The Cornwall Coast

by Arthur L. Salmon

In any case nothing of the present ruins at Tintagel existed in the time of Arthur. Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote about the year 1150, says of the stronghold that "it is situated upon the sea, and on every side surrounded by it; and there is but one entrance into it, and that through a straight rock, which three men shall be able to defend against the whole power of the kingdom." Even Gorlois, we remember, only gained admittance by stratagem. Tintagel, Dundagel, or Dundiogl, the Dunecheniv of Domesday, seems certainly to have belonged to Gorlois when Uther was Pendragon or Head-king of Britain; it would have been a cliff-castle such as that on Pentire Head. As years passed the rock probably became more insular, and when the Norman stronghold was built it was connected with the mainland by a drawbridge. From earliest times the castle attached to the Earls of Cornwall, one of whom protected David, Prince of Wales, during his revolt against Edward I. Later it was used as a kind of prison, a Mayor of London being confined within it. Elizabeth had some thought of restoring it, for it had already become ruinous; Leland says: "The residue of the buildings of the Castle be sore wetherbeten, and yn ruine; but it hath beene a large thinge." Its outworks extended to the mainland, but the great keep was on the isolated mass of rock. Here also are the remains of St. Juliet's chapel, with its altar-slab and stone benches. It is not easy to say much about the Juliot or Julitta to whom this chapel was dedicated; but the chapel is certainly that mentioned in the thirteenth-century High History of the Holy Grail. "They came into a very different land, scarce inhabited of any folk, and found a little castle in a combe. They came thitherward and saw that the enclosure of the castle was fallen down into an abysm, so that none might approach it on that side, but it had a right fair gateway and a door tall and wide, whereby they entered. They beheld a chapel that was fair and rich, and below was a great ancient hall." But the spirit of modernism now comes very near to this sacred spot of antiquity; on an opposite headland stands a commodious hotel, and the Tintagel golf-links come very close to the castle. A tiny port lies below, from which a little slate is sometimes shipped. The village, whose correct name of Trevena is being displaced by that of Tintagel, lies about a mile inland; it is clean and comfortable, but not remarkably picturesque except for the old gabled building that was once its post-office. Those who want the perpetual presence of the sea will not be contented with it. Its church, dedicated to SS. Marcelliana and Materiana (of whom the latter may be the Welsh Madron), stands at a distance, above the cliffs west of the castle; it is a stern, bare building, magnificently placed, so fully exposed to the force of Atlantic gales that the very tombstones have been buttressed. A portion of the walls, in their rude simplicity, appears to be Saxon, but many orders are represented here, from the late Norman chancel-arch to the Decorated south transept and Perpendicular screen. There is a rugged circular font, and what is supposed to be a Roman milestone. The vestry was formerly a Lady-chapel, possibly Saxon, with a thirteenth-century door and a curious mutilated altar. The south-transept window is to the memory of J. Douglas Cook, founder of the Saturday Review, who returned to his native Cornwall to die. In the churchyard are the graves of drowned seamen, British and foreign. It is a striking and solemnising little church, quite in harmony with a district of myth and sublimity. It is possible that some who come to Tintagel for the first time may be disappointed. If so, they have expected too much, or have expected the wrong thing. There is no gloss of false romance about the place; the ruins have not the hollow pretentious grandeur of some Norman castles; what we see is the unadorned, unveiled reality of a majestic coast, the low, stark walls of ruin on an immemorial site, the naked wind-beaten church on the heights, the sea breaking into gaunt caverns below. Sheep feed within the enclosure to which we scramble by a ragged path. Sentiment may resent the hotel and the golfers, but any jarring note can easily be ignored. Yet even Tennyson seems to have been disappointed at first; afterwards, the spirit of the place sank into him and prevailed. Perhaps old Hawker has described it best, in few pregnant words:—

"Hark! stern Dundagel softens into song.
They meet for solemn severance, knight and king,
Where gate and bulwark darken o'er the sea."

He gives us the words of Arthur, when the listeners "hush their hearts to hear the king":—

"I would not be forgotten in this land:
I yearn that men I know not, men unborn,
Shall find, amid these fields, King Arthur's fame.
Here let them say, by proud Dundagel's walls—
'They brought the Sangraal back at his command,
They touched these rugged rocks with hues of God,'
So shall my name have worship, and my land."

And after the king had spoken:—

"That night Dundagel shuddered into storm—
The deep foundations shook beneath the sea."

And we have the grand final picture:—

"There stood Dundagel, throned; and the great sea
Lay, a strong vassal at his master's gate,
And, like a drunken giant, sobb'd in sleep."

There was a time when Trevena, with Bossiney and Trevalga, formed a borough, and sent members to Parliament, of whom Francis Drake was one. It needed little apology to disfranchise such a small corporation as this, but the first Reform Bill had to deal with far greater anomalies. Bossiney has other attractions than such memories as this, having a delightful cove protected by the fine headland of Willapark. The fishing hamlet is close to an ancient burial-mound or barrow, from which election writs were once read and the local mayor proclaimed. From this cove we can pass upward into the glorious Rocky Valley, with its broken crags, its tangled foliage and rushing stream, its old mill. It is just a little like the gorge at Lynmouth, but wilder. This is the stream forming the famous cascade known as Knighton's (or St. Nectan's) Kieve. It is not very easy to find, and, here as at Tintagel, a key must be procured before its beauties can be examined. The Kieve is a basin of rock, into which the water has a fall of about 40 feet. St. Nectan is supposed to have been a brother of Morwenna, of Morwenstow; it is said he had an oratory here, and when he was dying he threw its silver bell into the waterfall. But Mr. Baring-Gould says that he died at Hartland. Following the usual guide-book convention, this would be the right moment for quoting Hawker's ballad, "The Sisters of Glen Nectan," but that piece is not one of his happiest efforts, and the legend is at least dubious. Those who journey afoot from Bossiney to Boscastle will find it almost impossible to keep to the coast, as the Rocky Valley forms an impediment, especially when its stream is in flood after heavy rains. But they can find a tolerable road to Trevalga, crossing the stream at the Long Bridge, and at Trevalga they will find an interesting little church. The shore here is broken into some small creeks of great beauty, but one chasm is so dark and sombre that it has won the name of Blackapit. There are dangers along these wild beaches; the poet Swinburne, when a boy, was almost cut off by the tide near Tintagel. From Blackapit we rise to Willapark Point and the church of Forrabury. The view from the Point is very fine, covering the ravine and haven of Boscastle on the east, and looking towards Tintagel on the west. Forrabury, the parish church of Boscastle, is dedicated to St. Symphorian, whoever that saint be (perhaps St. Veryan); and in situation it much resembles that of Tintagel. The pulpit and the woodwork of the altar date from the fifteenth century. There is a good granite cross in the churchyard. Here again there is a temptation, into which most writers fall, of quoting from Hawker, with his poem, "The Silent Tower of Bottreaux," in which he gives us a legend accounting for the fact that this church has only a single bell. But as he frankly confessed, in after life, that he had invented the story on the very slightest foundation, it is better to avoid quoting from the ballad, except solely for the melodious smoothness of its burden:—

"Come to thy God in time,
Thus saith the ocean chime;
Storm, whirlwind, billow past,
Come to thy God at last."