V
NORTH CORNWALL
“I believe I may venture to aver,” wrote Tonkin of Cornwall two hundred years ago, “that there are not any roads in the whole kingdom worse kept than ours.” This is not the case now. The main roads of Cornwall are excellent, and are far better kept than the average road of Somerset, for instance. No doubt the quickest way from Sennan to St. Ives is by Penzance and St. Erth Station; for this road, which is in the direct route from Land’s End to John o’ Groat’s, leaves little to be desired. But the more interesting way is through St. Just, and Morvah, and Zennor. We cannot expect so good a surface here, yet from Sennan to Morvah, where the country is so much disfigured by mines that we are glad to hurry, the road is capital; and it is only as the scenery becomes beautiful that the surface grows rough. There is a very steep descent beyond St. Just, followed at once by a climb of which the stiffest gradient is about one in five and a half.
It is in St. Just that we pass—on our left as we drive through the Bank Square—the ancient amphitheatre known as the Plân-an-Guare. Here, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, miracle-plays were acted on the level space in the centre, while the six tiers of seats that are replaced by the grassy bank were crowded with country-folk and miners. The plays were very popular, says Carew, “for they have therein devils and devices to delight as well the eye as the ear.”
There are none of these bizarre attractions, nor indeed anything else, to delight our eyes till we have passed Morvah. But from Morvah to St. Ives we have a lovely drive through a country of hills and heather, of bracken slopes and tors of granite—a little pattern cut from Dartmoor. At Trereen it will be well to leave the car and walk across several fields to Gurnard’s Head, whence there is a fine view of the jagged coast. The massive granite steps that here serve the purpose of stiles are luxurious beyond the dreams of laziness.
The last part of this road is bad, but the wild green slopes remind us still of Dartmoor till we run down the long, steep hill into the town of St. Ives. This is quite as good a centre as Penzance from which to see the western end of Cornwall, for the Tregenna Castle Hotel, with its park and walled garden and its lovely outlook over the sea, is one of the most charming in the Duchy; and the place itself is unspoilt. Indeed, these little fishing towns of Cornwall seem to understand very well that their face is their fortune, so to speak; that their welfare depends, not on bandstands and esplanades, but on the beauty of their harbours and fishing boats and narrow streets. Here at St. Ives are the simple charms of Newlyn and the rest: the same little piers and clustered masts, the same contorted streets and the same artists.
It is well that Mr. Knill, when he set up his crooked pyramid, did not place it too near the town. If we look back as we drive away we shall see, upon the skyline, the empty mausoleum of this unconventional mayor, who built his own tomb and arranged to be mourned with music and dancing at its base, but omitted to be buried in it. Some say he did not mean it for a tomb at all, but for a landmark to smugglers. This may be so, since at one time he certainly indulged in privateering—an enterprise into which, he explained, “he was hurried by the force of circumstances.” Perhaps the same explanation applies to his burial in London.
ST. IVES.
We drive on through the pretty, straggling village of Lelant to the port of Hayle. The rich colouring of the harbour and river here, the red and green flats, the brown and yellow sands, the crooked posts reflected in the water, and the flocks of gulls, are the last pleasing sights that we shall see for many miles; for the country through which we have to pass cannot have been beautiful in its best days, and is now made hideous by pit-heads and chimneys. Camborne is big and ugly, with trams: Redruth is big and ugly, without trams: there is no other visible difference, nor any gap between them. But the compensation that motorists so often find in dull country is ours: this is the splendid highway that leads to John o’ Groat’s. We leave it when it turns towards Truro, but by that time our surroundings are less depressing. Above Zelah Hill we take the road that crosses Newlyn Downs, where the close carpet of heather somewhat restores our spirits, though nowhere till we reach Newquay is there any hint of the beautiful things that lie hidden in this neighbourhood. After crossing the railway we should not take the first turn to Newquay, but should wait for the second, where the signpost stands. We shall thus avoid two bad hills.