Category: Cornwall - Meandering Through Time

Battle of Torrington

16/2/2017

In what could be called a bit of a coup, Sir Ralph Hopton replaced Sir Richard Grenville at the head of the West Country royalist forces when Grenville refused to serve under Hopton and resigned his commission.

Beginning in the spring of 1643, Hopton's five Cornish regiments had defeated the Parliamentarian forces on Cornwall's border and were soon marching through neighboring Devon. By July, Hopton had led his forces in two battles, one at Crediton and at Landsdowne, where Hopton was injured. In 1644 Hopton, successfully defended Devizes from an attack by William Waller's forces and two years later he had taken up a defensive position in the Devon town of Torrington.

It was on the 16th February 1646, that Ralph Hopton faced the army of Thomas Fairfax in what is known as the Battle of Torrington.

A popular general, Thomas Fairfax, who was nearly twenty years younger than Hopton, had lead his troops to victory at the Battle of Nantwich in 1644, Naseby in 1645 and Colchester in 1648 and at thirty-two he had been appointed Commander in Chief of the New Model Army.

The 16th February 1646 turned out to be wet and cold, the combined forces of about seventeen thousand men fought on the narrow streets. No doubt the inhabitants of Torrington thought the bloodshed would never end, but end it did when gunpowder, that was stored in the parish church, was ignited by a stray spark. The explosion killed many from both sides effectively ending the battle. Ralph Hopton ordered to retreat, he and the remaining royalist army escaped back into Cornwall where he finally surrendered to Fairfax in Truro on 14 March.

The Battle of Torrington marked the end of Royalist resistance in the West Country.

Caerhayes, Cornwall

11/2/2017

If we are asked to draw a castle, Caerhayes in Cornwall is exactly as mine would appear.

Caerhayes is a small parish, consisting of a church, a castle and two or three farms, it lies near the sea between two headlands, Dodman and Pennare

The Parish church stands overlooking Caerhays with its views of the cliffs and sea is named after St Michael who is said
to have arrived in England here. The spelling of Caerhayes has varied over the years, I have found it spelt many ways, the earliest, in a document dated 1287 where a Robert de Karyhaes is witness to a quit claim between Sir Oliver de Arundell and Thomas Lord of Trempoll. It is assumed that the prefix “Caer” is linked with the hill on which the church now stands but Henderson states that he is inclined to believe that it comes from the Cornish “carou” or “cerou” meaning deer. This ancient
hill and lands on which the deer roamed is now swallowed up by the park and grounds of the estate on which stands the
19th century castle built by the Bettesworth-Trevanion family and designed by Victorian architect John Nash.

Extract from my yet unpublished story of The Family of Blanchminster.

Dolly Pentreath

28/12/2016

Dydh da, fatla genes?

Dolly Pentreath is said to be the last native Cornish speaker, she died on the 26th December in 1777.

By the nineteenth century, Cornish had died as a spoken community language, although records state that it was being spoken particularly at sea by Newlyn fishermen.

During this century there has been a revival of interest in Celtic culture which meant that Cornish attracted some academic attention. Plays of the middle Cornish period have been studied, and academics such as Edwin Norris and Whitley Stokes published them with commentaries and translations. It was not until early in the twentieth century that an attempt was made to revive the language.

My Cornish great great grandmother was Jane Pentreath, born in Paul, not too far from Newlyn, Dolly Pentreath was Jane's great aunt and, as already mentioned, the last person to speak fluent Cornish. However, the only sentence my grandfather could say was "Can you pass me that bag of nails" which was no use whatsoever unless you were in a hardware shop!

Sir Humphry Davy

17/12/2016

On the 17th December 1778, one of Cornwall's famous sons, Sir Humphry Davy was born in Penzance.

Davy was educated in Cornwall's county town of Truro, and this was followed by an apprenticeship to a
Penzance surgeon. In 1797, Davy took up chemistry, and was taken on as an assistant at the Medical Pneumatic Institution
in Bristol. It was here he experimented with various new gases by inhaling them which nearly cost him his life on more than
one occasion, eventually though, this experimentation led to the discovery of the anesthetic effect that we know as
laughing gas.

In 1815, George Stephenson from Newcastle, claimed he was the inventor of a safety lamp for the use in coal mines but
it is Davy who is credited with the invention. This lamp allowed coal to be mined from deep coal seams reducing the dangers
of explosions from methane gas. The lamp, consisted of a wick with the flame enclosed inside a mesh screen, Davy
discovered that if the mesh was fine enough, it would not ignite the methane.

Sir Humphry Davy died in Geneva, Switzerland, on 29 May 1829

Cornish Saints

12/11/2016

"There are more saints in Cornwall than in all of heaven"
So says the Cornish proverb.

In the so called Dark Ages, Celtic missionaries began arriving en masse on the shores of Cornwall and nearly all these
men and women established a small cell, where they lived a quiet and spiritual existence.
These cells were often places where there was an existing well, a spring or some kind of natural monument, later of course larger monuments were erected in their names in the form of a church.

Parish Church of St Mawgan

Three villages that are important to me are named after saints, they are St Columb, St Mawgan and St Evel, others like
St Ives, St Mawes and St Just in Roseland you may have heard of already. These, and other little Cornish villages are
named after fifth/six century saints, many of whom were never officially granted their saintly status by the church.

Myths and legends associated with these saints feature highly in the Cornish culture. Many, like St Columba's story,
involve water. Columba was chased by her pursuers from her landing place at Porth and was beheaded at Ruthvoes, her
blood running into the nearby streams at Retalion and Treloy. St Mawgan preached from a tiny well that is still visible
in the grounds of the parish church.

St Mawgan's Holy Well

St Mawgan's church which stands in the Lanherne valley, is one of over 200 beautiful Cornish churches scattered around
the county. All have magnificent interiors, beautiful wood carvings and brasses of the ancient families that once frequented these buildings, and all owe their existence to these ancient saints.

Death of Isambard Kingdom Brunel

15/9/2016

On this day in 1859 the death of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, a man who I greatly admire.

If you have ever travelled to Cornwall via the Great Western railway then you will know of Brunel's network of tunnels, bridges and viaducts. I've never forgotten the twice yearly trips my family and I made to my grandparents, one minute it was light, then it was dark, then it was light again. The highlight of the trip would be crossing over his bridge over the Tamar.

I used to be apprehensive, stating that the bridge was so old that it might collapse under our weight. My dad always reassured me, stating that it was built by a talented engineer and that if it had lasted as long as it had we would get a few more crossings yet!

He was right of course, its still standing over thirty years later.

As well as bridges, tunnels and railways, Brunel was responsible for the design of several famous ships. The Great Western, launched in 1837, was the first steamship to cross from Bristol to New York. His ship the Great Britain, launched in 1843, was the world's first 'iron-hulled, screw propeller-driven, steam-powered passenger liner.'

Brunel was a heavy smoker he suffered a stroke and died, aged 53, in 1859, the year his Great Eastern, the biggest ship ever built at that time, was launched.

He is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery in London.

Sir Humphry Davy

4/9/2016

One of Cornwall's famous sons, Sir Humphry Davy was born in Penzance on the 7th December 1778.

Davy was later educated in the Cornwall's county town of Truro and this was followed by an apprenticeship to a Penzance surgeon. In 1797, Davy took up chemistry and was taken on as an assistant at the Medical Pneumatic Institution in Bristol. It was here he experimented with various new gases by inhaling them which nearly cost him his life on more than one occasion, eventually though, this experimentation led to the discovery of the anesthetic effect of what we know as laughing gas.

In 1815, George Stephenson, from Newcastle, claimed he was the inventor of a safety lamp for the use in coal mines but it is Davy who is credited with the invention presented to the Royal Society on 3 November 1815,

This lamp allowed coal to be mined from deep coal seams reducing the dangers of explosions from methane gas. The lamp, consisted of a wick with the flame enclosed inside a mesh screen, Davy discovered that if the mesh was fine enough, it would not ignite the methane.

Sir Humphry Davy died in Geneva, Switzerland, on 29 May 1829

Cornish Stannaries

25/1/2016

The word Stannary means 'belonging to tin mines' and is taken from the Latin word Stanum.

The areas in Cornwall, where tin was extracted, were known as Stannaries and the law that affected them were known as Stannary Law. These Cornish Stannaries form part of the Duchy of Cornwall, an estate which was created by Edward III in 1337 when he granted his son, Edward, the Black Prince Duke of Cornwall.

Lostwithiel had become the county capital. It was the administration centre for county affairs and Cornwall's main stannary town.

Tin mining in Cornwall is ancient, and employed men in remote and outlying areas away from the main towns, and therefore they had their own rules and regulations. The early Earls and Dukes of this distant county reaped great rewards from mining and since early times the mines and the men working them have been protected by the crown. This institution had its its head wardens who were governed by the Lord Warden of the Stannaries.

The writ appointing the Lord Warden covered the

"just and ancient customs and liberties of miners, smelters and merchants of tin."

The first to hold this title was William de Wrotham who was given this title on the 20th November 1197 during the reign of King Richard I. In 1198, juries of miners at Launceston, stood before Wrotham to swear by the law and practice of the tin mines.

Over the years, Royal Charters issued by Edward I in 1305, Edward IV in 1466, and Henry VII in 1508 have changed and
added to the laws within the Stannaries. King John, often seen as a selfish and greedy king, was not slow to see the attraction of the Cornish tin industry. In 1201 he issued the first charter to the Stannaries. By 1214, production of tin had risen to six hundred tons, the result of this saw many men, who once worked on the land, move to mining. One of the clauses of Magna Carta was that no lord shoud lose the service of his men whether he dug tin or not. Henry III confired his fathers charter, and
the Stannaries soon had their own taxation, no acknowledged lord and were 'a law unto themselves.' By the end of the 13th century the Stannaries were under the control of Richard, the second son of King John and his son Edmund as the Earls of Cornwall.

Roof-boss in Beaulieu Parish Church believed to depict Richard of Cornwall. Credit Trickenham Museum

In 1225, Richard, at just sixteen, was granted the County of Cornwall and all its tin works, and following that the Earldom of Cornwall. Later Edward I granted privileges to tinners to be tried by their own courts and benefit from the exemption of taxation.

The above image records one John Gurney’s appointment as Vicewarden of the Stannaries for Devon and explains the differences between the courts in Cornwall and Devon.

Thomasine Blight, the White Witch of Helston

27/8/2015

Stories of witches and ghosts stem from the Celts believing that evil spirits came with the long hours of winter darkness, it
is at the end of October, All Hallows Eve, that these people believed the barriers between our world and the spirit world
were at their weakest and therefore spirits were most likely to be seen on earth, they built bonfires to frighten the spirits
away and feasted and danced around fires.

Cornwall has always had its tales of the supernatural, local legends of standing stones and other landscape features
suggest a history of witches, ghosts and goblins attending night meetings and after all Cornwall is the home of the
Museum of Witchcraft. In the first half of the ninetieth century our county also had its very own witch, her name was Thomasine Blight and she went by the name the White Witch of Helston. She was born Thomasine Williams in Gwennap,
near Redruth in 1793.

It is more than likely that Thomasine first applied her trade in the market town of Redruth where she would take spells
off of cursed livestock, cure the sick, remove the curses of black witches and place her own curses on those who
displeased her. Blight's husband, James Thomas, was said to possess similar powers and for a while they had a
successful partnership but there was an indiscretion on his part and he was forced to flee, no doubt with Thomasine
cursing him all the way!

In reality, Blight was probably an independent and resourceful woman who saw through superstition but used it to
her advantage.

Thomasine died the year painting below was completed, it has been said that as she lay on her death bed, people were
carried to her on stretchers and placed beside her and with one incantation they were said to have risen up and left
perfectly cured.

This wonderful painting by if Helston's White Witch is William Jones Chapman, a travelling portrait /sport painter,
and is held in the Royal Institution of Cornwall.

"There be Devils over the Tamar"

21/6/2015

Two lovely little Cornish Tales.

The two images below were taken on the Cornish side of the River Tamar at Cotehele in Cornwall, across the river is the County of Devon.

There is a lovely little traditional story associated with this beautiful river. The first time I heard it was as very little girl from my Cornish uncle, who adapted the tale to suit himself.

He used to say that the reason he never left Cornwall was because

"There be devils over the Tamar"

Actually the origins of this story can be found in Cornish folklore where is says the devil was on his way to Cornwall and only got as far as Torpoint where he noticed that across the river there were many pies being made, overcome with fear, he would never dare to cross the Tamar into Cornwall for fear of ending up baked in a pasty. This tale features in a Cornish folk song called Fish, Tin and Copper, a version of which can be found in Richard Carew's Survey of Cornwall in 1607.

Old Nick, as he was wont to do
Was wand'ring up and down
To see what mischief he could brew,
And made for Launceston-town.

For 'tis fish and tin and copper, boys,
And Tre and Pol and Pen,
And one and all we may rejoice
That we are Cornishmen.

Across the Tamar he had come,
Though you might think it strange,
And having left his Devon home
Tried Cornwall for a change.

Now when to Launceston he grew near,
A-skipping o'er the sod,
He spied a rustic cottage there
With windows all abroad.

And in the kitchen might be seen
A dame with knife in hand,
Who cut and slashed and chopped, I ween
To make a pasty grand.

"Good Mornin', Missus, what is that?"
"Of all sorts, is a daub.
'Tis beef and mutton, pork and fat,
Potatoes, leeks, and squab."

"A Cornish pasty, sure", says she,
"And if thou doesn't mind,
I soon shall start to cut up thee
And put ye in, you'll find!"
In fear he turned and straight did flee
Across the Tamar green
And since that day in Cornwall
He has never more been seen!

I am sure that this story is is true because if you look very very closely, among the rushes, you can see a little set of red horns!

Another interesting story, is about the Cornish/Devon cream tea.

Cream teas can be found up and down the length of England eagerly wolfed down by thousands of tourists during their summer holidays or on a day out in the country, but the bone of contention in the West Country is whether the jam should be placed before the cream.

Firstly, the way they do things in Devon is to serve the cream topped by the jam on a scone and in Cornwall its the jam topped by the cream served on a Cornish Split a traditional sweet bread roll where, thank goodness, there are no horrid currants.

Now, it has been noted that clotted cream is a delicacy that is made throughout the Middle East, Southern Europe and as far as India and Turkey. Well I don't care about that or the fact that its earliest historical roots are with the monks of Tavistock Abby (that's in Devon I have to point out) were munching their way through cream teas in the 11th century and even way before William the Conqueror was packing his bags!

Well, I'm not going to beat around the bush here because well, I am from Cornwall and therefore I say that its jam first then the cream, there's no doubt about that and even if I do appear to be childish I've just got to repeat what I've heard recently:

"The Devon stuffs a bit gritty and anyway we've got better cows" So there!!!