The Cornwall Coast

by Arthur L. Salmon

Photo by][Alex. Old.

It will be seen that this chronicle of Tregeagle carries him back to the time of Petrock, the patron saint of Padstow, whose name is a corruption of Petrock's-stow. Little Petherick, sometimes called St. Petrock Minor, is thought to be a corruption of the same name. Petrock was a Celtic saint, probably a Welshman, who went to Ireland for his religious education; he crossed to Cornwall in a coracle, and landed in this estuary of the Camel. He founded an oratory here, and probably another at Little Petherick. It is also suggested that he established another cell at Place, the seat of the Prideaux, but it seems more likely that the chapel at Place was founded by St. Samson. After spending many years at Padstow the saint is said to have voyaged to the East, visiting India, and also going on a visionary journey to some Island of the Blest, after the manner of St. Brendan. After returning to Cornwall he removed to Bodmin and established the most important of his religious foundations. Like Padstow, Bodmin was formerly named Petrockstow, and this has caused endless confusion to the chroniclers as well as some quarrels between the two towns. Further, the saint evidently went into Devon; we trace his footsteps at Dartmouth, Exeter, Hollacombe, Anstey, and elsewhere. Bodmin can boast precedence of Padstow in certain respects, for it attained episcopal consequence, besides being the county town of Cornwall; but with regard to priority in connection with Petrock, it is clear Padstow has the first claim. At one time Padstow appears to have been called Lodenek or Lodernek, but in the thirteenth century it was certainly known as Aldestowe; in fact, the town has been troubled with a multiplicity of names, which is always a regrettable thing, for a person or a place. The town is about two miles within the estuary, and were it not for the sands that block its entrance, this would be truly a fine harbour; even so, it is the best that North Cornwall possesses. Two vessels sailed from here for the siege of Calais; and in the sixteenth century some sort of corporation was granted, but this seems to have been lost. At the present day it is a picturesque, quaint old town, in a beautiful and most interesting site, dominated by a weather-beaten old church. But Mr. Hind, though he finds much to admire, does not regard Padstow as in any sense typically Cornish. He says: "An air-voyager dropped from a flying-machine upon the roof of a Padstow house would never think that he was in Cornwall. If he walked out to Stepper Point, or strode some miles westward to Trevose Head, the first land sighted in old days by Canadian timber vessels trading to Padstow, the majestic sweep of coast, the jagged headlands and scattered rocks would certainly suggest Cornwall; but the estuary of the Camel from Wadebridge to Padstow, although beautiful, has no claim to the epithet wild. The panorama induces reflection, moves one to a mood of gentle melancholy; but it does not stimulate. Nowhere in Cornwall have I seen such sand—gold, grey and yellow, equally lovely at all tides. Looking across the river, the eye is soothed by these wastes of blown sand stretching inland from the sea to where the little hamlet called Rock rises from the shore." Sundries are imported at the docks, and there is some shipment of corn; but the ship-building, once notable, has greatly declined, and the town now does little but repairing. It is satisfactory to find that the sands of the Doom Bar have a certain value, as they contain much carbonate of lime, and they are carried inland for agricultural purposes. The church, which stands well above the town, has a good Early English tower, and a beautiful, finely carved catacleuse font; in the south porch the parish stocks are preserved. In the chancel, over the piscina, is an effigy sometimes mistaken for that of St. Anthony, but almost certainly the figure is St. Petrock himself, with his usual symbols, the staff and wolf, at his feet. There are modern monochrome pictures from drawings by Hofmann in front of the organ. It is natural to find monuments of the Prideaux family both within the church and without; in the churchyard also are two granite crosses, one much mutilated.

Prideaux Place, generally named Place, stands a little higher than the church, in a glorious situation; it is a finely designed Elizabethan mansion—Elizabethan in style if not exactly in date—erected by Sir Nicholas Prideaux about the year 1600. Its old staircase was brought thither when Stowe House, once the seat of the Grenvilles, was broken up. The Prideaux are a Cornish family of ancient note, whose names we often meet with in the Duchy's annals; but the most widely known was Humphrey Prideaux, born here in 1648, who at one time was Rector of St. Clement's, Oxford, and later became Dean of Norwich. He wrote a Life of Mahomet, and also a work in which he attempted to bridge over the interval between the Old and New Testaments—rather a ticklish job, one might imagine. There are a good many excellent pictures at the house—a Vandyck and many Opies; but the visitor, unless specially introduced, will have to be content with the outside of the beautiful manor-house.

Padstow has been associated from immemorial times with a special celebration of the May-Day festival, immediately deriving from the old folk-plays and mummings that were once universal. The special survival here is of the Hobby Horse, that once played so prominent a part in these boisterous masquerades, but such life as it still enjoys at Padstow is somewhat a galvanised existence, just as children still occasionally dress in poor tinsel and gaiety in order to collect a few coppers. Such exhibitions are melancholy rather than interesting—

"For who would keep an ancient form
Thro' which the spirit breathes no more?"

The horse is a wooden circle, with a dress of blackened sailcloth, a horse's head, and a prominent tail. Readers of Scott's Abbot will, of course, remember that the Hobby Horse was equally popular in Scotland. The Hobby Horse song, as rendered at Padstow, was probably only a variant of verses common elsewhere, but local and topical allusions were freely introduced, and stanzas were addressed to special personages. The performance is in a moribund condition, and it is certainly not worth while for a stranger to travel to Padstow on May-Day to see it. Very likely he would not see it; it is a thing that may be discontinued at any time. If we were devoting our attention to Cornwall as it used to be, much would come into this book which is now utterly obsolete, and would cause as great surprise to Cornish folk as to others.

Photo by][Alex. Old.

If the tide serves, it is certainly worth while to go up to Wadebridge, if only for the sake of the grand old bridge, originally built of seventeen arches, in the year 1485, by Thomas Lovibond, Vicar of Egloshayle. The bridge has been widened since its erection, but is not otherwise much changed. There was a ferry here in the past, but it was perilous, and Lovibond could not rest till, with the assistance of his bishop, he had collected money for this beneficent work. There was a great difficulty in sinking foundations for the bridge, owing to the shifting sands, but, guided by a dream, Lovibond is said to have resorted to packs of wool—the same method reported by tradition of Bideford Bridge. The bridge is 320 feet long, and remains the best specimen of its class in England, as it retains its protecting angles for the use of pedestrians, which at Bideford have been removed. Lovibond was not only a bridge-builder; he also erected the fine tower of his church at Egloshayle (the mother-parish of Wadebridge). Egloshayle probably means the "church by the river" (eglos-hêl); its church is particularly interesting for its western doorway, its Norman font, and its Kestell monument, while there is some good carving in the roof of the south aisle. The church of St. Breock is distant nearly a mile from Wadebridge, on the western side of the river, and is perhaps still more delightful in its position; it is noteworthy for its monuments, which, however, have been much displaced. It is here that the remains of Tregeagle lie entombed; his spirit, if we may credit tradition, is otherwise engaged. St. Breock is supposed to have arrived in Cornwall, from Wales, earlier than Petrock. He was an old man, and, as Mr. Baring-Gould tells us, one day his companions "left him to sing psalms in his cart whilst they were engaged at a distance over some pressing business. When they returned they found a pack of wolves round the old man, but whether his sanctity, or toughness, kept them from eating him is left undecided." Surely it must have been his sanctity. His name attaches to the Breock Downs, a high-lying moorland rising to about 700 feet, thickly strewn with prehistoric remains. Wadebridge has suffered by the opening of the railway to Padstow, but it can boast that its rail to Bodmin was the second line to be opened in England. Many jests were current in reference to the speed of this early railway. Professor Shuttleworth, who was born at Egloshayle Vicarage, says: "I have often seen the train stop while people got out and gathered blackberries. But it is lovely country down around Egloshayle and Wadebridge, just as pretty and quiet as can be." Mr. Arthur Norway also has a very tender regard for the district, for a similar reason, and he has given some weird stories of local superstition. But it cannot be claimed that Wadebridge is on the coast, and we must retreat seaward.