Sir Francis Drake's Leat Feast Returns
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| Drake's Leat, near Yelverton, Devon (Wiki Commons) |
On 24th April 1590, Sir
Francis Drake―swashbuckling favourite of Queen
Elizabeth I―saw the completion of the
Plymouth Leat, a twenty-seven mile long water channel drawn off the River Meavy
on Dartmoor, bringing a fresh water supply into the city of Plymouth.
When the water flowed for the very first time he raced alongside the leat on his horse, accompanied by a fanfare of trumpets.
Some legends say that he drew the water from the moors through magickal incantation and spellcraft, and that a spring spontaneously arose and the flow of water formed a stream that followed him as he rode to Plymouth.
When the water flowed for the very first time he raced alongside the leat on his horse, accompanied by a fanfare of trumpets.
Some legends say that he drew the water from the moors through magickal incantation and spellcraft, and that a spring spontaneously arose and the flow of water formed a stream that followed him as he rode to Plymouth.
Charity added to the festivities
For many years this was commemorated in Plymouth as the “Leat Feast,” on every May Eve. Sadly this has discontinued…until now, that is!
Mark Lindsey Earley, actor and tour guide among other accomplishments, plans to revive the festival, and also raise funds for modern charities dedicated to providing clean water sources in famine- and drought-stricken parts of the world.
It is likely the day will include a Leat Walk (at least part of it), with the leader dressed as Drake. The traditional ceremony, to be revived, included passing around a goblet of leat water, followed by a goblet of wine, declaring “May the descendants of him who gave us water never want for wine!" Bottled water will, however, be used for the toast as, these days, the abundant sheep, cows and ponies grazing on the leat’s catchment area might contribute too much organic matter for comfort. A trout supper, also de rigeur according to Lindsay Earley, will be a part of the celebration, as will poetry, song and “general merriment.”
For many years this was commemorated in Plymouth as the “Leat Feast,” on every May Eve. Sadly this has discontinued…until now, that is!
Mark Lindsey Earley, actor and tour guide among other accomplishments, plans to revive the festival, and also raise funds for modern charities dedicated to providing clean water sources in famine- and drought-stricken parts of the world.
It is likely the day will include a Leat Walk (at least part of it), with the leader dressed as Drake. The traditional ceremony, to be revived, included passing around a goblet of leat water, followed by a goblet of wine, declaring “May the descendants of him who gave us water never want for wine!" Bottled water will, however, be used for the toast as, these days, the abundant sheep, cows and ponies grazing on the leat’s catchment area might contribute too much organic matter for comfort. A trout supper, also de rigeur according to Lindsay Earley, will be a part of the celebration, as will poetry, song and “general merriment.”
The Feast is
planned for May Eve, which conveniently falls on a Sunday this year. Lindsey Earley announced on May 1 that he
had arranged a venue for the celebration. Please check in with the site’s page
on Facebook--Revive the Plymouth Leat Feast Tradition-- for detail...and
join the revelers if you like. Have some fun NEAR CORNWALL as the local Celts might put it, and aid those in need of good water as well.
PS As long as you're hanging around Devon for the day, here are two garden stops you might want to make, Endsleigh and Cotehele.
PS As long as you're hanging around Devon for the day, here are two garden stops you might want to make, Endsleigh and Cotehele.
(You can find some more mundane information about Drake's Leat here.)
The Scent of Ireland in Cornwall
Clock Tower, St. Just-in-Penwith Parish Church
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Reprinted from englandsouthwest.blogger.com, August 16, 2010.
The Holy Land of Ireland
I smelled Ireland last Friday….
The first time I visited Ireland, I bought a sweater made of very fine lamb’s wool. I wore it sitting in front of a turf fire, and it picked up the scent. I didn’t dry clean that sweater for years, as one whiff of it took me back to a very excellent time in a very beautiful place, what poet W.B. Yeats called, "the holy land of Ireland."
It wasn’t that smell.
What I smelled, standing in front of the fragmentary secco wall painting, “Christ of the Trades,”at St. Just-in-Penwith Parish Church, Cornwall, was the scent that reminds me of old buildings and fine furnishings, and also of the etheric remnants of lives lived, loves quickened, lives lost. A scent like no other, a scent heavy with meaning, and yet evanescent, grasped only a few times each decade, but prized, drawn into the nose like a heavenly perfume. And yet, I think that’s the first time I have come across it in a church.
My husband couldn’t smell it; by the time he responded to my silent beckoning, it was gone. He looked at the stone wall exposed below the secco (see below) painting and pointed out the mold growing there. But it was not that.
The evanescent scent arises from the interplay, I think, of old stone (moldy, or washed clean), old wood, old plaster, old dust, old fibers…old being. The information of the universe, rendered close and personal, the hologram of all that has gone before in that place. And in such places, on occasion, such perfumes arise.
I couldn’t get enough of it, and yet, I knew it would not linger long. Or perhaps it is just that I would become used to it and would cease to note it as a scent separate from the environment. So I moved along. The church was quite beautiful, in a very rough-hewn way. And of course, it had an enormous number of historic features. It was, in its own way, emblematic of all that has happened to England in the Christian era.
Secco painting at St. Just-in-Penwith
The secco painting―one of six, at least, that covered the gray stone walls of the parish church in St. Just-in-Penwith, making the medieval church vibrant and the Bible intelligible to an uneducated congregation―dates to the 15th century. In the next century, when the Reformation and the spread of Protestantism arrived in Cornwall, all the beautiful and colorful decoration was removed or hidden; no one in those puritanical times wanted to be thought of as Popish. During some decades, it was worth one’s life to appear to be allied with Rome.
The secco paintings remained hidden until the restoration of religious freedom beginning in 1865. And, although six paintings were discovered then, only two remain, with no record of what happened to the others. Those two are the one I stood before, “Christ of the Trades,” and “Saint George and the Dragon.” St. George is the patron saint of England, making it perhaps somewhat unusual that he was painted in St. Just-in-Penwith, Cornwall, where even now many Cornish people would like to separate from England. Indeed, Celtic Christianity still abounds in this part of Cornwall.
But for now, I’m just appreciating the arrival of that scent, a scent like no other, and instantly evocative of all the good in the world, and all its ancient history, still proceeding day by day.
There are lots of other reasons to visit Cornwall in springtime; see them here.
