The Cornwall Coast

by Arthur L. Salmon

The cove of Porthglaze with its strange turret-like rocks, the coves of Pendour and Zennor—all these are beautiful, and cannot be seen from the road; the visitor must explore them by scrambling along the cliffs, crossing summits and gorges and gullies, not deterred by difficulties that to a careless or nervous climber might become dangers. Only so can this fine coast be fully known.

In its situation the village of Zennor is like some of the wild, stony parts of Ireland; but the cottages are too comfortable to be Irish. Close to it stretches the stone-strewn moorland. Everywhere we have proof of the abundance of stone, the scarcity of wood; hedges are of rough boulders and pebbles; stiles are the charming Cornish "gridirons"; there is a stream crossed by rugged little stone bridges. The church is of the thirteenth century, restored in 1890; of course there had been earlier restoration, for the tower is Perpendicular. The dedication is to St. Sinara or Senar, a virgin probably of Irish origin; but we know nothing about her, and little of the early building itself, except that in 1270 the Bishop of Exeter granted it to his college at Glassiney near Penryn, and the living seems to have been starved. Zennor, indeed, was formerly known as the place "where the cow ate the bell-rope," a sportive neighbourly reference to its poverty and infertility. But the most famous feature of the church is its carved mermaid. There are two good old bench-ends, now forming the sides of sedilia, and of these the mermaid is one, represented with comb, mirror, and fishy tail. The story tells that the men of Zennor were very fine singers in the old days, and one, a squire's son who sang in the choir, had so beautiful a voice that this mermaid came all the way up from the sea-beach to hear him, Sunday after Sunday. How she did it is not explained; but at last her importunity prevailed, and the youth went away with her. She had lured him to the

"Sand-strewn caverns cool and deep
Where the winds are all asleep;
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,
Where the salt weed sways in the stream."

The dial on the tower also bears the figure of a mermaid. There must have been some origin for such a legend; perhaps some youth was drowned off the coast, and it was imagined that a mermaid had beguiled him away. The same sea-lady appears to have been heard of later, for it is said that "a long time after, a vessel lying in Pendour Cove cast her anchor, and in some way barred the access to a mermaid's dwelling. She rose up from the sea and politely asked the captain to remove it. He landed at Zennor, and related his adventure, and those who heard it agreed that this must have been the lady who decoyed away the poor young man." But why poor? The connection may have been a happy one; the mermaid was evidently courteous in manners, though her representation on the Zennor bench-end is not exactly beautiful. Zennor Hill or Beacon rises to 750 feet in desolate grandeur, and on this high land, often haunted by foxes and badgers, is the great Zennor Quoit or cromlech, thought to be the finest in Britain. Its slab, 18 feet in length, has slipped from its rest. It is an immense titanic monument, whose story no one can tell us; yet in this district these things are common, and utterly disregarded by the countryfolk. They have forgotten even the tales of the giants who used to play "bob-buttons" with them. He who wanders among these undated relics and wild stony moorlands may easily go astray; the cairns and tors are very like each other, and paths are few. Sometimes also there are blinding mists or fierce winds heavy with rain; at other times a glamour of loveliness steals over the desolate wastes, sunsets wrap them in atmospheric glory, or dreamy noons brood over them with deep calm. Between Zennor and St. Ives is the parish of Towednack, where they tried to build a hedge around the cuckoo. It is just a symbol of our craving to keep the springtime ever with us; the hedge was not high enough, and the cuckoo flew out at the top. The name of the hamlet was formerly Towynnok, which evidently embodies a dedication to St. Winnoc—probably the same saint as we find at Landewednack. The low, sturdy little tower has no pinnacles; when the folk were building it the devil came each night and pulled them down. But this parish does not touch the sea at all. Off the coast are the rocks known as the Carracks, beyond which we pass Penynys and Hor Point, and so reach the "Island" of St. Ives.

CHAPTER XII

ST. IVES

Some years since, when the average man spoke of Cornwall he was thinking of St. Ives—and perhaps of Tintagel. These were the two places whose names had taken the public imagination, the one being typical of the Duchy's romance, the other of her everyday life. But in those days love of the picturesque had not quite overcome a dislike of fishy and other smells. Walter White frankly told his readers not to disenchant themselves by going into St. Ives; he recommended admiring it from a distance. The town's name was familiar in popular songs, and it was known as a prosperous fishing-port. Then the artists arrived, and—perhaps more important still—a much improved railway service. At the present day the reputation of St. Ives is assured, yet it is certainly less popular as a holiday resort than some other places in Cornwall; those who come here usually prefer the suburban district of Carbis Bay. Newquay has attained an easy supremacy in popularity; Bude is following in its wake; while South Cornwall has Looe and Fowey, the Lizard, Penzance, with numerous small coast-side hamlets for the delight of quieter guests. But St. Ives maintains its position as a typically Cornish town; its past is thoroughly interesting, and its records ample; it is a striking and in some respects fascinating link between the bygone and the present. Old St. Ives seems to derive entirely from the little headland known as The Island. It was just one of those places that the ancients loved to fortify, almost insular and easily defensible. The dry-stone defence known as the Two Edges was probably constructed by men of the Stone Age; it is certainly pre-Celtic. Other strongholds of the same date may be found at Gurnard's Head, at Trencrom, and at Bosigran, to name only a few. The Island may have been really insular when first fortified. There are remains of an old chapel of St. Nicholas on the point of the headland, and it is difficult to say whether this must be associated with the name of St. Ia; there is also an oratory of St. Leonard, known as "the Chapel," close to the stone pier. We may fairly conclude that both these are later than the cell of St. Ia, which was on the site of the present parish church. This saintly woman must on no account be connected with the dedications of the Cornish St. Ive (pronounced Eve) near Liskeard, or the St. Ives of Huntingdonshire. She appears to have reached Cornwall late in the fifth century, coming in the company of the Irish prince, Fingar, who renounced his kingdom in order to preach Christianity. Fingar is claimed as a convert of St. Patrick. St. Ia is said to have floated to the Island, anciently named Pendinas, on a miraculous leaf, by which is clearly meant a coracle of the kind still to be seen in parts of Wales. Her comrades went on to evangelise other parts of Cornwall, but she remained here, living in a beehive-hut of the style called "Picts' houses," and doing her best to soften the faith and manners of the rude inhabitants. It is said that she was martyred by a local king or chieftain, Tewdrig, or Theodoric. She resided here long enough to impress her name permanently on the locality, whose earliest Latin name that we can trace was Parochia Sancte Ye, while the Cornish name was Porthia. The existing church stands on the site of an oratory which was either her own foundation or was erected soon after her death by loving disciples. Till 1409 St. Ives, being only a small fishing hamlet, belonged ecclesiastically to Lelant; but at that date the people petitioned the Pope, through their lord of the manor, Champernowne, that they might have a separate church: "As it had pleased the Almighty God to increase the town inhabitants and to send down temporal blessings most plentifully among them, the people, to show their thankfulness for the same, did resolve to build a chapel in St. Ives, they having no house in the town wherein public prayers and Divine service was read, but were forced every Sunday and holy day to go to Lelant church, being three miles distant from St. Ives, to hear the same, and likewise to carry their children to Lelant to be baptized, their dead to be there buried, to go there to be married, and their women to be churched." In response to this appeal the Pope directed the Bishop of Exeter that the chapels both of St. Ives and Towednack should be made parochial, "with font and cemetery, but dependent on Lelant." The people set to work at once, bringing the necessary granite from Zennor by boat, roads being then quite unfit for transit of heavy burdens. Completed in 1426, the church consists of chancel, nave, and two aisles, with a tower 119 feet in height. The roofs are of decorated wagon-form, with figures of angels at the springings of the braces. The Trenwith aisle was added a little later. In the original church was an organ, very fine for those days; it was destroyed in 1648 by the Puritans. There are some very good bench-end carvings, not all in their original position, and there is a Trenwith brass with the figure of St. Michael ludicrously restored. Many other objects of interest may be noted, both within and without the church, including a fifteenth-century cross in the churchyard, thrown down by the Puritans and re-erected.