Many will be aware of the name of Richard Carew of Antony, near Torpoint. He was the author of the Survey of Cornwall, published in 1602, the first such history written in the British Isles and a window onto life in Cornwall in the late 1500s. His son and grandsons are less well known but … Continue reading How the Cornish Carews lost their heads
Category: social history
How short were the Cornish?
What was the height of the Cornish in times past? As an east Cornwall man born and bred, when I first moved to west Cornwall way back in the mid-1970s I was struck by the number of rather short men and women I saw. This may be merely anecdotal but there’s a persistent belief that … Continue reading How short were the Cornish?
A game fit only for barbarians
It's the weekend, traditionally the time to play and watch sport, although at the moment watching is a mite more difficult than normal. Three hundred years ago the most watched sport in Cornwall would have been wrestling. The other sport associated with Cornwall was hurling. Here's an extract from chapter 7 of my forthcoming Poldark's … Continue reading A game fit only for barbarians
The Cornish nightingale
The common nightingale is rarely heard in Cornwall. What’s left of its shrinking habitat (numbers have fallen by more than a half in the UK since 1995) is mainly found in south-east England. The singing is done by the male bird but in Cornwall the nickname ‘the Cornish nightingale’ was given to a woman. Fanny … Continue reading The Cornish nightingale
A Cornish colony in Mexico
In 1826 the West Briton carried a report from Redruth: a miner recently back from overseas had ‘astonished the natives by appearing in the streets in the dress usually worn by the Mexican miners.’ The migration links between Cornwall and Mexico in the 1800s have been less often covered than the much more numerous flows … Continue reading A Cornish colony in Mexico
The good old days in quiet Cornwall
Sepia-toned photos of quiet nineteenth century Cornish towns and villages make us conjure up imagined memories of those peaceful days of our great-grandparents. But records of the police courts at two Cornish towns serve to qualify this nostalgic glow somewhat. The towns were St Austell in mid-Cornwall and Helston in the west. The time was … Continue reading The good old days in quiet Cornwall
Housing in rural Cornwall in medieval times
The other day I was asked what houses would have looked like in early medieval Cornwall. At the time I couldn’t put my hands on a good source but have since rediscovered some notes on an article that appeared in Cornish Archaeology back in 1971 on the deserted village of Tresmorn at St Gennys parish … Continue reading Housing in rural Cornwall in medieval times
Ambushed in a Cornish village
Four Lanes is a village on the higher land south of Redruth, straddling the road to Helston. As people rush through it on their way to school, work or shops they probably give little thought to the place, a rather nondescript and uninspiring ribbon development. Their main preoccupation will be to find their elusive brake … Continue reading Ambushed in a Cornish village
Bridging the Tamar
At the very margins of Cornwall, the River Tamar is nonetheless central to Cornish identity. Countless books refer to the river ‘almost’ extending far enough to make Cornwall an island. When Brunel’s railway bridge spanned the estuary at Saltash in 1859 it was widely viewed as ending Cornwall’s remoteness. Even sober industrial archaeologists have written … Continue reading Bridging the Tamar
Pisky-led? Piskies and Cornish difference
Pixies or piskies are little people, about knee-high. They live in the otherworld and are usually invisible to humans. But if you look very carefully you might just spot them cavorting around in circles on a remote moor at the dead of night. Sometimes they will help farmers and others with their chores; sometimes they … Continue reading Pisky-led? Piskies and Cornish difference
