Motor Tours in the West Country 12

Motor Tours in the West Country 12

Those of us who are intending presently to drive through the country of

the Grenvilles may be glad, when they come to Stratton and Kilkhampton,

to have seen Kneller’s picture of Anthony Payne. It is here in Truro, on

the staircase of the museum in Pydar Street: a burly figure in scarlet,

with a face that tries to be fierce but cannot hide its tenderness and

humour. This is Sir Bevill Grenville’s giant henchman, who fought at his

master’s side at Stratton and Lansdowne, and taught the children to ride

and shoot.

 

A fine road leads from Truro to Falmouth, through hilly but beautiful

country; by pine-woods, and distant views, and the green flats of the

estuary, and a valley full of trees. Near pretty Perranarworthal we see,

crossing a little gorge upon our right, one of the old wooden viaducts

that have so nearly disappeared. In Penryn we cling closely to the

estuary, following it to Falmouth Harbour. A hundred years ago the main

road to Falmouth from London, as it passed through Penryn, “ran up and

then down through streets so steep and narrow,” says a writer of that

time, “as to make the safe passage of the mail-coach a wonder.” To-day,

however, Penryn is one of the few towns in the West Country out of which

we can drive on level ground.

 

When Sir Walter Raleigh came to stay with the Killigrews in their fine

new house at Arwenack, he suggested to his host that he should make a

town here, on the shore of this splendid harbour. The Killigrews were

men of action, and the town was built; to the acute annoyance of Penryn,

which petitioned in vain against its upstart rival. We make our slow way

through the narrow, crowded streets of the Killigrews’ town, and find

the last remaining fragment of their house still “standing on the brimme

within Falemuth Haven.” Only a crumbling wall is there, and a window, and

on the hill the avenue by which the vanished Killigrews went in and out;

nothing to show that Arwenack was the very source of Falmouth’s existence

and the very core of her history. For with every concern of Smith-ike and

Pen-y-cwm-wick and Falmouth a Killigrew was connected, from the day when

they settled here in the fourteenth century till the day when the last of

the name set up this pyramid that is beside us--not with the justifiable

object of honouring the Killigrews, but for the astonishing reason that

he thought it beautiful. He called it a darling thing. “Hoping it may

remain,” he wrote, “a beautiful Imbellishment to the Harbour, Long, Long,

after my desireing to be forgott.”[9]

 

[Illustration: ARWENACK AVENUE, FALMOUTH.]

 

No Killigrew is likely to be forgot. It was a Killigrew who gave the

land on which Henry VIII.’s castle of Pendennis still stands out there

upon the point; a Killigrew who helped to build it and became its first

governor; a Killigrew who made Falmouth and fostered it; and the eagle

of the Killigrews is borne to this day on the shield of the town. The

Killigrews are not forgotten.

 

It was the round tower of Pendennis that brought Arwenack low. It is

used as barracks now, and to see the old building we must have an order;

but from the pretty shaded road that circles it we can see nearly all

there is to be seen with the bodily eye. Yet if we pass through the grey

stone gateway there are other things that we may see, perhaps: Henrietta

Maria carried in upon her litter, “the most worne and weak pitifull

creature in ye world,” seeking a boat to take her to France; her son a

year later coming on the same errand: the Duke of Hamilton brought hither

“to prevent his doing further mischief,” by order of the King for whom

he lost his head a little later: Fairfax’s messenger summoning Sir John

Arundel to surrender his castle. “Having taken less than two minutes’

resolution,” answered old John-for-the-King, “I resolve that I will here

bury myself before I deliver up this castle to such as fight against his

Majesty, and that nothing you can threaten is formidable to me in respect

of the loss of loyalty and conscience.”[10] Five months the garrison

held out; and when at last the remnant of them filed through the gate--a

pathetic procession of sick and starving men tottering out with flying

colours and beating drums--they left no food behind them but one pickled

horse.

 

The belief that the little room above the gate was used by Henrietta

Maria is probably due to what might be called the law of local tradition;

the law that masonry attracts picturesque associations in direct

proportion to its own picturesqueness, and in inverse proportion to the

quantity of building that survives. If one room only of an old castle

remains, it is that room, according to local tradition, that was the

scene of every event that ever took place in the castle. A gatehouse is

an improbable shelter for a queen in time of war. As for Prince Charles,

there was once a tiny room in which he was reputed to have hidden. Here

we have another invariable rule. Charles II. never occupied any place

larger than a cupboard; and even in a fortress garrisoned by royalists he

systematically “hid.” In this case even his reputed hiding-place is gone,

and the legend has not as yet been transferred to the gatehouse; but if

we enter the fort itself beneath the sculptured arms of Henry VIII., and

mount the long staircase to the leads, we shall see below us on the shore

the little blockhouse from which he escaped to France. On our left lies

the crowded harbour with St. Mawe’s beyond it, and the round grey tower

that was built at the same time as Pendennis: on our right is the bay

of Gyllyng Vase, named William’s Grave in memory of the prince who was

drowned in the White Ship. Headland stretches beyond headland; and far

away on the horizon the Manacles show their cruel teeth.

 

During the siege John-for-the-King set fire to Arwenack lest the

Parliament-men should make a battery of it. It is a common saying that

the Killigrews, in their loyalty, put a light to it themselves. But

strangely enough the owner at this time was “ye infamous Lady Jane,”

who had been divorced by Sir John Killigrew but kept possession of his

house for her life--a curious state of things that definitely settles the

question of the firing of Arwenack. It was this Lady Jane who gave the

famous chalice to the town of Penryn, “when they received mee that was

in great miserie.” It was not this lady, however--as is often said--but

Dame Mary of Elizabethan days, who boarded the Spanish ship in a true

Elizabethan spirit and took her cargo home to Arwenack.[11]

 

[Illustration: KING HARRY’S FERRY.]

 

Although this harbour “ys a havyng very notable and famose,” it lacks the

charm of Fowey and Dartmouth; and it is only in the upper reaches that

the Fal has the beauty of the Dart. It is wisest to start from Falmouth.

The hills at first are low and the estuary wide; but when Carrick Roads

have narrowed into King Harry’s Reach and the river sweeps past us

between the rolling woods, we remember Hawker singing of his native

Cornwall and “her streams that march in music to the sea.” We take our

winding way past the ferry to which King Harry never came, past many

alluring creeks, past Tregothnan--the home but not the house of Admiral

Boscawen--and round the green banks of Woodbury, till we see Truro’s

white cathedral against the sky.

 

When we finally drive away from Falmouth our most prudent course is to

go out of the town past the recreation-ground, and take the road that

leads to the Lizard by Constantine; for though the longer road by Helston

is by far the better of the two, there are dark whispers heard in this

neighbourhood, sometimes, of measured distances and other perils. We

see on the left the by-road to Penjerrick, where Caroline Fox wrote

her delightful journal and charmed so many men of mark; pass through

Constantine, a village of solid stone houses, and thatch, and gardens,

and run down into Gweek. It was here that Hereward the Wake twice rescued

the Cornish princess from unpleasant suitors. The high green walls of

oak and ash that Hereward saw are further down the river, but this is

the head of the tide where King Alef’s palace stood, and the champion

of England slew the giant, and where now a brisk trade is carried on in

bone-manure. Whatever may be the truth about Hereward, the last fact

admits of no doubt.

 

The miles that lead to Lizard Town are of the sort that one remembers

ever after with a thrill. It is rather a complex thrill, with

contributions from the past and from the future and from the exhilarating

present. The Marconi towers, slim fingers pointing skyward, are not

without their influence on our pulses, with their hints of future

conquests, and their message that the fairy-tale of to-day is the science

of to-morrow. The road is broad and smooth and level, and lies between

low hedges, and has the straightness that the motorist loves; beyond the

waving tamarisks a flat land of green and purple stretches away to the

horizon; for the first time in many days the car speeds over the plain

at the pace she loves best; and the sea-wind rushes to meet us with its

story of the Spanish Armada.

 

[Illustration: THE LIZARD.]

 

We slow down at last in Lizard Town, where the squalid little houses are

smothered in flowers fit for a palace, blazing draperies of scarlet and

rose--the climbing geraniums that in Cornwall grow, not as a favour, but

because they enjoy it. Here it is perhaps best to leave the car, though

it is perfectly possible to drive to the foot of the lighthouse, where

there is room to turn. The first lighthouse that stood on this spot was

built by one of the Killigrews of Arwenack, to the great displeasure

of the people. He was robbing them of God’s grace, they naïvely

complained--meaning the spoils of the wrecked.

 

Beyond the lighthouse are grassy slopes where it is good to sit alone

among the sea-pinks. To right and left are long headlands and curving

bays; on every side are masses of grey rock crowned with golden lichen;

and beyond them the sea comes laughing from the South. And on a sudden

we see the mighty crescent of the Armada, seven miles wide, sweep up the

Channel to its doom, with the smoke of many guns flying before the gale,

and with every man upon his knees.

 

It is a disappointment to learn that the track to Kynance Cove is too

sandy for motors; but only a few miles further along the coast is the

cove of Mullion, which is easily reached on quite a good road. Those

who know Kynance declare it is more attractive than Mullion, but I

think there must be some mistake about this, because it is not possible

to be more attractive than Mullion. From the tiny harbour with its

two sheltering piers a natural tunnel--passable only when the tide is

low--leads through the rock to the sands of a little bay. Here the cliffs

are high and wild, and masses of black rock rise sheer from the ripples

of a blue-green sea, and in the caves the “serpentine” stones are red and

green and pink and full of sparkles, like the stones of Aladdin’s cave.

One can see at a glance that the superstition about Kynance Cove is quite

without foundation.

 

[Illustration: MULLION COVE.]

 

From Mullion village we may either return to the Helston road at once,

or drop down into Poldhu Cove, close under the Marconi towers. Hence we

must climb on a good surface the very steep hill to Cury; for Gunwalloe

is a place to avoid, although much treasure, they