A Guide to the Mount's Bay and the Land's End: Comprehending the topography, botany, agriculture, fisheries, antiquities, mining, mineralogy and geology of West CornwallParis, John Ayrton
History
A Guide to the Mount's Bay and the Land's End: Comprehending the topography, botany, agriculture, fisheries, antiquities, mining, mineralogy and geology of West Cornwall
Paris, John Ayrton
Cornwall (England : County) -- Guidebooks
The Refectory, or Common Hall, from the frieze, with which it is
ornamented, appears to have been fitted up, since the reformation, as
a dining room for a hunting party, and is popularly denominated "_The
Chevy-Chace Room_." The cornice represents in stucco, the modes of
hunting the wild boar, bull, stag, ostrich, hare, fox, and rabbit. At
the upper end of this room are the royal arms, with the date 1644;
and, at the opposite end, those of the St. Aubyn family. The room
is 33 feet long, 16 wide, and 18 high, and has a solemn and imposing
appearance, which is not a little heightened by the antique and
appropriate character of its furniture and ornaments.
The Chapel exhibits a venerable monument of Saxon architecture; its
interior has lately been renewed in a chaste style of elegance, and a
magnificent organ has been erected. During these repairs, in levelling
a platform for the altar, under the eastern window, a low gothic door
was discovered to have been closed up with stone in the southern wall,
and then concealed with the raised platform; when the enclosure was
broken through, ten steps appeared descending into a stone vault under
the church, about nine feet long, six or seven broad, and nearly as
many high. In this room was found the skeleton of a very large man,
without any remains of a coffin. The discovery, of course, gave rise
to many conjectures, but it seems most probable, that the man had been
there immured for some crime. The bones were removed and buried in the
body of the chapel. At the same time upon raising the old pavement,
the fragment of an inscribed sepulchral stone of some Prior was taken
up; there was also a grave stone, not inscribed, which Antiquaries
have supposed to have covered the remains of _Sir John Arundel_, of
Trerice, Knight, who was slain on the strand below, in the wars of
York and Lancaster. In the tower of this chapel are six sweet toned
bells, which frequently ring when _Sir John St. Aubyn_ is resident; at
this time also choral service is performed; and, on a calm day, the
undulating sound of the bells, and the swelling note of the organ,
as heard on the water, produce an effect which it is impossible to
describe.
From the chapel, we may ascend by a narrow stone stair-case to the top
of the tower. The prospect hence is of the grandest description, and
is perhaps as striking as any that can occur to "_mortal eye_." "The
immense extent of sea," says _Dr. Maton_, "raises the most sublime
emotions, the waves of the British, Irish, and Atlantic seas all roll
within the compass of the sight," whilst the eye is relieved from
the uniform, though imposing grandeur of so boundless an horizon, by
wandering on the north and west, over a landscape, which Claude himself
might have transfused on his canvas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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