Miners, Methodists, Preachers, and pits in Cornwall

METHODISM BECAME SUCCESSFUL in the county of Cornwall. Although I do not pretend to understand this branch of Christianity in any detail, I was curious to know why it had such a great appeal for the Cornish people. Apart from the great number of Methodist chapels one passes when travelling through Cornwall, there were several places associated with Methodism that sparked my interest. I will write about these after discussing why the branch of Christianity, founded by John Wesley (1703-1791), his brother Charles Wesley (1707-1788), and George Whitefield (1714-1770), was so widely accepted by the Cornish.

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Most Methodists believe that Jesus Christ died for all of humanity, and that salvation can be achieved by everyone. This is in contrast to the Calvinist belief that God has pre-ordained the salvation of only a select group of people. Whitefield held the Calvinist position, but the Wesley brothers believed that all could be saved. Part of the appeal of Wesleyan Methodism in Cornwall was that it did not select those who could be saved from those who could not – everybody was eligible for salvation.

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John Wesley first visited, and preached in, Cornwall in 1743, and then made a further 32 visits before his death in 1791 (www.cornwalls.co.uk/history/people/john_wesley.htm). During this period, Anglicanism was in decline in the county. There were several reasons for this (https://bernarddeacon.com/cornish-methodism-or-methodism-in-cornwall/the-causes-of-methodist-growth/). One of them was the rise of industrial (mainly mining) activity and its effect on the social fabric of Cornwall. Another was the fading appeal of the Anglican Church in the county. An interesting website (www.cornwallheritage.com/ertach-kernow-blogs/ertach-kernow-cornish-methodism-rise-decline/) noted that:

“The 18th century Anglican Church had greater concern for ensuring the support of wealthy and influential families rather than the poor agricultural labourers and miners that made up the vast majority of the Cornish population.”

Furthermore:

“The running of parishes were often ‘subcontracted out’ to curates and churchwardens with the clergy occupied in the major parishes and centres of religious influence. Some parishes were very large with the people spread thinly, only limited numbers living in the historic churchtowns surrounding the medieval churches. During the 18th century growth in mining, settlements gradually grew up around the sites of major mining activities leading to new villages and small, towns.”

These new settlements were often distant from the established Anglican churches, and travelling about the county was far from easy back in the 18th century. ?The rise in industrial activity along with the corruption of the Anglican church in Cornwall, and the economic uncertainties caused by the fluctuations in the world’s prices for what was being mined by impoverished Cornish workers with large families, left a spiritual void that preachers like John Wesley helped to fill.

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But what did John Wesley and Methodism have to offer the Cornish, and to gain them as followers? To start with, Methodism as practised by Wesley did not exclude anyone from gaining salvation. A reasonable sounding explanation for the appeal of Methodism to the Cornish miners and their families was provided by the historian David Luker:

“According to Luker, for the poor Methodism did not principally legitimate ‘respectable’ or middle class values; it legitimated the morality and structures of ‘traditional’ Cornish society. It upheld and validated the cottage as a socio-economic unit in the face of the changes being wreaked by an external modernity. This role is perhaps underlined by the fact that the majority of those who joined early Methodist societies in Cornwall were women. Overall, Methodism appealed to a conservatism of the commons, seemingly justifying a way of life increasingly under pressure from economic change, just as the rituals of the Anglican church appealed to the conservatism of the propertied classes. This is why Methodism grew earliest and fastest in those districts where mining was present, in large parishes, in areas of dispersed settlement out of the reach of a socially enfeebled gentry, and in ‘unimproved’ agricultural districts.” (https://bernarddeacon.com/cornish-methodism-or-methodism-in-cornwall/the-causes-of-methodist-growth/).

Cornwall was one of the counties of England that gave Methodism its greatest acceptance.

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John Wesley discovered that the Cornish enjoyed hearing him (and other preachers) in the open-air. I am not sure the reason for this. During a visit to the small Cornish town of Indian Queens, we came across a ‘preaching pit’ (see https://adam-yamey-writes.com/2024/07/03/indian-queens-in-the-heart-of-cornwall/). Because mining activity undermined the land above it, occasionally the surface would collapse causing depressions, rather like quarries, in the landscape. At Indian Queens, one such hollow was remodelled to make it into an outdoor amphitheatre with tiered rows upon which people could stand or sit whilst they listened to a preacher speaking from a stone pulpit. While we were visiting this ‘pit’, a local historian told us about other surviving pits in Cornwall, at: St Newlyn East, Whitemoor, Tregonnig Hill, and Gwennap.

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The pit at Gwennap (near Redruth) is one of the most interesting places we have visited in Cornwall. It is an inverted cone with circular tiers of seating cut into its side. Grass grows on the seating and the surface surrounding the pit. Almost perfectly geometrical, it rivals some of the stone stepwells I have seen in India. The present pit was constructed in early 1807, and is still used to hold Methodist services occasionally. What exists today is a remodelling of an earlier depression in the ground which John Wesley described (in September 1766) as being:

“… a round, green hollow, gently shelving down, about fifty feet deep; but I suppose it is two hundred one way, and near three hundred the other.”

He added that he considered it to be the finest natural amphitheatre in England. People gathered within it and around its edges, and because of its shape and acoustics, Wesley’s voice could be heard by the multitudes (often thousands of people) who had come to hear him. John Wesley made 18 visits to Gwennap Pit between 1762 and 1789. He used to stand just below the outer rim of the pit, and could be heard clearly by those within the pit and those around it, even some distance away. In his diary, he noted that on the 27th of August 1780:

“It was supposed twenty thousand people were assembled at the amphitheatre at Gwennap. And yet all, I was informed, could hear me distinctly, in the fair, calm evening”

Although the size of the congregations might not have been estimated accurately, there is no doubt that they were large and because of the acoustics of the pit, they were able to hear Wesley even if they were quite a distance from him.

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The pit was, I have already mentioned, remodelled to become the circular structure which has existed since 1807. Between 1983 and 1986, nine standing panels were constructed close to the pit. Designed by an architect, Clive Buckingham, they commemorate the life and work of John Wesley. They include mosaic work by Guy Sanders. ?Close to this and the pit, there is a visitors’ centre and a small, simple indoor chapel. When we visited it, we spoke to a volunteer who was working there. When he learned of our Indian connections, he told us that his grandfather had gone from Cornwall, where tin mining was on the decline, to the Kolar goldfield in Karnataka (east of Bangalore). His ancestor worked in the goldmines, erecting timber pit props.

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While the Gwennap Pit is spectacular and well worth visiting, the other preaching pits we saw (at Indian Queens and Whitemoor) do not lack in interest. Whereas the pits at Gwennap, Indian Queens, and St Newlyn East are circular, at Whitemoor, the pit is only a quarter of a circle. The preaching pits in Cornwall do not rival the splendour of Ancient Roman and Ancient Greek amphitheatres, but they provide fascinating glimpses of the history of religion in Cornwall and how Christianity was adapted to the need of Cornish workers.