[The passage alluded to above as in Leland, is this, and in Itin. III. 15, “Breaca,” he says, out of a Life of St. Breage which he met with in Cornwall, “venit in Cornubiam, comitata multis Sanctis; inter quos fuerunt Sinninus Abbas, qui Romæ cum Patritio fuit.”]
THE EDITOR.
This parish is greatly distinguished as being the most western in England, and containing within it the promontory, which, without reference to the cardinal points, evidently terminates the granite chain, which stretching out from Dartmoor, extends by links, apparent at intervals at the surface, to this point, the most distant on the continent of England. The same range appears again in the Scilly Islands, and it may possibly join the similar granitic districts in France.
It is a very curious circumstance, that, notwithstanding the great numbers of square leagues composed entirely of
granite in Cornwall and in Devonshire, that magnificent rock never appears in the cliff except for a few miles on each side of the Land’s End; but there it is seen piled in high masses one on the other, which, coupled with the great Atlantic swell of the waves, present a general effect the most magnificent that can well be imagined. And what adds still more to the grandeur of the scene, about a mile from the extreme point, a lofty range of rocks, called the Longships, rises out of the sea. On the most elevated point of this rock a light-house was constructed about fifty years ago, nearly after the model of Mr. Smeaton’s building on the Eddystone; this column has the advantage, however, of standing at a great height above the water, so as, perhaps, never to receive an actual blow from the most violent wave; yet so tempestuous is the sea, that for three months together all communication has been intercepted between the lampmen and the shore.
The latitude and longitude of the Land’s End appear, from the Trigonometrical Survey, to be, latitude 50° 4′ 7″; longitude 5° 41′ 32″; in time 22m. 46s. west from Greenwich.
The church of this parish is a very conspicuous object in every direction. It is on the usual plan of churches in this district, and is built of granite with a granite tower. In it are some monuments, particularly to the Ellises, who have relinquished the three eels mentioned by Mr. Hals as an armorial bearing, and instead have sculptured on these stones the blazon appropriated to the name throughout England, Argent, on a cross Sable five crescents of the Field.
The church town has a pretty good inn, capable of affording entertainment, and even beds to parties—
Led by the fable of Belerus old,
Or the Great Vision of the Guarded Mount.