Plân-an-Guare. Here, in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, miracle-plays were acted on the level
space in the centre, while the six tiers of seats that are replaced by
the grassy bank were crowded with country-folk and miners. The plays were
very popular, says Carew, “for they have therein devils and devices to
delight as well the eye as the ear.”
There are none of these bizarre attractions, nor indeed anything else, to
delight our eyes till we have passed Morvah. But from Morvah to St. Ives
we have a lovely drive through a country of hills and heather, of bracken
slopes and tors of granite--a little pattern cut from Dartmoor. At
Trereen it will be well to leave the car and walk across several fields
to Gurnard’s Head, whence there is a fine view of the jagged coast. The
massive granite steps that here serve the purpose of stiles are luxurious
beyond the dreams of laziness.
The last part of this road is bad, but the wild green slopes remind us
still of Dartmoor till we run down the long, steep hill into the town
of St. Ives. This is quite as good a centre as Penzance from which to
see the western end of Cornwall, for the Tregenna Castle Hotel, with its
park and walled garden and its lovely outlook over the sea, is one of the
most charming in the Duchy; and the place itself is unspoilt. Indeed,
these little fishing towns of Cornwall seem to understand very well that
their face is their fortune, so to speak; that their welfare depends, not
on bandstands and esplanades, but on the beauty of their harbours and
fishing boats and narrow streets. Here at St. Ives are the simple charms
of Newlyn and the rest: the same little piers and clustered masts, the
same contorted streets and the same artists.
It is well that Mr. Knill, when he set up his crooked pyramid, did not
place it too near the town. If we look back as we drive away we shall
see, upon the skyline, the empty mausoleum of this unconventional mayor,
who built his own tomb and arranged to be mourned with music and dancing
at its base, but omitted to be buried in it. Some say he did not mean
it for a tomb at all, but for a landmark to smugglers. This may be so,
since at one time he certainly indulged in privateering--an enterprise
into which, he explained, “he was hurried by the force of circumstances.”
Perhaps the same explanation applies to his burial in London.
[Illustration: ST. IVES.]
We drive on through the pretty, straggling village of Lelant to the port
of Hayle. The rich colouring of the harbour and river here, the red and
green flats, the brown and yellow sands, the crooked posts reflected in
the water, and the flocks of gulls, are the last pleasing sights that we
shall see for many miles; for the country through which we have to pass
cannot have been beautiful in its best days, and is now made hideous by
pit-heads and chimneys. Camborne is big and ugly, with trams: Redruth is
big and ugly, without trams: there is no other visible difference, nor
any gap between them. But the compensation that motorists so often find
in dull country is ours: this is the splendid highway that leads to John
o’ Groat’s. We leave it when it turns towards Truro, but by that time
our surroundings are less depressing. Above Zelah Hill we take the road
that crosses Newlyn Downs, where the close carpet of heather somewhat
restores our spirits, though nowhere till we reach Newquay is there any
hint of the beautiful things that lie hidden in this neighbourhood. After
crossing the railway we should not take the first turn to Newquay, but
should wait for the second, where the signpost stands. We shall thus
avoid two bad hills.
Newquay must have been a glorious place before its shores were black
with people, and its steep red cliffs crowded with lodging-houses, and
its jutting promontory crowned with a huge hotel. Even now, in spite of
these things, its wears something of a queenly air. We have left behind
us the slow ripples of the southern sea: the fierce blue waves sweep in
upon this grand coast with quite a different kind of dignity. But Newquay
is too world-ridden to be really lovable. “How beautiful she must have
been!” is a sad saying, whether applied to town or woman.
[Illustration: TRERICE.]
In its neighbourhood, however, are several noteworthy things. We have
only a few miles to drive, by leafy lanes and frequent splashes, to a
spot that the world has left untouched and that time has only made more
beautiful, the house of the Arundels. The best way to Trerice is the lane
by Kestle Mill. John Arundel of Trerice is a proud name that becomes
monotonous in the annals of Cornwall, and is not unknown in those of
England. It was here they lived, those warlike Arundels--old Jack of
Tilbury the Admiral, and John-for-the-King, who made so gallant a fight
at Pendennis. Though the Arundels owned Trerice even in Edward III.’s
time, I do not think Old Tilbury ever saw this Elizabethan building, for
he was an old man in the days of Henry VIII. It was probably his son who
built this lovely house at the foot of the hill, with the huge mullioned
window and the moulded ceilings, and the oriel that overlooks the walled
garden and its yew hedges. But John-for-the-King, we may suppose, has
warmed himself before these splendid fireplaces, and has looked out
through these windows at the flowers and pines, and has eaten his dinner
at the great oak table now in the drawing-room. Some say he was a hard
man. Possibly: for he lived in hard times. Yet one who knew him well
called him “equally stout and kind.” “Of his enemies,” says Carew, “he
would take no wrong nor on them any revenge. Those who for many years
waited in nearest place about him learned to hate untruth.”
There was another branch of the family who, for their greater
possessions, were known as “the great Arundels.” We may see their house
at St. Mawgan. When approaching, from St. Columb Minor, the deep wooded
hollow in which Lanherne stands close beside the church of St. Mawgan,
one should take the most easterly of the two by-roads that lead to it.
This hill, it is true, is steep enough; but the other is steeper--one
in five. Those who are going on to Bedruthan Steps or elsewhere will do
wisely to climb out of the hollow on this same road, and go round by
St. Columb Major, for the hill on the further side of St. Mawgan is the
steepest of all!
Here in this seclusion, guarded by a triple defence of hills as well as
by the dark woods and by their own high wall, live the nuns of Lanherne
in the house of warriors. Not much of their dwelling is visible, of
course, but the chapel may be seen, and one wing of the old house looks
down, with many mullioned windows, on a gay little garden that all may
enjoy. Below Lanherne is the church, with turreted tower and painted
screen, and brasses and bench-ends, and shields of the Arundels.
As I said before, the shortest way to Bedruthan Steps is the longest way
round--the way, namely, by St. Columb Major. The road by Mawgan Porth has
an alluring look upon the map, but as a matter of fact comes to a sudden
end in the sands; and I have heard a tragic tale of a car that stuck
fast there, and endured the humiliation of being dragged out by horses.
At the junction of roads between the two St. Columbs is a gate into the
woods of Lanherne, of whose loveliness this is the only glimpse we may
have, since motors are not admitted to them. We turn to the left in St.
Columb Major, past the grey church of St. Columba, a maiden who was, says
Hals, “comparatively starved to death” in Gaul. Her church has had a
chequered career. One of the pinnacles of the tower was again and again
destroyed by lightning and rebuilt in vain, till the builders carved on
it the words: “God bless and preserve this work.” I do not know if it
escaped in the seventeenth century, when three schoolboys, by setting
fire to some gunpowder, “made a direful concussion;” but only a few
years later the steeple was again struck by lightning “and the iron bars
therein wreathed and wrested asunder as threads.”
On a by-road that is of course hilly, but by no means bad, we rise on
to Denzell Downs, with a wide view to the left and a glimpse of Mawgan
Porth in the distance. When, having left St. Eval on the right, we come
to an isolated cottage, we must take the track that goes straight on;
for the one that turns to the right has an endless number of gates, some
steep hills, and a very rough surface, and is much the longer of the
two. Even on the track we take there are gates enough to try the temper,
but it soon leads to a field where we may leave the car. We walk down
across the heather to the cliffs. These have not the iron severity of the
Land’s End: the shale they are made of is friable, and has been carved
into a thousand shapes--including a ridiculously life-like figure of
Queen Bess--by the waves that fret and foam even on the stillest day. The
wide bay lies below us with all its decorative arches and pinnacles and
turrets, bounded by Park Head, long and grey; and in the distance Trevose
Head makes the skyline. Two flights of steps are cut in the cliffs: one
leading to the shore and the other to a cave.
And now, after all this pottering in the narrow lanes about Newquay,
there are many who will be craving for a comfortable run on an open road.
These I advise to join the Truro and Bodmin road near St. Columb Road
Station, and drive over a series of breezy heaths, on a good surface with
no serious hills, to Bodmin: thence to follow the Fowey to Liskeard and
run up to Launceston: and from Launceston to return to Bodmin across the
moors. This is a fine run and a real refreshment.
There is no lack of history in Bodmin, the “dwelling-place of monks,”
the burial-place of St. Petrock, once a cathedral city, and more than
once the headquarters of rebellion. Yet, save the great church, there is
little here to see. Very near Bodmin, however, though not on our direct
road, there is a place of wonderful beauty, Lanhydrock. This park is rich
in splendid trees, carpeted with fern, irregular and wild and lovely
beyond the common lot of parks. As we sweep round a curve the gatehouse
comes in view, with its arch and octagonal towers and pinnacles; behind
it is the stately house, the mullioned windows and the battlements; and
between house and gateway, enclosed within a parapeted wall, lies the
formal garden, the rows of tapering cypresses, and urns of flowers, and
blossoming yuccas. When Essex stayed here with Lord Robarts, at the time
that Charles I. was at Boconnoc, the gatehouse was not yet built; but he
saw the north wing of the house as it now stands. After his desertion of
his troops at Fowey, Lanhydrock fell into royalist hands, and for a short
time was owned by Sir Richard Grenville, “the Skellum.”
[Illustration: GATEHOUSE, LANHYDROCK.]
We drive away by a magnificent double avenue of beeches and sycamores,
and through a shady lane join the main road from Bodmin to Liskeard.
This narrow valley of the Fowey is one of the loveliest strips of inland
scenery in Cornwall. On every side of us are trees, close by the wayside,
and hanging overhead, and clothing the high hills; and all the time,
sometimes to left of us and sometimes to right, the brown stream hurries
past us through the bracken. After we have crossed it for the second time
the valley narrows and the woods close in, before we finally run out into
open country. Between Liskeard and Callington, as we have seen before,
there are some fine views, but the hilly road is rather badly kept; and
the same may be said of the country beyond Callington, which has the same
variable scenery, and the same wide but bumpy road. A long rise takes us
into Launceston through the square tower of the south gate.
Age after age this hill has had a fortress on it. First the Celt and
then the Saxon made a stronghold of it, and finally, when William the
Conqueror gave it to his half-brother, Robert de Mortain, there arose the
Norman castle that was called Terrible. Of its terror little is left now,
for one of its three defending walls is gone, and the ruined keep is so
unsteady that no one is allowed to climb its stairs. Yet this tower among
the blazing geraniums has not altogether lost its romance, as is the fate
of most ruins that stand in public gardens; and the Tudor gateway of the
outer ward, with its portcullis-groove and prison-cell, is picturesque
enough. If we peer through these bars we shall see a tiny cell with
mossy floor and weed-grown walls--the “noisesome den” that George Fox
the Quaker named _Doomsdale_, the prison in which he lay for months.
“The commune gayle for all Cornwayle is yn this castel,” says Leland;
and many distinguished prisoners have been here, though not all in this
dark dungeon. Among these was Skellum Grenville, whose imprisonment
had far-reaching results; for the men of Cornwall, as in the case of
Trelawny, resolved “to know the reason why.” This was not because they
liked him, but simply because he was a Cornishman. And a very good reason
too.
In spite of all its strength Castle Terrible was several times taken in
the Civil War. Finally it was seized by Fairfax, and kept. He came to
Launceston at midnight, and many of the enemy escaped “by the darknesse
of the night, and narrownesse and steepnesse of the wayes.” Those who
were taken were amazed in the morning, when they were brought before the
general, and “had twelve pence apeece given them, and passes to goe to
their homes.”
[Illustration: TOWN GATE, LAUNCESTON.]
When the Skellum’s brother Sir Bevill was here his troops were quartered
in the church that is a few minutes’ walk from the castle, the church
that is surely unique in its effect of richness. For every one of its
granite stones bears a device, sacred or profane, and round the base is a
course of shields, with letters carved upon them to form an inscription.
Over the south door are St. George and the Dragon, and St. Martin and the
Beggar; and at the east end is a prostrate figure of the Magdalen, at
which, by a curious disregard of a certain great saying, it is considered
lucky to throw stones. Within the church is a sixteenth-century pulpit, a
Norman font, and a good deal of modern carving. Of the priory that Bishop
Warelwast founded at Launceston hardly anything remains, except the
Norman arch that has been set in the doorway of the “White Hart.”
We have a fine drive back to Bodmin over the moors, where the hills are
many but the road is good. There is no heather here, but a great expanse
of grass and waving fern, and scattered stones, and slopes of gorse, and
now and then, impressive in its loneliness, an ancient Celtic cross of
granite by the wayside. We enter Bodmin by an over-arching avenue, and
pass out of it on the Wadebridge road, at the back of the asylum.
The short run to Wadebridge is through a lovely country of woods and
valleys and rivers, on a road that is well-graded if hilly. There is
little obvious attraction in Wadebridge itself, however, for at low
tide the river winds through mud-flats that are not flat enough to be
picturesque, and the famous bridge--“the longest, strongest, and fairest
that the shire can muster”--is not as striking in fact as it appears
in pictures. Like Bideford Bridge, it is said to be founded on sacks
of wool. Its founder was one Lovibond, the vicar of this old church of
Egloshayle that we see beside the river. We do not cross the bridge,
but turn to the right on the road to Camelford; and a few minutes later
pass near a British camp called Castle Killibury or Kelly Round. We are
entering Arthur’s country--a land of shadowy legend, a land that has
been peopled for us with a host of adorable, improbable figures, a land
of disillusionment, but none the less of unconquerable romance. For
this round encampment by which we drive is thought to be one of the
few authentic relics of the authentic Arthur, the Kelliwic of the Welsh
Triads, a stronghold and court of the British prince who truly lived, and
fought, and died of a grievous wound--but not at Camelford.
We are on our way now to the spot that was long believed, and is still
believed by many, to be the scene of his last battle: Slaughter Bridge.
We turn off to the left in the outskirts of Camelford on rather a rough
road to Camelford Station, and there take a narrow lane on the right
which leads in a moment to the little grey bridge with the grim name.
There is grim truth behind the name, moreover, for if it was not here,
but in Scotland, that Arthur died, there has been slaughter on a large
scale on the rushy banks of this brook that sings so gaily. Here, in the
ninth century, Britons and Saxons fought and died by thousands, and no
one knows to-day who won the battle.
On the left is the old gateway of Worthyvale. A little way within it is
a wooden shed, where we shall find a guide to show us the ancient stone
that does duty alternately as Arthur’s grave and his resting-place when
he was wounded. Its age and position and probable origin are sufficiently
romantic, for it is thought to be the tombstone of some warrior who was
slain in the great battle. It lies now on level grass below the rocky
bank, with the stream close beside it, and tree stems fringed with
hart’s-tongues leaning over it. The path that leads to it is very steep
and very slippery, and as one struggles down it the little barefooted
guide prattles cheerfully of the ladies and old gentlemen who have, from
time to time, fallen headlong into the stream.
From Slaughter Bridge a few miles, a few lanes, a few hills bring us,
with hearts--even middle-aged hearts--beating a little faster than usual,
to the very citadel and stronghold of that Land of Faery of which Arthur
is the King.
Who can tell wherein the enchantment of Tintagel lies? Its crown of
towers is gone; its glory is departed. Only, on the summit of the dark,
steep island a few low walls, a doorway, and a window remain of the
mediæval castle that seems to have no history. Not a stone here speaks of
Arthur. Yet it is of Arthur only that we think.
And if there is no fragment here of the castle where Arthur was born,
neither have we any visions of the Table Round, nor of Guinevere and her
ladies, nor of Launcelot, nor Galahad; for the King’s court was not here.
Only La Beale Isoud we may see sitting in her bower upon this rock, and
Tristram kneeling at her feet, and behind him Mark with the uplifted
sword. This was the stronghold of the ancient Cornish Earls; and if
Arthur was born here it was because his birth was the result of magic,
and not because Uther Pendragon had any rights in this place. But since
we are here in a world of legend we may surely take the legend of our
choice. Let us forget the ugly tale of Uther and Igerne, and remember
only how, after the thunders of the storm upon this shore--
“There came a day as still as heaven, and then
They found a naked child upon the sands
Of dark Tintagel by the Cornish sea;
And that was Arthur.”
There are the sands below us, the little bay in the curve of the cliff,
the transparent sea that brought the mysterious King to his kingdom.
And because all is mystery here, because behind the veil there is so
little that is solid, so little that we know, it is not in the sunshine
of a summer day that Tintagel has the most meaning. It is when the
mists are trailing on the sea, and the dark rock is wrapped in a cloud
as impenetrable as the legends that shroud Arthur, and for a moment a
passing gleam lightens the fog above our heads and shows the pale ghost
of a castle-wall uplifted against the sky--it is then that Tintagel seems
indeed to be the heart of the world of dreams, the most perfect symbol of
the mingled mystery and truth of the story of Arthur.
[Illustration: TINTAGEL.]
More than three hundred years ago Carew gave his impressions of the
island fortress. “In passing thither,” he says, “you must first descend
with a dangerous declining, and then make a worse ascent by a path as
everywhere narrow so in many places through his stickleness occasioning,
as through his steepness threatening, the ruin of your life with the
failing of your feet. At the top two or three terrifying steps give
you entrance to the hill.” Those who suffer from unsteady heads will
feel this lively description to be most accurate as regards the island;
but the castle on the mainland may be reached by a path which, though
narrow and tortuous enough, does not occasion, nor even threaten, the
ruin of one’s life. And from those crumbling twelfth-century walls we
may walk along the cliff to the little grey church that has stood here,
buffeted by every wind of heaven, since the days of the Saxons. Part of
the Saxon masonry is still here, and an old font green with moss, and
various ancient stones. What this bleak cliff has to bear in the way of
sea-winds may be seen in the churchyard, where all the tombstones--thin
slabs of slate--are strongly buttressed by masonry three times as thick
as themselves. In a corner is the poetical grave of an Italian sailor
drowned on this shore: an ordinary ship’s life-buoy nailed to a rough
wooden cross.
We drive away through the pretty village of Trevena, dip into the wooded
and flowery dell of Bossiney on a steep and rather rough road, and soon
run down into Boscastle among the orchards. The narrow gorge, where the
village lies smothered in trees, ends in a little landlocked harbour,
and high up on the hill to the left stands the church of Forrabury--the
church whose bells, says the legend, are lying at the bottom of the
sea with the bones of the blasphemous skipper who was bringing them
to Boscastle. R. S. Hawker tells the story in “The Silent Tower of
Bottreaux.” We cross the stream and begin a very long climb. This hill
has a bad reputation; but its steepest gradient--one in six--is quickly
past, and above it there is nothing very serious. After three miles of
climbing we find some fine wide views; and as we drive between the high
hedges on the rough road to Bude, catch glimpses of sea and headland on
the left.
The charm of Bude, I imagine--and many people find it very charming--lies
more in its surroundings than itself, more in the splendid coast and
rolling sea than in the rather dull little town. The sands and boats at
the river-mouth are picturesque, and so is the “cross-pool,” where Hawker
in his sealskin coat once masqueraded as a mermaid (of a somewhat full
habit), to the sad confusion of the youth of Bude.