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Cornwall

Full of memories of Wesley

Wesley Cottage, Trewint

CORNWALL abounds in Methodist shrines and there is hardly a market-place in the county in which John Wesley has not stood or a market cross from which he has not preached to the gathered throng. He made a lasting impression on the people and the area is still full of his memory for those who seek it out.

One such place is in east Cornwall where busy roads, including the A30, now carry a ceaseless stream of visitors and tourists from Launceston to Bodmin and beyond. Close to Five Lanes is the tiny hamlet of Trewint in the parish of Altarnun on Bodmin Moor - a significant place in the Wesley saga and the history of Methodism.

Here there is a little cottage where John Wesley was entertained and which became a providential haven for him as he arrived wet and weary from the ride over the moor. Formerly the mail coach passed its door, for the old turnpike road built in 1760 ran through the hamlet, which is now bypassed by the A30. But on John Wesley's first visit in 1744, there was no road, not even the turnpike, and Trewint stood on the open moor.

A romantic story lies behind this picturesque cottage. John Nelson, who accompanied Wesley, relates in his Journal that there were three of them altogether and, with only one horse between them, they took turns in riding. They slept on hard boards and lived on blackberries.

On entering Cornwall, Wesley had sent on his two companions ahead, who, after a 20-mile ride - 12 miles short of their destination - reached Trewint. In their predicament they knocked on the cottage door. It belonged to Digory Isbell, a stonemason, who was not at home. His wife, Elizabeth, came to the door. When they asked for food, she offered them "bread, butter and milk and good hay for the horse" and then refused payment. Before they left, they knelt on the floor and, to her amazement, prayed "without a book"!

Two weeks later one of them came again, wet through, and was welcomed. Digory spread the news among his neighbours that the preacher had come again and the next morning 300 people heard the preacher at the cottage door. The couple determined to open their house to any of Wesley's preachers who might come their way.

Then Wesley himself came. Digory doubted if he was real, for rumour had spread that he was dead. Though he came in April, the moors were covered with snow and he arrived wet and weary, having been battered for hours by wind and hail. The cottage was crowded that night to hear him and in the morning Digory piloted him over the great moor, all the paths being covered with snow, in places too deep for man or horse to pass.

Wesley recorded in his Journal after his April 2 1744 visit: "I preached at five and rode towards Launceston. The hills were covered with snow, as in the depths of winter. About two we came to Trewint, wet and weary enough, having been battered by rain and hail for some hours. I preached in the evening to many more than the house would contain, on the happiness of him whose sins are forgiven ..."

Later on, one evening Digory read in his Bible of the Shunamite woman in the Old Testament who, with her husband, built on the wall of their house a prophet's chamber, with a bed, table, stool and candlestick, for the use of Elisha. This passage seemed to Digory to contain a direct divine command and he immediately set about building an extension to his house, two rooms, one up and one down, which could be used by John Wesley and his preachers whenever they were in the district.

On July 15 1745 after John Wesley visited the cottage, he wrote in his Journal: "Indeed, I never remember so great an awakening in Cornwall, wrought in so short a time among young and old, rich and poor, from Trewint quite to the seaside." The Isbells are both buried in Altarnun graveyard and over their remains is a massive altar tomb with the inscription: "They were the first who entertained the Methodist preachers in this county, and lived and died in that connection, but strictly adhered to the Established Church. Reader, may thy end be like theirs". Legend has it that if you run 12 times round the grave you can hear the bells of heaven. A neighbouring tomb, that of Jonathan Harris, bears a similar record, that "he was a member of the Methodist society, but strictly adhered to his duty as a member of the Established Church".

Trewint went on to become a flourishing Methodist society but, when other chapels were opened, the Trewint rooms fell into disuse and became a roofless ruin. However, in the late 1940s, the Isbell cottage and the Wesley rooms were faithfully restored and opened as a Methodist museum and place of pilgrimage on Wesley Day, May 24 1950.

There is the lower room with its floor of Cornish slate - said to be the smallest Methodist preaching place in the world - where services are still held; and up through the ceiling goes the oak stairway to the little bedroom where Wesley and his preachers slept, with its window looking out on to the moor. There is also the Pilgrim's Garden and every year on Wesley Day crowds gather at the cottage door to hear a visiting preacher.

Gwennap Pit

WHEN John Wesley visited Cornwall in 1743 he found, like earlier travellers, that the hills west of Truro were full of tin and copper mines and when, within a few days of his arrival, he came to Gwennap there were "unparalleled and inexhaustible mine workings all around".

He was in a thickly populated district and was soon able to preach to a crowd of several 1,000 tin-miners and their families. Over the next five decades he returned many times to Gwennap, always addressing "innumerable multitudes" and finding congregations which he considered were equal to, or greater than, any others in the country.

The places where he preached in Gwennap, near Busveal, in the early years cannot be identified with any certainty today, though it is thought that one of them ("the green plain surrounded by hills") was the site on which the present Carharrack Methodist church stands (home to the Carharrack Museum of Cornish Methodism). Another may have been much nearer to the present Gwennap Pit.

A high wind drove Wesley into Gwennap Pit for the first time on the Sunday evening of September 5 1762. That afternoon he had spoken in the open air at Redruth but "the wind was so high at five that I could not stand in the usual place at Gwennap. But at a small distance was a hollow capable of containing many 1,000 people. I stood on one side of this amphitheatre towards the top, with the people beneath and on all sides, and enlarged on those words in the Gospel for the day (Luke 10. 23, 24), 'Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see and ... hear the things that ye hear'."

He immediately realised that it was a natural auditorium as well as a covert affording protection from high winds. He described it as "a round, green hollow, gently shelving down, about 50 feet deep" in which his hearers were "commodiously placed, row upon row".

Wesley preached at Gwennap Pit 18 times between 1762 and 1789, always on Sundays around 5 pm and usually from one of the church lessons for the day. His concern over the years was that the increasing crowds should be able to hear him. His own judgment varied from "I think they all heard" to the confident "All could hear distinctly".

In 1773 he records: "About two and 30,000 people; the largest assembly I ever preached to. Yet I found all could hear. Perhaps the first time a man of 70 has been heard by 30,000 people at once." In those pre-broadcasting days that must have been quite an achievement.

In 1789, at the age of 86, he wrote of his last visit to the pit, "I preached in the evening at the amphitheatre, I suppose for the last time, for my voice cannot now command the still increasing multitude ... I think it is scarce possible that all should hear."

The Methodist preachers continued to use the pit after Wesley's death and the main event remained the annual service which he had established. It gradually, however, fell into disrepair, but in 1806 a group of mine-owners in the neighbourhood obtained the landowner's permission to remodel the natural pit into a formal one "in memory of Mr Wesley".

With some financial support from Methodist societies in Redruth, Tuckingmill and elsewhere and with the willing help of the miners, work began on November 19 1806 and was completed within seven months. It was then that the pit assumed its present appearance with 13 concentric rings of continuous turfed seating, the circles decreasing in circumference from the top to the bottom. Around the new enclosure was a stone wall and the first service was held on Whit Monday, June 18 1807.

The remodelled pit was not Wesleyan property but was used by them "with the lord's permission" to possess "as if it were for their exclusive use". But at the same time the Primitive Methodists also had regular use of it. Their founder, Hugh Bourne, visited the pit in 1832 and noted that it had already been used for two Primitive Methodist camp meetings. But it was not until 1978 that the freehold of the pit and the chapel was secured to the Methodist Church. In 1980 an international Methodist youth gathering was held there and the annual service is now held on Spring Bank Holiday Monday.

Frederick C Gill records in his "In the Steps of John Wesley" that "of all Wesley's open-air pulpits, after his father's tomb, Gwennap Pit is the most famous. The whole scene ... is as if a great congregation had just left or was about to assemble, and no wonder! - for it has been the scene of remarkable assemblies and exciting incidents and is haunted by hallowed memories".

Today the visitor centre, opened in 1991, and the small Busveal chapel, opened in 1836, are at the approach to the pit. In the chapel is an original engraving of the Geller painting of the pit, a letter of John Wesley to Captain Richard Williams, prints of the Wesley family and a sculpture of the bust of John Wesley by Janet Stafford-Northcott. The work of Wesley's "World Parish" today is graphically illustrated on a set of 14 panels prepared by the former Overseas Division, now World Church office, of the Methodist Church.

Information

Gwennap Pit

Opening Times: Pit open daily. Visitor centre open from Spring Bank Holiday to end of September, Monday - Friday 10 am to 12.30 pm, 2 pm to 4.30 pm. Saturday mornings 10 am to 12.30 pm. Admission free - donations welcome. For coaches and further information contact: Visitor Centre co-ordinator Dave Phillips tel: 01209 820013 (e-mail: dandhphillips@tiscali.co.uk).

Facilities: Souvenirs are on sale. Disabled access to chapel, visitor centre and exhibition panels, but steps to Gwennap Pit with handrail.

How to get there

Address: Gwennap Pit, Busveal, Redruth, Cornwall TR15 2SX. contact: Mr Tony Langford, Miangfo, Trewirgie Road, Redruth, Cornwall TR15 2SX.

By Car: Gwennap Pit is near Busveal on the A30 to Redruth. Brown tourist signs from A30 at Scorrier. Parking is available.

Carharrack Museum of Cornish Methodism

Opening Times: Open by appointment. No admission charge, but donations welcome. The museum is situated in the active Methodist church, 1815, listed building, one mile from Gwennap Pit. Small collection of Wesleyana and artefacts of Cornish Methodist history.

How to get there

Address: Carharrack Methodist church, Carharrack, Redruth, Cornwall. Contact: Mr Barrie S May, Pelmear Villa, Carharrack, Redruth, Cornwall TR16 5RB, tel: 01209 820381.

Wesley Cottage, Trewint

Opening Times: Every day (except Christmas Day) 9 am to dusk. Admission free donations welcome.

Among the many exhibits is the book used as a pillow when Wesley and Nelson shared the same hard bed, a set of beautifully engraved Wesley playing cards, a gavel made from a tree under which Wesley preached in Georgia, USA, and displays of Wesleyana.