Looe Old Cornwall Society meeting 10.05.08


The meeting was held at St Martins Church Hall. The new banner was unveiled and approved by all. The old banner is about 80 years old & deserving of a happy retirement in archival material.

The LOCS website is growing & Barbara Birchwood-Harper has just put a large article on to it to help people who were wanting to start researching their family history.

As a result of our website, Peter King is receiving queries about various details from Looe’s past. He asked members for any help they could give & has a few answers to relay back. One query brought forth the information that, at one time, the road at Church End was private & that a chain was put across from Reeves warehouse each Boxing Day to ensure its status. Peter also announced that he has a reel of recorded interviews and needs to find someone with a reel to reel tape recorder please.

Edwina Arkell gave an update on the plans for Dehwellans festival in September. She listed the many & various events to be held in & around the town and her hopes that the expected visitors from Australia, Canada & USA, descendants of 19th century mining families fleeing poverty & famine, would fully appreciate their Celtic roots. In order to assist the smooth running of the week, volunteers will be needed & several members showed interest. One of the many trips arranged is one to the Dissenters Chapel at St Cleer, another to Looe Island. Sir John Trelawny will be reading extracts from his book “The Islanders” one evening. Cornish language will be represented by Dick Gendal & Edwina hopes there may be an opportunity for lessons in July to equip folk with a few phrases. A meeting will be held at the Guildhall on 21st May at 7pm.

John Enever thanked all members who had attended the recent meal at Kelly’s fish & chip restaurant & a suggestion that we return for a meal later in the year, was greeted with enthusiasm.

Neil Birchwood-Harper gave a short account of the two day meeting and
Workshop that had been held on 15th/16th April at Hannafore Hotel and on site concerning the Millendreath Valley proposed development . A full report was handed to the secretary and will go into the archives. Basically, David West had sold the land in two parts in the 1990s to Hill Properties & Mr Walker. Since then, the whole valley and the holiday camp area had been allowed to disintegrate into its present condition. The new owners “Espalier”( nothing to do with Spain) have come up with a broad timetable, starting in 2010 ( assuming that planning permission is received) covering hotels with spas & 80 – 100 bedrooms, apartment units, holiday lets, beach pontoon, ocean pool & boardwalk, shops, café/restaurants, business studios, trim trails etc, Neil advised members that all who had attended had initially come with trepidation expecting London people putting forward ideas that were not in keeping with the area. All had been very happy with the openness and honesty of the new owner, his team & the proposals.

Neil mentioned that the late LOCS member & one time archivist, Fred Leese died recently and that his niece had donated many of his books for sale for LOCS funds. Some of them were on display in the hall.

John Enever was the speaker for the meeting & gave a very interesting talk on Ley Lines & Lines of Force. He outlined the subject, mentioning Alan Neal’s books & the author of another book on the subject, Alfred Watkins who, in 1921, had had a vision about Ley lines.

John outlined the subject and mentioned feng shui as a similar concept. An important factor is that lines may be curved owing to the nature of our globe & he explained the concept of Mercator Projection using the example of peeling an orange.

He then mentioned several well documented Ley lines in Cornwall, many easily accessible locally such as the St Martins line which begins at Millendreath, passes through St Martin’s Church, Sandplace, Duloe standing stone circle, St Pinnock Church, Warleggan Church & finally onto Trehundreth Down.

Several lines intersect, Cadsonbury has 7 such intersections, St Pinnock Church,4. He opined that possibly the concept was discovered by enlightened folk who used it to place churches & holy sites.

John went on to illustrate the equipment needed to embark on the interest, an O/S map 1:25,000, string, map pins, pencil & rubber & a straight edge.

The talk moved onto lines of force & John discussed dowsing and told of personal experiences at the Hurlers at Minions. He showed some dosing equipment such a Hazel stick and rods made out of wire coat hangers. Lastly he mentioned the Michael line which start at St Michael’s Mount & goes across England to the Wash.

It was clear that many members were interested and Peter King, in his vote of thanks said that even he, as a scientist, was fascinated by the subject.

At the end of the meeting, Carol Day stood up and said how proud she had felt on 26th April when the Gorsedd Proclamation had been made in Looe. The President, John Enever, had walked behind over 50 Bards around the town carrying our banner. The meeting agreed and showed their appreciation.

The meeting ended with tea & biscuits.