[160] Hawker’s account (on p. [11]) of the discovery of the piscina in the chancel wall at Morwenstow is, however, very circumstantial. If “the jumbled carved work and a crushed drain,” which, he says came to light when the mortar was removed, proceeded from his imagination, it is a touch of genius in fabrication. In a letter to Mr. Richard Twining dated October 25th, 1855, Hawker writes: “Will you have the kindness to present the inclosed drawing to Miss L. Twining in my name and with my best regards. It is of a piscina discovered by me in the south wall of my chancel, where it has been hidden by mortar full 300 years, and existed there before that date full 500 years more.”
The whole passage from Mr. Baring-Gould is as follows: “The ancient piscina in the wall is of early English date. Mr. Hawker discovered under the pavement in the church, when reseating it, the base of a small pillar, Norman in style, with a hole in it for a rivet which attached to it the slender column it supported. This he supposed was a piscina drain, and accordingly set it up in the recess beside his altar.” Mr. Baring-Gould evidently uses the word “piscina” as meaning the whole “recess” beside the altar. Mr. Chope appears to use it for the pillared structure within the recess. Hawker’s own words seem to show that he found the whole piscina, i.e. the recess with the drain inside it, “in the chancel wall.” He says nothing of any discovery “under the pavement,” and Mr. Baring-Gould does not give his authority for this statement.
At any rate, if the piscina, or piscina drain, or pillar-base, whichever it be, was abstracted from the ruined chapel at Longfurlong, it presumably was not discovered under the pavement of Morwenstow Church, unless by another stroke of genius.
It may be of interest to add that, on thrusting a piece of grass down the hole which Hawker took for a piscina drain, and which Mr. Baring-Gould says is a rivet-hole, I found that it went right through to the floor of the recess, a depth of about 13 inches. It is quite possible, therefore, that, if connected with another hole through the wall, it might at one time have served the purpose of a drain.—Editor.
[161] The inscription runs as follows: “THIS · WAS · MADE · IN · THE · YERE · OF · OURE · LORDE · GOD · 1575.” The pew bearing it now stands (1903) at the east end of the north aisle, facing south.—Editor.
[162] The foumart is now extinct in England, though, I believe, to be met with in parts of Scotland.
[164] The cedar wainscot which lined the chapel is said to have been bought out of a Spanish prize, and the carving is mentioned by Defoe, in his “Western Tour,” as the work of Michael Chuke, and not inferior to Gibbon’s. (C. S. Gilbert, “Survey of Cornwall,” vol. ii. p. 554.)