CRANTOCK, NEWQUAY, MAWGAN
After passing the extensive sands of Perran Bay the coast once more becomes rugged and broken. This is a very quiet and lonely part of the Cornish seaboard, but the popularity of Newquay is bringing it within the knowledge of an increasing number of visitors. The railway now touches the coast here at two points, Newquay and Perranporth, between which limits those who wish to explore the country-side must rely on other methods of transit. The shore is not only broken into rough headlands, but has a number of off-lying islets. Thus there are the Gull Rocks, off Penhale Point; the Chick, off Kelsey Head; and the Goose, off East Pentire. The sands in this district have wrought more havoc than the sea; and if tradition may be trusted there was once a far more dense population. Barrows and traces of encampment are fairly common, but the sand is supposed to hold more secrets yet; and if it surrendered the old lost church of St. Piran, why should it not some day unseal still other mysteries? There is indeed an atmosphere of mystery and of myth brooding over this region, with its gaunt, turf-clad headlands, its drifting sand-towans, its tracks and stone hedges and lonely church-towns. It is easy to yield to the spirit of dream and imagination—to see with other eyes than we use in city life, to hear with other ears, to believe more and dispute less; the very air is an intoxicant and a stimulant to fantastic vision. It comes pure from the Atlantic or from the down-lands, from craggy cliffs or grassy uplands; there is the wonderful glamour of the sea reaching inland to possess and dominate the peaceful charm of the country-side. The inhabitants in this quiet stretch of coast depend rather on agriculture than on fish for their maintenance; the coast is too unprotected, and there is no tolerable harbour to which fisher-boats might run for safety. The cottages for the most part have a pastoral atmosphere, and not the savour of fish and tangle of nets that we meet in so many seaside villages. The lowing of cows comes pleasantly, and the incessant murmur of poultry-yards; in late summer there is the cutting and garnering of golden grain. The stone hedges that divide the fields are generally broad enough to walk on with comfort; very often, indeed, they are the best and quickest of footpaths. Or one can lie on them in delightful languor, after scrambling about the cliffs and towans, basking in the mellow sunlight, laying in a store of warmth and beauty and fragrance as reserve for dreary months of wet and fog. Centuries old, some of these massive walls must be—often constructed doubtless from older monuments of dim religious purpose, just as some of the gate-posts were once menhirs and monoliths. The villagers have their rugged old churches, to which they resort for baptisms and burials, but on Sundays they go in greater numbers to the chapel or meeting-house. In those people whom we classify, often wrongly, as Celtic, there seems to be something that the Anglican Church does not wholly satisfy, though it is necessary to speak with reserve on such a matter. They can be devout Catholics, as in Ireland, or zealous Dissenters, as in Wales and the West of England; perhaps these manifestations of the religious spirit, seemingly so opposed, have yet a common feature in allowing more play to the fancy. Dissent has one great charm for all countryfolk—it gives them a large share in its activities, it allows them to preach and to pray. This is certainly one secret of its success, not limited to Cornwall. Even a parson like Hawker, beloved by all his parishioners as he was, could not win them from Dissent. There is a chance that the priests of Rome will step in and win where the parish clergyman has partly failed. More than twenty years since, Richard Jefferies wrote about the tonsured priest becoming a power in English country lanes. Here in the West Country hundreds of rich acres are held by the monastic orders. The country parson has now to fight against his old opponent, the Methodist or Baptist, and his older opponent, the priest of Rome. But the winds that sweep across the meadows and sand-dunes, the waves that lap peacefully or dash thunderously, tell us nothing of these old and often dismal quarrels. They are but secular things after all; the things that are eternal reach deeper than creed or vestment. We do not ask what fetish or totem the sleepers in the grassy barrows believed in; we may ask if they lived their lives truly and faithfully, doing that which was good according to the light of their primitive consciences.
Between the two headlands of Penhale Point and Kelsey Head lies Holywell Bay, the larger portion of which is in the parish of Cubert. It is a wild region of blown sand. The two headlands are grandly lashed by breaking waves in rough weather, while the interlying beach is swept with great rolling breakers. A little inland are many traces of discontinued mining; and though their suggestions are dismal enough, these are probably more picturesque in their neglect and decay than they could be if in full operation. The bay and the sands are named after the holy well of St. Cubert, formerly one of the most famous of Cornwall's numerous wells. St. Cubert, the titular patron of the parish and well, has been mistaken for St. Cuthbert; but it is obvious to any one who has devoted any study to Cornish saint-lore that the Northumbrian saint has no business here, good man though he was. He has been intruded to displace some earlier and less widely known possessor. Cuthbert was certainly never in Cornwall, and the older Cornish dedications are almost invariably the actual footprints of Celtic missionaries. It is probable that the true Cubert was St. Cybi, or Cuby, whom we find at Cuby near Grampound, and whose name also survives in the Caergybi and Llangybi of Wales. There is another well of St. Cuby at Duloe, north of Looe; and he was related to some of Cornwall's most notable saints. The Holy Well is a fresh-water spring on the north side of the beach; it is in a cave, accessible at low water, and is reached by a flight of rough steps. Its water was once supposed to be highly medicinal—in fact, miraculous. It is true that there is some mineral solution in the water, but this is not of medicinal value. The well or spring is in a kind of grotto at the head of rugged steps in the rock; and its water drips into a series of natural basins, beautiful with the loveliest colouring—quite a fairy grotto, worthy of being a sea-nymph's bathing-place. Our faith in miraculous cures may be slight enough at this present time, but so long as the human eye can appreciate loveliness this spot must ever have its delicate satisfying charm, all the more striking in contrast to the long, weary stretches of sand-dune.
The beauty of the spot abides, but the old-world faith in the waters has well-nigh departed—gone with many another quaint credulity. The change cannot be better emphasised than by a quotation from another writer, who described the same scene several centuries since. The Cornish historian Hals writes: "In this parish is that famous spring of water called Holywell (so named, the inhabitants say, for that the virtues of this water was first discovered on All-hallows Day). The same stands in a dark cavern of the sea-cliff rocks, beneath full sea-mark on spring tides, from the top of which cavern fall down or distil continually drops of water from the white, blue, red, and green veins of those rocks.... The virtues of this water are very great. It is incredible what numbers in summer season frequent this place and waters from counties far distant." It is said that, even within the nineteenth century, the crowd that used to assemble here, especially those bringing rickety and crippled children, was so large that the scene resembled a fair. But now it is curiosity that brings the visitor, or the attraction of a lonely, beautiful scene; Cornish mothers seek other remedies for their delicate children; only perhaps a few of the elder folk fondly nurse a memory and a belief in the powers of St. Cubert's Well. Yet the spring flows on, heedless of its neglect as it was heedless of its worship; it is only the false, the fantastic, the deceptive that have passed—the truth, the loveliness remain.
About two and a half miles from the well, across the sand-downs and commons, is the little church-town of Cubert. It stands high, overlooking the sand-wastes of Holywell and Perran Bays, and its church serves the purpose of a landmark in this somewhat trackless district. It is Early English in character, with later additions, such as the Decorated woodwork about its roof; the graceful tower has an octagonal upper stage and low spire, with three bells in the belfry. The church was struck by lightning in 1848, and restored under the care of G. E. Street, R.A. The font, of Norman design, was preserved from mutilation in Puritan times by veiling its beauties beneath a covering of plaster. During the restoration a granite monumental stone was unearthed, of Romano-British character; it has been placed in the wall outside the tower, and its inscription reads Conectoci fili Tegerno Mali. Whether legends of the lost Langarrow are true or not, there was evidently a considerable population of this part in early British times. Cubert is still peaceful and primitive, being a little too far from Newquay to be overrun by the summer visitors. A pleasant and fairly good road leads towards Crantock, passing by Trevowah, beyond which a turning to the left takes us to West Pentire and the small bay known as Porth or "Polly" Joke. The "joke" needs explanation; possibly it is the corruption of some forgotten Cornish word. It is a charming little bay lying snugly between the two headlands of Kelsey and West Pentire, both of which command fine views of coast and sea. We are now in the parish of Crantock, whose antiquity and importance have been over-shadowed by the ever-growing popularity of the comparatively juvenile Newquay; yet present-day Crantock owes so much to Newquay that it cannot afford to be disdainful. In these days no picturesque village can afford to scorn a wealthy neighbour; yet Crantock claims to have been a populous town before Newquay was dreamed of.
Crantock, or St. Carantoc, stands a little way inland from the coast, and the older part is cradled in a sheltering hollow. Its boast of former importance is by no means an idle one. Even within comparatively recent years the estuary of the Gannel, now sand-locked, was navigable for large fishing-craft; and the "new quay" of the prosperous neighbour points indirectly to a time when there was an old quay here. In the sand-flats and rocks around the river-mouth it is possible to trace signs of old shipping, old mooring-rings, and curious excavations. Hals tells us that "in this parish is the port or creek or haven, called the Gonell or Ganell. It also, at full sea, affordeth entrance and anchorage for ships of greatest burthen, if conducted by a pilot that understandeth the course of the channel." But tradition goes further back than this, and speaks of Crantock as having been once part of a large town or district named Langarrow, or sometimes Languna, most of which now lies beneath the sand-towans. This town is said to have had many fine churches and buildings, vying with the best cities in the Britain of that day, which seems to have been the tenth century. With wealth drawn from a fertile soil, a productive sea, and from rich mines of tin and lead, the inhabitants waxed proud in their prosperity, and revelled in luxurious vice. It would seem that a problem as to the provision of labour for the mines—still a vexed question in parts of the British dominions—led the Government of that day to convert Langarrow into a criminal settlement. There were no opposition newspapers in those times, or their perusal would be deeply interesting. The convicts were not allowed to reside within the town, but had a reservation or compound outside, and they passed most of their time toiling in the mines for the enrichment of others. Such work was probably done chiefly by means of quarrying and "streaming," rather than by the burrowing underground which we now generally understand as mining. This importation of criminal labour added greatly to the wealth of the neighbourhood, but it gradually induced its ruin. The daughters of Langarrow began to marry with the convicts; a slow process of contamination took place among those whose morals were already sapped by luxury. At last the town absolutely reeked with wickedness—so says the highly moral legend. When the sin had reached its utmost the wrath of God descended. The cities of the Plain were destroyed by fire; this Cornish town was overwhelmed by a terrible uprising of wind and sea. The waves broke angrily over the haunts of man's degradation, followed by driving sands that blotted them out for ever. But perhaps it may not be for ever. Some day the fickle sand may desert that which it once buried, or the spade may lay bare relics that shall prove the tradition's truth. The lost church of St. Piran has been found; it may be so with the lost Langarrow. Already many human remains have been found among the sand-heaps that extend intermittently from here to Perranporth, and traces of "kitchen-middens" which would throw back the date of Langarrow a thousand years or so. Some have imagined that the destruction occurred at the time when Lyonesse was swallowed by the waves, leaving only the Scillies to point to its former extent; and there have been those who identified this catastrophe with the tempest mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the date 1099. Others, again, without daring to name a date, have thought that the storm which destroyed Langarrow may have been the same as that which overwhelmed the "Lost Hundred" of Cardigan Bay. But without denying these convulsions of nature, we cannot venture to identify or time them.
The name of Langarrow, however, may safely be regarded as historic; and this, with its variants of Languna or Langona, is the earliest name that we can trace at Crantock. It proves the existence of a settlement here before the time of St. Carantoc; it seems also to prove the earlier existence of a church. The "garrow" might denote an untraceable St. Garrow or Carrow. Langona has been differently interpreted as the "Meadow Church" and the "Church on the Downs," either of which names would be appropriate. But we reach something more definite when we come to St. Carantoc himself, the Irish Cairnech or Crannach. He is a genuine personality of British saint-lore, the only doubt being whether he was an Irishman, a Welshman, or a Cornishman. All three countries have claimed him. Most likely he was a Welshman, and as he lived at a time when Wales and Cornwall were practically one land, Cornwall must not feel defrauded if this decision is arrived at. The most notable point about Cairnech is his connection with St. Patrick, who appears to have been his intimate friend; some even say that Patrick was baptized by Cairnech. It is clear that Cairnech was associated with Patrick in the famous revision of the Brehon Laws which became known as the Senchus Mor. It was natural that, in Cornish, his name should become Crannog, Latinised into Carantocus; in Wales it seems to have become Caranog. Singularly enough, not far from the Welsh Newquay there is one of his churches, Llangranog, so that both Newquays have their Crantock. The fact that Cairnech was chosen to make one of this committee of revision establishes the esteem in which he was held; though it must be confessed that some authorities doubt that the Brehon Laws were ever revised at all at this date. When the saint came to Cornwall (always supposing that he was not born here), he is reputed to have landed in the Gannel, and to have built his cell on a strip of land that the local chieftain gave him. While whittling the handle of his mattock he noticed that a wood-pigeon picked up the shavings in its mouth and carried them to a certain spot. He took this as a sign that he was to build his church there, and this, says tradition, is the present site of Crantock Church. There was a collegiate foundation here in Saxon times, mentioned in the Exeter Domesday as Langorroc; but the oldest existing portions of the building are Transition-Norman and Early English, dating from the reign of Edward III., at which time the previous collegiate establishment seems to have been restored. The accommodation was for a dean and nine prebendaries, which proves that Crantock must have served a large neighbourhood. There must have been a much older building on the site, perhaps coeval with the ancient St. Piran's; for a large sandstone coffin, of at least a thousand years in antiquity, was discovered in the churchyard some years since, and now lies there to be marvelled at by the casual visitor and to delight the antiquary. Not many years ago the church had fallen into sad decay, but the Rev. G. M. Parsons set himself to remedy this, and by strenuous collecting he was enabled to reopen the restored edifice in 1902. At the time of the Dissolution the establishment here consisted of a dean, nine prebends, and four vicars-choral, quite a cathedral foundation; but at that time the revenue was very small, there being barely enough to support one vicar, and the prebends must have been simply honorary titles bestowed on neighbouring clergy. There is every proof that the church was intended for a large body of resident priests, there being an important division between choir and nave. There are other collegiate relics in the village, besides the usual holy well. The church stands finely on a sloping meadow looking towards the sea. The village is typically Cornish even to the extent of having no public-house (unless that defect has lately been remedied). A few years since the inhabitants regarded the lack with befitting pride; but the views of visitors differ. It is amusing to learn the experiences of those who had arranged a stay at Crantock without previous knowledge of this missing source of refreshment; and the fact has afforded an explanation of their very frequent walks to Newquay. As a commercial centre it may freely be admitted that Crantock is limited. Its chief link with civilisation is the tiny post-office, which is also a provision store; but Cornwall has acquaintance with a kind of glorified hawking or peddling with which dwellers in town have no concern. A shop on wheels may occasionally be seen in the heart of some quiet hamlet, surrounded by speculative housewives and wondering children. But Crantock has its charm of the present, as well as a delightful association with the past. Close to its undulating slopes lies the grandeur of a glorious coast, meeting the deep blues and greens of the Atlantic. On the headland across the Bay there are barrows that tell of days before the coming of Saxon and Norman; and among these sport numberless rabbits, vanishing with marvellous quickness at the slightest movement. In storm all is magnificence; in calm there is the brooding of a fathomless peace. It is a perfect rest to lie on the sandy dunes or breezy warrens, gazing dreamily at sky and waters. The air rings with the cry of sea-fowl and the song of the lark, while from beyond comes the eternal wash of waves or the low boom from hidden caves. Blended with these comes the more homelike sound of cattle, and often the laugh of children. At nightfall the village and its surrounding meadows soon become slumberous. The field-paths and lanes become utterly lonely and solemn. Bats swoop down, and around the isolated farms may be heard the strange cry of the owl. It is little wonder that superstition dies slowly in such an atmosphere; and there was one such superstition that long lingered around the Gannel gorge. Perhaps it is not yet quite dead, but is told by some mothers to their children at nightfall.
Photo by][Alex. Old.