The ruins are certainly the most interesting part of Launceston, and it has ruins not only of the ivy-grown castle, but of a priory founded in 1126. Its faint remains, with the exception of a doorway built into the White Hart Hotel, lie in a valley between the town and St. Stephen's. When the privilege of sanctuary was abolished except in churches and churchyards, Launceston was one of the seven towns that were made sanctuaries for life, except for heinous crimes. The result, however, was not altogether pleasant for the aforesaid towns, which, much to their dismay, presently found themselves harbouring all the criminals and rapscallions of the country. Preferring the room of these would-be citizens to their company, the towns petitioned James I. for "desecration" and the right of sanctuary was finally abolished.
The Church of St. Mary Magdalene was built by Sir Henry Trecarrel in 1524 on the death of his only child. It is of granite, and has the peculiarity of being worked all over with picks instead of chisels. The ornamentation is florid and excessive. A granite carving of the Crucifixion, however, and other interesting monuments form part of the churchyard wall. The vestry was once a shop that separated the tower from the church, which though it seems strange to our modern notions was by no means unusual in olden days.
The Old Highways
The oldest road in the county is no doubt the one that runs from Tor Point by way of the principal towns to the Land's End, but a great part of this ground has already been trodden. Another ancient road leaving Launceston goes via Bodmin Moors to Bodmin, branching off right and left at Altarnon. It then crosses Tregoss Moor, passes St. Enoder and Mitchell, and joins the first near Redruth. This road, running as it does like a backbone down the centre of the county, we propose to take. Egloskerry, Treneglos, and Trewen have churches which are mildly interesting. In the first are two good Norman tympana, one over the north doorway, representing a dragon, and one, now placed over the interior of the south doorway, carved with the Agnus Dei. Here also is a mutilated stone figure supposed to represent one of the Blanchminster (anglice, Blackmonster) family. At Treneglos is another fine Norman tympanum, having cut on it the tree of life with a lion on each side; and Trewen has a good mediæval bell inscribed, "St. Michael, pray for us!"
At Lancast J. C. Adams, the discoverer of the planet Neptune, was born. He was also the Senior Wrangler of his year at Cambridge, and one of the exceptions to the old rule that Senior Wranglers never distinguish themselves after leaving college. Another Cornish Senior Wrangler was Henry Martyn, the missionary, to whose memory the baptistery in Truro Cathedral is dedicated.
St. Clether
Basil or Trebasil, in the parish of St. Clether, was for long the seat of the Trevelyans. Among the ruins of the house is a large moorstone oven, now used as a pigstye, while in the immediate neighbourhood are four granite crosses in a good state of preservation. The Trevelyans, like most of the Cornish gentry, were Cavaliers, and on one occasion a party of Roundheads made shift to seize the squire in his own house.
"If you come on," said he, "I will send out my spearmen against you."
As there seemed nothing at the back of this threat, come on they did. Whereupon he up with a teeming beehive and threw it among them. Not a man-jack waited for the onslaught of those spearmen.