The journey to Tintagel

"Tintagel.  Black cliffs and caves and storm and wind, but I weather it out and take my ten miles a day walks in my weather-proofs."  Alfred, Lord Tennyson,   25th August 1860

Tintagel Castle   Wiilliam Trost Richards, a Philadelphia artist, who visited in 1878  (wikimedia, et.al.)

Many families will be making for the Cornish coast this weekend, searching for sandy beaches, rock pools, ice creams, Cornish pasties and exhilarating cliff walks (preferably in sunshine).

Alfred, Lord Tennyson visited Cornwall many times, finding inspiration there for his great Arthurian suite of poems, The Idylls of the King, with its tales of King Arthur's court, based at Tintagel, according to the legend.

Edryn travels to King Arthur's Court   Gustav Dore engraving for Idylls of the King 1868

It was some ninety years later that our family first made the long journey down to Cornwall.  Maybe Tennyson would have visited Stonehenge - where we could just park by the road then and cross the meadow to touch the stones in awe and wonder. 

Victorian visitors at Stonehenge 

 He would know that Queen Victoria expressly wore Honiton lace on her wedding dress to support the  local industry, where we smiled at "Ye Olde Honitone Lace Shoppe":

Queen Victoria in her Wedding Dress (of 1840)  Anniversary portrait by Franz X. Winterhalter 1847

and perhaps he was also kept awake on his journey by town clocks striking every quarter all night long, as we once were at Okehampton.

In late August, we climbed the tortuous path to Tintagel's ancient ruins, returning decades later with my own young children, too nervous for their safety on the precipitous slopes to enjoy it fully, but the mystique of the ancient site and its spectacular views remains. A new footbridge now links the two parts of the headland, and excavations have unearthed ancient slates, one with a mysterious Latin inscription: "Artignou father of a descendant of Coll has had (this) made".  (see english heritage.org.uk)

And when I think of Tintagel's cliffs and the seas around it,  I am reminded of Tennyson's 1851 poem The Eagle:

"Ring'd in the azure world he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls,

He watches from his mountain walls

And like a thunderbolt he falls."

Tintagel, the birthplace of King Arthur     William Trost Richards

Poetry, Pots, and a Parson

North Devon is known for its large honey-coloured Harvest Jugs, particularly the boldly decorated, signed and dated ones from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  The patterns and the inscriptions were widely copied and imitated, and inspire potters today.

Lead glazed slipware harvest jug, decorated with sgraffito, 1703 

© Fitzwilliam Museum

"now i am com for to Supply your workmen

when in harvist dry they do labor hard and sweat

good drink is better far than meat; in wintertime when it is coold

i Likewise then good drink can hold: booth seasons doe the same require,

and most men doe good drink desire"

These West Country harvest jugs are often decorated with tulips and other flowers, birds, unicorns, and, reflecting their coastal origins, ships, compasses, suns and mermaids.  There were thriving potteries in Barnstaple and Bideford, where the Burton Museum & Gallery has a magnificent collection of plain and fancy pots,  bequeathed by R.J.Lloyd.

Here are some more examples:

John Phillips, Bideford, 1780  © Trustees of the British Museum

"When I was in my native Place I was a lump of Clay

and Diged was out of the Earth and Brought from thence a Way,

but now I am a Jugg became by Potter's Art and Skiel

and now your Servant am Become and carry alle I will."

This one is much cruder, although the handle join is scrolled,  and its verse is more like a motto:

Slipware jug,  © Burton Museum, Bideford

"As A ring is round & hath no End

So is my Love Unto my Friend"

Others celebrate Ceres, Goddess of the harvest*, or the Barley Mow:

"harvest is come, all busy now

in making of the Barley mow

if you the Barley now neglect

you cannot then Good Ale Expect"

(signed T. Jones 1792)

Twentieth century and contemporary potters still create Harvest jugs in the traditional  North Devon style, often choosing inscriptions referring to their craft;  this verse was Michael Cardew's choice, in 1925:

"Despise me not because I'm made of clay -

But make me welcome when I come this way-

My belly fill with good strong punch (or beer) -

& I will make you merry all the year."

The inscriptions frequently are placed underneath the handle, which enlivens the simple flower pattern in this one below:

Devon Harvest Jug from Buckland Abbey, signed Abel Symons 1813

© National Trust/Lynda Aiano

Its inscription is the most interesting part of this grand jug, as it commemorates an old West Country ritual, "Crying the Neck".

"The Potter fashioned me complete, as plainly doth appear

for to supply the harvest men with good strong English beer.

Drink round my jolly reapers and when the corn is cut

we'll have the other jug - and cry A Neck A Neck."

As the last sheaf is cut (by hand) the reaper holds it aloft and cries " I 'ave un, I 'ave un". His fellows shout "What 'ave ee? What 'ave ee?" to which he replies "a Neck, a Neck" and  "Hurrah for the Neck! Hurrah!"  This age-old pagan custom was revived by the Old Cornwall Society (and see strawcraftsmen.co.uk),  but the churches' Harvest Festival tradition was begun in 1843, by the eccentric Parson Robert Hawker of Morwenstow, North Cornwall.

A poet, antiquarian (and opium smoker?), he built himself a tiny bothy (National Trust's smallest property), reached by a track along the cliff edge, where he could write and watch for ships in danger from the precipitous rocks at Hartland Point.

Hawker's driftwood hut © H. Bolton

 He rescued many seamen, and others are buried in the graveyard of his church of St John & St. Morwenna beside the vicarage at Morwenstow. It is worth exploring for its evocative headstones for the drowned sailors.  The Museum of Wrecks at Hartland Quay records the dangers of this coast, including an ill-fated aeroplane.

Hartland coastline  © H. Spurway

Parson Robert Hawker is best known for the Trelawney anthem,  --

"And shall Trelawney live? Or shall Trelawney die?  

Here's twenty thousand Cornishmen shall know the reason why!" --

which he published anonymously in 1825 as The Song of the Western Men, basing it on old Cornish ballads for a new literary audience. 

This is why the harvest jugs with inscriptions have so much more appeal for me, with their makers' initials and dates;  the earlier ones in particular are recording West Country oral history for us with all their craftsmen's skill.  This fine North Devon jug below is boldly decorated and glazed, but lacks the extra pleasure of these country rhymes saved by the potters.

 Harvest Jug, Barnstaple or Bideford, 1764 © V&A Museum

* see wikimedia for copyrights.