Celia Fiennes was born in 1662 in Wiltshire but she had very different ideas about what a woman of her time should be and how they should behave.  The daughter of a wealthy politician Celia refused to be bound by convention and she never married. At a time when making a journey for its own sake was a new and rather racy idea, Celia became an enthusiastic traveller.

She wrote in her diary that her journeys helped her “to regain [her] health by variety and change of aire and exercise”.  It seems that Celia, like myself, found meaning in her life from seeing, experiencing and finding out about different people and places.

The Journey begins

This of course was a time when travel was for most people an arduous necessity that took planning and resolve.  The first stage-coaches didn’t appear in Cornwall until 1790. Nearly one hundred years after Celia’s travels. And even then the 100 mile journey from Exeter to Falmouth took 2 whole days. (About the same time as the A30 on an August Bank Holiday weekend then.)

But Celia was her own boss. She had her own agenda and she did it all riding side-saddle in a frock.  She completed her “Great Journey to Newcastle and Cornwall” in 1698 on a horse accompanied by just one or sometimes two servants.  And of course as you might have guessed apart from my admiration for her as an independently minded woman it is her descriptions of Cornwall that also interest me.

Into Cornwall

After a rather dramatic hour-long crossing of the River Tamar from Devon (there was no bridge at Saltash in those days) during which she catches a cold and wishes she had never started, one of the first places that Celia visited was Looe.  Here she describes crossing “a little arme of the sea on a bridge of 14 arches”.

That particular bridge no longer exists but the illustration above from 1840 gives us a good idea of what she might have seen.  She also writes that Looe is a “pretty bigg seaport” with “a great many little houses all of stone”.  I wonder what she would make of it now?

A little further down the coast Celia and her faithful four-legged companion made another river crossing.  This time at Fowey where she marvelled at the colour of the sea. “As green as I ever saw” she says.

St Austell and Cornish Women

But perhaps my favourite episode in her diary is the entry of the night that she spent in St Austell.  It is easy to forget that Celia was what you might call a ‘well-breed’ lady, she had been brought up in privileged circumstances and here she was travelling into darkest rural Cornwall without an escort.  She was staying (when not at the homes of wealthy friends) in whatever accommodation was available when the sun set and she couldn’t go any further that day.  So on this particular evening Celia finds herself in some kind of lodging in St Austell which she describes as “barn-like” and she gives us a delightful look at the Cornish people around her.

After telling us about an excellent “apple pye” with which she partook of “clouted creame” (clotted cream) available only in these parts she goes on to describe her company.

“I was much pleased with my supper tho’ not with the custome of the county, which is a universall smoaking both men and women and children have all their pipes of tobacco in their mouths and soe sit round the fire smoaking, which was not delightful to me . . . and I must say they are as comely sort of women as I have seen any where tho’ in ordinary dress, good black eyes and very neate.”

Love it! Cornish women are indeed “comely”!

It reminds me also of later photographs of elderly men and women with a clay-pipes that seem to be as much as part of them as the nose of their face.  I imagine her as being as much a curiosity to the locals as they were to her.  I can see them all gathered about the fire, peering as her through their pipe smoke, mumbling . . .

Industrial Landscape

As Celia rides out St Austell the next morning she is amazed by the industry in the area. The numerous mines and the “violent heat and fierce flames” coming from the furnaces.  These were hard times when a lucky few were making their fortunes on the backs of the many.  She comments again on the force of the industry when she passes through Redruth. She describes it as “very bleake”.

To Land’s End

But Celia’s horse carried her on, right to the end of mainland Britan.

She describes standing on a hill “about 2 miles from Lands End” where she “came in sight of the maine ocean on both sides”. This is Chapel Carn Brea and she writes that she is being able to see the Isles of Scilly from the top. This is certainly possible on a clear day, however her next statement may have involved a little more imagination or a very strong telescope . . .

“They tell me that those in the Islands can discern the people of the maine as they goe up the hill to Church (Chapel Carn Brea?), they can even describe their clothes”

Her diary ends with a description of her clambering about on the rocks at Lands End.  And as she says her “horses legs could not carry me through the deep and so return’d to Pensands [Penzance]”. And there “the Mount . . . looked very fine in the broad day the sun shining on the rocke in the sea”.

Celia continued her travels intermittently throughout her life until at least 1712. It took her through most of England.  She comments that because of the various wars with England’s neighbours she is too nervous to travel to the continent alone. But I have a feeling if she had been able she would have ridden her horse side-saddle for as far as its legs would have taken her.

Her diaries have been published and are actually an interesting read I promise! Link here.

For other tales of feisty Cornish ladies try:

The Notorious Women of the Killigrew Family

Hannah Jory: Mother, Prostitute & Convict

Granny Boswell: Cornwall’s Gypsy Queen

Chapel Carn Brea – Cornwall’s First and Last Hill

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