[12]. He was formerly governor of the lunatic asylum at Bodmin, and afterwards clerk of the Board of Guardians, and in turn Mayor of Bodmin. Being very fat, he had himself once announced at dinner as “The Corporation of Bodmin.” A memoir of Mr. Hicks, and a collection of his stories has been written by Mr. W. Collier, and published by Luke, Plymouth.
[13]. This is inaccurate. There is scarce a cliff along this coast which has not its pair of choughs building in it. On the day on which this was written, I went out on Morwenstow cliff, and saw two red-legged choughs flying above me. A friend tells me he has counted six or seven together on Bude sands. The choughs are, however, becoming scarce, being driven away by the jackdaws.
[14]. Standard, 1st September, 1875.
[15]. Tamar in Cornish is Taw-mawr, the great water; Tavy is Taw-vach, the lesser water.
[16]. Tonacombe was panelled by John Kempthorne, who died in 1591. The panelling remains in three of the rooms, and the initials J. K. and K. K. (Katherine Kempthorne) appear in each. The date is also given, 1578, on the panelling. In the large parlour on two shields are the arms of Ley quartered with those of Jordan and Kempthorne impaling Courtenay and Redvers. Prince, in his Worthies of Devon, gives a notice of Sir John Kempthorne, Kt., who put up this panelling. He is buried in the Morwenstow Church, where there is an interesting incised stone to his memory under the altar. His wife, Katherine Kempthorne, daughter of Sir Piers Courtenay of Ugbrook, is also buried there.
[17]. The date is on a scroll, which is in a hand descending from the clouds, upon one of the bench-ends. Benches and screens are of the same date. The Morwenstow screen has been removed at the recent miserable “restoration.” The wreckers are not extinct in Cornwall, they call themselves architects and fall on and ravage churches.
[18]. This, as has been already shown, is an error; he confounded St. Morwenna of Cornwall with St. Modwenna of Burton-on-Trent. At the “restoration” frescoes were discovered throughout the church; all but one were wantonly destroyed.
[19]. Ancient Crosses in Cornwall, by J. T. Blight. Penzance, 1858.
[20]. The mysterious sisters really lived and died in North Devon. Mr. Hawker transplanted the story to St. Knighton’s Kieve. Any attempt in prose or verse to associate these sisters with Glennecten he afterwards resented as a literary theft.
[21]. Ecclesia: a volume of poems. Oxford, 1840. Really, the church of Forrabury on the height above Boscastle, which is a hamlet in the parish of Forrabury.