Callington, Cornwall

Built to last

I didn’t want to leave Dupath well, the subject of my previous post, before commenting on the stone it’s built of – large blocks of hard, intractable Cornish granite. Although difficult to work (and punishing to the chisel) because of its hardness, granite is the material of many Cornish buildings, because in many places it is the most easily obtainable stone. In the Middle Ages, local stone was usually relatively cheap. What did cost a lot was transport: stone is heavy, roads were poor, and even river transport was laborious. So masons accepted the huge effort needed to shape granite into usable pieces and to smooth it enough to make an acceptably flat surface.

When you look at granite masonry closely, though, in the right light, its surfaces are rarely very smooth at all. Attracted by the view, I raised my camera to take the photograph above and paused to take in the rough stone. Each piece is a miniature landscape of lumps and bumps and irregular edges, the very opposite of the almost perfectly flat surfaces that can be obtained when a skilled mason works a piece of limestone in my native Cotswolds.

And yet, what character! It’s extraordinary stuff, this stone, and seems to embody physical strength. It may be a far cry from the immaculately smooth ashlar of most cathedrals, but when you look at the wall of this tiny chapel, it has a distinctive character of its own and certainly looks as if it has been built to last.

Callington, Cornwall

Well hidden

To a dedicated church-visitor like me, Cornwall is full of evidence of ancient piety. Not only are there many medieval churches, but these are often dedicated to local saints, obscure figures who are little known outside the country. There are also many holy wells, tiny structures erected near or over springs, which were built or maintained by the medieval church and whose water was said to have healing properties. One of the most beautiful of these small buildings is the Dupath well east of Callington.

It was built almost entirely of local granite – even the roof is made of granite slabs – in the early-16th century, and the shallow arch of the doorway is typical of the period. Its architecture is made more elaborate by pinnacles at each corner and the striking structure, topped by a cluster of pinnacles, above the entrance. This is a small bellcote, an unusual feature of a well house, but perhaps there because the well house performed some of the functions of a church – according to certain accounts, the building was sometimes used for baptisms. Most pilgrims came here for the water’s healing qualities, however. Inside the well house is a trough into which the water flows, suggesting that visitors might have bathed in it, rather than drinking the sacred fluid.

Holy wells were among the institutions (like monasteries and chantries) that were suppressed by Henry VIII in the 1530s. The working life of this well might therefore have been very short. But the building survived and spring water does not stop flowing at the whim of monarchs. So it may be that those who believed in the water’s healing properties (it was said to cure or ease whooping cough, for example) still came here.

Travel was slow and difficult in the Middle Ages. To get here, you’d have had to walk or possessed a horse. Even now it seems remote, and part of the charm of the place for today’s travellers is the approach and the setting. You park in a farmyard – the farmer apologised for the amount of mud in the yard and joked that there hadn’t been enough rain to wash it away. Across the yard there’s a sign and a very short track to the well, which stands against a background of trees and fields. It’s a magical spot, we might say today, and no doubt medieval believers felt it was magical too.