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ROSENITHON
World's Centre.
by Bernard Rogers.
It always intrigued me that when I was young and
at school, all our school World maps showed
Cornwall, and Rosenithon slap bang in the middle,
which is as it should be, of course. Our family
went from here all over the World. The name
Rosenithon means "Nest in the moors".
When I was born here in 1925, there were just
seven very small farm holdings, one fisherman and
a few quarrymen"s cottages.
Starting from the St Keverne end, the first
house was my grandfather's.
When he died, before my memories began, it was
occupied by Uncle Bert.
The next cottage, where I live now, was owned by
my father, James or Jim.
Next, behind the letter box, lived Cap'n
Dick Rogers, with his son Lory, who took over on
his marriage.
Down at the bottom of the hill was, and is,
Chenale Farm, owned at that time by Joe Mathews.
Up the hill again, Charlie Rogers lived in the
little bungalow on the right just below the
thatched cottage, Godrevy Cottage, where lived
George Trip, a fisherman. That cottage was
divided in two, with the other half occupied by
William John Uren, a quarryman. Up again to the
cottage on the corner where lived Jimmy Dennis,
engineer at the quarry.
Turning towards Porthoustock, were the three
cottages of quarry workers, Harley Nicholls, Fred
Bray, and Arthur Cox. The next, and last little
farm was owned by Arthur Sowell. That was the
whole of Rosenithon. All the other houses are
"infill" and have been built since.
There are also two barn conversions.
My grandfather's farm of about seventy acres
was divided between two of his sons, Jim and
Bert. My father, Jim, got the Godrevy tenement
around to the Claypit and the Giant's Quoits
field which was then at the end of the quarry
road on the right. In order to make the acreages
equal he also got the Parc an Gray and the two
little meadows at the St K. end of the village.
Uncle Bert got the land behind the farm leading
over to the treloyhan road where he also had
those fields that we still have.Also the two
Golden Praas.
Cap'n Dick owned about sixty acres which he
divided between two of his sons, Lory and
Charlie. Lory's farmyard was at Higher Barns,
and his land was around the farmyard and out as
far as the Claypit.
Charlie's farmyard was in the village half
way down Chenale road, and he had four little
fields down Godrevy Lane, and four at the Bannels
on the St Keverne road.
Joe Mathews at Chenale had about twenty five
acres running down to Godrevy beach.
Arthur Sowell at the Eastern end of the village
had two fields, Parc Tonkin and Joan's field,
above his house and some more meadows beyond the
Porthoustock corner on the left side of the road.
Most of those fields have disappeared due to
quarrying.
George Trip, the fisherman, had a boat at
Godrevy which he soon changed for a bigger one
and kept it at Porthoustock.
The various quarrymen walked to work at the West
of England quarry.
No one in Rosenithon owned a car, and the only
person I knew with a car was Dr Spry at
Polventon. Later, there was a car for the quarry
bosses, and Uncle Bert acquired one during the
war.
No one had a telephone.
Water was obtained by dipping buckets into the
well opposite Uncle Bert's house, or there
was another well, less pure, where water could be
got for washing across the road from
Charlie's house.
The little farmsteads were almost self
supporting. Every one kept a few cows which were
milked by hand, the milked was
"separated" to extract the cream, to
make butter, to sell in the three shops at St
Keverne for some cash, to buy staples like
sugar,tea, flour etc.
The skim milk was fed to pigs which were
fattened on milk and home grown barley meal which
was ground at the mill at Porthallow. The pigs
would then be sold in due course to Tommy Pascoe,
who came around periodically "dealing"
in his very smart horse and trap.
Uncle Bert hand milked his cows, put the milk in
a churn and sold it door to door around St
Keverne and Porthoustock.
Chicken were kept for eggs which were usually
the perk of the wife. We ate eggs quite often,
but rarely chicken except for the old hens which
were past laying.
Every farmer had a horse which we all became
much more attached to than to any of the other
animals. Our horse at that time was a dear old
mare called Jessie.
My father told me that at the beginning of the
1914-18 war there was a call-up of farm horses
for army transport. He took Jessie to Helston,
but she was turned down as being too young at
four years old.
When war broke out again in 1939 he said that I
could take Jessie for selection. We knew she
would be refused because she was now twenty nine
years old. Of course no horses were needed
because all transport was mechanical. (The
Germans still used horse transport.)
Each Rosenithon farmer used his own horse for
normal farm work, carting etc, and they were
paired up for heavy work like ploughing or
harvesting. Uncle Bert had two horses and a pony
at that time, a chestnut carthorse, a lovely half
thoroughbred mare called Kitty, and a pony,
called Tommy, for the milk-float.
Kitty was capable of almost any work. She was
good to ride and also good in work harness. When
there was no water in the fields the horses had
to be taken to drink down by Chenale gate. If I
could ride Kitty (bareback) while somebody else
took Clincher, it made my day.
Jessie was a clever and very kind old horse. Any
child could drive her because when pulling a cart
through a gateway she would compensate for the
width of the cart behind her. We had Jessie for
the whole of her life, thirty four years. At the
end she couldn't eat properly or get up off
the ground.
We all walked to St Keverne school in a group,
coming home for dinner every day. If the weather
was really bad, one of the fathers would dress
himself up in dry sacks and bring up pasties
which we ate in the classroom. Those were the
best dinners of all.
Water was very important. The only water in the
village was the stream which runs through the
bottoms and Chenale to Godrevy and the two wells.
We were lucky because we had the stream at
Godrevy, so our cows and young stock were kept at
Godrevy as much as possible. Most farmers had to
bring their animals to the stream through the
"commons" at least once a day. It
became well regulated because we knew how it
would be if they got mixed up.
Lory would bring his cattle down from Higher
Barns when he came in to lunch, leave them to
drink while he ate, and then take them back up.
Uncle Bert always milked early in the
afternoons, so he let his cows go down to drink
about half past three before they were milked.
Arthur Sowell put his cows down to drink after
morning milking.Joe Mathews and Charlie had the
stream running through their fields.
About 1937 the Milk Marketing Board started
buying all our milk. They collected it by lorry
from a collecting point in the village centre at
7.0 am every day. That meant an early start, but
it also meant more cash flow, and less dependance
on barter. Even since I have been farming, barter
has played a part. I once sold Bert Richards some
straw, and my accountant asked how much I had
been paid for it. I replied," Potatoes and a
basket of raspberries".
In the school holidays there was always plenty
to do.We did a bit of farm work, or got in the
way at harvest time. Chased rabbits when the corn
was being cut, and then sold the rabbits in
Porthoustock. The beach was always nearby. We
would go onto Roger's Island and let the tide
come in around us and stay there until the tide
went out again. I never heard about anyone
worrying that we might be in any danger.In the
harvest fields nost of the men worked together.
When seven men go into a hayfield towork
together, it is almost like mechanisation.
Cap'n Dick compared it to "Russia's
great army".
There is always something or someone to talk
about, and the work goes with a swing. About mid
morning the man whose field we were harvesting
would send some children in to fetch the croust.
After the men had had enough, we kids would empty
the basket. I remember Mrs Charlie used to send
out slices of apple tart and cream with cloves.
Arthur Sowell was once cutting hay in the
Joan's field, and left some herbie beer in
bottles in the gateway while they went milking.
We found that too.
In the Summer, young members of our scattered
families would come to Rosenithon on holiday. My
father's sister's and brother's sons,
Uncle Bert's wife's nephews and Charlie
and Lory's nephews and others. Every evening
there would be a big session of cops and robbers
or hide and seek which would only end when it was
too dark to see. At the end there would be a big
series of "Goodnight"s and we would all
disappear indoors. I am sure that by that time,
nearly every door in every farmyard had been left
open. I don't recall ever being told off
about it.
Colleen and I started farming in 1950 when I
came out of the RAF. Things were very much as
before. Joe Mathews had died and Mr Lang was at
Chenale. All Rosenithon farming was orchestrated
by Lory. He really decided which communal jobs
should be done and when.
Lory died in 1952, after I had served a very
short intensive apprenticeship. About this time I
was doing the horsework (with Duke and Gypsy) for
Uncle Bert as well as myself and I got behind
with the Spring planting. Uncle Bert borrowed an
old tractor from his horse dealer friend, Sam
Dunstan, to speed things up.
When we finished the work we let Sam have the
two horses and we kept the tractor. From that
time, I practically took over the harvesting for
the village. We still turned out to help, but the
tractor, a Ford Ferguson, took a lot of the hard
work away. At first I used the tractor to pull
the old horse implements, but gradually we
acquired second hand tractor equipment.
Lory's farm was rented out for a while, and
then it was bought by George Rogers.George later
built a new farmhouse at Higher Barns, and the
old farmhouse in the village was sold. When
George died, his son, Geoffrey, took over and
runs it part-time. Arthur Sowell died and his
son, Jack, ran it for a while (part-time) before
selling it to Miss Bulkeley of Tregellas. She
wanted the house for a workman. All the Sowell
fields out by the quarry had been sold to the
quarry several years before this. Miss Bulkeley
sold the Parc Tonkin and Joan's field to me
and I could now open up the track from the mowhay
to Parc Tonkin. This was the first time we had a
field straight off the farmyard.
When Uncle Bert died my grandfather's will
stated that half of his farm had to come to me.
His widow, Auntie Louie, agreed that she should
keep the house and some land around it, and that
I should have the farmland.
Mr Lang of Chenale retired and sold the farm to
Bert Richards who carried on farming it as a
small mixed farm. Bert died a few years later and
his widow, Kathleen, rents the land to me
anually.
Another small farmer at Addiscombe, who had
always been a friend to me, retired and rented
his land to me. I now rent that same land from
his son, Howard. I now have about seventy acres,
enough to call it a typical small Cornish farm.
We installed a simple milking parlour and
progressed, later, to milking seventy cows. Our
Cornish climate is nearly ideal for growing
grass, and our cows haven't been in at night
for thirty years unless one is unwell.
We do just dairy, and depend entirely on cash,
the money for our milk. Such a change from our
beginnings. With the introduction of milk quotas
we have had to reduce our cow numbers to about
fifty five, but by reducing costs as well, we are
almost as well off.
We now get most of our milk from grass with
grass silage as a "top up" in Winter,
and some supplementary concentrate in the milking
parlour in Winter. The cattle feed comes in by
tanker and is gravity fed to the cows. The milk
is conveyed to the refrigerated tank by vacuum
and collected by the dairy on alternate days.
Charlie Rogers retired and sold his farm by
auction.
George, Hayden Kelly and I bought it and divided
it between us.
Hayden Kelly farms at Treloyhan and like his
father before him, has been a great neighbour and
helper.
Charlie's bungalow was also sold to non
farming people.
The local West of England quarry closed down and
the quarrymen left Rosenithon to let in even more
non farmers and retirees. Sowell's two yards
and mowhay have been built on, and two more
houses have been been built at the St Keverne end
of the village. One of them is a private
commercial bakery.
Uncle Bert's barn and Charlie's farmyard
are also private houses, although both still with
farming connections.
Bernard Rogers
Rosenithon.
1997.
My Life
and Times
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