The Tin Mines of Cornwall had been known to the Greeks and possibly the Phœnicians from the earliest times. Diodorus [7]Siculus gives a fragment from the writings of the Greek traveller Poseidonius who visited Cornwall possibly in the 3rd century B.C., which may be translated as follows: "and stamping the tin into shapes of cubes or dice, they carry it in great quantities in waggons into an island called Ictis lying off Britain, when the parts between the Island and the main land became dry land by the ebbing of the tide."
It has been suggested that Ictis was St. Michael's Mount and also the Isle of Wight. It is impossible to accept the latter contention, unless we take the view which has been put forward that great changes have taken place in the depths of the channel separating the Isle of Wight from the mainland, for which we have no evidence in history or tradition. Also the Isle of Wight is not less than one hundred and fifty miles from the tin mines of Cornwall, and at the period to which we are referring the only roads that existed between the two were mere tracks, for much of the distance no doubt impassable to waggons. If it had been necessary to send Cornish tin to the Isle of Wight for transport abroad, it would naturally have been taken to one or other of the many harbours along the Cornish southern coast and transhipped by sea in the summer time. The contention in favour of St. Michael's Mount is almost equally difficult to accept. It is difficult to see what advantage could have been gained by carting the tin from the mainland to that Island, when the contiguous coast possessed several excellent natural harbours. The most probable solution to the writer seems to be that the Island of Ictis was the entire Penwith Peninsula. A walk from Marazion Station to St. Erth along the low-lying belt of marsh land makes it clear that the ocean at no very distant date must at high tide have encircled the Penwith Peninsula.
In a later age it is possible that the first seeds of Christianity may have come to Britain by way of Cornwall along the trade route created by the exportation of the products of the Cornish Tin Mines to Marseilles. Foreign merchants would visit Cornwall for the purpose of purchasing tin, and numbers of foreign sailors would come to these shores in the galleys that conveyed the tin to the coast of Gaul. Under the circumstances it does not seem unreasonable to suppose that the first seeds of Christianity were in this way brought into Britain through Cornwall.
It seems in every way possible that a fair proportion of the tin exported from the Island of Ictis to Greece, Italy and the East came from what is now the Parish of Breage. We have been told by those competent to speak on such matters that there are tin workings in the neighbourhood of Wheal Vor which evince a very great antiquity. The name of Wheal Vor itself means in the Celtic tongue "great work," but we cannot build much as to the antiquity of the mine merely upon its Celtic name, as the Cornish or Celtic language continued to be spoken in this part of Cornwall even until the reign of Queen Anne or later.
At what date the Romans penetrated into Cornwall it is impossible to say. It has been usual to regard their occupation of Cornwall as of a somewhat shadowy and uncertain character, but this is not altogether borne out by facts. Their camps, possibly of a not very permanent character, are scattered all over our most western part of the County, amongst other places there is one at St. Erth and another in the parish of Constantine. The Roman Mile-stone, found in the foundations of St. Hilary Church, at the restoration, and now preserved there, attests the fact that a Roman road to the extreme West passed near St. Hilary Church, probably following the same lines that the main road between Penzance and Helston follows to-day. Along this road it is probable would come the first real light and culture to Breage with the steady tramp of the marching legionaries. It may well have been that Christianity first travelled this way in their train. Roman coins and Roman pottery have been from time to time found all over the County. In 1779 an urn containing copper coins weighing eight pounds was found on Godolphin Farm by a ploughman who sold them to a Jew, and so all trace of them was lost.
In whatever way Christianity was first brought to the remote Parish of Breage, it was certainly not brought by St. Breaca, St. Germoe and the rest of their companions, who only made their appearance at the end of the fifth or beginning of the sixth century.
As early as the third century two great Christian writers, Tertullian and Origen, speak of the Britons as having been won over to the religion of Christ, and St. Chrysostom in the next century makes a similar statement. St. Jerome also speaks of the British Pilgrims he had seen in the Holy Land in the fourth century; British Bishops were present at the Councils of Arles and Rimini in the fourth century, and were invited to the Œcumenical Council of Nicæa, but could not go on account of their poverty. Pieces of Roman pottery with the sacred monogram burnt upon it were found at Padstow. Pelagius a Welshman, in the fourth century, set the whole world in a blaze with his teachings about original sin. These and many other facts make it quite clear that Christianity must have been received by the Celts of Cornwall long before the coming of the so-called Irish Missionaries to Cornwall, to two of whom the districts of Breage and Germoe owe their names.
The Pagan Saxons landed on the east coast of England in the fifth century and drove the Christian Brythons before them, putting all to the sword who fell into their hands. Those who escaped took refuge either in Cornwall, Wales or Brittany. It is from the Celts, therefore, with a strong admixture of Ivernian blood, that the present inhabitants, at any rate of Western Cornwall, are descended. As a result of the Saxon invasion of Britain it came about that Wales and Cornwall were fully Christian, whilst the rest of Britain became practically Pagan. The Venerable Bede, the Anglo-Saxon historian monk of Jarrow, goes so far as to blame the Celts of Cornwall and Wales for altogether neglecting the conversions of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. Considering the nature of the case, this was a most unreasonable complaint to make, as the Saxons at once killed or enslaved any Celts unlucky enough to fall into their hands. If further proof were needed that Wales and Cornwall were Christian at this time, we have only to turn to the writings of Gildas[8] and the Welsh Bards, Taliesin, Aneurin and Llwarch-Hen. The memorials of these writers date from the sixth century and depict incidentally Christianity in a highly organised condition among the Celts of the West.
Leland the antiquarian, who visited Cornwall and consequently Breage in the reign of Henry VIII, amongst other things of interest in the Parishes of Breage and Germoe which he noticed, speaks of the ruins of the ancient Castle or Stone Fort on the summit of Tregoning Hill. He says: "The Castle of Conan stood on the hill of Pencair, there yet appeareth two ditches, some say that Conan had a son called Tristrame." The life of the chieftain Conan and all that he did have long since faded into oblivion; all that survives of him are the mounds of stones that mark the site of his rude stronghold, and his name which has escaped oblivion in the name of the hill on which he lived and ruled—Tregoning, "Tre Conan" the abode or settlement of Conan. Pencair, the name which Leland gives to Tregoning Hill, merely means the Hill of the Castle or Camp.
The two round camps on the eastern face of Tregoning Hill, formed by the casting up of high banks of earth with a deep ditch on the outer side, are the work of Brythons, or at any rate of people who had adopted their method of fortification and defence; the Goidels made the breastwork of their camps of stone. In those lawless days all communities had to fortify themselves against the sudden attacks of enemies, just as, on the north-western frontier of India, all the villages at the present day are fortified against attack by high walls of mud. The two camps or settlements on Tregoning are well chosen near an excellent water supply and on the side of the hill sheltered from the blustering gales coming up from the sea. Possibly at the time when these two camps were the haunts of two populous communities the whole of the low lying land of Breage and Germoe was covered with swamp, tangled scrub and undergrowth.