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Old & New Cornish Christmas Carols Cornish Carols - A Tradition For The World.
Penzance
The picture is the old market hall in Penzance drawn by Thomas Allom. The building was demolished and replaced by the present one in 1838. William Bottrell (Old Celt) wrote the following in 1886:
The completion of the Penzance
Public Buildings forms an epoch in the history of the place, and an
elderly person cannot help contrasting the present appearance of the
town with what it was three-score years, or a century, ago; as we
know it to have been from well-remembered vestiges of the old time,
and from the accounts of our grandparents, who, if they revisited
our town at the present time, would be much surprised, and not over
well pleased, at all the changes which have taken place during the
last hundred years, many of which are alterations without
improvement. nay, often wanton destruction of what can never be
restored, however regretted. Who that remembers the picturesque and interesting old market-house, with the corresponding buildings surrounding or near it, such as the house in which Sir Humphry Davy was born, the cosy nook under the balcony of the “Star” inn, where often of an evening he held his youthful comrades spellbound by the wonderful stories that his poetical imagination inspired, can help regretting their removal and loss? I can’t understand, nor can many others, what was the inducement to remove the old balcony from this inn, and other houses throughout the town! They were no obstruction to the footpath, and the very aspect of these appropriate, cosy-looking entrances to the old inns infused a feeling of comfort and seclusion that one misses very much in the glaring, lantern-like modern hotels. Besides, as an interesting memorial of our most illustrious townsman, it is ten thousand pities it should have been destroyed. You are listening to the Carol "Awake with Joy," sung by the Grass Valley Cornish choir and recorded for radio in 1946. This was another carol taken to America by Cornish Miners who probably had a copy of "The Cornubian Tune Book" by Richard Jones of Penzance which was published by William Cornish of Penzance in 1870. Jones was born in Beaumaris on Anglesey on the 19th December 1811 and came to reside in Penzance in 1853. He composed all the tunes himself, mainly to the words of Wesleys' hymns, hymns from Lady Huntingdon's collections, and Hymns, Ancient and Modern. There are several splendid tunes, and all are printed in the conventional way for organ.
Thanks to Hymns and Carols for making the midis scores available to use.
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