The Cornish Coast (South), and the Isles of Scilly

by Charles G. Harper

Soon the way leads almost continuously down hill to Par. On the hedge-bank to the right is a striking modern wayside cross, bearing the inscription, "I thank Thee, O Lord, in the name of Jesus, for all Thy mercies. J. R., May 13, 1845, 1887, 1905." It was erected by the late Jonathan Rashleigh, of Menabilly.

At the foot of the hill is Par. The name of the place means, in the Cornish language, a marsh, or swamp, and Par certainly lies almost on a level with the sea, where a little stream wanders out of the Luxulyan Valley on to the sands of a small bay, opening to the larger bay of Tywardreath. The original character of this once marshy spot is very greatly hidden by the many engineering and other works established here by J. T. Treffry. Here his Cornwall Minerals Railway, running across country to the north coast at Newquay, comes to his harbour; and his mines, canal, and smelting works make a strange industrial medley, through whose midst runs the main line of the Great Western Railway.

The great enterprises of that remarkable man have long since suffered change. His railway is now the Newquay branch of the Great Western, his mines and canal have fallen upon less prosperous days, and the great chimney of the smelting-works, 235 feet high—"Par stack," as it is called—no longer smokes. The pleasant humour of the neighbourhood long since likened silk hats, the "toppers" of everyday speech, to the big chimney, and he who wore one was said to be wearing a "Par stack."

THE BISCOVEY STONE.

There is no gain in the scenic way by following the coast from Par to Charlestown. Nothing of any outstanding character appears along those coastwise paths, which are long and obscure. This is not to say that the road inland is in any way delightful. It is, in fact, a plaguey ill-favoured road, for when you have left the various railway bridges and junctions of Par behind, you come to a very Gehenna of a place; a sterile plain through whose midst the highway proceeds bumpily. Many years ago the miners turned the land at this point inside out, in search of copper, and now that they have long left it, the place remains the abomination of desolation, where nothing will grow amid the mundic and heaps and hollows of tailings. South of the road at Biscovey, past this desolate region, stood an ancient granite cross, minus its head, but still seven feet eight inches high, known as the "Biscovey Stone," and serving the humble office of a gatepost. It was in 1896 removed to Biscovey churchyard. Its original function was that of a monument to one Alroron, and it bears on its two broad sides, amid curiously interlaced decorative patterns, the inscription "—Alroron Ullici Filivs—."

The dusty road leads through Holmbush, a suburb of Charlestown, which took its name from the wayside "Holly Bush" inn. Charlestown itself is more curious than beautiful. It is, in fact, the port of St. Austell, of which it is really an extension, and was formerly called Polmear. Charlestown is a place with one small, but very busy and crowded dock; and the dock and the quays, and all the roads into and out of the place are a study in black and white, and barrels. The stranger to Cornwall, proceeding westward for the first time, is apt to be puzzled by these strange evidences. He has come, unaware, upon the first signs of the great and prosperous Cornish china-clay industry. The whiteness of everything that is not black is caused by the leakage of the china-clay, and the blackness of everything that is not white is the result of coal-dust.

China-clay is a substance greatly resembling chalk, and varying from a putty-like consistency to a powdery brittleness. A little of it is inevitably dropped in the cartage down from Carclaze, inland, where it is got, through St. Austell, and down to the port, and a little more is spread about in loading the vessels that take it abroad; and so, as "mony a mickle makes a muckle," there is generally a good deal of china-clay pervading the place. The mountains of clean new barrels, just fresh from the cooper's, are for packing the clay for export. Charlestown also does an import trade in coal, hence the alternative to Charlestown's sanctified whiteness, but when it rains, as it not infrequently does in Cornwall, the result here is a grey and greasy misery, compact of these two substances.

China-clay is decomposed granite, rotted by the action of water during uncounted thousands of years. Up at Carclaze and further inland, at St. Stephen's-in-Brannel, it is dug out of quarries that were once open workings for tin. The deposits are of great depth and extent. Although so easily dug out, the white clay in its natural state is mixed with hard and gritty particles of quartz, and has therefore to be subjected to a refining process, to separate that undesirable element. The method of separation is very simple, the clay being subjected to a washing by which the heavy, useless particles remain, and the soft material is carried down into a series of tanks. There it is left to settle, and the water is then drawn off. The clay is then allowed to dry, and is finally dug out and packed in barrels. Modern improvements in the preparation of china-clay have been chiefly directed to the quick-drying of the masses in these tanks, and minutes are now taken instead of the months formerly occupied in natural evaporation. China-clay, it may be added, is used for many other purposes than the manufacture of porcelain, and, although the Staffordshire and foreign potteries use it largely, it is extensively employed in loading calico, and in giving inferior cottons a specious and illusory excellence. It enters also into the composition of the heavier and more highly glazed printing papers, chiefly those used for printing illustrations.