Cornwall
The Shape of It
Geography, pools, legends, and the county that very nearly isn’t.
Cornwall! thou barren spot of ground
Where scarcely ought but rocks and furze are found.
Thy produce won’t supply thy sons with bread,
Nor wood for coffins for them, when they’re dead.
— Rev. J. Taylor, on a friend’s mantelpiece at Redruth
Cornwall! thou wealthy spot of ground
Where richest ores in shining heaps are found.
Thy very dust is gold — thy dross is tin,
Thy riches, not without, are found within.
— Written beneath the first, by an unknown but clearly irritated wit
The Tamar divides Cornwall from Devon, and the Saltash Bridge — Brunel’s, nearly half a mile long at three-quarters of a million pounds — carries you over it. Without a tiny neck of land near the Tamar’s source, Cornwall would be entirely surrounded by water. It came very close.
The Lizard is the most southerly point not only in Cornwall but in the whole of Great Britain. Sennen is the most westerly parish, Morwenstow the most northerly. The Scilly Isles — 28 miles southwest and easy to forget — are formally part of Cornwall and have five inhabited islands.
Cornwall’s two famous pools are not lakes — Cornwall has no lakes — but they make up for it in character. Loe Pool near Helston stretches two miles, held back from the sea by a bar of shingle. Near that bar, legend has it, Spanish treasure is buried.
Dosmary Pool on the moors near Bolventor is about thirty acres and nine feet deep. Tregeagle, a famous Cornishman who had done rather badly in life, was punished after death by being set to empty Dosmary Pool with a limpet shell. The pool was said to be bottomless. When the wind howls across the moors at night, people say that’s Tregeagle calling — meaning bad weather on the way.
The largest parish in Cornwall is St. Neot; the smallest is St. Michael’s Mount. The largest Cornish church is at Bodmin. The Church of St. Ive was founded by the Knights Templar. The deepest mine was Dolcoath.
The first tramway in Cornwall connected Portreath with Poldice mine near St. Day, commenced 25th October 1809. Cornwall Railway opened to Truro on 11th April 1859. Before the railway, Edith Martin’s father-in-law travelled to London by walking from St. Agnes to Redruth, taking train to Hayle, then going by boat. It is not recorded how he felt about this.
Notable Folk
Queen Elizabeth said of Cornishmen: “They are all born courtiers, with a becoming confidence.”
The Cornish Tongue
Words still in use. Some say they’re dialect. Others say they’re just right.
A few proverbs that haven’t made it to other counties:
Quaint Place Names
All of these are real. All of them are in Cornwall.
Edith Martin lived at Littlebeside, St. Day. Of course she did.
At the Table
The pasty, the pilchard, the saffron cake, and a toast you won’t hear elsewhere.
It is said that the Devil has never crossed the Tamar into Cornwall, on account of the well-known Cornishwoman’s habit of putting everything into a pasty — and that he was not sufficiently courageous to risk such a fate.
The true Cornish way to eat a pasty is to hold it in the hand and begin biting from the opposite end to the initial, so that should any remain, it may be consumed later by its rightful owner. Woe betide anyone who takes another person’s corner.
The Cornish Pasty
Pastry: 1 lb flour, ½ lb lard and suet, ½ teaspoonful salt, mix with water. Roll out about ¼ inch thick and cut into rounds with a plate.
Method: Lay the round with half over a rolling pin. Put in the filling, damp the edges lightly, fold into a semi-circle. Crimp the extreme edges between finger and thumb. Cut a slit in the centre, lay on a baking sheet and bake in a quick oven so that it keeps its shape.
Filling: Small-sliced potato in a layer, then small pieces of fresh steak on top, flavoured with onion or parsley, salt and pepper. The name of the pasty varies according to the filling — a pasty is just the shape.
The Toast of the Pilchard Season:
Here’s health to the Pope, may he live to repent,
And add half a year to the time of his Lent,
To teach all his children from Rome to the Poles,
There’s nothing like pilchards for saving their souls.
— Cornish, traditional
Summercourt Fair on 25th September is the oldest chartered fair in Cornwall, dating from Edward I. It was formerly a large horse, cattle and sheep market. The principal dish on that day remains “boiled roast goose.” There was once a Mazzard Fair on July 28th, now obsolete, but the locals still eat hot mazzard pie on that day. A mazzard is a black cherry. “Dear as saffron” was a Cornish expression for something expensive.
Signs & Songs
What Cornish inn-signs and broadsheets say when nobody’s tidying them up.
Be merry friends, enjoy your Beer
But do not swear or gamble here.
Since man to man has been unjust,
I do not know what man to trust.
I have trusted many to my sorrow,
So pay to-day and trust to-morrow.
Come, All ye Jolly Boys, walk in —
Here’s Whiskey, Brandy, Rum and Gin.
You can’t do less than drink success
To Copper, Fish and Tin.
Parish dark & skulemaster. Groser & Hundertaker respectably informs Ladys & Gentlemen that he drors teef without wateing a minit. Applies laches every hour. Blisters on the lowest tarms. and vizicks for a penny a peace. He sells godfathers kordales. Kuts Korns. Bunyons. Doctors hosses. Clips Donkies wance a munth & undertakes to luke arter every bodies naylas by the ear, joes-harps, penny wissels, Brass Kanelsticks, fryinpans & other moozikal Hinstrumints hat grately reydoosed figers. Young ladys & gentlemen larnes their grammur and langeudge in the purtiest mannar. Also grate care taken off their morrels and Spellin. Also zarm-zinging, tayching the base vial. And oll other zorts of fancy works… as times is cruel bad, I begs to teel ee that I has just beginned to sell all sorts of stashonary ware, cox, hens vouls, pigs and all other kind of poultry… Korn and bunyon zalve and all hardware… New laid Heggs by me Roger Giles.
Donkies paykox. Lobsters. Crickets. Also a stock of a celebrated brayder.
O rugged and bold are Cornwall’s cliffs,
And rugged and bold are her men,
Stalwart and true when there’s work to do,
And heeding not where or when;
Braving the storm on ocean wave,
Or toiling beneath the ground,
Where’er the spot, whatever his lot,
The Cornishman staunch is found.
Shoulder to shoulder we stand or fall;
On land or sea, where’ere we be,
We Cornish are ready, aye, One and All.
A good sword and a trusty hand,
A merry heart and true!
King James’ men shall understand
What Cornish lads can do.
And have they fixed the where and when?
And shall Trelawny die?
Here’s twenty thousand Cornish men
Will know the reason why!
And shall Trelawny die?
Here’s twenty thousand Cornish men
Will know the reason why!
Did You Know?
A selection of facts which may surprise you, annoy you, or make you feel you understand something better.
- That the Cornish motto “One and All” originated when a Duke of Cornwall was taken prisoner by the Saracens during the Crusades and ransomed for fifteen gold bezants? On news of his capture reaching Cornwall, all the inhabitants subscribed the necessary sum between them. The fifteen bezants appear as balls in the Cornish arms.
- That in 1600, Arwenack House and a few fishermen’s huts comprised the entire town of Smithick — and that when Charles II issued his proclamation in 1660, it became Falmouth? The three neighbouring boroughs had petitioned James I thirty years earlier to prevent the building of it, as it would ruin their trade.
- That the first wireless signal to America was sent from Poldhu on 11th December 1901?
- That the remains of the Duke of Wellington in St. Paul’s Cathedral rest in a sarcophagus made of Cornish granite from Luxulyan?
- That Charlotte Brontë’s mother was a Miss Branwell of Penzance?
- That Charles Kingsley was educated at Helston Grammar School?
- That the Crown Jewels were housed in Bodmin Gaol during the War?
- That Thomas Hardy wrote A Pair of Blue Eyes in the rectory garden at St. Juliot?
- That Sir Walter Raleigh was M.P. for Mitchell, a small village seven miles from Truro, in 1592?
- That before 1832, Cornwall returned forty-four members to Parliament? The rotten borough of Mitchell alone could point to Raleigh. The reputed Town Hall of the borough is still standing.
- That John Wesley visited Cornwall thirty-one times?
- That the poet Longfellow was descended from the Bonythons of Bonython?
- That William Bligh — of the Bounty — was born at St. Tudy and became Governor of New South Wales?
- That Mary Newman, Sir Francis Drake’s wife, was born at Saltash?
- That the five brothers Tangye who founded the Cornwall Works in Birmingham were all born at Illogan?
- That a fig tree grows out of the church wall at Manaccan? And another in the wall of the south transept at St. Newlyn East? And a tree on the top of the tower at St. Neot?
- That the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral are made of Cornish Catacluse stone from St. Merryn?
- That in 1347, Fowey sent forty-seven ships and seven hundred and seventy-nine men to the Siege of Calais?
- That the midshipman who ran up Nelson’s famous signal at Trafalgar was a Cornish lad, one John Pollard of Kingsand?
- That in 1831, Newquay had 86 houses and a population of 227?
- That Samuel Foote, the famous comedian, was born at Truro on 27th January 1720 — and lived at what is now the Red Lion Hotel?
- That the first Sunday School started in Truro was organised and run by Miss Magdelene Daubuz in 1803?
- That the figure on the Lectern of Bodmin Parish Church has five fingers and a thumb?
- That in 1790, Charlestown had only nine residents?
- That Woodcock Corner near Truro is so named after a well-known coach horse that died at that spot?
- That a pilchard should be eaten from its tail to its head? Otherwise it is unlucky.
- That William Murdoch lit his house at Redruth with gas in 1792 — and later lit the Boulton and Watt workshops in Birmingham — and received the Gold Medal of the Royal Society in 1808 for inventing it?
- That in 1936, Cornwall grew 3,562 acres of broccoli? And sent five thousand tons of narcissi from the Scilly Isles to market — in 1936 alone?
- That 60 years before that book was written (i.e. around 1876), the first consignment of narcissi from the Scilly Isles was sent to Covent Garden — in a hatbox?
This page draws on Do You Know Cornwall? Chips and Shavings from a Cornish Block by Edith Martin (Truro: W.J. Jordan, City Printing Works; 3rd enlarged edition, August 1937). The proceeds of the original book were given to the Royal Cornwall Infirmary building fund. The selection, arrangement and editorial commentary are a later hand’s. All errors of emphasis are ours; all genuine curiosities are Edith Martin’s.