Cornish historian Barry West has been researching the life and work of George Fox, a founder of the Quakers, who helped to bring their beliefs to Devon and Cornwall. In George Fox’s 400th year, Barry has been campaigning to get a wayside marker installed at an important site in St Austell, which was a burial ground for Quakers until much of it was removed to make way for a road widening scheme on the road between St Austell and Sticker in 1965. 

George Fox came to the South West, travelling from the north - he later made his home at Swarthmoor Hall, near Ulverstone in Cumbria - to encourage people to look to the Quakers for guidance and hope. It was his vision to help people see that they could connect with God, and the Quakers advocated with peace in mind. 

During his time in Cornwall, an attempt was made to arrest Fox at Marazion, which he boldly challenged. He asked if they had a warrant for his arrest, and one of the guards plucked the heavy ceremonial mace from under his cloak and waved it under his nose, stating that this was his warrant. Still, Fox managed to leave the scene. It was the next day when he was finally arrested in St Ives for having written a pamphlet. In addition to this, the magistrate and local clergy also thought Fox’s hair was too long! To make matters worse, Fox also refused to remove his hat in court. 

Fox was imprisoned at Launceston Castle in 1656, where many of his followers - including Loveday Hambly, who lived at Tregongeeves - came to visit him, despite the poor conditions of the jail. George Fox, Loveday Hambly and other Quakers of the time faced much persecution for their beliefs. 

While he was held at Launceston Castle, Fox wrote of the terrible conditions he was kept in. Taken from the Launceston Castle website: “The place was so noisome that it was observed few that went in did ever come out again in health. There was no house of office in it, and the excrement of the prisoners that from time to time had been put there had not been carried out (as we were told) for many years. So that it was all like mire, and in some places to the tops of the shoes in water and urine…

“At night some friendly people of the town brought us a candle and a little straw, and we burned a little of our straw to take away the stink. The thieves lay over our heads, and the head jailer in a room by them. 

“...It seems the smoke went up into the room where the jailer lay; which put him into such a rage that he took the pots of excrement from the thieves and poured them through a hole upon our heads in Doomsdale, till we were so bespattered that we could not touch ourselves nor one another.”

Last July, to mark Fox’s 400th birthday, Barry organised the opening of a memorial tablet at Launceston Castle, paying tribute to George Fox and his time spent in the town. 

Tregongeeves was once a quiet spot where Quakers could bury and remember their late loved ones. Nature was what made this place special. Barry has collected a series of Cornish Guardian articles dating back to the 1960s, many of which describe the Quakers’ love for this quiet hilltop site. It is thought that the last person to be buried there was Miss M.J Fardon of St Austell, whose ashes were scattered there in August 1963. Before the work to the road in question could be done, 111 bodies buried there between 1664 and 1965 were removed and reburied. 

Lawrence Vian was one of the six men employed by Cornwall Highways to work on the burial ground. He was a carpenter’s assistant, and helped to make pine boxes in which the remains were interred. Also working on the burial site were Alan and Les Pearce from Lostwithiel, George Mitchel from Norman’s Land, carpenter Fred Scholar from Grampound, surveyor Mr Pepper and supervisor Reg Buscombe. Barry interviewed Lawrence at his home recently.

In the recording, Lawrence looked back on everything, from the lunches his mum packed him, to the way the JCB dug into the ground, and using ladders to get down, three graves deep. He said: “We didn’t find any evidence of coffins… Fred reckoned from what we found that the bodies were probably buried in hessian or muslin – which is a cotton material (not a coffin). He thought that if they were in boxes that the graves would have had to be deeper again, so that’s why we think they were buried in the muslin or hessian. The 8ft deep hole had plywood sheets, braced across each end while we worked down there. It wasn’t left open overnight, we used to fill the grave back in before the end of the day. It wasn’t filled in fully though and there weren’t any intruders because of the police presence 24 hours a day.

“The boxes were made up, remains inside, numbered with the plot number and level number and we put them on the truck as if we were trying not to crack an egg. It wasn’t just put on a lorry, it was done with respect and care. When the lorry got to the other end, there were Quakers waiting to unload the boxes respectfully. Some were relatives of the buried Quakers.”

On Saturday, Barry’s vision to honour this significant site will come to fruition. A small gathering of Friends and Quakers will meet at the remaining site at Tregongeeves to celebrate the 7ft slate wayside marker that simply states, ‘George Fox, Loveday Hambly and Friends’. The slate was donated by Tawn Dangar of Gavercombe Farm in Tintagel, with work to the slate done by Larcombe’s Memorials in St Blazey. 

A Cornish rose, ‘Perennial Blush’, has also been planted at the site as a symbol of peace, in light of current world events. 

Barry said: “The wayside marker is a way to remember all Quakers and all Friends, past and present. The Perennial Blush rose has been planted with peace in mind; it’s a message of hope.

“My aspiration is to create the Cornish Quaker Way, linking up all the places in Cornwall, from Lanson to Marazion, to Tregongeeves. My hope is that this could lead to a Devon Quaker Way, then on to a National Quaker Way.

“I cannot imagine a world without Quakers.”