Page:The parochial history of Cornwall.djvu/221

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ST. CLEER.
179

anima. As for this Doniert, Camden thinks he was that prince of Cornwall whom the chroniclers name Dungerth, and record that he was drowned in the year of our salvation 872. Camden also says, 'Hard by there is a number of good big rockes heaped up together; and under them one stone of a lesser size, fashioned naturally in form of a cheese, so as it seemeth to be pressed like a cheese; whereupon it is named Wring Cheese. Many other stones besides, in some sort four-square, are to be seen upon the plain adjoining; of which seven or eight are pitched upright of equal distances asunder. The neighbouring inhabitants term them Hurlers, as being by a devout and godly error persuaded, they had been men sometime transformed into stones, for profaning the Lord's day with hurling the ball. Others would have it to be a trophy (as it were) or a monument in memorial of some battle. And some think verily they were set as mere stones or landmarks; as having read in those authors that wrote on limits, that stones were gathered together of both parties, and the same erected for bounders. In this coast the river Loo maketh way and runneth into the sea, and in his very mouth giveth name to two little towns joined with a bridge together.'

"On the 6th August, 1802, I went with a party of friends to see these natural and artificial curiosities, mentioned by Camden. I first got the party to Redgate,[1] in St. Cleer parish, about four miles from Liskeard, in order to find out Doniert or Dungerth's monument, which I understood was somewhere near to it. I made inquiry at the house at Red-gate after this monument, but could get no account of it for some time,

  1. Probably this place took its name not from a gate painted red being there placed, as is generally imagined, but from its being situated just above Fowey river; Rhie-gat signifies River's course. The Fowey river at this place is not above half a mile from the source of Looe river.