Volume 19 (2019)

The Transactions of the Sabine Baring-Gould Appreciation Society Volume 19 (2019) Contents: Introduction 1 Talks given at the Tavistock Meeting, October 2018 Locating Curgenven (Roger Bristow) 2 Mrs Curgenven of Curgenven (Becky Smith and Pat Tansell) 12 The Folklore of Bodmin (Katherine Stansfield) 19 Priests and Parsons in the Novels of Baring-Gould (Norman Wallwork) 28 Additional material: Winefred – A Story of the Chalk Cliffs (Roger Bristow) 49 The Undercliffs Reserve (Donald Campbell) 62 Notes on the contributors 66 The Transactions of the Sabine Baring-Gould Appreciation Society The original talks from which the articles in this journal are drawn were given at the annual gathering of the Sabine Baring-Gould Appreciation Society held at Tavistock, 5 to 7 October 2018 with the exception of ‘Winefred – A Story of the Chalk Cliffs’ and ‘The Undercliffs National Reserve’, which were presented at the 2005 meeting in Seaton and which have not been published previously. The copyright for the articles appearing in this publication rests with the original author Copyright © 2019 Published for SBGAS by Greenjack Publications, 59 Roberts Close, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, GL7 2RP Transactions Editor: Martin Graebe e-mail: [email protected] Phone: 01285 651 104 This is the final issue of the SBGAS Transactions as the Society was wound up in March 2019. Introduction The last Annual Gathering of the Sabine Baring-Gould Appreciation Society was held in Tavistock in October 2018, and featured papers concerned with Baring- Gould’s novel Mrs Curgenven of Curgenven, and other relevant topics. Roger Bristow talked about the locations mentioned by Baring-Gould in Mrs Curgenven and the way in which Baring-Gould placed his characters in the landscape. Becky Smith and Pat Tansell talked about the construction of the novel and the actors in it. Katherine Stansfield told us about the folklore of Bodmin Moor and explained some of the superstitions in Mrs Curgenven. Widening the picture, Norman Wallwork described the various men of the cloth that Baring-Gould described in his novels and the often-negative pictures that he drew of them. They included, of course, the Rev. Pamphlet, from Mrs Curgenven, whom Baring-Gould treated without mercy. In this, the final issue of the Transactions of the Sabine Baring-Gould Appreciation Society, we have taken the opportunity to include two of the papers from the 2005 meeting which were not published because of the illness of the founding Editor, Phillip Weller. The meeting took place in Seaton and featured Baring-Gould’s novel Winefred – A Story of the Chalk Cliffs. This features another of Baring-Gould’s ‘strong women’ – Winefred Marley. Roger Bristow gave one of his inimitable introductions to the locations used in the novel. Donald Campbell talked about the Undercliff between Seaton and Beer which is a site of Special Scientific Interest with unique physical characteristics which were used by Baring-Gould as a setting for his novel. Thank you to these contributors, some of whom have appeared regularly in the pages of the SBGAS Transactions and to all those who have contributed over the years. This series of journals will, I am sure, prove to be of great value to future followers of Sabine Baring-Gould. Martin Graebe 1 Locating Curgenven Roger Bristow In the novel, we have a surname and a village with the name Curgenven. We know that Sabine used some unusual names for the titles of his novels: Mehalah, Bladys, Nebo etc which sound implausible, but in fact are real names. So, is Curgenven based on a real person and a real village. The name Curgenven The name CURGENVEN appears to have been an invention by the Reverend Thomas LEAN (born 1644 in Lelant, Cornwall), who changed his name to Curgenven round about 1680. The name persists to the present day. Locating Curgenven Sabine clearly based his ‘Curgenven’ on a real village – all the clues are in the novel and by piecing them together one by one I think that I have identified with a 99% certainty, the village on which this was based. Early in the story, we are told that Curgenven lies on the edge of a granite mass. At this stage, this could be one of five of the west country granites. But the proximity of Liskeard narrows it down to the Bodmin Granite. We can quickly narrow down the search further because Percival Curgenven, who lives in Liskeard, has to live no more than 9 miles from his cousin and patron, Captain Curgenven of Curgenven House, in order to receive an annuity of £150. If you now plot all the localities mentioned in the book you end up with quite a cluster across Bodmin Moor. But if you remove all the sites that only feature in the book because of Esther’s and Justinian’s flights across the moor, we are getting closer to identifying Curgenven [Figure 1.1]. When Theresa sets off with the jewel box to meet Physic, she passes the Cheesewring [Figure 1.2]. This is a pile of granite slabs 360m high. The name derives from the resemblance of the piled slabs to a "cheesewring", a press-like device that was once used to make cheese. It is adjacent to the Cheesewring Quarry [SX259 723] which provided the stone cladding for London Bridge. Having passed the Cheesewring, she arrives at the Hurlers. Here, Sabine has one of his digressions from the story and relates how the Hurlers came into being. One 2 Sunday, men of three [unnamed] parishes met on the moor to hurl a silver ball to see which parish sent forth the best ‘hurler’. But in an interlude they started to throw stones and granite slabs to the top of the hill one on top of the other and which now constitutes the Cheesewring. Then the men of two of the parishes, Linkinhorne and Southill were faint and would throw no more until they had drunk ale. Then the wrath of Heaven was kindled against the Sabbath breakers and all were turned into stone. Sabine only identifies two of the parishes – South Hill and Linkinhorne – South Hill need be considered no further as it lies too far to the east of Bodmin Granite. Linkinhorne parish, in which the Hurlers lie, has a vicarage, but no rectory [Jane Curgenven’s father lived in a Rectory] or ‘Big’ house. For reasons given below, I conclude that the third parish was North Hill Parish. It is a parish with a Church and adjoining rectory, and with a stately house, Trebartha Hall, located someway away from the Church and rectory, on the northern edge of the parish and close to edge of the Bodmin Granite [Figure 1.3]. It was a parish with which Sabine was very familiar: 1). Through his excavations at Trewortha Marsh and excursions in the surrounding areas. He describes the marsh only briefly in Mrs Curgenven as ‘a wild and boggy area’. A fuller description is given in the Book of Cornwall (pp. 83-5) accompanied by two plates, but of course there is a full description of An Ancient Settlement on Trewortha Marsh in the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, 1892, Vol. 11, pp. 57-70 and Vol. 13, pp.289-90. 2). He is familiar with the church, dedicated to St Torney whose Holy Well is situated by the River Lynher. In A Book of Cornwall (pp. 83, 88) he refers to ‘a curious monument to a chrisom child’ in the church [chrisom - a white cloth or robe formerly put on a baby at baptism as a symbol of innocence: it was used as a shroud if the child died within a month of birth]. 3). The church and rectory are some distance from Trebartha Hall. Sabine states (p. 2) that the two are half-a-mile apart – actually it is three-quarters of a mile, but whatever, it is quite a walk between the two. 4). TREBARTHA Hall is only a short distance from the edge of the Bodmin Granite. In the Book of Cornwall (p. 83), Sabine describes Trebartha Hall as ‘… one of the loveliest sites in England, second in my mind only to Bolton Abbey’. In the novel, Sabine describes Curgenven Manor (p.12) as ‘A large house, a Queen Anne mansion of grey stone with granite dressings, and tall windows telling of stately rooms within’. It was burnt down in1949. 3 5). Sabine spent the night there on Aug. 21st 1891 (Wawman, 2009, p. 182). This for me clinches it – Trebartha Hall is the basis for Curgenven Manor. Tolmenna? Tolmenna is Esther’s home. It is somewhere on the moor, but not specifically identified. The first mention (p.87) of Tolmenna is when Esther says ‘… that it is under Boarrah [Bearah]. The next mention (p.272) is when Theresa goes to meet Physic with the jewel box. It places Tolmenna beyond The Hurlers, but this seems too far (6km) from Curgenven to be plausible. The flights of Esther and Justinian [See Figure 1.4] Esther’s first flight takes her from Tolmenna, along the Withy Brook, around Trewortha Marsh to the Grey Mare and then on to Tolborough Tor There, there is a row of five stones running away to the south-east from the large cairn at the top. Sabine describes it (p.298) ‘… with a cairn crowning the summit, a chambered cairn with a passage leading into its depth, where dwelt the pixies. On p.302 he refers to ‘… pixies dancing round the cairn’. The flight continues to Coddah Tor and close to Garrow Farm where Esther saw ‘Already under the granite-crowned Garrah, a star shone forth, where in a solitary farm [Garrow Farm?] a lamp had been kindled’.

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