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The theft of Cornish culture |
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Page 2 of 7
Under the direct control of the old Minstry of Works and Department of the Environment, our built heritage was relatively well-tended (with a few sad exceptions). Then, in 1984 Orwell’s predictions began to take form. The responsibility for our historic built heritage was handed over to a new quango with the grand name of the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission. Within a short time, this had changed its name to ‘English’ Heritage which now markets our Celtic Cornish heritage as that of a totally unconnected people who were not even in Britain when much of that heritage was built. In recent years, it has hived off those sites that don’t generate revenue to other groups such as the National Trust and the Cornwall Heritage Trust, only retaining management of those sites which attract entrance fees, complete with souvenir shops. Its treatment of our ancient monuments has been abysmal, pouring masses of ugly concrete around the upper edges of the round chamber in the Carn Euny fogou and even filling in the remains of the Chysauster fogou (after publicly denying they would do any such thing). I took this up personally with ‘English’ Heritage’s then chairman, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu whose words will live with me forever: “It’s not as if it’s Stonehenge, is it?”
In 1992, ‘English’ Heritage assured me that a thorough review of scheduled monuments (ie. those to be protected by law) would be complete within 5 years. In 2008, I am still waiting and so are important sites and monuments that remain completely unprotected. During that period some have disappeared. One medieval, and unscheduled, stone cross vanished from near St Breward on Bodmin Moor and only came to light when I came across it in a garden in the Cot Valley near St Just. An unscrupulous farmer nearly sold the circular capstone of the unscheduled Bosporthennis Quoit, having dragged it away from the site. Happily, his action was discovered before it was too late and the site’s actual owner forced him to put it back.
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