The neighbourhood of Launceston is rich in objects of interest and scenes of great beauty. The Inney valley will well repay a visit. There is an Inney also in South Wales. It is an excellent stream for fishing, and flows into the Tamar at Cartamartha (Caer Tamar), in a glen of wooded loveliness. The unfinished mansion of Trecarell deserves a visit. There are also old houses at Treguddic and Basil, both much spoiled by bad "restoration." On the heights commanding the river are Laneast, with old bench-ends, old glass, and a holy well, and S. Clether, with its well chapel, recently reconstructed. It was in a condition of complete ruin; almost every stone was prostrate, and the rebuilding was like the putting together of a child's puzzle. At the north-east of the chapel is a rather fine holy well, about three feet six inches from the north wall. A description has already been given in the [chapter on holy wells], and the explanation of some very curious features in it.
But there is one further feature of interest in this structure that deserves to be noted. The old granite altar, rude, like a cromlech, had never been cast down. It remained intact, and has been left intact in the reconstructed chapel.
S. Clether was the son of Clydwyn, king of Carmarthen. Clydwyn's sister was married to an Irish priest, Brynach, who, on account of the ill-favour in which the Irish were regarded in South Wales, moved into Cornwall and Devon. After a long while he returned, but was again badly received. However, Clether welcomed him, and Brynach spoke to his nephew of the God-forsaken condition of North Cornwall, and an overpowering impulse came over the king to surrender his principality to his sons, and to depart for Cornwall, there to labour for the evangelisation of his Welsh brethren in the peninsula. He had relatives there. His uncle Gwynys was at S. Genes, on the coast, and his aunt Morwenna at Morwenstow. How long he remained at S. Clether we do not know, but he probably moved on to S. Cleer, near Liskeard, where also he has a fine holy well, and there died. We do not know the precise date, but it was about A.D. 550.[[5]]
A very fine and interesting church, deserving a visit, is that of Altarnon (Alt-ar-Nôn, the cliff of S. Non). The village is called Penpont (the head of the bridge). The church is rich in carved oak, benches, and screen. On several of the benches may be seen carved the corn man, that is to say the little figure that was plaited out of the heads of wheat in the last sheaf at a harvest.
About this and the custom of "crying, 'A neck!'" at harvest I will say a few words.
Towards the end of last century the member for North Devon was extremely unpopular, especially with the lower classes, and there had been a disturbance on the occasion of his election, in which he had run some personal risk. The time was when Lord North was Prime Minister.
Not long after the election he went to Dunsland, the seat of George Bickford.
Whilst strolling near the house he came near a harvest field, whereon he saw a rush of men, and he heard a cry of "Us have'n! us have'n! A neck! a neck!"
Panic-stricken, he ran, nimble as a hare, to the house, and shouted to Mr. Bickford, "For God's sake, hide me, anywhere, in the cellar or the attics! There is a mob after me who want to string me up!"
What the M.P. for North Devon saw and heard was the "crying, 'A neck!'" a custom universal in Devon and Cornwall till reaping machines came in and abolished it. It is now most rarely practised, but I can remember it in full swing some forty or fifty years ago.