A . CORNISH PARISH A History oLthe_Parish of Constantine.- By Charles
Henderson. (Published for the Royal Institution of Cornwall. 7s. 6d.) WHEN Charles Henderson, Fellow of Corpus (Oxford), died at the age of 34, he had already a more remarkable, a more minute and extensive-knowledge of Cornwall and everything Cornish than, anyone who has ever lived. His motto might well have been' Nihir Corinibiense alienum a me pia°. His knowledge was an eictraordiriary achievement in one so young ; but Cornwall was his -unique passion from his earliest years. He left behind him a mass of documents, a- magnificent and ordered collection of notes .01:1 Cornish history, and a few . more or less conipleted. works. 'This history of Constantine is the first of these. works to be. published posthumously, apart from a_ volume of his.. collected essays.. The Royal' Institution of COrnwall has been able to issue it at a cheap price, for it is a substantial Voluine; owing to the existence of a Memorial Fund partly_ for this purpose.. The book is a model of what a parish-history shoUld be ; it is most thorough, based at every point upon docuMents in • public or private hands, the whole• picture inade• living and real by Charles Henderson's genius for topography,: his loving . knowledge of every field and building and road, even; feature in the Cornish landscape.
Many summer visitors to Cornwall -must 'knoV, the -parish of Constantine, for you_poss through it -on 'the way to -the Lizard and it lies beautifully flaked utkai—then-oidi bank 'of
•
'the 'Helfer& River. Part of it is high stony moorland; -and - it was here -that stood the *eat ,Maeri Rcick, one of the chief Sights in .Cornwall until it was wantonly destroyed in the last century' . Really. the Cornish are a lot of vandals ! For here .,toO stood Oip tallest menhir in the county, the only one coMparable tp. the BretoO tnegalittt..52. until; the century before it was cloven up by the farmer into twenty gate posts. How interesting almost everY Cornish parish-must have been before these barbarians got to Work ! The rest of Constantine • is gOod fertile land sloping down to those charming-places Upon the Helford -River, Port NaVas and Gweek. Here stand the old faiths, some of the houses still containing Elizabethan work,- details of gables and finials and Mullioned windows delightftilly sketched' by the- author. - :- The chief of them is Mertheri where lived the Reskymers ; William Reskymer was gentleman of the Chamber to' Henry VIII, and there is a lovely Holbein portrait of him at Hampton Court. Charles Henderson has given us practiCallY a history of the family, as well as of its. well-known. connexion, John Skewys, an able and influential lawyer in the-service of'Wolsey, and translator of Matthew Paris. Amongst a mass of his- .. forieal information, there is a new reference to" the Cornish language being still spoken by the squires in this 'parish in the reign of Elizabeth , ftis interesting to note how many th Bretons 'there were in the coin* up to - the end of the sixteenth . century ; '.and -there is a great deal of material of the utmost importance for the study Of Cornisli place-names.
• The work of editing the manuscript has been satisfactorily performed by ',Canon Doble. But it would. have been an advantage. to have included a map of the parish.
A. L. RowsE.
Previous page
