Motor Tours in the West Country

by Mrs. Rodolph Stawell

Newquay must have been a glorious place before its shores were black with people, and its steep red cliffs crowded with lodging-houses, and its jutting promontory crowned with a huge hotel. Even now, in spite of these things, its wears something of a queenly air. We have left behind us the slow ripples of the southern sea: the fierce blue waves sweep in upon this grand coast with quite a different kind of dignity. But Newquay is too world-ridden to be really lovable. “How beautiful she must have been!” is a sad saying, whether applied to town or woman.

TRERICE.

In its neighbourhood, however, are several noteworthy things. We have only a few miles to drive, by leafy lanes and frequent splashes, to a spot that the world has left untouched and that time has only made more beautiful, the house of the Arundels. The best way to Trerice is the lane by Kestle Mill. John Arundel of Trerice is a proud name that becomes monotonous in the annals of Cornwall, and is not unknown in those of England. It was here they lived, those warlike Arundels—old Jack of Tilbury the Admiral, and John-for-the-King, who made so gallant a fight at Pendennis. Though the Arundels owned Trerice even in Edward III.’s time, I do not think Old Tilbury ever saw this Elizabethan building, for he was an old man in the days of Henry VIII. It was probably his son who built this lovely house at the foot of the hill, with the huge mullioned window and the moulded ceilings, and the oriel that overlooks the walled garden and its yew hedges. But John-for-the-King, we may suppose, has warmed himself before these splendid fireplaces, and has looked out through these windows at the flowers and pines, and has eaten his dinner at the great oak table now in the drawing-room. Some say he was a hard man. Possibly: for he lived in hard times. Yet one who knew him well called him “equally stout and kind.” “Of his enemies,” says Carew, “he would take no wrong nor on them any revenge. Those who for many years waited in nearest place about him learned to hate untruth.”

There was another branch of the family who, for their greater possessions, were known as “the great Arundels.” We may see their house at St. Mawgan. When approaching, from St. Columb Minor, the deep wooded hollow in which Lanherne stands close beside the church of St. Mawgan, one should take the most easterly of the two by-roads that lead to it. This hill, it is true, is steep enough; but the other is steeper—one in five. Those who are going on to Bedruthan Steps or elsewhere will do wisely to climb out of the hollow on this same road, and go round by St. Columb Major, for the hill on the further side of St. Mawgan is the steepest of all!

Here in this seclusion, guarded by a triple defence of hills as well as by the dark woods and by their own high wall, live the nuns of Lanherne in the house of warriors. Not much of their dwelling is visible, of course, but the chapel may be seen, and one wing of the old house looks down, with many mullioned windows, on a gay little garden that all may enjoy. Below Lanherne is the church, with turreted tower and painted screen, and brasses and bench-ends, and shields of the Arundels.

As I said before, the shortest way to Bedruthan Steps is the longest way round—the way, namely, by St. Columb Major. The road by Mawgan Porth has an alluring look upon the map, but as a matter of fact comes to a sudden end in the sands; and I have heard a tragic tale of a car that stuck fast there, and endured the humiliation of being dragged out by horses. At the junction of roads between the two St. Columbs is a gate into the woods of Lanherne, of whose loveliness this is the only glimpse we may have, since motors are not admitted to them. We turn to the left in St. Columb Major, past the grey church of St. Columba, a maiden who was, says Hals, “comparatively starved to death” in Gaul. Her church has had a chequered career. One of the pinnacles of the tower was again and again destroyed by lightning and rebuilt in vain, till the builders carved on it the words: “God bless and preserve this work.” I do not know if it escaped in the seventeenth century, when three schoolboys, by setting fire to some gunpowder, “made a direful concussion;” but only a few years later the steeple was again struck by lightning “and the iron bars therein wreathed and wrested asunder as threads.”

On a by-road that is of course hilly, but by no means bad, we rise on to Denzell Downs, with a wide view to the left and a glimpse of Mawgan Porth in the distance. When, having left St. Eval on the right, we come to an isolated cottage, we must take the track that goes straight on; for the one that turns to the right has an endless number of gates, some steep hills, and a very rough surface, and is much the longer of the two. Even on the track we take there are gates enough to try the temper, but it soon leads to a field where we may leave the car. We walk down across the heather to the cliffs. These have not the iron severity of the Land’s End: the shale they are made of is friable, and has been carved into a thousand shapes—including a ridiculously life-like figure of Queen Bess—by the waves that fret and foam even on the stillest day. The wide bay lies below us with all its decorative arches and pinnacles and turrets, bounded by Park Head, long and grey; and in the distance Trevose Head makes the skyline. Two flights of steps are cut in the cliffs: one leading to the shore and the other to a cave.

And now, after all this pottering in the narrow lanes about Newquay, there are many who will be craving for a comfortable run on an open road. These I advise to join the Truro and Bodmin road near St. Columb Road Station, and drive over a series of breezy heaths, on a good surface with no serious hills, to Bodmin: thence to follow the Fowey to Liskeard and run up to Launceston: and from Launceston to return to Bodmin across the moors. This is a fine run and a real refreshment.

There is no lack of history in Bodmin, the “dwelling-place of monks,” the burial-place of St. Petrock, once a cathedral city, and more than once the headquarters of rebellion. Yet, save the great church, there is little here to see. Very near Bodmin, however, though not on our direct road, there is a place of wonderful beauty, Lanhydrock. This park is rich in splendid trees, carpeted with fern, irregular and wild and lovely beyond the common lot of parks. As we sweep round a curve the gatehouse comes in view, with its arch and octagonal towers and pinnacles; behind it is the stately house, the mullioned windows and the battlements; and between house and gateway, enclosed within a parapeted wall, lies the formal garden, the rows of tapering cypresses, and urns of flowers, and blossoming yuccas. When Essex stayed here with Lord Robarts, at the time that Charles I. was at Boconnoc, the gatehouse was not yet built; but he saw the north wing of the house as it now stands. After his desertion of his troops at Fowey, Lanhydrock fell into royalist hands, and for a short time was owned by Sir Richard Grenville, “the Skellum.”