A Book of Cornwall

by S. Baring-Gould

CALLINGTON CROSS

There are a few quaint old cottages in Callington, and there is a late mediæval cross that is picturesque. In the church, moreover, is a very fine monument to Sir Robert Willoughby de Broke, who died in 1503; he was steward of the Duchy of Cornwall, and took part in the battle of Bosworth.

Callington was made a borough in 1584, and its earliest patrons were the Pauletts. From them the patronage passed to the Rolles, who divided it with the Corytons. Then it went to the Walpoles, next to Lord Clinton, and finally to the first Lord Ashburton. It never bore arms, nor had a corporation, but there is an early and interesting silver mace, now in the custody of the portreeve, who is elected with other officers annually at the manor court of Kelliland.

Perhaps the most quaint and beautiful of the chapel wells in Cornwall is Dupath, near Callington, though not in the parish, but in that of S. Dominick. Unhappily dirty farmyard surroundings disfigure the scene, and make one fear pollution of the sparkling water.

Hingesdon, on the N.E., rises to the height of 1091 feet, its highest point being called Kit Hill, where are remains of a camp; the moor, moreover, is strewn with barrows. It was on Hingesdon that the Britons, uniting their forces with some Danes who had come up the Tamar, met and fought Egbert in 833, and were defeated. The surface of Hingesdon and Kit Hill has been much interfered with by mines, and the summit is crowned with a ruined windmill erected to work the machinery in a mine hard by. The road to Tavistock passes over Hingesdon at a height of 900 feet, and thence after nightfall can be seen the Eddystone light.

On the Liskeard road, beside the Lynher, is a well-preserved oval camp called Cadsonbury. Other camps are at Tokenbury and Roundbury.

S. Ive (pronounced Eve) is probably a foundation of one of the Brychan family, and certainly not dedicated to S. Ive of Huntingdonshire, who is an impostor, nor to S. Ive of the Land's End district. The church is interesting, but has been unfeelingly "restored." The east window, with its niches, deserves special notice.

By far the finest church in the neighbourhood is Linkinhorne (Llan Tighern), the church of the king, that is, of S. Melor. It was erected by Sir Henry Trecarrel, who built Launceston Church, but Linkinhorne is in far superior style. The story of S. Melor is this. He was the son of Melyan, prince of Devon and Cornwall and of Brittany. Melyan's brother was Riwhal, or Hoel the Great, cousin of King Arthur. Hoel, being an ambitious man, murdered his brother Melyan, and cut off the hand and foot of his nephew Melor, so as to incapacitate him from reigning; as a cripple, according to Celtic law, might not succeed to the headship of a clan or of a principality. In the place of the hand and foot of flesh and blood the boy was supplied with metal substitutes, and the hand was formed of silver.

For precaution the child was sent to Quimper, and placed there in a monastery.

Now it fell out that Melor and other boys were nutting in a wood, and his comrades made their little pile of hazel nuts and brought them to Melor. To their great surprise they found that, notwithstanding that his hand was of metal, he was able therewith to twitch off the nuts from the trees.