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)
On the road from Breage, before the turn to Pengersick is reached, a
stone lies by the roadside. It is one of those cast by the Giant of
Godolphin Hill after his wife, of whom he was jealous, and who was wont
to visit the Giant of Pengersick. The stone has often been removed, but
such disaster has ensued to the man who has removed it, that it has
always been brought back again. Godolphin Hill has been esteemed since
the days of Elizabeth as one of the richest of ore deposits, and it was
due to the urgency of Sir Francis Godolphin that miners were induced
to come to Cornwall from the Erz Gebirge, in Saxony, to introduce new
methods and machinery in the tin mines.
Godolphin Hall is an interesting old mansion, partly dating from
the time of Henry VII. and partly belonging to the period of the
Restoration. Some remains from a ruined church or chapel have been
worked into one of the gateways. The old house has its stewponds and a
few fine trees about it.
On the Marazion road, west of Millpool, in the hedge, are the impress
of the devil’s knees. One day, feeling the discomfort and forlornness
of his position, his majesty resolved on praying to have it changed; so
he knelt on a slab of granite, but his knees burned their way into the
stone. Then he jumped up, saying that praying superinduced rheumatics,
and he would have no more of it. The holes are not tin-moulds, for the
latter are angular and oblong, but are very similar to the cup-markings
found in many places in connection with prehistoric monuments. Some
precisely similar are at Dumnakilty in Fermanagh.[26]
A strange circumstance occurred in 1734 at Skewis, close to the line
from Gwinear Road Station to Helston.
Skewis had been for many generations the freehold patrimony of a
yeoman family of the name of Rogers. There were two brothers. The
elder married and lived on the farm, but without a family. The younger
brother, Henry Rogers, was married and had several children. He carried
on for several years in Helston the trade of a pewterer, then of
considerable importance in Cornwall, although it is now at an end. A
large portion of the tin raised was mixed with lead and exported in
the form of pewter made into dishes, plates, etc., now superseded by
earthenware. At the first introduction of earthenware, called cloam,
in the West of England, a strong prejudice existed against it as liable
to damage the tin trade, and it was a popular cry to destroy all cloam,
so as to bring back the use of pewter.
The elder Rogers died, and bequeathed the house of Skewis and the
farm and everything thereon to his wife Anne. Henry was indignant. He
believed in the inalienability of “heir land.” He was suspicious that
Anne Rogers would make over Skewis to her own relatives, of the name
of Millett. Henry waited his opportunity, when his sister-in-law was
out of the house, to enter it and bring in his wife and children and
servants. He turned out the domestics of Anne, and occupied the whole
house.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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