CHAPTER II
LOOE AND POLPERRO
As we pass along the coast from Whitesand Bay towards Looe we are approaching a spot that is now prized for its exceeding loveliness, but that formerly took high rank among the seaports of the West Country. In appearance and in ancient position it must be classed with Dartmouth and Fowey, which both were likewise notable ports in days when the English navy was in its sturdy infancy—days when the national pulse beat most keenly in the south and east instead of in the north and midlands. Commerce and industrialism have largely changed all that; Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham have assumed metropolitan importance in their densely populated districts. Only Plymouth in the south-west is now of first-class consequence to the nation; and Plymouth is a parvenu compared with Looe and Fowey. The actual decline of these two little towns may not be great, but relatively it is enormous. Yet it deserves a milder term than decay, for the present-day life here is still wholesome and in a certain sense prosperous. It is a gentle and placid prosperity, very largely the happiness of places that have no history. There is the compensation of a glorious past, and there is the further compensation that such places preserve for us the best picture of what Old England truly was in days before she became "a nation of shopkeepers." It is no use to go to the flourishing commercial cities to find traces of earlier England; these cities have usually swept away the traces of antiquity they once possessed—tortuous streets are straightened and widened, quaint old houses are thrown down, the picturesque makes way for the useful; even the old churches are looked at askance, as occupying ground that might be devoted to warehouses and offices. In these quiet corners of the West such temptations have not presented themselves; population is thin, and there is little call for the destructiveness of expansion; mediævalism may still be found here, in the streets and byways, in the houses, and sometimes in the people. The chief peril is in the intrusion of the summer holiday and the "week-end." Irreparable damage is sometimes prompted by the desire to attract visitors. But those who come to the West Country are not usually such as seek for the noise and glare of the conventional watering-place. They come for natural beauty, pure air, and quietude. The recreative pleasure that they crave must be of a different kind from that with which they can daily become familiar if they please. There are theatres and music-halls in town; it does not add to the wittiness of the Pierrot or the humour of the comic singer to find them exercising their functions on a hot dusty beach, densely packed with humanity, strewn with torn newspapers, burnt matches, orange skins, and banana peelings. Yet those who feel in this manner are a minority, otherwise certain popular resorts would be less flourishing.
The crowds that flock to the average watering-place may leave their toils behind them, but they apparently wish to carry their amusements. Even the jaded mill-hand asks for the congested variety entertainments of Blackpool or of Douglas, rather than for the solitudes of shore and woodland. In moments of pessimism one may fear that the very capacity of peaceful enjoyment is being killed, and that ceaseless grinding work destroys the power of resting. When the ordinary tourist visits places of peaceful solitariness he usually does so in crowds that rifle and ravish the sacredness of this solitude; he ruthlessly desecrates that which he does not understand; he never learns its secrets; the most commonplace of public parks would have responded fully to his needs and their gratification. But the West has long been a resort of that wiser, certainly better endowed, minority that seeks for direct personal contact with Nature, face to face, and not merely as seen through the glass windows of huge pavilions or from the seats of fashion-haunted promenades. Therefore the majority of Western watering-places are not yet spoiled; their physical features have often assisted to preserve them. They have not lost the quaint simplicity of their parochialism, to become national if not cosmopolitan. Constant intercourse with even the most sober of visitors must take something from the provincialism, the cherished traditions and local customs, the personal peculiarities and dialect. But there is still a good deal left; there is still the possibility of reaching Nature in her inmost sanctuaries, and at the same time winning some of those elusive and shy confidences that are the charm of locality.
Photo by][Gibson & Sons.
LOOE.
In this sense Looe, or rather the two Looes, are purely delightful. When we liken the place to Fowey or Dartmouth we must grant it the advantages of being closer to the sea; it stands actually at the mouth of its river, instead of retired within protecting sea-gates. To some extent it has to submit to the tender mercies of the tripper, for Plymouth steamboats are fond of bringing excursionists here; apart from these invasions, the spot is as peaceful as could be desired except by the veriest misanthropist. Approached by rail from Liskeard, the journey is made in leisurely backward and forward stages, the engine being reversed at times; so that passengers, who are requested not to get out till "the train is at rest," sometimes imagine themselves to be carried back to their point of departure. It is an amusing little line, but it serves its purpose; and indeed has a definite usefulness in reminding us that we have come away from bustle and hurry to a region of placid leisure and quietness. Arrived at the journey's end, one at first wonders how the people get in and out of their houses, so higgledy-piggledy do they appear to be piled one on top of the other; but the mystery may be solved by exploring the lanes and allies. Deliveries of produce are still often made by panniered donkeys, in quaint old-world fashion. There are two Looes, East and West, and two rivers of the same name which meet above the bridge. East Looe belongs to the parish of St. Martin's, and West Looe to that of Talland; both were granted a corporation in the time of Elizabeth, and each, before the Reform Bill, returned two representatives to Parliament. The credit of having sent twenty vessels and 315 men to the siege of Calais is given to East Looe, but it may be guessed that all the residents on the[Pg 33] [Pg 34] [Pg 35] banks of the Looe rivers joined in this great patriotic effort. Those were the days of the town's fiercest activities, though its business as a port trading with the Continent endured till long afterwards; and the pilchard-fishery was once more important than it is now. Pilchards now for the most part keep further west. There is still much fishing done, and some small coastwise shipping gives occasional bustle to the rugged little banjo-shaped pier. There was anciently a great animosity between the two Looes, as was natural with such near neighbours; and the two still nourish a lurking contempt for each other, not always successfully concealed. They are at one, however, in their scorn for the pretensions of Fowey. An intense local patriotism, that really cannot tolerate outside claims, is a feature of many Western towns; a man from the next parish is almost as much a foreigner as if he came from "the shires." The two Looes have been brought to an enforced companionship, but they are not mutually conciliatory. East Looe can claim to be the business portion of the town, having the pier and the principal shops, while West Looe is more select and residential. The debate as to the greater antiquity may be left for the two to settle between themselves, but its harbour and pier must long have given East Looe the practical precedence. At the harbour some coal and limestone are imported, and there is a shipment of fish, bark, granite, and china-clay. East Looe boasts a further relic of its past in the ancient pillory preserved at the porch of its town hall. St. Martin's, the parish church, has a Norman door, and a font that appears to be of the same date; there is also a more modern church, St. Anne's, whose dedication recalls that of the chapel which formerly stood on the old fourteen-arch bridge, long since displaced. At West Looe the church of St. Nicholas was once used as a town hall and room for general entertainment, and very curious indeed were some of the amusements that used to come here.