bronze. But, as already stated, the conquerors of
the rude stone monument builders adopted some of
their arts, and some of their camps are much later.
5. The stone, castle, the walls set in mortar, is not earlier in Devon and Cornwall than the Norman Conquest. There are no really stately castles in either county, with the exception of Launceston. Rougemont, Exeter, is eminently unpicturesque; Tiverton, Totnes, Plympton, are almost complete ruins; Lydford—well, as Browne the poet wrote of it in the reign of James I.:—
"They have a castle on a hill;
I took it for an old windmill,
The vanes blown off by weather;
To lie therein one night, 't is guessed
'T were better to be stoned or pressed
Or hanged ere you come hither."
And ruin that has fallen on it has not improved its appearance.
Okehampton is but a mean relic; Restormel is circular; Trematon is like a pork-pie; Pendennis, S. Mawes, late and insignificant. Tintagel owes everything to its superb situation and to the legend that it was the place where King Arthur was born. The most picturesque of all is Pregersick, near Breage, but that is late. Its story shall be told in the chapter on Penzance.
