27 SEPTEMBER 1946, Page 14

CORNISH VILLAGES

SIR,—In The Spectator of September 6th Janus remarks on the absence of picturesque villages in Cornwall. Perhaps this is explained by the following extract from Essays in Cornish History, by Charles Henderson, whose lamented death was such a severe loss to Cornwall and its history: " Villages are not commonly met with, and those which exist are rarely ancient. Like all Celtic people, the Cornish preferred to live in scattered hamlets. Farms were of such small dimensions that a retinue of labourers was unnecessary, and consequently villages where such labourers would have lived did not exist. Cornishmen in the past have rarely known village life. Parish life there has always been, but in a very different sense from parish life beyond the Tamar."—Yours obediently, The Rectory, Burrough Green, Newmarket. HOWARD P. HART.