If you had happened to walk out on to St Catherine’s Point from the town of Fowey in the winter of 1866 a strange scene would have greeted you. Above the sound of the waves breaking on the rocks below you would have heard a chink of metal on stone and the quiet hum of muttered voices. Further investigation would have led you to a group of miners excavating a deep shaft into the bedrock of the headland. But these men, despite their trade, were not mining for precious minerals, they had been employed for a very different purpose. They were there to dig a tomb fit for one of the wealthiest men in Cornwall – the hole in the ground they toiled over was to be the crypt beneath the Rashleigh Mausoleum.
This impressive and unusual monument still stands on its vantage point on the western side of the entrance to Fowey Harbour, now partially hidden from view by trees however it has pretty much been forgotten. So who had it built? What is the tomb like beneath the ground? And who was laid to rest there?
The Rashleigh Family
William Rashleigh had been born in 1817 and came from a long line of Cornish merchants. He was MP for East Cornwall in the 1840s, married a Scottish heiress called Catherine Stuart in 1843 and fought bravely in the Crimean War in the 1850s. He inherited the family estate on the death of his father in 1855.
The most famous ancestral home of the Rashleigh family is the house made famous by Daphne Du Maurier – Menabilly – but at the time of his death in 1871 William Rashleigh was one of the largest landowners in Cornwall with property in 40 Cornish parishes. He also had a home built for himself, Point Neptune, at Readymoney Cove near Fowey in 1862 (once owned by Dawn French), which apparently he preferred to big, draughty Menabilly. It is said that he chose the house’s location because he wanted to be as close to the sea as possible in his daily life, it was where he felt happiest.
In 1874 the West Briton wrote:
“That the late Mr Rashleigh liked the open sea as much as his neighbours we have proof in the rocky proximity of his dwelling to that element, his admiration being further shown by the appropriate choice of its name, borrowed from the title of the trident god himself; a devotion that, like the true loyalty to a liege lord, went beyond life, and lodged him, when he departed, in a rock-hewn grave, to be near and overlook, as it were, in death the azure realm he had made the close friend of his life.”
When William Rashleigh died in 1871 his funeral procession wound its way from the church out to St Catherine’s Point along a carriageway that he had had built as a pleasure walk for the town. It was headed by 40 men on horseback, mostly tenants, with scarfs around their hats, the Fowey freemasons in white gloves and white badges were in attendance, the coastguard and lifeboat crew followed in respectful ranks, there were numerous carriages for the mourners and the hearse itself was drawn by horses dressed with black plumes. All the shops in the town were closed and the flags of the ships in the harbour, as well as those on the castle, were flown at half mast.
After the internment a pair of watchmen were posted at the mausoleum for two or three nights after the funeral.
So, what of this mausoleum and its location, what makes it so special?
Saint Catherine’s Chapel
In December 1866 the Cornish Times reported on the construction of this “very handsome” monument which the journalist felt would be the “most unique” in Cornwall but William Rashleigh was by no means the first to see the headland’s beauty and potential. There was an Iron Age promontory fort here around 2000 years ago, followed of course by the Tudor Blockhouse, but where the mausoleum actually stands was the site of a medieval chapel that was licensed in 1390.
The chapel was dedicated to Saint Catherine, giving the point and the later castle its name. And if Catherine doesn’t sound like a very Cornish name for a saint that is because she was born in Alexandria, when the city was part of the Roman Empire. She is thought to have been martyred in AD307 after publicly professing her Christian faith at a feast held by Emperor Maximinus. The torture that she was subsequently subjected to is where we get the term ‘Catherine Wheel’, still common in fireworks displays.
Catherine was a very popular saint during the medieval period and the chapel close to Fowey was still standing in 1540 when it appears on a naval chart made for King Henry VIII mapping Fowey Haven. According to Lake’s Parochial History of Cornwall published in 1868 on this chart it was drawn as “a building with a single aisle and a western tower”. It is thought that during the Tudor period the chapel’s old tower was still being used as a daymark or navigational point for the shipping coming and going from the busy port. Nothing of the building now remains but it was in its forgotten shadow that William Rashleigh constructed his tomb.
The Rashleigh Mausoleum
The Rashleigh Mausoleum is a fascinating and unexpected construction perched on the summit of St Catherine’s Point. It is formed by a sort of crown of dressed granite blocks, topped with a Maltese cross. As the image below shows it once had panoramic views of Fowey, the harbour and out to sea, though today much of this vista is obscured by undergrowth.
There are very few descriptions of what the mausoleum looks like below ground but from some contemporary newspaper reports we can get a rough idea. During its construction the Cornish Times reported that the miners had formed and flattened “a small plateau” and had sunk into this a shaft-like opening. Looking down inside the writer could be see the arch of the vault deep below, which was reached by a flight of stone steps, and this vault was being lined with “white fire bricks”. At the time of William Rashleigh’s funeral in November 1871 the Cornish Telegraph noted that the mausoleum had been opened the day before and that the public had been given permission to look inside. Many carried lanterns up to the headland to “better inspect” the interior and the article concluded that “the excavation was perfectly dry and declared to be comfortably warm. This tomb was formed a few years ago by miners expressly engaged for the work . . .”.
The underground void was clearly large enough to hold at least three coffins as Rashleigh’s wife, Catherine, was buried there in 1872 and their only daughter, Edith Stopford Sackville followed in 1905.
A woman writing to the newspapers under a pseudonym in 1937 described watching William Rashleigh’s funeral as a child. She explained how she followed the procession up to the headland, picking up a flower that had fallen from the hearse on her way, and after the coffin had been placed inside the mausoleum and the principle mourners had left, she recalled how the people of the town had crowded inside the tomb, trying to catch a glimpse of the decorative casket. She was one of those who pressed themselves with that mob down into the darkness of the crypt and vividly remembered that the builders were rapidly bricking up the entrance, even though some people were still inside. Apparently she had to be lifted out over the growing wall that was being hastily built across the doorway. She wrote that there were people in Fowey who proudly claimed to have been inside the Rashleigh Mausoleum three times – once for each of the funerals!
Final Thoughts
In recent years I have developed a real interest, a (I hope to think not too morbid) curiosity, in unusual burial places and the reasons behind why a person has been laid to rest in a particular place beyond the churchyard walls (as my book Buried at the Crossroads demonstrates!). So discovering the Rashleigh Mausoleum and the story behind it has been great fun.
I also enjoy as always the layers of history that sites like this one reveal – how certain places have been the focus of our human attention and endeavour for generations. But above all, what I take away is that there is always more to learn and more to discover in the Cornish landscape!
Further Reading
The Fake Vicar of Talland Church
The Death of Sir Francis Basset & the Dunstanville Memorial, Carn Brea
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