Town Trail: Part 2

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5. Soon you’ll arrive at the thatched Blue Anchor Inn, originally a monks’ rest house, which became a tavern in the 15th century. Miners received their wages in the pub, which is possibly the oldest private brewery in the country. The brewery is at the back, next to the old skittle alley and the beer, Spingo, comes in three strengths. The inn has a colourful history. In 1717 the landlord took the wrong side in an argument and was stabbed to death. In August 1791, landlord Jimmy James had his head fractured by a bayonet in a bar-room dispute with two soldiers Ben Willoughby and John Taylor. Willoughby was later hanged at Bodmin. In the tin mining boom years, the Old Blue, as it is still called, must have been a difficult inn to run; in 1828 a man fell to his death in the well, and in 1849 the landlord James Judd hanged himself in the skittle alley.

If you’re wondering where the Coinage Hall was, which gave the street its name, stand outside the Blue Anchor and look over towards Woolworth. From the late 16th century to about 1810 your view would have been interrupted by a long narrow row of buildings – the Duchy Officer’s house, the Gaol, and the Coinage Hall, which had incorporated the Chapel of our Lady at the Reformation in 1546 – in the middle of the thoroughfare. The Chapel of Our Lady was in existence before 1243 and the street was originally named Lady Street, until 1788.

6. Cross the street at the bottom, just before the bend, and walk though the arch of the imposing Grylls Monument, erected in 1834 to the memory of Humphrey Millett Grylls. He was a Helston banker and solicitor whose actions kept open the local tin mine Wheal Vor and saved 1200 jobs. A vellum copy of the Latin eulogy written for Grylls by the Revd. Derwent Coleridge was put in a bottle and deposited in a hole made in the first stone laid at the south-west corner of the monument. It is, of course, still there.

The first bowls rolled out on Helston’s bowling green, one of the oldest in the country, in 1764. The Bowling Club was founded in 1760 and today has about 130 members. On Flora Day, dancers parade in and out under the monument and around the perimeter path.

As you stand beside the bowling green, you’re on the spot where Helston’s castle once stood, standing guard over the Cober valley and the western approach to the town. The original castle was probably a palisaded enclosure surrounded by a bank and ditches, replaced by a more robust stone structure in the 1270s for Edmund, Earl of Cornwall. Probably not as permanent as hoped, the castle was in ruins by 1478.

Walk back up the left side of Coinagehall Street, noting the paving stones carved to influence rainwater into the kennels. Looking up the street 100 years ago, you’d have seen a street packed with stagecoaches, loading up with mailbags and Victorian tourists bound for St Keverne, Kynance and Lizard village. Turn left after Chymder House down Lady Street. Follow the road round to the left, passing Leslie House on the right, built in 1810 for a wealthy tin merchant, and requisitioned for use by the Women’s Land Army in the Second World War. On the corner opposite, to your left, the room on stilts was, in the mid-19th century, part of a school for 60 boys and girls.

In those days, if you turned this corner at 7.00 am on a weekday, you would have met pupils trooping in to repeat lessons, often by candlelight, with headmaster William Charles Odger waiting sternly at the door. The morning air would have been tainted with the smells wafting from Cunnack’s Tannery down Tanyard Lane.

Continue down until the road joins Almshouse Hill, named after a row of church-owned almshouses which stood at the top of the hill in the 18th century, providing shelter for the parish paupers. Turn first right along Penhellaz Road and, as the road bends to the right after the two bollards, take in the view over the wall on your left. Ahead of you the Cober valley stretches out towards Loe Pool, the largest freshwater lake in Cornwall, and the sea beyond. Standing here before the 13th century, you might have seen sea-going vessels making their way up the tidal river to the riverbanks below you, where they would load up with tin and leather.

From this vantage point in the early 1300s, you’d be looking over a busy trading area, but large boats would no longer be able to make it across the huge sandbank, Loe Bar, which in 1302 cut off Helston from the sea for good. The newly-built Helston Castle would be standing proud up on your left (on the bowling green) with perhaps the Earl of Cornwall’s archers patrolling the battlements. Down to the right, beside the Penzance Road, would be St John’s Priory Hospital, founded in 1220, where a prior and two brethren would be looking after ailing travellers and lepers; its doors were open until about 1580 – you can see carved stones from the hospital in the Helston Folk Museum. From medieval times, you would have seen, to the right of the hospital, St John’s Mill; the building is now on the far side of the main road, converted into flats. Continue past the Masonic Hall, originally built in 1827 as a Commercial & Mathematical Academy, from where you’d have heard 60 pupils reciting their tables under Josiah George Barnes, headmaster. Turn right into Cross Street and you’re walking along Helston’s finest thoroughfare, once cobbled and lit by gas lamps, flanked by grand houses. Lawyers, bankers and businessmen developed quite a power base here, reflected in the architecture.

On your left is the driveway to Penhellis House. Built in the early 1800s for the Ratcliffe family, it is still the town’s most impressive dwelling. It was designed by George Wightwick, a noted Plymouth architect who was also responsible for the Grylls Monument, the Guildhall and Helston Grammar School. It has been a privately owned home since 1981. On the left further on you’ll pass Church Lane, an old bridleway leading to St Michael’s Church.

7. Further on, No. 5 – the Great Office – has housed solicitors for over 200 years, including the Ratcliffes of Penhellis House. Built in the early 1700s, with later extensions, it was a base for Helston’s early banks, looking after the accounts of local mines. It was once the home of the town’s Registry Office.

8. Opposite, in the wall at Lismore is a cast iron pump bearing the date 1844 and it’s easy to imagine carriagemen watering their horses here whilst their bosses were negotiating deals in the Great Office. Lismore was built in the early 1800s for Glynn Grylls, seven times Mayor of Helston, a solicitor and brother of Humphrey Grylls. On Flora Day, the Gardens open to the public and mark the halfway point for dancers, who take refreshment on the lawn. Walk on to the junction with Church Street, and note the Maltese Cross in the hedge, which gives Cross Street its name.

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