The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 4 (of 4)
History
The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 4 (of 4)
Cornwall (England : County) -- History; Geology -- England -- Cornwall (County)
I also remember seeing a celt that was found, about thirty years ago,
at Kilminarth, near the ruin of the said mound: about which time a
gold chain and several instruments of brass were found in a decayed
hedge, or side of a highway, near Little Larnic, by an apprentice
girl. Her mistress described them to me as being somewhat like
hatchets, and said “she believed they were things which the warriors
used in antient times.” I applied to the mistress, in hopes of getting
a sight of them; but her apprentice had sold them to a buyer of old
brass. The hedge formed one side of the high road, not far from the
said mound. The apprentice told me that the gold chain was about a
foot and a half in length――that when she found it, not thinking it was
gold, she tied it to the end of a stick, and made a sort of whip of it
to drive home the cows. She some time after discovered that it was
gold, and kept it by her for several years, when she gave it to her
brother, who sold it to a Mr. Patrick, a jeweller at Dock, for three
pounds. The brother told me that Mr. Patrick said it was Corsican
gold; and he (the brother) also told me that he well remembered the
brass instruments, and that some of them were like the tops of
spontoons.
POLVELLAN.
On West Looe Down the late John Lemon, esq. (M.P. for Truro, and who
died April 5, 1814), about the year 1787 erected a small but extremely
neat house in the cottage style, and inclosed some ground round it by
virtue of a grant from the Corporation. He gave it the name of
Polvellan, and laid it out with great taste. Pol, in Cornish, signifies
a Pool, and Vellan a Mill; and below the house are a mill and pool,
inclosed by a stone wall of about half a mile sweep, in a circular
direction. I cannot describe the contrivance and use of this pool
better than in the words of Mr. Carew, in his “Survey of
Cornwall.”――“Amongst other commodities afforded by the sea, the
inhabitants make use of divers his creekes for grist mills, by
thwarting a banke from side to side, in which a flood-gate is placed,
with two leaves; these the flowing tide openeth, and, after full sea,
the weight of the ebb closeth fast, which no other force can doe; and
so the imprisoned water payeth the ransome of driving an under shoote
wheel for his enlargement.” I apprehend the mill and pool-wall were
built by one of the Arundells of Tremodart, in Duloe parish. The wall
is about six or eight feet high, and almost broad enough for a coach
to pass over it, and must have cost a great deal of money. It appears
by a deed which I have seen, that the Mayor and Burgesses of West
Looe, on the 30th of May, in the twelfth year of the reign of James
the First (1614), granted all that parcel, quantity of ground, oze, or
water, now surrounded by the said mill-pool-wall, to Thomas Arundell,
of Tremodart, in the parish of Duloe, esq. for 500 years, from thence
next ensuing; that afterwards the said Thomas Arundell built a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account