A book of the west. Volume 2, Cornwall : $b being an introduction to Devon and CornwallBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
A book of the west. Volume 2, Cornwall : $b being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Cornwall (England : County)
I believe that venerable amusements we old folks saw in our childhood
are “resurrected” at West Looe at that 6th May fair. Therefore, if
you want to see funny things, go there. The place is still out of the
world, but will not long be so, as a London company has bought the
cliffs, and is blasting a road in them to make promenade, hotel, and
bring the world and the twentieth century to Looe and rumple up the old
place.
East Looe is properly in S. Martin’s parish, and the church was a
chapel-of-ease to it. At S. Martin’s are a Norman doorway and an early
font.
West Looe has a little church, dedicated to S. Nicholas, that long
served as town hall and as a theatre for strolling players. Here also
are some quaint old slated houses; the “valleys” are not leaded, but
the slates are so worked as to fold over the angles very ingeniously
and picturesquely, and admirably answering the object in view of
carrying off the water.
Off the coast lies Looe Island. This was for many years the
dwelling-place of a man named Fyn and his sister, “Black Joan.” They
were son and daughter of an outlaw, who had spent his life since his
outlawry on the Mewstone off Gara Point, at the entrance of Plymouth
Sound. Here he and his wife lived a wild life like sea-mews, and there
reared their young, who grew up without any religious, moral, or
intellectual training. The outlaw died on the Mewstone, and Fyn and his
sister, accustomed from infancy to an island life, could not endure
the thought of going to the mainland for the rest of their days, and
so they settled on Looe Island. Here they were joined by a negro, and
by their united efforts honeycombed the ground under their hovel and
the large barn adjoining for the accommodation of smuggled goods. Their
only associates were these free-traders.
One day the black man vanished, and it was never known what had become
of him, whether he had left or been murdered by Fyn and his sister.
There were naturally no witnesses; nothing could be proved against
them. Recently a skull has been dug up near the house, and is kept in
a box in the dwelling, but it is not that of a negro. Actually there
is a layer of human remains about two feet below the surface of the
turf, exposed on the east side of the island, where wind and spray are
gnawing away the cliff, and any number of teeth and bones may be picked
out. Whether these are the remains of an early Christian monastic
cemetery, or of shipwrecked sailors buried on the cliffs, cannot be
told, as no investigation has been made to discover the approximate
period to which this layer of dead men’s bones belongs.
Formerly there was a chapel on the summit of the island, but only its
foundations remain. The island belonged to the monastery of Lamana
(_lan-manachau_, the church of the monks) on the mainland.
But to return to the Fyns.
On that island they spent many years, hand in glove with the smugglers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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