Camelford and District Old Cornwall Society
Programme for 2010
Officers
President: Ethel Broad
01726 882798
Chair: Peter Ascott
01840 770338
Vice Chair: Rod Keat
01208 851792
Treasurer: Peter Broad
01726 882798
Secretary: Denis Lusby
01208 850260
Anyone is welcome to come to these meetings which are held on Mondays at The Clease Hall, Camelford at 7.30 pm or, during the summer, at other locations of interest.
Summer meetings - meet in Church Car Park at 7 pm unless otherwise arranged.
Prgramme 2010
| Date | Talk/Visit | Speaker |
|---|---|---|
| January 11 CANCELLED | illustrated talk | Catherine Lorigan |
| February 8 | The North Cornwall Railway illustrated talk | Rod Keat |
| March 8 | Journeys through Cornwall talk | Mac Waters Bard of Cornish Gorsedd |
| April 12 | The Passmore Edwards Legacy illustrated talk | Dean Edwards Falmouth |
| May 10 | Visit to Boscastle | |
| June 14 | 25th Anniversary Dinner | |
| July 12 | Visit to Stannon and De Lank, St Breward | Meet at Poley Bridge by Camel Trail |
| September 13 | Old Photographs of Cornwall + AGM | Margaret Thompson |
| October 11 | Lanhydrock House illustrated talk | Paul Holden National Trust |
| November 8 | Humour is a funny thing talk | Farmer John Bennallick |
| December 13 | Dinner Riverside Restaurant, Camelford |
Reports 2010
June - 25th Birthday Celebration
The weather favoured our 25th birthday event on the 14th of June, for the sun shone on an intimate evening gathering of about 50 people held in a garden at St Teath. The Society, one of many in Cornwall, was founded in Camelford in 1985 by a group of local history enthusiasts meeting in a room above the Methodist Chapel in Fore Street.
The society's president, Ethel Broad, welcomed guests, who were treated to a very adequate supply of Cornish fare, including pasties, saffron buns, and Cornish cheeses. Peter Ascott, longstanding chairman, neatly summarised his experience of the society in poetical form. We were pleased to welcome the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies' president, Terry Knight and Andrew Langdon, vice president, both of which addressed the guests.
The TrePolPen bellringers are to be congratulated for providing very appropriate musical entertainment, including a rendering of Trelawny, probably not heard by many in bells before.
May - Visit to Boscastle
Our outing on a sunny but cool evening was a visit to Boscastle to hear a wide ranging talk about the history of the village from Peter Ascott in the surroundings of Forrabury Church. The history of the village was much more intimately connected with the sea than it is now - it was the main route by which materials such as coal or lime were brought, somewhat hazardously, to the village, and sailors described the entrance to the narrow harbour as being like that of Norwegian fiord. The unusual rock formation at the entrance was also said to resemble a profile of Queen Victoria. Large sailing boats were 'warped' or towed in and out of the harbour by heavy gigs. The harbour with its controversial new bridge is the outlet for the rivers Valency and Jordan which caused such damage in 2004 and also contains a shortly to be replaced sewage outlet pipe. Amazingly, waste water from Boscastle, Bosinney and Tintagel enters the sea untreated and is shortly to be pumped to a treatment works at Trevalga. A less well known fact is that whey from Davidstow cheese factory used to find an outlet there and that it is thought that it assisted the growth of lobsters in the area.
The very exposed Forrabury Church of St Symphorian achieved country-wide fame during the TV series 'An Island Parish' and has Norman origins, although the rebuilding of massive stone roof arches in the 19th century tend to suggest something later. The tower has only one bell and the absence of a peal formed the subject of a poem by Rev R S Hawker. There is a wooden rood screen in front of the altar surmounted by two carved angels donated by Dawn French. The slating of the porch would raise a few eyebrows locally for it is achieved using very large flagstones.
Peter also briefly described the three pubs in the village, connections with Thomas Hardy and St Juliot, the historic old road with the now disappeared Bottreaux Castle and the Men's Institute (now a small museum). We also heard about the mediaeval small field formation locally called 'stitches' near the clifftops.
April - The Passmore Edwards Legacy
Few, if any, of those attending the talk on 'The Passmore Edwards Legacy' had realised the scale of this Cornishman's philanthropy. In his widely-researched and well illustrated presentation, Dean Evans explored Passmore Edwards' life from his humble beginnings in Blackwater (where he was born in 1823) to City journalist, newspaper editor, publisher and MP for Salisbury.
Passmore Edwards' own childhood and early life may well have contributed to his life-time of championing the working classes. Following a basic education at a local dame school (costing 2 old pence a week), Passmore Edwards left formal education at 12 years of age and soon became a social activist, taking up concerns which included the anti-corn law campaign, slavery and capital punishment. Aged 22, his employment as a publishers' clerk was his introduction to the area of work that was to become a major part of his life - journalism and publishing.
Despite the failure of some magazines which he edited and subsequent bankruptcy and imprisonment, he recovered his fortunes and in 1866 not only re-paid all his creditors in full, but also with interest. They in turn held a dinner for him!
With accruing wealth, over 14 years, Passmore Edwards became the benefactor of over 70 public buildings, which included 27 libraries, 17 hospitals, 7 orphanages, 6 institutes, schools of art, children.s holiday homes, galleries and museums. Cornwall was the recipient of many of these, including libraries in Bodmin, Camborne, Truro, Launceston, Liskeard and St Ives, a convalescent home in Perranporth, the original cottage hospital in Falmouth, and institutes in Blackwater and Mithian. Not only did Passmore Edwards donate building costs, he continued to support these projects with bequests for furnishings, books and ongoing developments.
In 1893, Passmore Edwards was the first recipient of the Freedom of the City of Truro, to be followed by similar accolades from Falmouth and Liskeard. Following his death in 1911, The Times wrote, 'He did more good in his life than almost any other of his contemporaries. Local events to acknowledge his legacy are being planned for 2011, the centenary of his death.
March - Journeys through Cornwall
The influence of mining and quarrying on the landscape of Cornwall became very apparent as Cornish Bard Mac Waters presented an intriguing collection of slides of old postcards at the March meeting of Camelford and District old Cornwall Society. Whilst the remains of engine houses are an obvious reminder of former local industries, there are so many more works and buildings that have long since disappeared beneath the undergrowth. Mac's postcards showed many of these operations in their heyday along with the people who worked them, including a large group of bal maidens, quarry workers, miners and fishermen.
The sepia tones and gently tinted images of Cornwall in the 19th and early 20th century showed scenes of little traffic, donkeys with panniers on Trebarwith Beach collecting sand, and cattle taking a leisurely drink in the river at Wadebridge. Boscastle bustled with coasters bringing in coal, lime, stones, pottery and liquor. Horse-drawn buses and donkeys and shays were the transport of the time, and all passengers - indeed it seemed anyone out of doors - wore a hat!
February - The North Cornwall Railway
Our fascination with steam trains and railways appears to remain unabated, as a recent meeting of Camelford Old Cornwall Society demonstrated. Extra seating had to be brought in at short notice to accommodate the unexpectedly high turn-out for an illustrated presentation about the North Cornwall Railway (NCR) by Rod Keat.
The development of the NCR was traced, and nostalgia was evoked by the inclusion of video extracts of steam trains chuffing their way through stations such as St Kew Highway and Camelford. Archive photos of the old stations on this line, plus recent shots of their current appearance, brought reminiscences from several of those attending. Some were reminded of the heyday of Otterham Station in the early 1940s, when vast quantities of cement and other building materials were off-loaded and driven to the nearby construction site of Davidstowe Aerodrome. Photos of the men who dug cuttings, erected bridges and built embankments, largely by hand, brought home the harsh realities that underpinned the development of the railway link that brought commercial and social opportunities to North Cornwall.
The demise of the NCR in the 1960s as part of the Beeching Plan left miles of track bed to be colonised by flora and fauna - and housing! However, the Camel Trail, running from Padstow to Bodmin, has developed into a much used and much loved route for cyclist and walkers. What a shame that this type of development was not extended to the NCR line between Wadebridge and Halwill Junction.
Programmes for previous years: 2009 2008
Federation of Old Cornwall Societies website
Top