CHAPTER XXXVI

FROM HELSTON TO THE LIZARD BY THE COAST: LOE POOL, GUNWALLOE CHURCH, POLJEW, MULLYON CHURCH, PROFESSOR BLACKIE, MULLYON COVE

THE ordinary traveller who goes direct to the Lizard

by means of the straight inland road running along the flat top of the monotonous Lizard peninsula misses the best of the scenery of that delightful part of Cornwall. The roadway, in fact, runs through no scenery at all; it simply exists for utilitarian purposes only, and no one in his senses would take it unless time presses and Lizard Town be the destination. The walk-you cannot cycle it, or ride it, let alone drive it-may be taken, as I took it, from Helston, or it may just as advantageously be taken vice versa from Lizard Town, it being sufficient boredom to go over the piece of main road only once.

Helston itself possesses some features worth remaining there a few hours to see. The main street is steep and unusually wide, with a stream of water bubbling merrily and briskly along down the gutter-now on one side, now on the other, performing its cleansing sanitary purposes. The old Angel Hotel on the left-hand side, famed for its beefsteak pies and puddings and home-cured bacon, is also the centre of the festivities on May 8th, when the Furry, or Flora, Dance is in progress and when all the street doors of Helston are kept open.

The large open space at the bottom of the main street is dominated by an arched structure like a small Marble Arch, "To the Memory of Humphry Millett Crofts," bearing on the reverse side, "Raised by Subscription MDCCCXXXIV." This is the entrance to a flat plateau of land on which in former days stood a castle which was demolished as early as the middle of the fifteenth century. The plot is now sunken about three feet and grass-grown

with the finest turf I have ever seen-just like a billiardtable even up to the edges of the walls-and is used for a bowling-green. Surely no bowling-green in England is in such a fine position or better kept! The views around of hills and of the Lower Green below-on which some gipsy caravans were encamped when I was there are attractively pretty in rural simplicity.

The bowling-green in old days was a regular adjunct of Cornish towns. At St. Ives, Marazion, and Camborne, at any rate, the bowling-green was Corporation property. An entry in the civic records of St. Ives illustrates this. Under the mayoralty of Mr. Edward Hammond in 1657-8 occurs the entry: "I. payd Richard Smith in earnest ffor his tyme in the Bowling greene 1s."

Being in Helston just before the Furry Dance time (but I treat of this more fully in a later chapter), I asked the waiter in the old-fashioned, comfortable coffee-room if many people were expected for the event; to which he replied, "We belong to "-a Cornish equivalent, I take it, for "We hope there may be." The farthest he had been from Helston, of which he was a native, I found, was to Newton Abbot. You find many people in Cornwall who have never been far from the place of their birth.

Crossing the wide street from the "Angel," steep Church Street is entered, and a turn brings the church into sight. Just before arriving at the sacred edifice an old Celtic cross in front of a very modern house caught my eye. It is set with its back to the front garden of the house on the path. How it got there I know not.

The seven wide steps leading up to the churchyard have been of the usual stepping-stone order, now filled in with stones, and on either side is a long seat. In a square recess on the west there is placed a Latin cross embossed on a small slab of granite let flush in with the wall, 2 feet 8 inches by 1 foot 3 inches. Each corner of Helston churchyard is entered by a similar stepping-stone stile.

The church itself is not the old edifice that once occupied the site. During a severe thunder-storm in 1727 it was struck by lightning, and Lord Godolphin in 1763 erected the present edifice at a cost of £6000. The interior is spacious and plain, with moulded plaster ceiling and galleries all

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round except at the east. The font and pulpit, of marble pillars and white stone, are handsome, but not otherwise noticeable. Below the east window is some fine modern mosaic work.

On either side of the entrance-door, however, are evidently two remnants of the ancient edifice in the shape of small brasses, twenty-two inches high. These have been rather ruthlessly affixed to the side-posts by iron screws cruelly stabbing the brasses. They were rescued from the old church when it was burned. One is of a female figure in Elizabethan ruff and stomacher with high hips. The other (half an inch taller than the companion) represents a man of the same period in ruff and long robe. Both are beautifully engraved and still sharp in outline. Over the door are three more in the same style-two upright, one oblong. On one of the upright brasses are two figures; the oblong bears merely a long inscription.

In the churchyard near the belfry is a Celtic cross,1 3 feet high and 1 foot 7 inches across the head, on a pedestal 13 inches high.

The head of another cross (20 inches by 19 inches) has the sacred emblem on either side, and now stands on the top of the edging-stone of a grave with "PENBERTHY " cut in large letters beneath. A Mr. Penberthy who died in 1783 left the interest of £500 for the use of the poor of Helston not in the workhouse, so I presume this is that family's place of sepulture. The cross was found on the property of the family and placed here.

The view from the churchyard is fine, combining pretty

At the consecration of a cemetery a cross was usually erected in the centre of the ground, and one at each of the four corners corresponding with the four cardinal points. The Bishop began by making the circuit of the ground with the clergy, chanting the litany at the same time. He then read a portion of the service at the eastern cross, did the same at the southern, western, and northern crosses, and concluded it at the cross in the centre (Martene ex Pont. Egberti, l. II, c. xx. p. 294).

Probably most of these consecration crosses were temporary structures, but sometimes they were permanent, and remained after the consecration ceremony.

A cross was often erected at every spot where a corpse rested on the way to the place of burial. Thus, St. Aldhelm died at a distance of fifty miles from Glastonbury, and at every seven miles of the road a cross pointed out the resting-place to later ages. All seven were still standing in the time of Malmesbury, and were called bishopstones (Ang. Sac., II, p. 25.)