On the death of this William, the estate passed to his six sisters, who married into the families of Erisy, Lanyon, Trefusis, Arundell, Bonython, and Abbot of Hartland.
On the road from Breage, before the turn to Pengersick is reached, a stone lies by the roadside. It is one of those cast by the Giant of Godolphin Hill after his wife, of whom he was jealous, and who was wont to visit the Giant of Pengersick. The stone has often been removed, but such disaster has ensued to the man who has removed it, that it has always been brought back again. Godolphin Hill has been esteemed since the days of Elizabeth as one of the richest of ore deposits, and it was due to the urgency of Sir Francis Godolphin that miners were induced to come to Cornwall from the Erz Gebirge, in Saxony, to introduce new methods and machinery in the tin mines.
Godolphin Hall is an interesting old mansion, partly dating from the time of Henry VII. and partly belonging to the period of the Restoration. Some remains from a ruined church or chapel have been worked into one of the gateways. The old house has its stewponds and a few fine trees about it.
On the Marazion road, west of Millpool, in the hedge, are the impress of the devil's knees. One day, feeling the discomfort and forlornness of his position, his majesty resolved on praying to have it changed; so he knelt on a slab of granite, but his knees burned their way into the stone. Then he jumped up, saying that praying superinduced rheumatics, and he would have no more of it. The holes are not tin-moulds, for the latter are angular and oblong, but are very similar to the cup-markings found in many places in connection with prehistoric monuments. Some precisely similar are at Dumnakilty in Fermanagh.[[26]]
A strange circumstance occurred in 1734 at Skewis, close to the line from Gwinear Road Station to Helston.
Skewis had been for many generations the freehold patrimony of a yeoman family of the name of Rogers. There were two brothers. The elder married and lived on the farm, but without a family. The younger brother, Henry Rogers, was married and had several children. He carried on for several years in Helston the trade of a pewterer, then of considerable importance in Cornwall, although it is now at an end. A large portion of the tin raised was mixed with lead and exported in the form of pewter made into dishes, plates, etc., now superseded by earthenware. At the first introduction of earthenware, called cloam, in the West of England, a strong prejudice existed against it as liable to damage the tin trade, and it was a popular cry to destroy all cloam, so as to bring back the use of pewter.
The elder Rogers died, and bequeathed the house of Skewis and the farm and everything thereon to his wife Anne. Henry was indignant. He believed in the inalienability of "heir land." He was suspicious that Anne Rogers would make over Skewis to her own relatives, of the name of Millett. Henry waited his opportunity, when his sister-in-law was out of the house, to enter it and bring in his wife and children and servants. He turned out the domestics of Anne, and occupied the whole house.
The widow appealed to law, but the voice of the whole county was against her, and the general opinion was that the will had been extorted from her husband. Even Sir John S. Aubyn, living at Clowance, hard by, favoured him, and had Henry Rogers acted in a reasonable manner would have backed him up. But Rogers took the law into his own hands, and when a judgment was given against him, he still refused to surrender.
The Sheriff of Cornwall accordingly was directed to eject him by force. Rogers, however, barricaded the house, and prepared to defend it. He supplied himself with gunpowder and slugs, and cut loopholes in his doors and shutters from which to fire at the assailants.
On June 18th, 1734, the Under-Sheriff and a posse went to Skewis and demanded the surrender of the house. From two to three hundred people attended, for the most part sympathisers with Rogers, but not willing to render him effectual assistance.