The History

The first people in the valley

Mevagissey's story starts long before it had a name anyone would recognise. Settlers who had come west across the Mediterranean from north-western Italy took to this valley in the Bronze Age and stayed.

The Greek explorer Pytheas, from Massalia — today's Marseille — sailed to Cornwall around 325 BC and described the people here as skilled wheat farmers — usually peaceable, but formidable in war, where they used horse-drawn chariots. He also described the Cornish tin trade with the Mediterranean.

What is left of them is sparse: burial mounds on the cliffs to the south of the village, and the hill fort ruins on Camp Hill. There was a road to the Bronze Age port of Percuil, and when the Romans arrived they used those old tracks and built a fort they called Colonia.

The arrival of the saints

After the Romans left in the fifth century, Cornwall turned to Celtic tradition and a new wave of Christianity — the age of the saints.

Mevagissey was then two separate settlements: Lammorick, and Porthhilly, which fished. A saint from Ireland named Mevan arrived in the sixth century, bringing recruits from Brittany including Saint Issey, to convert the Cornish. A church built in memory of the two saints united the two settlements, and the village became Mevan hag Ysaye — and in time, Mevagissey.

Kings, then Normans

Cornwall had its own king until 875. King Donyarth, the last of them, either drowned or was beheaded and had his head thrown into the river Fowey.

The Viking king Sweyn Forkbeard took Wessex but let Cornwall, Scotland and Wales rule themselves in exchange for payment. When he lost power Cornwall lost its footing too, and the Norman aristocracy carved up the land. The Domesday survey of 1086-88 records Mevagissey split into four manors: Porthhilly, Treleaven, Bodrugan and Penwarne.

Trade with mainland Europe was strong, lost in the Hundred Years War, and re-established when it ended. The first stone harbour went up in that time. The village has always leaned on fishing, which means changes in the sea and in politics have always hit it hard.

Bodrugan goes off a cliff

Two years after the Hundred Years War ended, the Wars of the Roses began. Most families here stayed out of it. Sir Henry Bodrugan of Bodrugan Castle did not: he kept a private army, backed the House of York, sailed out of Mevagissey to seize Dutch, Spanish and French vessels, and made armed raids on neighbours who favoured Lancaster, taking cattle, goods and women.

He backed Richard III, who lost. Henry VII accused him of treason, but Bodrugan sat safe behind heavy walls. Supporting the pretender Lambert Simnel was the step too far, and a death warrant was issued. A local force — very likely including men of Mevagissey — came for him. Bodrugan is said to have fled, leapt from a cliff, swum to a waiting boat and sailed for Ireland, where he held land. The barony was stripped from his family and the castle pulled down.

In 1588 Spain sent 130 ships. The grandson of the man who had led the attack on Bodrugan saw to it that the people of Mevagissey were trained in arms, and a beacon was kept ready.

Pilchard, and a civil war

By 1640 Mevagissey had a flourishing fleet: pilchard in summer, herring in winter, mackerel in spring. The Civil War put a stop to the run of it — men of the village had to fight one another, on whichever side the families they worked for had taken. There was a battle in the Pentewan area.

When the royalists lost, the Puritans sacked the vicar, sold the church bells and knocked down the tower. Local royalists answered with a verse:

Ye men of Porthhilly, why were ye so silly / In having so little power / You sold every bell, as Gorran men tell / For money to pull down your tower

Smugglers, then Methodists

By 1733 fishing alone would not put bread on the table and smuggling was rife. Roscoff was the primary stop — French cognac, Dutch gin, tea, tobacco, silks and lace, brought back and sold high.

Then John Wesley came in 1750, and the Methodist preacher changed the village. Some men gave smuggling up. One had made £3,000 on his last trip — something like £175,000 in 2017 money — and quit because he could not square it with Methodism.

Wesley's own account

A woman of Mevagissey had heard Wesley preach nearby, and wrote to him:

Sir, if at any time you be nigh unto Mevagissie, I shd. esteem it a great favour if you wod. come and preach to the people, for in this town there is much licence and drunkenness.

Wesley's journal records what he found:

As soon as we entered the town, many ran together, crying, "see the methodees come". But they only gaped and stared… They looked as fierce as lions, but in a few minutes changed their countenance and stood still.

A later entry suggests it took: "I rode to Mevagissey. When I was there last, we had no place in the town. I could preach only half a mile from it. But things have altered now. I preached just over the town to almost all the inhabitants and all were as still as night."

Around the same time there was an attempt to turn Mevagissey into a spa town on the strength of the sulphurous springs in the valley. A Greek-style temple was built. The scheme failed, and the iron heating the spring was later mined.

Cholera, and a bigger harbour

A new harbour was applied for successfully in 1775 and enlarged in 1866. Around that time a cholera outbreak killed many in the village and drove others away to places with cleaner water. Part of what saved those who stayed was a fondness for tea — which meant boiling the water.