Cornwall: Miscellaneous memorabilia

Mevagissey mermaid

Hanging on a wall in Mevagissey, above the most fascinating shop I saw in Cornwall, was this beautiful creature. I assume she’s a mermaid and, from the rear attachments, she would appear to have been a ship’s figurehead. Such figureheads adorned the prows of most ships from the 1500s right through to the mid 1800s and, though initially carved in wood, they were later made in lighter materials to reduce their weight, which could have a negative impact on how well a ship sailed.

Mermaids, of course, go back much earlier than the 1500s. In Ancient Greek mythology they were the sirens who seduced sailors, luring them to a watery grave, though there is a parallel alternative myth, reported by Pliny the Elder, that nude or semi-nude women could calm stormy seas. This more positive belief seems eventually to have prevailed as the mid nineteenth century saw bare-breasted mermaids appear once more as ships’ figureheads, and I assume that may well be when this Mevagissey mermaid dates from.

Mevagissey: male figurehead

Mevagissey was also home to another figurehead, firmly fixed to the first storey of an old building overlooking the harbour from Middle Wharf. This figurehead looks to be carved from wood and is male, from his more formal attire, perhaps a ship’s captain.

There is a small maritime museum in Mevagissey though, unfortunately, it was closed the day of our visit. I tried emailing their curator to ask for information on both these figureheads but got no response so, unless a chance reader can provide more information, the history of this chap must remain a mystery until I next visit Mevagissey.

Police station lamp in St Ives

And now for something completely different, as the various types of lights, lamps and lanterns that can be seen in streets, hanging off buildings, highlighting the entrances to public houses are other features that often capture my attention.

I noticed this old lamp hanging out the front of the Police Station in downtown St Ives. It shows the coat of arms of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, who are responsible for policing in the southern English counties of Cornwall and Devon. Though I haven’t been able to determine how old the lamp is, I can tell you that the motto on the coat of arms is In Auxilium Omnium, which translates as ‘To the assistance of everybody’. Rather surprisingly, each district police force in Britain seems to have its own local motto – I’d have thought there’d be one for the whole nation.

Light in Tintagel

And my final piece of fascinating-to-me-but-probably-weird-to-most-people group of miscellaneous memorabilia from my Christmas holiday in Cornwall is this object discovered in Tintagel, the town forever associated in most people’s minds with the legendary King Arthur.

As we all know, Arthur had a band of knights who were his right-hand men in all kinds of tricky situations so I assume the maker of this light stand had in mind the knights in armour during the design process – I think he might have confused his time periods though, as I’m not sure Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table would have worn this type of armour. Still, it’s a fun piece and it certainly brings a whole new meaning to the term ‘night light’!

Cornwall: Magnificent Mevagissey

I know it’s no longer fashionable to use alliteration when composing a title for a blog / article / whatever but I couldn’t help myself. Mevagissey is another of Cornwall’s magical, captivating, picturesque, charming and quaint old fishing villages, and it really was magnificent.

Mevagissey is named after two saints, St Meva (or Mevan) and St Issey, who were, apparently, Irish saints who brought Christianity to the tribes of Cornwall, but human occupation in this place goes back much further. Bronze age arrows have been found locally, and the Romans had a camp, named Colonia, at nearby Chapel Point.

The traditional industry is, of course, fishing, with large quantities of sardines and pilchards appearing in regular seasonal shoals along much of this coast. Several of the historic buildings around the walled harbour relate to the fishing industry, and would have housed barrel makers, sail makers and boat repairers, as well as net lofts and basket weavers. According to a sign in the village, in its heyday the pilchard fishermen landed between 12 and 15 thousand tonnes per annum – that’s a lot of fish! At that time, there were up to 30 large fishing boats operating out of Mevagissey but nowadays both the number and size of the vessels are much smaller.

The sign also explained why the narrow streets of Cornish fishing villages like Mevagissey meander circuitously around the harbour, rather than being in any kind of grid pattern. In the 18th century Mevagissey was notorious for being a smugglers’ lair, with brandy, gin, tea, silks and fine lace, as well as tobacco, all passing quietly through, and the suggestion is that the town’s streets were deliberately ‘designed to impede the efforts of the enforcement officers’. Sneaky!

We meandered with the streets, walked up the hill for a panoramic view, walked out along both sides of the enclosing harbour walls, had the obligatory Cornish pasties for our lunch (backs to the wall again so as to deter the gull pasty thieves), and mooched around the gifty shops (still hunting for that elusive present for our cottage owners – great excuse, eh?). It was all simply splendid!

I’ll round off our visit with a couple of pub signs. The 16th-century Ship Inn sports a glorious sailing ship and it has a fabulous story of a resident ghost, a former landlady who protects the inn from flooding. And the Fountain Inn is even older – the building dates from the 15th century, though wasn’t always a pub. The interior still contains evidence of its use for pilchard processing in the 18th and 19th centuries. We visited neither of these places but both definitely sound like they’re worth a visit ... or six! Obviously, I’ll need to go back one day.