Polperro, Smuggler’s Cottage
Publisher: Photocrom Co.
Right Move (real estate price website with photos)
The Churchyard, St Mary’s Scilly
Publisher: F. Hartmann, 1902-1909
The Anglican church of St Mary was built at Old Town, Isles of Scilly during the 12th century, perhaps around 1130. Re-building was carried out between 1660 and 1667 including the addition of the south aisle, and a west end gallery for soldiers from the Garrison. Further improvements were made in 1743 when the east end was rebuilt. . . . The churchyard of Old Town church serves as the principal cemetery for the island of St Mary’s. Over the centuries countless members of the old Scilly families have been buried here, as have been the crews of numerous ships lost near the Isles.
Bude, Old Bridge
Publisher: Francis Frith & Co, Reigate
Alongside the sea and by the canal runs the river Neet (or Strat). The two halves of the town are connected by a small grade two listed building, a bridge called Nanny Moore’s, named after a 19th century ‘dipper’ who lived nearby. Beyond this lay the quay, rebuilt in 1577 with funds from the Blanchminster charity. The river divided the land owned by two Cornish families. South of the river was owned by Sir John Arundell, while land to the north was owned by Sir Richard Grenville of Stowe Barton, Kilkhampton. During the 1700-1800s, Bude was a thriving port used by smaller vessels. Over time, the land changed hands – the Grenville land passed to the Carterets/Thynnes while the Arundell land passed to the Aclands. Bude and neighbouring Stratton are relevant in the English Civil War, with Nanny Moore’s Bridge featuring as a passe over the river for the Royalists.
The three span bridge is a Grade II listed building and originally had a cantilevered section so that boats could proceed along the River Neet. Today it is only used by pedestrian but was built when carts and packhorses would trundle across. Until the nineteenth century it was simply known as Bude Bridge. So why the change to Nanny Moore’s bridge? Not sure exactly why the name was altered but it seems it was named after a ‘dipper’ who lived nearby. A dipper would escort and help ladies, who wanted to swim in the nearby sea. She would be a strong person, sometimes in charge of a bathing machine. This was to protect the modesty of 19th century ladies – no bikinis and the like back then!
Publisher: Francis Frith & Co, Reigate
Built at the fording point between Cornwall and England, Launceston Castle was built soon after the Norman conquest and in the subsequent years served as an administrative centre for the Earls of Cornwall and a country prison long after its military function ceased to be relevant.
Castles Forts Battles
Launceston Castle is located in the town of Launceston, Cornwall, England. It was probably built by Robert the Count of Mortain after 1068, and initially comprised an earthwork and timber castle with a large motte in one corner. Launceston Castle formed the administrative centre of the new earldom of Cornwall, with a large community packed within the walls of its bailey. It was rebuilt in stone in the 12th century and then substantially redeveloped by Richard of Cornwall after 1227, including a high tower to enable visitors to view his surrounding lands. When Richard’s son, Edmund, inherited the castle, he moved the earldom’s administration to Lostwithiel, triggering the castle’s decline. By 1337, the castle was increasingly ruinous and used primarily as a gaol and to host judicial assizes.
Truro Cathedral Pulpit, Lectern etc.
Publisher: Francis Frith & Co, Reigate
Truro was not the only candidate for the siting of a new cathedral. Lostwithiel had been the home of the Dukes of Cornwall; Launceston had once been the administrative capital of Cornwall, as had Bodmin. St. Germans, the site of the original see of Cornwall, also put forward a claim but was deemed to be too far east. The vicar of St Columb even offered his large church! Eventually, Truro was chosen, and St Mary’s parish church became the new cathedral. However, St Mary’s was never going to be large enough and planning started for a new cathedral. The leading architect John Loughborough Pearson, who had experience of cathedrals elsewhere, was commissioned to design the new Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Work began in 1880.
The project was ambitious. Truro would be the first Anglican cathedral to be built on a new site since Salisbury Cathedral in 1220. For over 650 years no one had attempted to emulate the great cathedral builders of the medieval era. As well as this, it was initially uncertain if there would be enough money to complete such a project. The construction of the cathedral actually took thirty years. Foundation stones were laid on 20th May 1880 by the Duke of Cornwall, later King Edward VII, and work started immediately. There was an eleven year pause for further fund-raising between 1887 and 1898, but when work re-commenced things went ahead well. The central tower was finished by 1905 and the building was completed with the opening of the two western towers in 1910.
Pearson’s design combines the Early English style with certain French characteristics, chiefly spires and rose windows. Its resemblance to Lincoln Cathedral is not coincidental; Pearson had been appointed as Lincoln Cathedral’s architect and the first Bishop of Truro, Edward Benson, had previously been Canon Chancellor at Lincoln. The central tower and spire stands 250 feet (76 m) tall, while the western towers reach to 200 feet (61 m). Four kinds of stone were used: Mabe granite for the exterior, and St Stephen’s granite for the interior, with dressings and shafts of Bath and Polyphant stone. The spires and turret roofs are of stone, except for a copper spire over the bell tower at west end of St Mary’s Aisle. The other roofs are of slate. The cathedral is vaulted throughout. Nathaniel Hitch was responsible for the decorative sculpture, including the reredos.
The original south aisle of St Mary’s Church survives, incorporated into the south-east corner of the cathedral and known as St Mary’s Aisle. It still functions as the city centre’s parish church. Three brasses were described by Edwin Dunkin in 1882: those of Cuthbert Sydnam (1630), Thomas Hasell (1567) and George Fitzpen, rector of the parish. As the cathedral is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, it has no Lady Chapel. A Jesus Chapel and the Chapel of Unity and Peace are reserved for quiet and prayer throughout the day.
Tintagel Old Post Office is a 14th-century stone house, built to the plan of a medieval manor house, situated in Tintagel, Cornwall, United Kingdom. The house, and its surrounding cottage garden, are in the ownership of the National Trust, and the building is Grade I listed. The name dates from the Victorian period when it briefly held a licence to be the letter receiving station for the district. The Trust has restored it to this condition. It was among the early acquisitions of the Trust (1903) and closes in the winter months.
The building was acquired by the Trust from its owner Catherine Eliza Johns (died 1925) who had employed the architect Detmar Blow to renovate it in 1896. (Blow was also responsible for some buildings at Treknow in the 1890s.) Catherine Johns had bought it in 1895 to prevent its demolition. She and a number of other artists then raised money to enable the National Trust to buy it from her.
The house was built in c.1380 as a medieval thatched house of three rooms with a through-passage. The building would originally have been a single storey dwelling, open to the roof, and would have housed livestock in the northern partition. A central hearth in the hall would have offered warmth and provided smoke that would seep through the thatch above, killing off woodworm and preserving the wooden frames.
Modified since the medieval period, the main phases of re-development took place during the 16th and 17th centuries: local brown slate was used in place of thatch for the roof, timber panelling was replaced with stone and a fireplace and central chimney stack were also added.
There is another longstone in the parish of St Cleer, about two miles north of Liskeard, which bears an inscription to Doniert (Dungerth), a traditional king of Cornwall, who was drowned in 872. In fact these “menhirs,” supposed to be sepulchral monuments, are to be found scattered all over the county.
The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887 (Cornish Folklore)
These two fragments, one of which is known as King Doniert’s Stone, are the only surviving examples of 9th-century stone crosses in Cornwall. The inscription on King Doniert’s Stone, bearing the name of a Cornish king, is the only such cross to feature a character known also from documentary sources.
The early missionaries are thought to have set up wooden crosses to proclaim the victory of Christ in the places where they preached: in time these sites became sanctified, and stone crosses were erected in place of the older wooden ones. King Doniert’s Stone may be the base of one such cross and the taller broken shaft alongside it is probably another.
King Doniert’s Stone stands about 4 feet 6 inches (1.37 metres) high, and is decorated on three of its faces with interlaced ornament of a style common throughout Britain. The upper end of the stone has a deep mortice in the top to take an upper shaft or cross head. The east face bears a weathered inscription which reads Doniert rogavit pro anima (‘Doniert has asked [for this to be made] for his soul[’s sake’]). The clue to Doniert’s identity lies in a passage in the early Welsh chronicle known as the Annales Cambriae, which names a king of Dumnonia called Dumgarth (or Dwingarth). He is recorded as having drowned in the sea in about AD 875.
The southern cross-shaft fragment is taller, about 7 ft (2.1m) high, and one face has a panel of interlaced decoration. Excavations have revealed an underground rock-cut passage that starts to the south-east of the crosses and terminates in a cross-shaped chamber beneath the two stones. The relationship between the underground chamber and the crosses has yet to be explained.
Both stones, as we see them nowadays, are only small fragments of original stone crosses, and there can be no doubt that when first set up, these were impressive monuments. Assuming that the Doniert Stone does indeed commemorate a Cornish King, one can only speculate on its purpose, standing as it does beside a track only 12 miles from Hingston Down where in 838 the Anglo-Saxon King Edgar had defeated a combined force of Danes and Cornish, thus decisively bringing Cornwall under English control. Similarly designed cross-shafts can be seen at nearby St Neot Church and St Just in Penwith in Cornwall, as well as at Copplestone near Crediton and Exeter (in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum) in Devon. In South Wales, ‘composite’ and interlace-decorated crosses like these are found at Nevern and Carew, although whether there is any relationship between the two groups is uncertain.
In the seventeenth century local miners prospecting near the crosses broke into an underground chamber beneath the stones. Despite various theories suggesting that the chambers might represent a chapel or vault associated with the stones it seems far more likely that they relate to mining activities in the area.
The field adjacent to the one in which these two crosses originally stood is identified as “Two Cross Downs” on the 1840 Tithe Map, probably in reference to these two crosses. The name also gives a clue to their original setting. Though now within a small enclosure surrounded by farmland, the stones would once have stood on open downland
Cornwall’s Archaelogical Heritage
Publisher: F. Frith & CO Ltd, c.1910
There are many churches dedicated to St Neot and at least one holy well. Legend has it that the well contained three fish, and an angel told St Neot that as long as he ate no more than one fish a day, their number would never decrease. At a time St Neot fell ill, and his servant went and cooked two of the fish; upon finding this, St Neot prayed for forgiveness and ordered that the fish be returned to the well. As they entered the water, both were miraculously returned to life.
St Neot’s Holy Well is situated on the right a couple of hundred yards down a small lane that starts in between “Cott” and “Carlyon House”. The lane is almost opposite the shop in the middle of the village.
St Neot Church