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peeps of the sea in a far-off dip in the hills to the south

west.

Amongst some unusual names on the tombs around I came across tombs with "Penaluna" and "Caddy" on them.

The first charter of Helston dates from 1201. It was taxed in the Domesday record as Henliston, and is a stannary town, incorporated first, it is supposed, by King John. The coinage hall is now a private house.

Walking down the steep street and through the enclosure of the bowling-green, a set of steps conducts us to the Lower Green, and through the woods of Penrose Walks to the extraordinary natural phenomenon Loe Pool and its bar, or bank, of pebbles. The walk to the bar is through a fine wood of rare and beautiful foreign trees and shrubs in addition to our home oaks and other trees. I was reminded at many points during this walk through Penrose bordering on the lake of similar scenes in the Canadian forest north of Quebec. The oak, holly, birch, pine trees go right down the steep shore of the lake to the water itself. There is a lodge-gate which displays a notice to this effect: "Gates closed 8 p.m. in Summer, 6 p.m. in Winter. Excursion and Picnic Parties not admitted. Photographing not permitted. No dogs admitted." You have therefore to be careful in Penrose. The notice about dogs and photographing seems unnecessarily restrictive. A led dog can hurt no game-if that be the raison d'être for that portion of the notice, and no lens ever spoilt a view except on the photographer's plate.

At last on emerging from the shady wood one stands at a considerable elevation above the lake below, and just beneath is the famous bar. The lake is formed by several small streams which descend from the hills around in various directions, the largest being the Cober, flowing by the town of Helston. The lake is two miles long and irregular in outline, just like a Canadian lake, and is formed by the natural damming up of the fresh water in a rather winding fiord in the hills by means of a bar of small pebbles, which is about three or four hundred yards across, and which, of course, completely bridges the mouth of the gap of the hills within which Loe Pool lies. From the plateau overlooking the bar we can see the water near at hand just below us,

A NATURAL PHENOMENON

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then the wide band of yellow sand (which when we came to walk over we found in reality to be tiny pebbles), and then beyond equally blue water-sea. From this point a good view is obtained looking back up the lake to Helston, and to the west the eye sees Land's End and to the south the headlands on the way to the Lizard.

The formation of Loo Poole, Loo Pool, Loe Pool, Loo Pond, as I find it variously described, is obvious, and probably other similar formations are going on elsewhere on the coast of the county. The sea for some tidal reasons has thrown up a bar of sand and shingle right across the gap in the hills, and consequently the fresh water flowing down from the surrounding hills is dammed up, and naturally spreads out and forms a lake. At Padstow, on

the north, that gap in the land into which flows the Camel River is rapidly becoming sand-blocked, and some day when wind and tide are working together with a will an enormous bar will be raised, and Padstow will become what Helston really now is-a town on a lake.

In winter, when there is an unusual amount of fresh water flowing into the lake from the hills around, the water naturally rises and floods the roads, and even some of the houses of Helston. When this is the state of things a curious ancient custom is observed. The parties interested proceed to Penrose, the manor to which Loe Pool is attached, and through the Mayor of Helston present two leather purses, each containing three halfpence, to the lord of the manor for leave to cut the bar and release the pent-up water.

A very small aperture, just sufficient to allow a stream from the lake to act upon the sand, is sufficient to give the fresh water the power to sweep a passage through with a tremendous agitation of the sea outside. Sometimes the task is more laborious, for when a channel, four or five feet wide has been dug from lake to sea often the channel fills up again. But when the head of retained water does burst forth it makes a regular wide river, engaging in violent conflict with the waves of the ocean and making a terrific uproar, while the sea for twenty or even thirty miles is tinged with an ochreous colour. Even at the Scilly Isles they can tell when the bar at Loe has been cut by the altered colour of the water.

In the winter months it is not unusual, during a storm from the south-west, for the sea to make a breach over the bar, so that often seaweed and the broken corks of nets and pots are found on the shores of the lake a long way up. While the channel remains open herrings, flat-fish, and shrimps find their way into the lake and are shut in. The Pool abounds in a fine variety of the pink-fleshed trout and in eels.

The bar, like each spot on this rough coast, has had its tragedies. It was here that the Anson frigate was lost in 1807 with Captain Lydiard and a great many of the crew.

The walk across the top of the wide bar is rough, the feet sinking in at each tread. The cliffs are low and tame all the way to Gunwalloe Cove, and the rough nature of the going requires stout boots.

Gunwalloe, or Winwaloe, a Breton saint to whom Landewednack Church and also two or three Welsh churches are dedicated, was a pupil of St. Budoc's, and died a.d. 529.

The church, said by tradition to be the votive offering of some shipwrecked mariner, literally nestles close under a cliff, and the outer wall of its simple God's acre is washed by the waves. The unpretending, rather squat-looking belfry is detached from the church by about twenty feet. Separate bell-towers are also to be found at Feock, Mylor, Gwennap, Lamorran, and Talland.

The east and west walls are of the fourteenth century and the remainder of the fifteenth. The four pillars on the north side distinctly lean towards the north out of the perpendicular, and impart a singular feeling of insecurity.

There is no screen now, but a staircase on the south-east side in the aisle shows that there was formerly a rood-loft; eight winding stairs remain to this day.

The roof of the south aisle is of open beams elaborately carved. An old Norman font-bowl has been placed beneath the west window, bearing the ancient mark of the Trinity. This bowl is 21 inches in diameter. It is to be regretted that this very ancient relic of old days has not had a pedestal added to it and been reinstated as the church's workable font.

The porch is on the south side and is old. The entrance is through a very flat arch, and the beams within are carved.

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