The Upper Reaches of the Tamar: Launceston: The Old Highways: St. Clether: Altarnun: Trebartha: The Trethevy Dolmen: The Cheesewring: St. Cleer: St. Neot: Dozmaré: Tregeagle: Lake Dwellings.
The Upper Reaches of the Tamar
Above Launceston, the Tamar soon has a companion in the shape of the Bude Canal, which was built at great cost, but is no longer worked. At Werrington, the river of that name joins the mother stream, after forming an artificial lake, and Werrington is also interesting as a place to which several bequests were made for the benefit of the poor and the support of a school. Many years ago the parish chest, which contained the donation deeds of these charities, was stolen from the church. After a long time and great hue and cry it was discovered built up into the wall of one of the houses and, of course, empty.
Boyton, a little north, is divided by the Tamar between Devon and Cornwall. Here lived Agnes Brest, brought to the stake 1557, the only one among the Cornish Protestants who was actually burnt. North Tamarton, like Boyton, has a piece of land on the other side of the river, but, unlike its neighbour, this portion was returned to Cornwall by an Act of Parliament in 1832. The church of St. Denis is worth a visit for the sake of the beautiful carving of the pulpit.
Launceston
These upper reaches of the Tamar are well stocked with trout, and Launceston which, though not on the river, has a stream of its own, not to speak of a special and personal canal, is a good centre for anglers as well as a most interesting old ruin of a place. Its ancient name was Dunheved, and a castle of some sort was crowning this great hill when William the Conqueror gave Cornwall to his half-brother, Robert of Mortain. The most noticeable thing about these Cornish fortifications is the frequency and ease with which they fell into a ruinous condition. Seeing that the walls are at their thinnest 3 ft. thick and elsewhere 10, one would have thought them capable of withstanding a little wind and weather. But the contrary was the case. The present ruins are mostly late Norman and Transition Norman of Henry III.'s time, but already in 1312, not a hundred years after they had replaced the older building, we find them calling urgently for repair; while, when the Black Prince came down to Cornwall in 1353 to make acquaintance with his duchy, for he took that as seriously and conscientiously as everything else, the stronghold was in a parlous condition. Yet it occupies a commanding position and was evidently a place of considerable strength. No doubt the good young Prince restored this Castle Terrible with its great wall—the base court—containing three gateways, one of which is still standing, and its dungeon of Doomsdale; this castle to which "the vill of Truro yearly rendered one laburnum bow and the manor of Scilly three hundred puffins!"
Imagine the arrival at the buttery hatch of those three hundred puffins! We think them a leathery, fishy kind of food, and nowadays the servants would leave in a body if required to eat them. But those were the good old times, and in guardroom and kitchen no doubt they had puffin roasted and puffin boiled and puffins in their pasties until the lady of the castle said to her lord: "My love, in this weather, of course, you can't expect those puffins to keep; really the Scillies are most inconsiderate, one hundred at a time would have been sufficient!" and then they had puffins potted and variously preserved until the garrison groaned in chorus the old grace:
"Puffins young and puffins old,
Puffins hot and puffins cold,
Puffins tender and puffins tough,
I thank the Lord I've had enough."
At the time of the Civil Wars the Castle, nodding in age-long sleep and slow decay, was restored and fortified. Charles I. and his troops passed through the town in August 1644; and Richard Grenville, new-made Lord of Lostwithiel, was imprisoned here, when his turbulence had exhausted the royal patience. Now the county gaol is at Bodmin; but in those days of dungeons and fetters the folk were incarcerated in the fortress—what is now a playground being the place of execution.