12 PORTS: FALMOUTH – WILD PROMISE OF THE WESTERN OCEAN

Until late in the sixteenth century, the port of Falmouth did not exist. On the site where it would emerge, from where it has since grown to a town of well over 20,000, stood a single building - a lime-kiln. Over the coming centuries, as the oceans became the conduit for Europe’s expanding appetites, the buildings around the lime-kiln multiplied, the masts in the waters below grew thicker and a bustling port appeared.

Victualling, repairs and shelter were what it offered. But its principal business was communications. Falmouth was a packet port. From its quays, messages and documents sped around the world in vessels that could out-sail all but the quickest of privateers. Bullion came back, the surplus of Britain’s trade, and was transported overland to London under armed guard. As sail gave way to steam in the mid-19th century, the port's importance diminished. Its nautical advantages counted for less and something of the old vitality began to dissipate. Falmouth's story neatly spans the period in which wind-driven shipping transformed the world, the distant places of the earth began to be connected and the atlas formed into the familiar mosaic of nation states.

Falmouth is a magnificent natural harbour. Deep and sheltered, its waters have always provided succour for shipping. Out in the far west of Britain, with the Lizard peninsula breaking the Atlantic swells, it was the first port of call for ocean-weary vessels, and the last harbour for those heading down across the Bay of Biscay and around the world. But the estuary was vulnerable. Any settlement close to its mouth was exposed to raiders. Villages on the coast were frequently pillaged. Until the reign of Henry VIII, the main port on the Fal was a mile or so upstream from Falmouth, at Penryn, where a chain was stretched across the narrow river for protection.

That all changed with the building of Pendennis Castle in 1542, and its twin across the estuary, at St Mawes. Henry’s dispute with Rome had exposed him to a military threat from the continent. His defending of England’s south coast included fortifying the Fal. The land for Pendennis was leased from a family called Killigrew and they became the castle’s keepers. With a little martial might behind them, the Killigrews grew rapidly in wealth and power. They were part of a zealous Protestant ascendancy. Opportunistic and bold, they exerted control over the waters of the Fal, drawing its passing ships into what would become Falmouth’s inner harbour. They enlarged their house at Arwenack (you can still see something of its semi-ruined grandeur near the National Maritime Museum Cornwall). Various members of the family went to London and became part of Elizabeth’s west Country contingent (she was said to speak a little Cornish). The wives of Henry Killigrew and William Cecil, England’s most powerful man, were sisters.

But the sea has its temptations – something Elizabeth herself, the ‘pirate queen’, was not immune to. Down in Cornwall the Killigrews helped themselves to cargoes in their own growing port. By the time of the Armada, the head of the family – John Killigrew, Vice-Admiral of Cornwall – ran a semi-autonomous fief, roaming the county with a posse of armed followers: ‘he kept not within the compass of any law’, complained one charge-sheet. A decade later, the rumours spread: he was ready to turn Pendennis Castle, and thereby the Fal estuary, to the Spanish. Another Armada was on its way, and the Spanish plan was - with Pendennis Castle in their hands - to use the Fal as a base from which to press on and conquer England overland. They were only prevented by the weather – the ‘anti-Catholic winds’ – which shifted to the north-east and stopped the invading fleet from reaching the Cornish coast. John Killigrew was arrested. He died in Fleet prison, in London, deeply in debt. The truth about his duplicity was never established.

Such was the dubious milieu from which Falmouth grew. But it wasn’t so different from that of England itself. When Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558, the country was isolated. Much of Europe was hostile to it. The ‘navy’ consisted of just twenty-one ships. Only one person in England was capable at that time of sailing a ship to the equator. But within half a century, the rogue state had asserted its place on the world stage, and its confidence on the sea had led to a flowering of distant and lucrative colonies.

The port of Falmouth resembled a colony itself. Open to the sea, its population was all settlers, its territory ‘virgin’. Only the Killigrews had vested interests and those were now being picked over by incoming entrepreneurs. With the imprisoning of John Killigrew, control of Pendennis Castle was lost to the family, and the monopolies of their fiefdom dissolved.

In 1688, Falmouth became a Packet port and throughout the eighteenth century continued to offer its natural assets to shipping – commercial, civic and naval. It played its part in the wars with the French, housing the Western Fleet for a while. Its wharves and its town houses were full of a certain sort of character, dreamers and chancers, for whom the sea and its traffic provided freedom and opportunity.

Tolerance was one result and the town was a haven for minorities and religious dissenters. There was a small but busy Jewish community. The Quaker clan of Foxes settled and became the principal shipping agents for a couple of centuries. Baptists, Congregationalists and Independents all built houses of prayer. They were joined by the New Independents, Irvingites, Rechabites and Unitarians. It was said in the eighteenth century that of all the towns in Britain, Falmouth had ‘a greater proportion of persons adhering to different religious sects.’

For hundreds of years, Falmouth provided ships with the chance to avoid having to tack down the English Channel, exposing themselves to the attentions of the French. With the advent of steam power, and the coming of the railways, Falmouth no longer offered an advantage. In the mid-nineteenth century, it lost its Packet service to Liverpool and Southampton.

Since then, its fortunes have been mixed. Turn of the century hotels sprouted along its southern beaches; tourists basked in its mild climate.  It continued as a repair port. The early establishment of the polytechnic, in 1833, was a measure of the town’s lively spirit of scientific inquiry. Falmouth School of Art was set up in 1902. But the twentieth century was a period of slow decline, with high unemployment and dwindling activity in the shadow of its more prosperous past. Revitalising schemes appeared every now and then. In the 1930s, it was suggested as a main port for trans-Atlantic passengers (Southampton was eventually chosen). It would be a container port (too far from markets), or a cruise ship terminal (damaging capital dredging required) .

More recently, there has been something of a revival in the town’s fortunes. The estuary is a  destination for walkers, leisure boaters and tens of thousands of annual visitors who wander its creeks and villages, its coast paths. Falmouth docks are busy with repair, refuelling and service contracts. Pendennis Shipyard is a successful builder and refitter of international superyachts, employing a highly skilled workforce. The town has also been invigorated by Falmouth University, bringing several thousand students and staff to the area. In their diversity and the ferment of ideas is an echo of Falmouth’s years as a Packet Port.

Just above the Prince of Wales Pier is an open area which serves as something of a centre for the town. A granite obelisk rises from the middle, inscribed with the legend: To the Memory of the Gallant Officers and Men of H M Post Office and Packet Service sailing from Falmouth 1688-1852. Buses turn around it. Taxis queue nearby. Few people know it’s there. The area is called the Moor which in Cornwall refers to any area of boggy ground. Underneath the tarmac is an old watercourse which until a few centuries ago seeped down through mud and carr to the sea below. Just beside it, where the library and art gallery now stand, was the original lime kiln.

Philip Marsden's book about the story of Falmouth is The Levelling Sea: The Story of a Cornish Haven and the Age of Sail (Harper Press, 2011). His most recent book is The Summer Isles: A Voyage of the Imagination (Granta, 2019) - the story of a single-handed sail up the west coasts of Ireland and Scotland.