The church of S. Crewenna stands on a hill, and has a good tower. It contains numerous monuments of the S. Aubyn family, and some brasses only recently restored to the church, after having lain for many years lost or forgotten in a cupboard at Clowance.
It is hard to say whether the fulsome memorial of Sir John S. Aubyn, who died in 1839, is more painful or amusing reading to such as know his story.
The church has been "restored" in a cold and unsympathetic fashion.
Clowance, the seat of the Molesworth S. Aubyn family, has noble trees, and is an oasis in the midst of the refuse-heaps of mines. There are some early crosses in the grounds.
But to return to the Irish invasion.
A second party of the colonists was under Fingar or Gwinear, son of Olilt, or Ailill, probably one of the Hy Bairrche family, which was expelled their country about 480. He brought over with him his sister Kiara, whose name has become Piala or Phillack in Cornish, according to a phonetic and constant rule. According to the legend he had over seven hundred emigrants with him. He and his party made their way from Hayle to Connerton, where they spent the night, and then pushed south to where now stands Gwinear. Here Fingar left his party to go ahead and explore. He reached Tregotha, where is a fine spring of water, and there paused to refresh himself, when, hearing cries from behind, he hurried back, and found that Tewdrig, the Cornish king or prince, who lived at Riviere, on a creek of the Hayle river, had hastened after the party of colonists, and had fallen on them and massacred them. When Fingar came up Tewdrig killed him also. Piala, the sister, does not seem to have been harmed; and as in the long-run the Irish succeeded in establishing themselves firmly in the district, she settled near Riviere and founded the church of Phillack.
Ludgvan has a fine tower and some old crosses, the font also is early, of polyphant stone; but the church has been badly churchwardenised and meanly restored. It was founded by Lithgean, or Lidgean, an Irish saint, son of Bronfinn or Gwendron. There is a representation of the mother in the rectory garden wall, where she is figured holding what is apparently a tree in one hand and in the other a fleur-de-lis.
Hereabouts the whole country is devoted to early potatoes and spring flowers. In March the fields are white with narcissus or golden with daffodil, or rich brown with the Harbinger wallflower. It is a curious fact that yellow wallflowers meet with no sale; consequently one kind only, and that dark, is grown.
The kinds of narcissus mostly grown are the Scilly White; of daffodils the Soleil d'Or, Grand Monarch, Emperor and Empress, Sir Watkin, and Princeps. These flowers are packed in baskets or boxes in bunches, a dozen blossoms in each bunch, and four dozen bunches in each basket. Women are employed to pick in the morning and to tie in bunches in the afternoon.
A special train takes up the flowers daily to London. The rate charged is £4 10s. per ton, but for fish £2 10s., as they take less room. The flower harvest lasts from February to June, and is followed by one of tomatoes.