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Cornwall (Penwick)
Penzance, Saint Michael's Mount, Saint Ives
We deviated from the sane course from Totnes to Penzance in an ill-advised effort to check out The Eden Project. Our first three thumbs down go to the Eden Project.
This page restored by request of Ronald J. Bartle. | ||
 from near Nancledra |
Back on track, we moped through Penzance, apparently the peninsula's dark side, in a cloudburst. Georgian cities don't look well in rain, and in England this is a distinct disadvantage.
Even through the rain, Saint Michael's Mount, sitting like a fairy castle on an island in a bay caught my eye, and I felt a distinct "Aha!" |
Note that the photo above was from atop the rise between Nancledra and Penzance the next morning, that dawned fine. In honesty I must admit that the squall had passed by the time we found our temporary home in Nancledra, a tiny village tucked into a fold in the windblown peninsula leading to Land's End. After a visit with the postal authorities for a CD transfusion from StringBender, we headed toward the Mount. |
 Can't get there from here |
 disembarking in the Mount's harbor |
Arriving at high tide, when the causeway is underwater, we were ferried out to the Mount, disembarking just where Young Queen Vicky and her Albert did. (There's a dainty brass footprint to prove it.)
A castle on an island isolated at time by tides is a magical notion, isn't it? The magic certainly took us over before we'd paid our fee to the National Trust, who own and maintain the island in cooperation with the family that own it, the St. Aubyns, who live downstairs. |
This Mount's magic includes its building by a giant named Cormoran, who was tricked and killed by a Cornish boy named Jack, thereafter called the Giant Killer; a miraculous appearance by Saint Michael to fishermen saved during a storm; church, a Benedictine priory, a fortress, and now a private house. It's been in the St. Aubyn family since 1649. |
 quayside looking up the Mount |
 The Creamery |
350 years is the kind of tenure that gets people to build for permanence. Until recently a small herd of cattle was kept on the landward side of the Mount for milking, and here's the building that was intended for the handling of milk and the making of cheese. When the National Trust was called to the project, they sought and interviewed people who had worked in the Creamery, and outfitted it according to what they were told. |
After the Creamery, the Mount heaves up steeply past the well Jack dug to trap Cormoran, and a heart-shaped stone in the walkway inevitably called "the Giant's heart". Huffing and puffing, we made it the rest of the way up to the relatively flat area overlooking the precipice and Penzance across a harbor dotted with little sailboats.
The castle was attacked in 1193, 1473, 1549, and 1642. It was also the place from which the Spanish Armada was first sighted in 1547. In 1646 its owners, the Bassetts, staunch royalists, surrendered the Mount to Cromwell's Parliamentary troops. |
 toward Marazion from the Creamery |
 the northside defenses |
Despite its popularity with attackers, not everyone is impressed. After walking for a month to see it, the "water poet" John Taylor wrote, in 1649, "To speak the truth of this so much talked of, famous Mount, it is lofty, rocky, inaccessible, not worth the taking or keeping; it is a barren stony little wen or wart." |
Harsh words, and we wouldn't agree. Right away, Rochelle said "I'd be willing to stay here."
What was once the refectory is now the formal dining room. The walls were probably put up by Abbot Bernard in the 12th Century, and the roof is a much-maintained and improved version of the original roof. (So many of these stories remind me of George Washington's hatchet, you know, the one he chopped down the cherry tree with? Two new blades and three new handles, but it's the same hatchet!) This room's name derives from the elaborate frieze of hunting scenes around the top of the wall, but you'll have to trust me on this as white-on-white doesn't photograph very well. |
 The Chevy Chase Dining Room |
 the Duke's breakfast nook and garden below |
 original walled garden |
The gardens around the whole Mount are wonderful, but the private "pleasure gardens" on the southwest side are the most intriguing -- we hope St. Aubyn does invite us to stay so we can explore them freely. The "estate gardener" does offer two tours a year, if you happen to visit at just the right time. The St. Aubyns use their castle extensively for benefits for area charities.
I am disappointed that I can't show a picture of the "rent desk," a partners desk that Old John St. Aubyn used to have carried around once a year at rent time, so he could sit on one side and accept rents from the tenants of his extensive lands on the other side. |
 the causeway surfaces |
 The Victorian tower |
In the late 19th Century, during a spate of prosperity, the St. Aubyns built most of their present living quarters, including the tower at left and the breakfast nook (pictured above) and extended the gardens. They were quite careful to use matching granite and to add in a harmonious way, and so the various additions to the house aren't at all mismatched. During this period, someone wrote "every individual of this family has proved himself desirous of supporting, maintaining, and beautifying one of the most extraordinary spots in the whole world."
The fifth and last baronet, John, who presided over this building spree, was a remarkable fellow, a mineralogist of note, an art collector, and a popular Cornish figure. When he died his extensive collection of etchings and engravings had to be sold to cover the cost of the refurbishment. He also sired 15 children, every one illegitimately, although he did marry his second mistress, Juliana, daughter of a local farmer, after their children were grown. |
A world unto itself, the Mount is also its own parish, and the parish church is also the castle's chapel. The walls and underpinnings go back to Abbot Bernard, who consecrated the church in 1135, but the rest of the church had to be reconstructed after an earthquake in 1275. During the anti-church years around 1645, orders were given to pull the chapel down -- the same orders were given, you may remember, at Caernarfon -- but again they were fortunately not carried out.
It's quite remarkable to see how a desirable bit of land -- defensible, commercially important, fertile -- can be seamlessly recycled and burnished over the centuries. Certainly some of the ancient truths have been paved over, and some of the modern conveniences will seem antique a hundred years or more hence. Which will they be? |
 11th Century cross head outside the Chapel |
 the parish Chapel |
 the Blue Drawing Room |
 18th Century Boatmen in their finest | One of the notions I struggle with is continuity of land and its people. Because one family holds the land, accepts the rents, and works for the welfare of their holdings for centuries, a strongly loyal group of "their people" grows up in the neighborhood. These dependents accept the class distinctions cheerfully, and seem willing to dress up in funny costumes at the whim of the Lord. In return, they're cared for, their children are sent away to school, employed, and otherwise included in the life of the land ... over the centuries, even as morals and morays change drastically, even as the Church changes denominations and the surrounding countryside evolves. We USers are children when it comes to this kind of time scale, and have a lot to learn. |
Saint Ives
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 street scene in Saint Ives |
We walked back across the causeway, retrieved our car, and drove across the peninsula to its tourist destination, Saint Ives, another compact little Santa Cruz with a good beach and harbor and too many tourists.
But once parked and amongst the crooked streets, we all agreed the place thrums with excitement. It fed us well, and amused us for the afternoon, providing abundant people watching.
St. Ives is principally a fishing port but has become an artists' community, and every other shop sells beach kitcsh or paintings and sculptures. |
It was a sunny day, only a few clouds in sight, but the wind was still present and the water was cold. Rochelle was happy to wear her coat. Nevertheless, the hardy British were out with all their beach finery, sunbathing and holidaying in earnest. |
 on the beach |
 Globalism in action The same Taiwanese crap as Hawaii |
Here, the blend of wonderful old buildings and shops hawking horrible plastic crap is not a happy one, although holiday-makers don't seem to see it. Another unhappy blending here is the effort to continue with vehicle-based commerce -- huge delivery trucks negotiating narrow streets and blocking pedestrians, tourist vehicles weaving toward their accommodations -- and yet a solution to the problem doesn't suggest itself. A good share of the time, the streets are clear of cars, and seldom do two cars need to pass ... but when they do, pedestrians beware! The congestion seems to lead to quite a lot of road rage on the part of the drivers, who speed up when they should slow down. |
I should have included baby buggies in the list of irresponsibly-driven vehicles. Maybe it's because babies are so cute that their mothers -- usually -- are astonishingly arrogant about what rights they have with these mercedes-sized horrors.
Hawkers and other distractions clutter the sidewalks so that foot traffic moves at a snail's pace. |
 harborside scene |
 in Barbara Hepworth's sculpture garden |
While Chad people-watched, Rochelle and I sought out Barbara Hepworth's studio. Being in Cornwall, seeing the shapes of the land and its tin-mining heritage, I gained new appreciation for that tough old cookie's work. We spent a lovely half hour sitting in her sculpture garden watching the people gawk at her monolithic works. |
Finally, after ice cream, we caught the bus back to the tourist car park high above the town, and then found the narrow road leading inland to Nancledra, midway between St. Ives and Penzance. Along the way I had to stop and take a picture of one of the landmarks that undoubtedly inspired Barbara Hepworth's work -- she who chose Cornwall for the "mythic shapes and beings scattered on the land." |
 derelict tin smelter above Nancledra |
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