Cornish to ban St.George

I can confirm that is not the case.

I take it that is a temporary matter until his next 'Buckle is rubbish' post Aussie . Now that Merse has revealed he invaded Cornwall as well I shall be keeping a close eye on him .... well he would have to go past Ivybridge if he intends to do it again!

No-ones invading Cornwall unfortunately for them, if Dave says it ain`t Miac then I believe him, still we can always fall back on the old give a man enough rope........ well you know the rest!

Now, now; no need for toilet humour!

Some bits and pieces I found on the web about Cornwall, I do enjoy spending time in the county, but feel Devon is by far the better county.


Stone Age


There were not many peoplein Cornwall in the early Stone Age, but a drift across the land bridge from Europe brought settlers to Cornwall. The first stone tools found date from about 4500BC. There is the remains of a stone age settlement at Carn Brea near Redruth.

The name "Cornwall" comes from Cornovii, meaning hill dwellers, and Waelas, meaning strangers There also exists many burial chambers from this period. Most of these have been damaged by weather or by man, but you can still see good example[le at Trethevy Quoit near St Cleer, Liskeard, and another at Chun Cromlech near Land's End

Bronze Age

Around 2500BC a trade started growing in tin and copper to foreign shores. The traders brought Bronze tools and gold ornaments to exchange for the minerals.
The remains of such Bronze Age villages can still be seen on Bodmin Moor and the West Penwith Uplands. Excavations have shown these peoples to be well organised, living in villages and practicing farming and metalworking.


The Celts

Around 1000 BC a near group of warrior like settlers arrived in Cornwall from Europe, these were the Celts. They brought with them knowledge of forging iron into weapons. These Celts are the ancestors of modern Cornwall. They lived in villages, farmed, mined for tin, copper, bronze and iron, smelted and worked the metal.
The best known of their Iron Age settlements is at Chysauster, near Penzance. Here the low stone walls, the grinding stones and the fireplaces still remain.
Most of their settlements were fortified against attack - hence many were on hilltops or on promontories that could be easily defended. Hence the word "Car" or "Caer" in Cornish place name from the Celtic "ker" meaning fort., and "Dinas" meaning hill.

Roman times

The Romans landed in Britain in 55BC, but they had very little influence in Cornwall. The last major Roman settlement in the west was at Exeter.The Tamar, the wild moors of Dartmoor, Exmoor and Bodmin Moor, plus the lack of safe ports effectively kept the Romans at bay. And the Roman presence kept other raiders way. The Cornish Celts were left much to themselves.

Middle Ages

When the Romans abandoned Britain, Cornwall came under Saxon influence, and following the Norman conquest, the first real integration of Cornwall into Britain took place. The whole of Cornwall was given to William's half brother, Robert. He made his headquarters at Launceston, where he built the castle to enforce his rule. Then for the next few hundred years Cornwall was rule by a succession of relatives of the Norman and Plantagenet kings.

The first Duke of Cornwall was Edward, the Black Prince, son of Edward III. Then there was a succession of rebellions through the middle ages.
1497, Perkin Warbeck landed near Sennan , claiming to be one of the Princes murdered in the tower, he was defeated in battle at Exeter. The Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549 against te imposition of the English Prayer book, saw many Cornishmen executed. There was the Spanish invasion at Mounts Bay in 1595.The Civil War between 1642-1649 led to a number of battles and sieges in Cornwall. And in 1685 there was the Monmouth Rebellion with its bloody aftermath.

Georgian & Victorian Age

The invention of the steam engine in the 18th century and its rapid development in the 19th, led to revolutional advances in mining. Engines could pump dry mines at a great depth, they could haul up ore and on the surface could
perform many of the jobs that previously had to be done by hand.. The Cornishman, Richard Trevithick, was one of the leaders in steam engine development. Mines were sunk deeper, ports had to be developed to get the ore out, and there was plenty of employment available in the mines. But by the middle of the 19th century vast deposits of tin and copper ore were found abroad, and deep, expense Cornish mines became uncompetitive. Cornish mines started a long downhill decline, and the last mines have now closed.


The permanent legacy is the Cornish communities that prospered in other countries, as many Cornish miners emigrated to take their mining skills to Australia, North and South America and South Africa. In Cornwall all that remains are the ruined engine houses with their massive granite walls and high brick chiminies

The Cornwall flag is the flag of St Piran, patron saint of miners, and is said to represent the triumph of good over evil.

The anthem that Cornwall adopted is "Song of the Western Men" by Rev Hawker

A good sword and a trusty hand!
A merry heart and true!
King James's men shall understand
What Cornish lads can do!

And have they fixed the where and when?
And shall Trelawny die?
Here's twenty thousand Cornish men
Will know the reason why!

Out spake their Captain brave and bold:
A merry wight was he:
'If London Tower were Michael's hold,
We'd set Trelawny free!

'We'll cross the Tamar, land to land:
The Severn is no stay:
With "one and all," and hand in hand;
And who shall bid us nay?

'And when we come to London Wall,
A pleasant sight to view,
Come forth! come forth! ye cowards all:
Here's men as good as you.

'Trelawny he's in keep and hold;
Trelawny he may die:
But here's twenty thousand Cornish bold
Will know the reason why!'

Cornwall Coat of Arms

The coat of arms of the Duke of Cornwall is a Crusader shield on which are displayed 15 golden bezants (gold coins) in the shape of a triangle with the motto "One and All"

The story of the 15 bezants occurs during the Crusades when the Duke of Cornwall was captured by the Saracens. A ransom of 15 bezants (bezants being gold coins named after Byzantium) was demanded. The people of Cornwall to raised the money for the ransom. It was paid and the Duke was set free. The inhabitants had all helped together One and All to raise the money – hence the motto.

However it is difficult to verify this as Richard joined the Sixth Crusade and went to the Holy Land. He fought in no battles but managed to negotiate for the release of prisoners and the burials of Crusaders killed at a battle in Gaza in 1239. He also refortified Ascalon, which had been demolished by Saladin.

The golden bezants on sable were apparently already present as border of the shield of Richard, made Count of Cornwall by his brother Henry III of England in 1227.

The arms might be dated 1337, when Edward 'the Black Prince', son of king of England Edward III, was made Duke of Cornwall.

Edward IV (April 28, 1442 – April 9, 1483) roll dated around 1461 shows a banner for the Duchy of Cornwall


Cornish Saints

St Brychan
Said to have arrived from Wales with 3 wives, 12 sons and 12 daughters (including Endillion, Issey, Kew, Mabyn, Minver and Teath, who all became saints themselves)

St Budoc
Arrived in Cornwall floating in a barrel.

St Cleer
St. Cleer was an Englishman who came to Cornwall in the 8 th or 9 th century. He preached and built a church on the edge of Bodmin moor - today's village of St. Cleer. The village also has a holy well and two ancient Celtic crosses.

Saint Endelienta
Saint Endelienta was a daughter of King Brychan, who settled in Saint Endellion and taught the Christian faith.Two nearby wells are named after her.

St Fingar
Arrived from Ireland with his brothers St Breaca, St Euny and St Erc. His sister, Ia, arrived separately floating on an ivy leaf.

St Germanus
St. Germanus was elected Bishop of Auxerie, France, in 4l8 CE at the time that the Roman Empire was falling apart. He was twice sent to Britain to argue against the false teachings of Pelagius. On his second visit there was an attack by a group of pagan raiders, he encouraged the defenders to shout 'Alleluia' loudly. The attackers thought they were out numbered and ran away. St. Germanus taught St. Patrick (Patron Saint of Ireland) and founded a monastery and church at St. Germans, which came to serve as Cornwall's cathedral for many years.

St Gundred
A lady saint, whose father was a leper. She is said to have lived in the chapel on top of Roche Rock, and tended to her sick father. The ruined chapel of St. Michael stands on the edge of china clay country at Roche,near St. Austell and is easily accessible by means of a steel ladder screwed to the rock face.

St Ia
Founder of the town of St Ives. She is said to have sailed from Ireland floating on a leaf. She was of noble birth. It is probable that the leaf in question was a coracle, the Irish round hide craft, that local Cornish people would not have seen before, and could have thought to have been a giant leaf.

St Issy
St. Issey was one of the children of King Brychan - his church is between Wadebridge and Padstow. Mevagissey is also named after St. Issey.

St Keverne and St Just
Gained a reputation for being aggressive rivals

St Levan
Founded the church of St Levan near Lands End. After he had been fishing he rested on a rock near the church, and before he died he is said to have split the rock with his fist, leaving the prophecy that if a pack horse with panniers could ever be ridden through the split, then the world would end. Providentially the split in the rock has not become wide enough for this to happen yet.

St Neot
Believed to have been very small, almost a pigmy. Some stories put him at only 15 inches tall. He used to spend the day praying in his holy well, immersed in water right up to his neck. The miracles that he achieved with birds and animals are portrayed in the stained glass windows of the St Neots Parish Church

St Mawes
Revered in Brittany as well as Cornwall, he is thought to be the tenth son of an Irish King. It is possible that it is the same derivation as St Malo.There is said to be a memorial to him in Falmouth harbour. The story goes the St Mawes was sitting in his chair contemplating the world, when a noisy seal disturbed him, he picked up a large rock threw it at the seal, missed, but the rock still remains where it fell, wedged on top of the Black Rocks in the harbour.

St Minver
Saint Minver was another daughter of King Brychan. King Brychan's twenty four children started churches throughout Cornwall, England and Wales. Her hermitage, chapel and holy well were at Tredizzick, not far from the present church and town of Saint Minver. One of the popular stories about Saint Minver says that the devil attacked her when she was combing her hair. She threw the comb at him and he ran away.

St Piran
Said to have arrived in Cornwall floating on a millstone. Apparently his original community were jealous of his powers of healing and carrying out miracles. They had tied a millstone round his neck and thrown him off a cliff - luckily there was divine intervention and the millstone was transformed into something that floated, so thus he arrived in Cornwall. he landed at Perran Beach, to which he gave his name.He became the patron saint of tinners, perhaps because he was said to have a taste for the bottle.He built a chapel in Penhale sands, and lead a full life, dying at the age of 206. The chapel was unearth from the sands in the 19th century, and the skeleton of very tall man discovered 9perhaps the saints). the chapel was reburied to protect it from vandals.

St Petroc
He founded Padstow, originally Petrocstow.Greeted by a hostile crown when he landed from Wales, who refused to give him a drink of water, Petroc merely tapped the ground with is staff, and immediately a spring of fresh water appeared. The locals were immediately converted to followers.His bones were put into an ivory casket and housed in Bodmin Church. They were stolen in 1994 but later recovered.




The Cornish Language

The Cornish Language went from being the universal language of the population of Cornwall in 1300 to extinction by 1900. It has had a certain revival since then. Today after much spending of government money, about 300 people appear to speak the language with some knowledge. However these few are split into 3 camps, each promoting their own version of the language, with differing pronunciation and spelling. Until the internal politics of these few are sorted, it would appear that there is a substantial brake on both the further acceptance of the language, and on more inflows of government funds.

There was a tribe called the Dumnonii, who inhabited most of south west Britain including Cornwall. Cornish started to evolve as a separate language around 2000 BC. A fuller explanation of the origins of the Cornish Language is given here. The Celtic languages are split into two groups: Brythonic - Cornish, Welsh and Breton form this group with common roots; and Goidelic- Irish, Manx and Scots Gaelic form this second group. I can vouch for this myself as my mother is a native Welsh speaker who has tried to converse in Welsh with more success in Brittany than in Ireland! Today Cornish shares about 80% of its basic vocabulary with Breton, 75% with Welsh, 35% with Irish, and 35% with Scottish Gaelic.

Cornish continued to develop as a separate language until the 17th century, then started to decline as English became the language that was necessary to succeed. Cornish became looked on a the language of the poorer people. The church acted as a further stimulus for English as the Prayer Book was only published in English. In fact there was a major uprising in Cornwall in 1547 against the imposition of the English Prayer Book.

Eventually the last native Cornish speaker died. It could have been John Davey of Zennor who died in 1891 (who, when he was a boy, learnt to speak some words of Cornish from his grandfather). But according to others occurred much earlier in 1777 with the death of Dorothy Pentreath near Mousehole

Or of standing on the popular side with a certain keen historian?

Indeed. I've never claimed the words "Torquay Boys Grammar School" and "normal" should be used in the same sentence.