CARGREEN (p. [58]).
At the foot of Brown Willy, Cornwall’s highest hill, in the parish of St. Breward, there is an aqueous locality in which the water-finder might exercise his art of divination with the utmost confidence, if, indeed, he did not find his occupation gone by reason of the abundance of the surface water. This is Foy-Fenton, and here the FOWEY rises. As, to this day, Fowey becomes “Foy” in the naming of the boats that boast the prettiest harbour in the county for their port, one may easily discover a close association in the nomenclature of the sites and scenes at the beginning and the end of this very charming stream. In its course, curiously enough, the river changes its name. Where it flows southward through the moorlands between St. Neot and St. Cleer, it is called the Dranes (or Dreynes) river; and fishermen from the “model borough” of Liskeard, who love to flog its pleasant waters for the toothsome trout that they harbour, would be prepared to contend, in the face of the maps and in the presence of geographers, that it is the Dranes river, and no other. In flood-time a strong stream that gives the road-surveyor endless trouble, the Fowey, leaping along its bouldered way, here and there lightening its journey by falling in picturesque cascades, scattering its showers of iridescent spray over the thick foliage that everywhere clothes its banks, runs almost level with the main road to St. Neot—a village noted for its window-pictured legend of St. Neot and the miraculous supply of fish, in the parish church—where it receives a goodly stream of that name. Increasing the beauty and interest of its course with every mile it travels, the river by-and-by glides into the far-stretching woodland of Glynn, the seat of Lord Vivian, and then becomes one of the principal contributors to the scenic charms of the railway-side from Devonport to Par, which Miss Braddon describes as the most delightful of all journeys by rail.
THE HAMOAZE FROM SALTASH (p. [59]).
After leaving its moorland haunts, and in order to reach Glynn, the Fowey took a westerly turn, but, Bodmin once skirted, the river runs directly southward again, under Resprin bridge and past Lanhydrock House, the Cornish home of that Lord Robartes who was the leader of the Parliamentarian forces in these parts. The ancient mansion, of the Tudor period, passed through many crises, and, together with modern additions, was practically destroyed by fire in 1881, and rebuilt in 1883–4. The next object of interest seen from the river is the ruin of Restormel Castle, on the summit of a bold headland a mile from Lostwithiel. The building of the castle is ascribed to the Cardenhams, who flourished hereabouts in the reign of the first Edward; and it was once the residence of the Earls of Cornwall.
At Lostwithiel—the Uzella of Ptolemy—the Fowey is crossed by an ancient and narrow bridge of eight pointed arches, erected in the fourteenth century. The bridge is very strongly buttressed, and over each buttress is an angular niche. A silver oar, which is among the insignia of the Corporation, bears the inscription: “Custodia aquæ de Fowey.” The celebrated Colonel Silas Titus, author of “Killing noe Murder,” Member of Parliament for the borough 1663–79, was the donor of the oar. Lostwithiel, where the river meets the tide, at once becoming navigable for small vessels, boasts great antiquity, and in 1664 was the headquarters of the Parliamentarian forces in Cornwall.
Here, below Lostwithiel’s ancient bridge, let us take boat and taste of the ineffable enjoyment which laureates of the Fowey have attributed to a sail or a row down the romantic stream to the mouth of the harbour, where the sailors sing their chanties as they work the merchantmen out between the old towers whence chains were stretched across the harbour in the stirring days when the Spaniard sailed the main. Sing hey, sing ho, for indeed life is worth living when the soft zephyrs blow, and we glide by the prettily placed church of St. Winnow, and catch the musical chiming of its melodious peal of bells. “Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm,” our delight knows no surcease, but rather grows as, something less than three miles below the old Parliamentary borough, the banks open out, and we behold that daydream of scenic beauty, the sunlit reaches of the river winding away toward the sea. One branch of this estuary, by-the-by, flows to St. Veep, which has an interesting church. The Lerrin and St. Cadoc creeks yet further enrich a river which Nature has endowed with charms so abundant. Bodinnoc Ferry is a name to conjure with in yachting circles, since there is not one log among the many of the pleasure-boats that make for the “little Dartmouth” of the Far West in the height of summer but contains some fine compliment to the rare beauty of the view, landward and seaward, from this familiar tacking point. No wonder that Fowey Harbour shares with its Devonshire rival the generous tribute of sportsmen, who have lavished upon each of these picturesque ports effusive praise that has its point in the proud title of the “Yachtsman’s Paradise.” Long ere these pleasure-seeking days was the discovery of Fowey’s possession of a safe and commodious harbour made: “The shippes of Fowey sayling by Rhie and Winchelsey, about Edward the IIIrd tyme, would vayle no bonnet beying required, whereupon Rhie and Winchelsey men and they fought, when Fowie men had victorie, and thereupon bare their arms mixt with the arms of Rhie and Winchelsey, and then rose the name of the Gallants of Fowey.” But Leland knew that they deserved the title long years before, as “the glorie of Fowey rose by the warres in King Edward I. and III. and Henry V.’s day, partly by feats of warre, partly by piracie, and so waxing rich fell all to merchandize.”