The Old Cornwall Christmas Card

Old Cornwall Christmas Traditions

Cornish Carols - A Tradition For The World

17. Redruth

Nadelik Lowen

It Came Upon A Midnight Clear : Tune by R.H.Heath

Click to hear Music by Redruth Town Band To purchase their CD "A Proper Cornish Christmas" click here.

1. It came upon the midnight clear, That glorious song of old, From angels bending near the earth, To touch their harps of gold: "Peace on the earth, goodwill to men From heavens all gracious King!" The world in solemn stillness lay To hear the angels sing.	2. Still through the cloven skies they come, With peaceful wings unfurled; And still their heavenly music floats O'er all the weary world: Above its sad and lowly plains They bend on hovering wing, And ever o'er its Babel sounds The blessed angels sing.

3. O ye beneath life's crushing load, Whose forms are bending low, Who toil along the climbing way With painful steps and slow; Look now, for glad and golden hours Come swiftly on the wing; Oh rest beside the weary road And hear the angels sing.	4. For lo! the days are hastening on, By prophets seen of old, When with the ever-circling years Shall come the time foretold, When the new heaven and earth shall own The Prince of Peace, their King, And the whole world send back the song Which now the angels sing.

The mining district around Redruth and Camborne has been singing carols to locally written tunes for over a hundred and fifty years. Many of the tunes were written by local men and T Broad wrote Hark, what music fills Creation!" which is playing in the background.

"The “Redruth-Camborne” Carol, is the true Cornish “Curl.” Its golden age of production was from about 1790 to 1920, and it is this type of Carol which was carried during that period by Cornish miners to every part of the world, and which is still sung in the “Cornish homes far away”.

Robert H. Heath (see No. 13) Collected together a number of the Redruth District carols and published them in South Africa in 1889. Later they were re published in Redruth,

In his preface to the volume he wrote the following:

“For some considerable time our Cornish friends at home and in the Colonies have been clamouring for a Collection of Cornish Carols. And although there are many good Collections of Carols published, still there has not appeared as yet, any one of the old Favorites composed by such men as J. Stevens. T. Broad, W. Eade, J. Coad, A. Woolf and others, natives of Redruth and Illogan. And seeing the tenacity with which the Cornish folk stick to the yearly rendering of these Compositions as handed down from father to son, and not merely singing them in the chapels and churches but in - the highways and hedges. I have thought for some years past that perhaps something might be done to still further perpetuate these rude compositions by bringing them out in due form so as to make them more generally useful to all who are fond of such quaint music. I am perfectly aware of the task having been undertaken by one whose abilities are perhaps scarcely such as would warrant an interference with other peoples works; still I have endeavoured to retain the most striking points of interest which fairly entitles them to rank as characteristic of the Cornish style, and further I have been actuated by the purest motives towards the Composers themselves and the somewhat restricted rules of part -writing to sail as near the wind as possible with regard to the one as to the other.”

The Carol is "It came upon the midnight clear" and the tune was written by Heath and is being played by Redruth Town Band

Victorian Cornish Carols Number 1

Redruth & St Agnes District

Published by Federation of Old Cornwall Societies

Published October 2010

This A4 size book contains the words plus musical scores of 33 Cornish Christmas Carols collected and published by Robert H. Heath in Redruth in 1889.

You can purchase a paperback copy of this book for just £5 + p&p by clicking here

or you can download the 33 carols for £3 by clicking here