Markets
The following entry in the exchequer book at the time of the Domesday survey marks one of the contrasts between then and now: "In this manor there is a market on Sunday, but it is reduced to nothing on account of the Earl of Mortain's market, which is very near thereto." Robert, Earl of Mortain and Cornwall, held his market by his Castle of Trematon, and so we are confronted with two markets on a Sunday in Sabbatarian Cornwall! The boldness of the folk, with all those petrified pipers and fiddlers and merry maidens to point a moral! And to think that nothing happened.
A good deal of water has flowed under Tamar bridges since those days. In the reign of Henry VIII. Andrew Furlong, priest and schoolmaster at Saltash, was imprisoned for having a Bible in his possession—and this is the tercentenary of that Bible's translation into the vulgar tongue. Verily times have changed.
Saltash
From the Hoe to Saltash, low hills flank an estuary of great width which narrows sharply where Brunel's triumph, the Royal Albert Bridge, spans the flood. This great railway bridge, which was opened by the Prince Consort in 1859, cost over three-quarters of a million and is still one of the wonders of engineering.
Saltash suffered considerably during the wars between King and Parliament. It was taken and retaken any number of times, occupied by first one party and then the other, fortified, attacked, and generally treated with scant courtesy. It has several points of interest; an old shop dated 1584, fine corporation regalia, a church containing a very ancient font bowl (brought from Wadgworthy), and an exquisite silver vessel of 1624 now used as a communion cup.
Moditonham
This part of the county is noted for its strawberries, its gooseberries, and for a sweet kind of small cherry called mazzards.
"Let Uter Pendragon do what he can
The Tamar water will run as it ran,"
says the Celtic proverb, embodying no doubt some forgotten story. It is certainly a fine sheet of water above Saltash and he would be a bold man who would seek to divert its flow. Not far from the town is the manor of Moditonham, which was built not long after the Restoration by Colonel Waddon, who, from long residence abroad, had gathered a love of foreign architecture, and who chose for his model a French château. John Grenville, Sir Beville's son (who attended Charles II. in all his wanderings, was sent by him to negotiate with Monk, and was King's messenger with his letter to the Parliament), had been made Earl of Bath and Governor of both Pendennis and Plymouth. He was the most loyal of Charles's subjects, but under James II. his long faith wavered, and it was at Moditonham that, with Colonel Waddon, the Deputy Governor of Pendennis, he treated with the commissioner of the Prince of Orange. His brother, Denis Grenville, Dean of Durham, less wise, but more loyal, followed James over seas and died in exile.