in others, as the unmarried men of the parish, the unmarried women, and the wives, contributed a window, either in honour of the local saint, or of their particular patrons; and the peculiar attachment felt for the little saint seems to have preserved these fragile materials at the two important periods of our modern history, the time when the great change of religion took place, and at that of the Civil Wars. It may however be recollected that no violent change occurred here, the monastic institution having been dissolved by the Earl of Morton, half brother of the Conqueror; and no place could be more retired from the observation of strangers, or from the passage of fanatical armies.
From the time of the Reformation, however, all care about maintaining these decorations ceased, and the whole in a few years more would have fallen into utter decay, if Mr. Grylls had not nobly stepped forwards, not to support or repair, but to renew these gems; which he has most effectually done, at an expense not short of two or three thousand pounds. The church has now sixteen windows entirely filled with painted glass of the most beautiful colours and designs; about half of the whole consisting of the old glass most carefully preserved, and the new added in a style completely harmonizing with the former: all executed in London by Mr. J. P. Hedgeland, an eminent artist, to whose work, with sixteen coloured plates, the reader is referred for a full description of each window, and of the various subjects it contains:
“A Description of the Splendid Decorations recently made to St. Neot’s Church, in Cornwall, by J. P. Hedgeland, price £2. 2s. To which are added some Collections and Translations respecting St. Neot, &c. by Davies Gilbert, M.A. F.R.S. F.A.S.” Printed for the Author in London, 1830, and sold by Messrs. Nichols.
This parish contains a natural curiosity which must not be omitted.
On an elevated part of the uncultivated lands which
extend for many miles to the north and east of St. Neot Church Town, there happens to be a depression without any channel leading from it; the hollow is, of course, filled with water, and resting on the granite soil of these moors, the margin all round is covered by a white siliceous sand, one of the constituent parts of this compound rock.
Most marvellous stories used to be current respecting this little lake; no lead could sound the depth of the water, which rose and fell with the tide, &c.:—but the depth nowhere exceeds two or three fathoms, and any consent with the tide is obviously impossible. A tale of a very different nature, connected with this lake, was as universally repeated, and more than half believed, sixty years ago.
Tregagle is the name of a family not long extinct. Mr. Lysons says Tregagle, of Trevorder, in St. Breock; arms, Argent, three bucks passant Or. One of this family having, for some reason, become unpopular, the traditions respecting a mythological personage have been applied to him. The object of these tales of unknown antiquity was, like Orestes, continually pursued by an avenging being, from whom he could find refuge only from time to time, by flying to the cell or chapel on Roach Rock; till at last his fate was changed into the performance of a task, to exhaust the water from Dozmere, with an implement less adapted, if possible, for its appropriate work, than were the colanders given to the daughters of Danaus:
Hocc’, ut opinor, id est, ævo florente puellas,
Quod memorant, laticem pertusum congerere in vas,