"Death, which alike seizes on the philosopher and the fool, at length found out the retreat of Daniel Gumb, and lodged him in a house more narrow than that which he had dug for himself."
Bond in his Topographical and Historical Sketches of the Boroughs of East and West Looe, 1873, describes the habitation of Daniel Gumb as seen by him in 1802:—
"When we reached Cheesewring—our guide first led us to the house of Daniel Gumb (a stone-cutter), cut by him out of a solid rock of granite. This artificial cavern may be about twelve feet deep and not quite so broad; the roof consists of one flat stone of many tons weight; supported by the natural rock on one side, and by pillars of small stones on the other. How Gumb formed this last support is not easily conceived. We entered with hesitation lest the covering should be our gravestone. On the right-hand side of the door is 'D. Gumb,' with a date engraved 1735 (or 3). On the upper part of the covering stone, channels are cut to carry off the rain, probably to cause it to fall into a bucket for his use; there is also engraved on it some geometrical device formed by Gumb, as the guide told us, who also said that Gumb was accounted a pretty sensible man. I have no hesitation in saying he must have been a pretty eccentric character to have fixed on this place for his habitation; but here he dwelt for several years with his wife and children, several of whom were born and died here. His calling was that of a stone-cutter, and he fixed himself on a spot where materials could be met with to employ a thousand men for a thousand years."
THE CHEESE-WRING
The Rev. Robert S. Hawker wrote an account of Daniel Gumb for All the Year Round in 1866, and this has been reprinted in Footsteps of Former Men in Cornwall.
He pretends that when he visited the Cheesewring in 183-, there still existed fragments of Daniel Gumb's "thoughts and studies still treasured up in the existing families of himself and his wife." And he gives transcripts from these, and also from what must have been a diary. But Mr. Hawker embroidered facts with so much detail drawn from his own fancy, that his statements have to be taken with a very large pinch of salt.
It must be remembered, in his justification, that his stories of Cornish Characters were intended as magazine articles to amuse, but without any purpose of having them regarded as strictly biographical and historical. They were brief historical romances, and were not intended to be taken seriously.