Some three and a half miles south-east of Newquay is Trerice, another home of the Arundells. They were truly a fighting race. John Arundell of Trerice raised a body of troops during the wars of the Roses and fought on the Lancastrian side, and a later John, nicknamed "John for the King" and "Game to the Toes," fought with his four sons for Charles I., and in his old age held Pendennis Castle after all the other forts in Cornwall had surrendered.
His ancient manor house came—as did most of the Arundell estates, for they wedded cannily—by marriage. It was built in 1572 on the site of an older house, the very solid masonry of which has been found under the soil. Unfortunately the Arundells, ennobled after the Restoration as Lord Arundell of Trerice, died out with the "Wicked Lord" in 1773.
A minstrel's gallery extends the whole length of the hall, and a window there has no less than 576 panes of glass. In another room is a table of black oak, the top of which is made of a single plank, which table is said to have been in the house three hundred years. But the glory of Trerice has departed. Old Sir John lies buried at Cuby, and the countrypeople talk of the last bearer of the name with bated breath. The north wing of the house was pulled down after his death and all his personal possessions burnt—but still the place remains untenanted.
St. Agnes and the Giant
At Perranporth the bewildering similarity of the dunes is broken for the moment by cliff and cavern scenery. The little village lies high, and some arched rocks are to be seen at low tide. Two miles to the west is Cligga Head, a fine bluff rock, but though St. Agnes Beacon, a lofty hill covered with blocks of granite, rises to 620 ft., these cliffs cannot be compared for grandeur or majesty with those of the wilder north. The Beacon, on the summit of which are tumuli, appears in the stories of the Cornish giants, St. Agnes—or, as her proper name is, St. Ann—proving one too many for a tiresome monster with the absurd name of Bolster. She is said to have persuaded him to go in for a little spring blood-letting and to fill one mine-shaft. But the shaft communicated with the sea, so the accommodating giant bled to death. If this had happened where the Red River runs out by Gwithian, the reason for the legend would have been apparent, for that terrible little tin-stream sullies the blue waters of the bay for miles around; but there is no tin-stream by St. Agnes Beacon. Between Perranporth and the latter the cliff-walk is spoilt by the extensive enclosures of a modern dynamite factory. The house in which the painter Opie was born is on the way to St. Agnes. He was the son of a carpenter, but going to London soon attracted so much attention that he was known as the "Cornish Wonder." Dying of overwork when forty-six—considering his age rather a curious name to give the disease—he was buried in St. Paul's.
After these few cliffs, the coast sinks again to meet the encroaching sand. A hundred and twenty years ago the Upton farmhouse was suddenly overwhelmed, the family, to escape suffocation, making their way out by the bedroom windows. A few years later, the sands shifted, showing the buried house, still standing as they had left it. These stretches of sand are now planted with a rush, the arundo arenaria, which binds it together, and in the course of time results in the growth of a short sweet turf.
Portreath and the Bassets
When the Spanish and French combined fleets threatened Plymouth in 1779, Francis Basset of Tehidy placed two batteries of guns at Portreath, in those days known as Basset's Cove. It has the reputation of being the most unsafe harbour on the coast; and, as it lies at the bottom of a valley, is reminiscent of Port Isaac; but its wooded hills are less steep and more charming.
A little inland is Tehidy House, the seat of the Bassets, a famous Cornish family. The house once had parks and plantations of far greater area than at present; they are said indeed to have reached to the foot of Carn Brea. During the Civil Wars many a humdrum family flowered into distinction. It was a chance to prove their mettle. After the battle of Bradock Down the Francis Basset of that date was knighted, and a little later we find him Sheriff of the county. His marriage was such another as that of his friend, Sir Beville Grenville, and after Essex' troops had surrendered to the King in 1644, he hurried to send his lady the gracious news. "I write this on the saddle. Every friend will pardon the illness of it, and you chiefly, my perfect joy. The King and army march presently for Plymouth. Jesu give the King, it and all. The King, in the hearing of thousands, as soon as he saw me in the morning, cried to me, 'Dear Mr. Sheriff, I leave Cornwall to you safe and sound.'" Before the war Sir Francis had represented St. Ives in Parliament. In 1640 he presented the town with a silver wishing cup, on which was inscribed:
"If any discord 'twixt my friends arise
Within the borough of beloved Saint Ies
It is desired that this my cup of love
To every one a peacemaker may prove,
Then am I blessed to have given a legacie
So like my heart unto posteritie."