Ertach Kernow - Enjoying Cornwall and Cornish hospitality
Cornwall at the end of the 19th century was on the cusp of change as the tourist industry expanded. Large hotels were being built in Newquay, Falmouth Bude and elsewhere catering for increasing numbers coming across the River Tamar. Completion of the Royal Albert Bridge in 1859 joining the Cornish Railway Company to the line owned by the English Great Western Railway was the catalyst.
Whilst most people wrote little apart from their postcards home there were writers who thankfully continued the work done by their literary touring predecessors. Dinah Maria Mulock Craik crossed the Tamar on 1st September 1881 with some younger friends. Last mentioned in ‘Ertach Kernow’ was on 30th August 2023 arriving at the Lizard. Although warned by an old gentleman on the train to ‘take care, they're sharp folk, the Cornish folk, they’ll take you in if they can’ they had been shown Cornish kindness and hospitality.
Arriving at Kennack Sands on the Lizard Peninsula the ladies saw a party of laughing girls arriving in a wagon with their swimming attire. This was obviously quite unexpected and Mrs Craik’s two young friends said they would never again go without the necessary swimming apparel. Mrs Craik makes it sound dangerous and mentions attaching fishing line around the waist when going swimming. She comments ‘Indeed, along this Cornish coast, life and death seem very near together. Every pleasure carries with it a certain amount of risk; the utmost caution is required both on land and sea, and I cannot advise either rash or nervous people to go travelling in Cornwall.’ Goodness knows what she would have thought about Cornish seaside activities less than a hundred years later. They were very taken with the variety of plants, some unknown to them. Today this area of Cornwall has protection as a Site of Special Scientific Interest where many rare species of fauna can be found amongst the 600 species of flowering plants growing here .
As always click the images for larger view
Charles their guide strongly suggested that they should visit Poltesco. This small hamlet in the parish of Grade-Ruan was at the time of Mrs Craik’s visit a hive of activity as a major producer of serpentine ornaments. There had been some copper mining in the area but the working of serpentine for ornamental purposes had been established by 1828. Used in construction it was the fortuitous visit by Prince Albert in 1846 who took a shine to serpentine objects and bought some pieces causing a boom. By the last decade of the 19th century it was all over and the buildings fell to ruin. The visit to Carleon Cove at the bottom of Poltesco Valley was very much enjoyed by the three women who bought a few serpentine ornaments and would have had more. As Mrs Craik pointed out ‘but travellers have limits to luggage, and purse as well.’ After leaving pretty Poltesco with its stream with regret the two young women took a cliff walk to Cadgwith in the hands of a guide of Charles’ acquaintance. Mrs Craik with Charles driving the carriage visited the villages of Ruan Minor and Ruan Major. Today isolated Carleon Cove with its historic ruins remains a beautiful reminder of a Cornish industry that flowered briefly during the 19th century. As for today working serpentine is a dying industry with only about half a dozen turners still operating. With quarrying strictly licenced and the right sort of serpentine harder to find the turning trade is likely one of those Cornish traditions which will pass into history within a generation.
Arriving at Cadgewith Charles explained that the climate there was very agreeable and Mrs Craik found it somewhat strange she and the carriage were stared at constantly. On the walk up the hill towards the Devils Frying Pan Mrs Craik was joined by an old fisherwoman carrying a bag of potatoes on her back. Writing later about her experience Mrs Craik described her joy at the view. ‘The Devil's Frying-pan is a wonderful sight. Imagine a natural amphitheatre two acres in extent, enclosed by a semi-circular slope about two hundred feet high, covered with grass and flowers and low bushes. Outside, the wide, open sea, which pours into the shingly beach at the bottom through an arch of serpentine, the colouring of which, and of the other rocks surrounding it, is most exquisite, varying from red to green, with sometimes a tint of grey. Were Cadgwith a little nearer civilisation, what a show-place it would become.’ Early travellers writings containing their thought of Cornwall and the sights and people they met on the way is a wonderful record of times long past.
Contrary to the advice she’d been given on the train regarding the Cornish people it seems Mrs Crail had a positive view of the Lizard people. With little or no income in the winter and a need to save during the summer lest they starve later she was pleased that there was no drunkenness. She wrote ‘I have seldom seen, in any part of England or Scotland, such an honest, independent, respectable race as the working people on this coast, and indeed throughout Cornwall.’
Then it was off to Mullion and the ‘Old Inn’ run by Mary Mundy and her brother. They were obviously doing well as when Mrs Craik’s group arrived there were eleven others already stopping for tea. Charles, the kindly young Cornishman as Mrs Craik described him was keen to show them Mullion Cove and the sea caves. Passing through the sea cave tunnel Charles told them ‘Slow and steady, you'll come to no harm. And it's beautiful when you get out at the other end.’ Mrs Craik was very taken with it writing; ‘So it was. The most exquisite little nook ; where you could have imagined a mermaid came daily to comb her hair; one can easily believe in mermaids or anything else in Cornwall.’ It wasn’t just them for an artist was there with his wife working on a painting, good enough by Mrs Craik’s account to hang on the Royal Academy of Arts walls the following year. Sadly today these artworks from the 19th and early 20th century showing wonderful Cornish views of times gone by are now little appreciated by modern tourists and art collectors. With the tide fast coming in it was time to leave as she ‘remembered that the narrow winding cave was our only way out from this rock enclosed fairy paradise to the prosaic beach.’
Back at the Mundy’s ‘Old Inn’ a wonderful spread was ready for them and Mrs Craik was most impressed especially with the clotted cream and wrote ‘there was a quantity of that delicious, clotted cream, which here accompanies every meal and of which I had vainly tried to get the receipt, but was answered with polite scorn, Oh, ma'am, it would be of no use to you: Cornish cream can only be made from Cornish cows!’
Returning to their lodgings at the Lizard they slept well with no need for supper after such a sumptuous tea at Mary Mundy’s ‘Old Inn’ at Mullion. Day four of their tour saw the morning spent walking on the cliffs at Pistol Meadow the most southerly point of mainland Britain. In her book Mrs Craik retells the story of the burial of some 200 souls following the wreck of the galley frigate ‘Royal Anne’. This is a story retold by many writers including Wilkie Collins in his popular ‘Rambles Beyond Railways’ published in 1851 and romanticised by Daphny Du Maurier. However recent archaeology excavations and groundwork dispute this story as it’s unlikely that all the bodies from two hundred drownings would have washed up so close to the point the vessel sank. The Royal Anne a fifth rate launched in 1709 at Woolwich was the last oared fighting ship built for the Royal Navy. Whist sailing to the Caribbean on 10th November 1721 bad weather forced her return to Falmouth but she foundered off the Stag Rocks on route. On board was Lord Belhaven, the new Governor of Barbados which helped identify the wreck when discovered by the Southwest Branch of the Nautical Archaeology Society in 1992. Recovered items included some bearing Lord Belhaven's family crest. Of two hundred passengers and crew only two survived, no doubt there were some burials here but not in the great numbers suggested.
The afternoon saw Mrs Craik’s group attending the afternoon service at St Wynwallow’s Church, Landewednack. Mrs Craik writes here in 1678 the last Cornish language sermon was given although this is disputed by rival claims from churches at St Tewennocus, Towednack, and St Paul the Apostle, Ludgvan. Following an enjoyable service Mrs Craik writes, ‘not that there was ought to complain of in the sermon, and the singing was especially good. Many a London choir might have taken a lesson from this village church at the far end of Cornwall.’ Of the churchyard she wrote ‘we lingered in the pretty and carefully tended churchyard, where the evening light fell softly upon many curious gravestones, of seafaring men, and a few of wrecked sailors.’
A well-known writer of her time and positive about Cornwall and the Cornish people there is one comment which would raise a few hackles. ‘Since, the ancient tongue has completely died out, and the people of King Arthur's country have become wholly English.’ How things have changed. Now the Cornish language is spoken far more than any time since Mrs Craik’s visit in 1881. With recognition of Cornish people as a national minority tens of thousands of Cornish folk identify as Cornish and not English. I wonder what Mrs Craik would have thought about that.
Heritage Column
