Philip Marsden - The Levelling Sea - The Story of a Cornish Haven in the Age of Sail

The Story of a Cornish Haven in the Age of Sail

Nor is his thought on harp or on ring-taking,

On woman’s delight or on the world’s hope,

Nor on aught else save the tossing of waves:

He ever has longing who hastens on water.

From The Seafarer

(Trans. from the Anglo-Saxon by Jonathan A. Glenn)

To Arthur

Map of Falmouth

List of Illustrations

Part I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Part II

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Part III

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Part IV

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Notes

Bibliography

About the Author

Other Books by Philip Marsden

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

Map of Falmouth (1693).

‘Falmouth – To Sir Peter Killigrew, Baronet presented by Captain Greenville Collins (1693)’, engraving, 47 x 58 cms. © Falmouth Art Gallery Collection FAMAG:20003.13

Author’s grandfather. © Philip Marsden

Liberty’s stern. © Philip Marsden

Glasney College. © Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru/The National Library of Wales

John and Elizabeth Killigrew, brass commemorative plaque in St Budock church. Reproduced from E.H.W Dunkin, The Monumental Brasses of Cornwall (Spottiswoode & Co., 1882)

Falmouth Haven. From Lord Burghley’s copy of Christopher Saxton’s Maps of the several counties of England. © The British Library Board. Royal MS. 18. D.III

Duke William and his Fleet Cross the Channel to Pevensey, from the Bayeux Tapestry (before 1082), wool embroidery on linen, by French School (11th century). © Musée de la Tapisserie, Bayeux, France/With special authorisation of the city of Bayeux/Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library

Ship illustration from Matthew Baker, Fragments of English Shipwrightry. Courtesy of the Pepys Library, Cambridge

Killigrew family tree

A map of the river Fal and its tributatries from a survey made in 1597, by Baptista Boazio. From H.M. Jeffrey, Early topography of Falmouth, JRIC vol. IX (1886). Courtesy of Cornwall Centre

Map of Smithwick (1615). From H.M. Jeffrey, Early topography of Falmouth, JRIC vol. IX (1886). Courtesy of Cornwall Centre

The Lizard Light-houses, Cornwall, by William Daniell. © Crown Copyright; UK Government Art Collection

‘Sovereign of the Seas’, by John Payne (1637). © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK

Thomas Killigrew, by William Sheppard (1650). © National Portrait Gallery, London

‘A View of Falmouth Harbour’, by Hendrick Danckerts (circa 1678). © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK

Detail from ‘Falmouth – To Sir Peter Killigrew, Baronet presented by Captain Greenville Collins (1693)’, engraving, 47 x 58cms. © Falmouth Art Gallery Collection. FAMAG:2003.13

Peter Killigrew. Frontispiece from Susan E. Gay, Old Falmouth: The Story of the Town from the Days of the Killigrews to the Earliest Part of the 19th Century (Headly Brothers, 1903)

The Killigrew Monument (The Pyramid Arwenack), by Unknown artist (19th century), oil on canvas, 49.5 x 63cms. © Falmouth Art Gallery Collection. FAMAG:1000.42

‘Fatte hogges, pretty oranges, strange crabs’. From Peter Mundy, The Travels of Peter Mundy in Europe and Asia, 1608–1667, vol. III, part I (Hakluyt Society, London 1919)

Avery the Pirate. CRO J/2277. Courtesy of the Cornwall Record Office

John Avery. From Captain Charles Johnson, A General History of the Robberies & Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates (Conway Maritime Press, 1998)

Armed guard for the Falmouth to London mail. © Mary Evans Picture Library/Bruce Castle Museum

Arwenacke House, Falmouth, Cornwall, by Unknown artist (1786). Engraver: Sparrow. Publisher: Hooper, S. Engraving, 15.3 x 20cms. © Falmouth Art Gallery Collection. FAMAG:1000.96

Cover of Samuel Kelly’s ‘Life & Voyages’, Vol. III. CRO X92. Courtesy of the Cornwall Record Office

Ship-worm (Teredo navalis). From Sir Charles Lyell, The Student’s Elements of Geology (Murray, 1871)

Jewish Cemetery, Falmouth. © Philip Marsden

Letter from George Croker Fox. By permission of Charles Fox

Books from the old G. C. Fox & Co. offices. © Philip Marsden

‘Sir Edward Pellew: Lord Exmouth’ after Sir Thomas Lawrence (c. 1797). © Hulton Archive/Getty Images

‘View of Falmouth & Sir J Borlase Warren’s prizes entering the harbour’, engraved by Thomas Medland (Bunney & Co., 1800). Courtesy of Cornwall Centre

The Indefatigable capturing La Virginie, by C. Sheppard (publisher) (1797). © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK

The wreck of the East Indiaman Dutton at Plymouth Sound, 26 January 1796, by Thomas Luny (1821). © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK

Extract from The Cornwall Gazette and Falmouth Packet, 7 March, 1801. Courtesy of the Courtney Libary (RIC), Truro

Grave of Joseph Emidy. © Philip Marsden

A View of Falmouth and places adjacent, by H. Michell (1806, published). Aquatint, 37 x 77cms. Lent by Cornwall Heritage Trust. © Falmouth Art Gallery Collection. FAMAG:L2000.4

‘Encounter with Robbers Near Kengawar’. From J. S. Buckingham, Travels in Assyria, Media, and Persia (Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1830)

James Silk Buckingham by George Thomas Doo, after Unknown artist (1855), stipple engraving. © National Portrait Gallery, London

Falmouth, by Joseph Mallord William Turner, engraved by T. Lupton. © Tate, London 2011

Liberty’s bow. © Philip Marsden

From Falmouth Guide 1815. Courtesy of Cornwall Centre

Opening of the Falmouth and Truro railway (1863). © Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

Little Falmouth boatyard. © Philip Marsden

While every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright material reproduced herein, the publishers would like to apologize for any omissions and would be pleased to incorporate missing acknowledgements in future editions.

For more than twenty years I have lived beside the sea, in Cornwall, in a house with a square of grass in front of it, a hedge, a road, a low cliff and then a shingle beach sloping to the water. To the north and west, I can see the whitewashed cluster of cottages around the arm of the quay. Out towards the headland, the houses grow larger: a facade of homes built during the great age of sail by trader-captains who exchanged shifting decks for solid ground, prize-money for building-stone, ship-life for a safe contemplation of the horizon. Beyond these are the newer buildings, villas from the 1930s and the 1960s in their rescued patches of land, built also for sea-contemplation but by those who never knew the dog-watch nor the terror of working the tops. On the point itself, like a high-plains beast come down to drink, its silhouette magnificent against the evening sky, stands one of Henry VIII’s castles.

The headland opposite bears no buildings. A stand of pine covers its dipping entry into the sea. Gorse-spotted ground runs back from the point to a wood of holm and sessile oak. These two headlands, the one peopled and the other unpeopled, have been the borders of my life for two decades, open-ended, framing the vast-skied view from my studio window. Between them, stretching away into the distance, is the water.