Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/102

 96 THE CORNWALL COAST to tell about Falmouth. Its present docks, cover- ing an area of 120 acres, were built in 1860. There is some ship-building, some brewing, with oyster and trawl fishing ; the fishery engages nearly seven hundred persons. Industrially, the town cannot hope for much, unless it should ever become a naval base ; but as a residential district it is very delightful, combining the charms of sea and noble river. The Castle Drive can hardly be surpassed, of its kind ; and if we proceed past the Gyllyngvase bathing-beach, there is a pleasant little lake known as the Swanpool, which was once a swannery of the Killigrews. For antiquity as for present-day industry we must go to Penryn, Tvhich lies about two miles up the Penryn Creek and is devoted to the export of granite. The busy but not very lovely little town has very much of a granite tone about it, and can boast that it supplied the material for Waterloo Bridge ; it can also boast that it was in existence before the Conquest — how much earlier is difficult to say. Its parish church was so largely restored in 1883 that it is practically new ; it is dedicated to " Gluvias the Cornishman," who was a Welshman. Among the gardens at the back of Penryn's chief street are some remains of Glassiney College, founded in 1246 by Bishop Bronescombe of Exeter for secular canons and vicars. It became perhaps the most important centre of learning and literature in Cornwall, and was a nursery of the old miracle-plays or interludes — some of which still survive in the Cornish original and prove themselves to be no better, no worse, than the average of such performances throughout the kingdom. Old Cornwall, it must be confessed, did very little