Literary Cornwall - 4 - A. L. Rowse
Rowse
Arthur Leslie Rowse (1903-1997) would not have liked to be featured as Literary Cornwall - 4. Almost from the moment of his birth he clearly knew he was destined to be number one. Born to a poor family in Tregonissey in Clay Country, he won a scholarship to Christchurch College, Oxford, and was elected a Fellow of All Souls at the astonishingly early age of twenty-one. He went on to become a leading historian of the Tudor and Elizabethan periods, the foremost Shakespearean scholar of the age, a not very good poet, and a supreme egotist. Despite his success at Oxford, in the United States and in the world at large, he always remained a Cornishman at heart and lived for many later years at Trenarren, not far from his birthplace. Appropriately, he is commemorated by a memorial on nearby Black Head. Its inscription, in English and Cornish, describes him as 'The Voice of Cornwall'. His own words are below: 'This was the land of my content'. Sadly, you can neither visit nor even get a good view of Trenarren but the memorial on Black Head stands right on the Cornish Coast Path. Park in Porthpean to walk about 2 miles to reach it.
Recommended reading: A Cornish Childhood
Trenarren is at the top of the hill
Although I prefer to walk to Black Head and the Rowse Memorial from Porthpean, Bill Hobba of Charlestown has kindly pointed out to me that some people may prefer to park closer. There is room for about 8 cars close to A. L. Rowse's house, from where the walk is only about half-a-mile. I assume this to be the car park shown on OS Explorer Sheet 107. Bill also says there may be space further up the track to Black Head.
More in Miscellanea
Man Engine
Cornishman Will Coleman is author, film maker, musician, educationalist and former director of Cornwall's renowned Kneehigh Theatre. He is also founder of Golden Tree Productions which promotes Conwall and its history. He is, too, an enthusiastic promoter of the Cornish language and has published a book about the Plen-a-Gwary, Cornwall's medieval amphitheatres. Also a talented engineer, in 2016 he and his team created Man Engine, a vast 33 foot high mechanical puppet of a Cornish Miner. This was first unveiled in Tavistock in 2016 and has since toured the country. We were fortunate enough to see Man Engine in early April 2018 on the Wadebrifge Showground. I say lucky but the weather was dreadful, the ground soggy and the site sufficiently uneven that a good view of the action was not always to be had. That didn't prevent us from enjoying Will's show. He is a great showman and entertaining raconteur. The original Man Engine was the device of ladders and platforms that transported miners as much as 1600 feet down mine shafts. The performance of Will Coleman's Man Engine was remarkable for such a giant robot. In adition, a young lad, perched precariously at the top of a 40 foot ladder, gave an inverted demonstration of the use of the ladders and platforms of the real-life Man Engine. It may have been wet and muddy on the Showground but it was well worth tolerating the conditions for Will Coleman's great show.
Minack Theatre at Porthcurno
This is a pretty remote and often windswept part of Cornwall, in West Penwith beyond Penzance and not far from Land's End. All the more remarkable therefore that this should be the location of the most unusual theatre in Britain, Minack Theatre. Created in the 1930s by an amazing lady, Miss Rowena Cade - much of it literally by her own hands - this cliff-top open-air theatre was hewn from solid rock, looking for all the world like an ancient Greek theatre. Seating looks out over the Atlantic and the balconies, terraces and steps are all part of the unusual stage on which the action sometimes surrounds the audience. Minack's season runs from May to September but you do take your chances with the weather. Highly professional productions run from such as Beowulf, through Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde to opera. Throughout the year you can visit Minack's Visitor Centre to learn the amazing story of the theatre's creation in an excellent small exhibition. There is a good coffee shop (note that you have to pay an entrance fee to use this), a shop and a small sub-tropical garden. We revisited in October 2004, as part of an outing that included nearby Porthcurno Telegraph Museum and a coast path walk to the charming fishing cove of Porthgwarra.
More Old Direction Signs
In 2008 Ian Thompson, the Cornish representative of the Milestone Society, started restoring Cornwall's milestones. He is clearing growth, limewashing the stone and blacking the lettering. There are around 700 in all and he plans to restore 70 a year in a rolling programme. It has been a delight to see those that he has already restored, looking much as they would have looked more than 100 years ago.