On the top of the mainland outworks is a doorway which in an eerie manner opens upon space, and a sheer drop of many hundreds of feet. It shows how much the sea is encroaching. Once upon a time this probably led to the look-out tower. Now the very foundations of that tower are gone and presently the masonry will go too, and the waters will roar unhindered between the mainland and the island.
The Beach and Barras Head
Far below is a tiny dark beach, the colour of which is explained when having climbed down a wooden stairway clamped to the rock—the only means of approach—it is found to consist entirely of rounded pieces of slate. They are of all weights and sizes, but there is no sand, no shells, nothing but slate. Opposite the Castle rock is Barras Head, and there at last the big modern hotel can be ignored and the wanderer lie out on the short, dry turf with the long line of hazy coast to either hand and, before him, the islands white with sea-birds and pink with thrift and the boundless stretch of sunlit waters.
"To be by the translucent green, the blue Deepening to purple where the weed is dense! To hear the homing call as the brave sweep Of wings is folded on a sea-girt rock! To lie in golden warmth while tow'ring waves Break with a lazy roar along the cliffs— To lie and dream."
It is here that Swinburne, venturing on a swim, was nearly drowned. The same story is told of him on the French coast, only there it was Guy de Maupassant who brought him back in safety. The great French writer is reported to have said that the little English poet, with his bladder-like head and attenuated body, struck him as hardly sane. Yet it was Maupassant who died mad, not Swinburne.
An Inscribed Stone
At Tintagel was discovered in 1888 a stone on which is inscribed IMP C G Val Lic Licin, i.e., Imperatore Cæsare Galerio Valerio Liciniano Licinio, who reigned 307–324 a.d. It is evident therefore that whether Arthur was here or not the Romans were. What a pity that no one has been able to discover any satisfactory evidence in enduring stone of the British king's existence!
The cruciform church on the cliff is largely Norman, but portions of it belong to almost every succeeding age and period. Some have even held that it contains Saxon work, but the authorities are not agreed.
A Dangerous Occupation
On the way to Trebarwith along the cliffs—and Trebarwith is a narrow rocky opening up which the tide rushes with tremendous force—are quarries. It is strange to see men, with the carelessness of long habit, walk to the very edge of the cliff, lie down and, with their legs hanging over, feel with their feet for the rough ladder that leads down the rock-face to the quarry opening; or to see them stand on a plank that juts out over the sea, and is maintained in its position by a chunk of rock, casually adjusted. If the plank should give, or the rock roll aside! But a man stands there from morning till night loading and unloading slates.
The Battle of Gafulford
Inland from Tintagel is Camelford, with its local tradition of a battle. At Slaughter Bridge, near Worthyvale, one and a half miles from Camelford, fragments of armour, ornaments of bridles, weapons, have been found, and in 823 a battle was certainly fought at some place then called Gafulford between the Saxons of Devon and the Celts of Cornwall, a battle in which the Cornish were defeated. May not this unknown Gafulford be Camelford? Writers have suggested that this may have been the scene of Arthur's last battle; but the weight of tradition is against this theory, a more likely place having been pointed out in Scotland.
Arthur's Hall
While on the subject of the legendary British king, it would be interesting to see a supposed feasting-chamber, which from before the time of Henry VIII. was known as Arthur's Hall. South-west of Brown Willy, it is about five miles from Camelford, in the parish of St. Breward. It appears at present as a pit hollowed out in a light sandy soil. This excavation, which is 159 ft. long, is enclosed by an earthen bank with slabs of granite about 7 ft. high, placed evenly on the inner side. The absence of true walls makes it doubtful whether it was roofed over, but it may have had a self-supporting skeleton roof, covered with a web of branches or with sods.
Lanteglos
As is so often the case in Cornwall, the Camelford church is at some distance from the place to which it ministers, being, indeed, a mile and a half away at Lanteglos. In the churchyard is a celebrated stone with an inscription in eleventh-century Saxon capitals: "ÆLSELTH & GENERETH WROHTE THYSNE SYBSTEL FOR ÆLWYNEYS SAUL & FOR HEYSEL." About a quarter of a mile from the church is the well-known entrenchment called Castle Goff, with a single rampart and ditch.
The Forty Brewers of Helston
Below Lanteglos is the manor of Helston, and Domesday records "that there were forty brewers on the royal manor of Henliston." This is the only mention in the great survey of brewers as an item of population, and forty seems a good many for one place. Did they brew all the beer in the county; and was it Henliston ale that so appalled Andrew Borde when he thought to visit Cornwall, that he turned back saying: "it looked as if pigges had wrasteled in it"?
The River
Camelford is not far from either of the sources of the Camel, and the upper moorland reaches of the twin streams abound in charming spots where the water frets among boulders and swirls in sunshine and shadow among ferns and wild flowering shrubs. The sisters do not join forces till they reach Kea Bridge, over ten miles from their source, but as soon as depth allows of their existence sweet small trout are plentiful.
The Delabole Slate
Between Camelford and Tintagel are the now silent quarries of North Delabole (or Dennyball). The road winds between great walls and under archways of slate which look as if a touch would send the whole erection sliding and rushing down upon the wayfarer. But the slates were set up by cunning fingers and have withstood the gales of this coast for a score of years. Very different is their mournful creeper-grown desolation from the arid activity of Delabole. The approach to the high grey windy street is marked by deep ferny lanes. Here are thirty acres of quarry and rubble heap, a hideous excavation. In 1602 the quarry, already old, was 900 ft. long, in 1882 it had grown to 1300 ft., and it is growing still. The best slate is called bottom stone and lies at a depth of from 25 to 40 fathoms, for the quarry is now over 400 ft. deep. Beautiful crystals the so-called Cornish diamonds, are found in these workings, truly the only beautiful things in a most dreary place.
St. Teath
When the church at little sleepy St. Teath was restored in 1877, two massive Norman responds at the east end of the north aisle were discovered. There is also some good roof timber and a little ancient glass. The pulpit bears the arms of the Carminows and their motto: "Cala Rag Whetlow"—a straw for a tell-tale. It was John of Gaunt, "time-honoured Lancaster," that Prince who, though never a king, was the ancestor of so many, who upon true evidence found Carminow of Cornwall "to be descended of a lineage armed 'Azure a bend Or' since the time of King Arthur;" and indeed the Carminows were certainly here at the Conquest. They are now extinct, the last of the family, a devoted Royalist, dying in 1646.
In the graveyard, on a slab fastened to the church, is the following epitaph:
"Here lyeth the body of Robert Bake, son of Samuel Bake, who was buried the xxx day of January, 16—. But what cheere-up altho our sonne be gone Altho his bodiy must be racke and toren With filthy bitter bitinge wormes of dust And be consumd