Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/364

 358 THE CORNWALL COAST an Hand, and thereon a decayed chapell : it spareth roade only to such small shipping as bring their tide with them, and leaveth them drie, when the ebb hath carried away the salt water." He tells how Arundel of Trerice had a house here named Efford, now the Bude vicarage ; and how this gentleman " builded a salt-water mill athwart this bay, whose causey serveth, as a verie convenient bridge, to save the way-farers former trouble, let and daunger." The present church stands near, built by Sir Thomas Acland in 1835. The chapel on the islet, decayed even in Carew's time, was dedicated to St. Michael, its dedication being transferred to the present church ; only a few faint traces of the old building can be seen. It was this same Sir Thomas Ackland who constructed the bathing-pool at the end of the breakwater, where it forms a very pleasant little swimming-bath. But in time of storm, rock and pool and breakwater are a mass of snowy, quivering foam; even in less tempes- tuous times it is fine to see the waves rush seeth- ing up the sides of the substantial little break- water, with suggestiveness of what they can do in w^ilder hours. It must be confessed that this corner by the haven is the most interesting portion of Bude, which some visitors have condemned as an unat- tractive place. Certainly the growth of lodging- houses has not added to its charm, as these houses have all the tameness, though doubtless also the convenience, of modern street-architecture. It is by the haven and on the banks of the now useless canal that there is anything of an old-world atmosphere. As compared with places like Polperro or Boscastle, Bude has a touch of the commonplace, but its coast is fine, and it is an