tradition, we do know that until comparatively recent years the now
sand-choked estuary of the Gannel had a sufficient depth of water for
fishing craft and coasting schooners; while old historians assure us
that the channel could at one time be navigated by ships of large
tonnage. It is quite possible that the "new quay" of the now fashionable
watering-place owes its existence to the silting-up of the estuary that
gave access to the old quay at Crantock. In Carew's _Survey of Cornwall_
reference is made to "newe Kaye, a place in the north coast of this
Hundred (Pider), so called, because in former times, the neighbours
attempted, to supplie the defect of nature, by art, in making there a
Kay, for the Rode of shipping".
An old well in the centre of the village is said to be a "holy" one, but
this has been disputed by antiquaries.
The weird and uncanny cry of the "Gannel Crake" is heard by everyone who
woos the charms of a romantic coast after the sun has set beyond the
western sea. It is said to be the cry of some species of night gull, but
is traditionally referred to by the superstitious natives as the cry of
a troubled spirit that ever haunts the scene.
A short distance inland from the porth is St. Columb Minor, the church
of which, together with that of St. Columb Major some six miles farther
inland is said to be dedicated to Columba, a maiden saint who is not to
be confounded with the great Irish saint of the same name. St. Columb
Minor is the mother parish of Newquay and possesses a fine late
Decorated church with a remarkably good western tower, said to be the
second highest tower in the county. The village is quite a large one
from which some fine views of the coast may be obtained. Close at hand
is Rialton, from which the statesman Sidney Godolphin took his title,
and where, in the surrounding park and dells, many sketches were made by
Stansfield, when he visited the district with his friend Charles
Dickens.
Rialton Priory is a much desecrated building that once belonged to the
priory of Bodmin, it having been erected towards the end of the
fifteenth century by Thomas Vivian, prior of Bodmin. In 1840 someone
carried off a large amount of the priory's ancient stonework to
Somerset, where it was placed in private grounds, but the Crown made an
order for it to be returned and re-erected at Rialton.
St. Columb Major occupies the crown of an eminence, the conjectured site
of a Danish fortress. The church is large, mainly early Decorated, and
of much beauty. In the chancel is the pre-Reformation stone altar,
marked with the five crosses, and supported on slabs of granite. This
had been buried beneath the floor and was discovered during some
restorations in 1846. Other noteworthy features are the window of the
south transept and the grotesque carvings that adorn the font. There are
also three good brasses commemorating members of the Arundell family.
The whole of this neighbourhood is famous for its "hurlers" and
"wrestlers", a memento of which could be seen at the Red Lion a few
years ago, for here the landlord used to exhibit with pride the silver
punchbowl given to his grandfather (Polkinhorne) when that worthy
escaped defeat in a wrestling bout with Cann, the champion of the
adjoining county of Devon.
The art of wrestling appears to have died out, but the once popular game
of hurling is revived once a year, either in the village itself or along
the sands towards Newquay. The ball used is about the size of a cricket
ball, and after being coated with silver is inscribed:--
"St. Columb Major and Minor,
Do your best;
In one of your parishes
I must rest."
At one time the game was very common throughout Cornwall, and many
interesting records relating to it are in existence; but at the present
day only the two parishes of St. Columb keep up a survival of this
ancient game.
The whole of the St. Columb district is rich in large tracts of wild and
picturesque country, which include such heights as Denzell Downs, St.
Issey Beacon, and St. Breock Downs, near which last stand the "Naw
Mean", or, in modern English, the Nine Maidens. At the present time
there are but eight of these upright stones, which tradition asserts
were originally maidens who were turned into stone for dancing on Sunday
to the strains of a fiddler, who shared the same fate, as witness a tall
pillar of rock near by called the "Fiddler".
On the drive from Newquay to Bedruthan Steps no one should fail to make
a halt at Mawgan, or, to be strictly accurate, St. Mawgan in Pydar,
either on the outward or the return journey. The village is a pretty one
that lies in the centre of the beautiful Vale of Mawgan, or Lanherne,
which stretches from St. Columb to the porth, or cove on the coast.
Mawgan possesses an ancient parish church and a Roman Catholic convent
and chapel. The church is a very fine Perpendicular building with a
tower 70 feet in height. The building was restored by Butterfield, but
contains some interesting old screenwork and a number of well-carved
bench ends. The brasses include that of a priest, _circa_ 1420; Cecily
Arundell, 1578; a civilian, _circa_ 1580; and Jane, daughter of Sir John
Arundell, _circa_ 1580. This last is a palimpsest, made up of portions
of two Flemish brasses, _circa_ 1375. The churchyard contains a
beautifully sculptured fourteenth-century lantern cross, of mediaeval
date, in the form of an octagonal shaft. Under four niches at the summit
are sculptured representations of: God the Father with the Dove bearing
a crucifix; an Abbot; an Abbess; and a King and Queen. The height of
the cross is 5 feet 2 inches, the breadth of the head being 1 foot 1
inch.
The convent, the "lone manse" of Lanherne, was originally the manor
house of the Arundells, which was, in the last years of the eighteenth
century, presented by a Lord Arundell of Wardour to a sisterhood of
Carmelite nuns who had fled from Antwerp in 1794. One or two of the
pictures in the convent chapel are attributed to Rubens. Strangers may
attend service in the chapel, but the nuns, like those of the order of
St. Bridget at Syon Abbey, Chudleigh, are recluses of the strictest
kind.
While at Mawgan a stroll should be taken through the groves of
Carnanton, the old-time abode of William Noye, the "crabbed"
Attorney-General to Charles I, whose heart, we are told by his
biographers, was found at his death to have become shrivelled up into
the form of a leather purse.
A mile beyond Mawgan Porth are the far-famed Bedruthan Steps seven miles
from Newquay. Here the visitor will find a fine stretch of cliff
scenery, with a succession of sandy beaches strewn with confused and
broken masses of rock, and some large caverns that are well worth
exploring should the state of the tide permit. The largest of these
caverns is of vast extent and is said to be unrivalled in this respect
along the whole of the Cornish seaboard. At low tide the great spurs of
rock embedded in the sand have a fantastic beauty, while one of the
largest of them bears a more than fancied resemblance to Queen
Elizabeth, and is named after her. Another is known as the Good
Samaritan, as against these jagged points an East Indiaman of this name
once came to grief, when the local women folk are said to have
replenished their wardrobes with a quantity of fine silks and satins.
The coast beyond Bedruthan, by Trevose and Pentire Heads, Padstow,
Tintagel, Boscastle, Bude, and Morwenstowe, although abounding in wild
and rugged scenery, and full of romantic and literary associations, is
beyond our present limits. This being so we may conclude with the words
of J. D. Blight, one of the most learned of the older school of Cornish
antiquaries:
"Those who wish to behold nature in her grandest aspect, those who
love the sea breezes, and the flowers which grow by the cliffs, the
cairns and monumental rocks, all hoary and bearded with moss, those
who are fond of the legends and traditions of old, and desire to
tread on ground sacred to the peculiar rites and warlike deeds of
remote ages, should visit the land of Old Cornwall."