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)
Among the rights and privileges exercised by the borough of Saltash was
that the mayor or recorder held a court of quarter sessions till 1886.
In 1772 a woman was sentenced to be stripped to her waist and whipped
in public for stealing a hat. But this sentence, if repugnant to our
sense of decency, was light compared to one passed in 1844 on two
women for stealing some shirting wherewith to make garments for their
husbands. They were transported for seven years. The natural result was
that they married again and settled in Botany Bay, and the husbands
found for themselves fresh mates at Saltash. In this century the mayor
sentenced a man to transportation for stealing a watch at a regatta.
The only church at Saltash is the chapel of the Guildhall, and the
chaplain formerly had a bad time of it as the creature of the mayor.
Happily the advowson was sold in 1836 for £405, and fell to the bishop.
The church possesses a splendid piece of plate, a silver cup over a
foot high. This was given to the church in 1624 by Ambrose and Abraham
Jennens and William Pawley, but it is far older.
[Illustration: CHALICE, SALTASH]
It is said in the place that it is of Spanish workmanship, and was part
of the spoil of a vessel of the great Armada. This, however, is not the
case; it is a fine example of English silversmith’s work of the reign
of Henry VII.
The Castle of Trematon, to which the original serfs of Saltash owed
service, still exists. It is not remarkable for picturesqueness.
It occupies the top of a wooded hill on the banks of the Lynher,
overlooking the Hamoaze and Plymouth harbour, and consists of a keep,
the base-court, and the gate-house. The keep, placed at the north-east
angle of the court, is oval in form, and dates from the thirteenth
century. The walls are ten feet thick and thirty feet high. It was
wrecked by the Cornish peasants, who rose against the Reformation,
stormed the castle, and took the governor prisoner.
Among the many broils that took place in Saltash between the
corporation and the great body of townsmen the most serious was in
1806, when the Rev. John Buller was mayor. On this occasion the mob
broke into the Guildhall, where the mayor stood to his post on the
stairs, and for some time held back the crowd, dealing mighty blows
with the silver-gilt mace, and cracking therewith many crowns. Finally
the rioters succeeded in getting hold of the chest, and they destroyed
or purloined all the documents it contained, with the object of getting
rid of the evidence in favour of the corporation. At the same time
they carried off the silver oar, the symbol of jurisdiction over the
Hamoaze, and this was not recovered for fifty years.
The corporation maces are singularly handsome and weighty, and are of
silver-gilt.
The present Guildhall is erected over the market-house, and was built
in 1770. It is ugly, and has this alone to recommend it, that it is
unpretentious.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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