Cornish Snow in March

We are a couple of two halves, the Artist and the Druid - one with deep Cornish heritage just a generation or so back, before World War I and the battle of the Somme, the other Sussex through and through from East to West. It has been said that many Cornishmen, when the Tin mines began to fail, migrated from their own Cornish Country, eastwards to Sussex in search of work, labouring upon the Downs and fishing along the coast, indeed Brighton, at its centre, is still today an amalgamation of cultures, nationalities and faiths all gathered in one place, so who knows where the West Sussex generations range from, we two could well be more of a pair than we realise.

Certainly, there comes a time of year, usually in that post festive lull between the Solstice and the equinox, when both our thoughts turn westwards and plans for new adventures are discussed, most often over a pint of Doombar or Betty Stoggs, a warm pasty in hand. Memories are jogged, drawers opened, a faded photograph of a childhood visit, Ernest Granville Hall, then the maternal grandfather, stands beside the gates of Liskeard school with his own memories a small boy and a carpenter Father. Another rather grainy picture of a smaller boy, with Aunties, on Ilfracombe Tunnels beach on a childhood holiday by steam train to his paternal grandmother’s home. This year during a particularly freezing, icy spell of weather memories surfaced, recent memories no more than a handful of years old, of an early spring trip to Cornwall when they too had been host to that most unusual Cornish weather of snow.

Cornish Snow in March

A journey to Cornwall, across Hampshire, Wiltshire and Devon, not only in hope of adventure, but in search of a glimpse of an ancient heritage, maybe that very place where ancestral breath hung in morning misty air, booted feet trod throughout daily endeavours in a village they called home.

We began early, not long after 7am. The sky was overcast, hung with grey cloud, barely a glimmer of silver light seeming to penetrate the gloom until well into the journey across counties. Hazel bushes along the roadsides hung with aging catkins now long and thin, coloured a dull golden bronze, instead of their previously fluffy lemon yellow such a welcomed sight at the beginning of the year. The only real brightness in the vegetation coming from splashes of yellow, primroses and daffodils crowding below salix and goat willow and the creamy white blossom of blackthorn. The chalk streams of Hampshire are always pretty, sometimes inhabited with white swans and daintily high stepping Egrets. Wiltshire fields are brown, straight furrowed plough awaiting winter/spring crops to germinate, sometimes scattered with Lapwing and rooks, others have sheep munching contentedly in fields of beat tops in that age old strip grazing winter tradition, or lazily grazing lowland slopes, some already with lambs at foot. Crossing the border into Devon we take the lower route below Dartmoor, the heights of Haytor rocks standing tall against a still grey sky. This same sky begins to let loose thin flurries of snow drifting upon the wind as Plymouth approached with Brunel’s famous bridge, the river Tamar and the crossing into another land – a land of history, cream and pies, of ancient standing stones, Arthurian legends, Faeries and the Floral Dance – and as if in pre-arranged greeting the sun appears, briefly, a glimmer, a glimpse of brightness, tipping its hat in salute but quickly to be extinguished by more swirling snow that again disperses into twirls and flurries of white dust, retreating up and over Bodmin way.

Cornwall – Kernow Country we salute you.

Along almost half of the length of Cornwall we travel, to the Cathedral city of Truro and on to Chacewater. A typical Cornish village where at the end of the 19th century the Mother of Grandfather Ernest made her humble home. Mary Elizabeth Alexandra Moyle, daughter of the Doctor of St Mary’s, Isle of Scilly, came to teach at the little Chacewater village school. It was here that she met one John Hall, son of the village builder/carpenter and Post Mistress Sarah, who followed Mary to her home on Scilly and married her, bringing her and their baby back to a new life in this Cornish village. We were fascinated to find, in a second hand books shop, such shops of which we are constantly drawn to, a slim blue book titled “The Blizard of ‘91’” which tells of a historical blizzard of snow and ice the like of which Cornish locals could but imagine, that blocked lanes and cut whole villages off from their neighbours. Ironic that we should be visiting at the end of a recent spell of such unusual weather. It appears that at this time John had travelled to America, possibly on mine building business, and it is hard for us to imagine poor Mary left alone with, now three, tiny children, to cope in such conditions. With no heating and most probably just a cold tap, the situation must surely have been an incredibly tough, traumatic time for the young mother. We can only hope that she had the support of her Husband’s family at the village post office along the road in Fore Street.

On arriving in Chacewater our base for our adventure is a quintessentially Cornish cottage which hugs the very corner of the village square, just three or four doors along from the bakery selling tempting Cornish treats and indeed that very same post office, sadly now long closed, once run by Mrs Sarah Hall and her daughter whist her husband, John senior, went about the business of keeping the village and local mine in good repair. It is a cottage, once home to the local Mine Captain, and at one time the local midwife, of two-foot-thick walls, floors that rise and fall, a step up here a step down there, mind your head into the kitchen and up uneven, steep, wonky stairs to two rooms that seem to be on totally different levels. From somewhere there is the constant, distant sound of running water, just where does the village leat run before it reappears across the other side of the town square? Life bustles past the front door, and the back, where a narrow, cobbled path twists downhill from close to the school, past Mr Hall’s builders yard and horse stable, down to the bottom of Fore Street. Towering above the cottage roof tops behind, is a tall tree in which pewter grey headed, blue eyed Jackdaws gather, flying up and down and around calling and joshing in squeaky harsh voices – Jack, Jack, Jack – only quieting as darkness falls. The bedroom skylight is lit by starlight and a bright cold morning dawns to the tune of a singing blackbird soon followed by the jackdaws.

There is a little warmth in the sun as we stare up at the mischievous birds reminding us of another bright morning on the north coast of Cornwall where we encountered a joyous flock of Jackdaw cousins, the scarlet billed Chough. The memory of that day brings a smile; we stood with the sun warm on our hair, behind us the sharp moor grass and mosses damp at our backs, in front the ocean all shades of turquoise and green topped with silver spray. He had been peering in windows and poking around the ruins of engine sheds, she had stood in quiet contemplation of the colours and textures of stone and rock, when all at once there was a cry and a swirl of shining black feather as a gang, a chattering, of Chough, all chasing and calling around chimney and derelict rooftop, no sooner arriving than they were gone in an instant, leaving nothing other than their voices and an indrawn breath from their onlookers.

Fuelled by coffee we walk around the village, peep through the dust on the old post office windows imagining Sarah at the counter, her daughter maybe in charge of the drapery sales in the back room. Across the street, along the leat that chuckles and sparkles, banks are edged with celandines and primroses, then up along to walk the old mine road, so full of history, its entrance squeezed between cottages. Is that sound the ghosts of countless miners feet, working boots sparking against cobble and stone, in sunshine and drizzle, fine summer mornings and dark winter nights, voices raised in song, the swinging candle lamps, the copper and tin, the trudge back and forth, the day shifts, the 10, maybe 12 hour in the darkness and the damp. There is an atmosphere, a feeling that the sound of those footsteps still blows on the wind at dawn and darkening dusk. As the hill rises the view widens, the village from above, quietly grazing sheep, pigs snuffling in mud beneath ancient, gnarled apple trees. Thorn trees, still late winter bare but green below where ferns and pennywort grow between the stones of wall and Cornish hedge that edge the lane. At the end of the lane the remains of the Wheel Busy mine buildings, some in the process of restoration, others a mass of dark green ivy and rust red iron, spread before us flanked by a small row of mine worker’s cottages, one intriguingly named Moyle Cottage, (Mary’s family name, we know that one of her uncles worked with an important steam engine engineer and married his sister, their son later coming to Wheel Busy mine to work on and build its engines). Ghosts indeed.

By 2pm, true to the forecast, the weather changes, the clouds gathering and thickening until they drop the promised snow, whitening the gardens and roof tops, the jackdaw calls are quieter now, conversation more muted as they gather atop their tree to mutter about the weather. The next day the sky clears again, how strange it is to see the Cornish countryside white with snow. The hills resembling patchwork blankets of white with ‘stitching’ of stone walls and gorse defining each ‘patch’, white icing sugar gathered along branches accentuates just how curved and wind sculpted the Cornish Oaks and thorn trees are. Being still early in the tourist year, streets are quiet, the snow discouraging folk from venturing out unnecessarily. In Falmouth town, which clusters around its harbour heart the sun fights the vicious icy wind for supremacy, steep alleyways and entrances reveal glimpses of dark blue water and snow-covered patchwork hills beyond, before the icy blast catches you just standing staring and sends you scurrying for shelter. Sitting over lunch, warmed by sun through glass, above the harbour, we watch life go on upon the shining water. All manner of craft from rowing boats, fishing boats, lobster potting boats, pleasure cruisers and weekenders, to working tugs and huge grey warships crowd around the harbour. A few days later the snow is but a scattering of white punctuation marks and lines below shady hedges and edges. Mounts Bay sparkles with silver and crystal diamonds, St. Michaels standing proud against a backdrop of blue sky and cushions of white clouds, snow forgotten. Penzance stands climbing up, outlined upon its hill bouncing with reflected light. Along the coast the sea is made up of incredible blues against which tall mine chimneys are silhouetted, topped by the ever present jackdaws.

Cornwall – Kernow - This hilly rocky landscape, mostly manmade, the result of the 1800’s mining industry spoil heaps, steam pumps and engine houses. If you take a small section of land and look hard, using your imagination, you find a miniature landscape sculpted from mine waste and diggings. A land that is sure to stay wrapped in intrigue and wonder in a small part of your mind, forever, as you take away a treasury of memories - miniature hills and valleys, cliff faces and streams where the spoil has been piled, rock split and dug through and water has found its way through channels and cracks, all now greened over by heather and short spongy turf with ‘forests’ of yellow flowering gorse. The rugged rocky shoreline, the call of gulls carried on the wind, a party of Jackdaw cousins, dainty, slim, black, red billed Chough, that wheel and turn, alighting upon the cliff top turf, Stonechats perched upon gorse tops and a Kestrel who dips and dives and hangs hovering, face into the wind. All just as they have done for a century or two, or more, whilst beneath their feet, their wings, and all around, a whole history of life and daily challenges has gone on. The cry of the Chough above the ring of hand tools and boots, of shouts and song, iron cart wheels and the clang and hiss of steam engines and winding gear, the chatter and singing of the women and children ‘above ground’ as they sorted and selected the best of the load.

A whole country of social history, as the ghosts of time gone by echo in the Jackdaw’s cry.

Cornwall - Kernow – a land of its own - a land of history, cream and pies, proud to be part of you.

Words and pictures by Artist and Druid © 2023 unless otherwise indicated