The Rashleigh Arms: New Evidence

The Rashleigh Arms was built just before 1829, although for many years the Charlestown Estate believed that it dated from 1851. This was clearly not the case. I have found an auction reference to the building from 1829, followed by a reference to its existence in Pigot’s Directory in 1830. The first landlord listed there was a Mr James Truscott. Truscott was already the landlord; I don’t think for a minute a building of that scale was built in less than a year. This new evidence puts the build date at least 22 years earlier than all Charlestown historians before me previously thought.

Pigot's diary of Cornwall 1830 clearly shows James Truscott as landlord of the Rashleigh Arms.

The history of the site itself goes back even further. On the 1825 map drawn up following the death of Charles Rashleigh, a clay cellar is shown on this particular spot. Estate records describe open-sided clay cellars with a chamber, or bedroom, a loft and a garden. They were leased by Dickens & Co for £36 6s and were used by the clay sampler Edward Rowse. It would therefore appear that the site had an established connection with the china-clay trade before the Rashleigh Arms was built.

The next known tenants of the Rashleigh Arms were Thomas Stephens and his wife, Mary. Thomas was also a cooper. Whether he had any connection with the old cooperage behind the Rashleigh Arms, later known as Rowse’s Cooperage, we will probably never know. His earlier address was recorded as Charlestown Road.

The first mention I have found of Thomas Stephens as landlord is in the 1851 census, and he also appears in an 1856 directory. Living at the Rashleigh Arms with Thomas and Mary in 1851 were their two sons, Joseph, aged 20, and John, aged 19. Also staying there was a visitor, Richard Rodda, who was a tea dealer. The household included a barmaid, Susan Harris, together with three house servants, Jane Phillips, Elizabeth Phillips and Jane Bunny. It gives some idea of the size and importance of the establishment at that time.

Thomas Stephens remained landlord until 1873, when the Coade family took over. By 1883, John Coade was recorded as the landlord, and the family remained associated with the Rashleigh Arms through the 1891 and 1901 censuses.

Public houses were far more than places to drink in those days. They were important meeting places where a great deal of local business was conducted. All sorts of people would gather in them. Ships were auctioned, boats and seine fishing nets were sold, and shares in mining companies and vessels were bought and traded. In a busy port such as Charlestown, the public house was at the very centre of village life.

The Rashleigh Arms also had a rather more sombre use. Because the cellar was naturally cold, it was sometimes used as a temporary morgue. During the mid-nineteenth century there were proposals to provide Charlestown with a dedicated mortuary because bodies were regularly washed ashore at Charlestown and on nearby beaches during the winter months, usually from vessels lost during storms.

There are, of course, many old stories connected with wrecking around the Cornish coast. Local folklore tells of wreckers deliberately showing false lights to vessels in bad weather in the hope of bringing them ashore. One particularly colourful story claims that lanterns were sometimes tied to donkeys, which would then wander along the coast path. From the sea, the moving light might be mistaken for a vessel or a safe harbour. Once a ship had been wrecked, its cargo could be plundered. There are even darker tales of survivors being killed so that there would be no witnesses. Whether every such story is true is impossible to know, but they have been part of Cornish folklore for generations.

The pub was also regularly used for inquests, and judging by contemporary newspaper reports, these occurred with surprising frequency. One particularly grim case was heard at the Rashleigh Arms in 1865 under the heading:

SUPPOSED CHILD MURDER AT CHARLESTOWN

An inquest was held at the Rashleigh Arms before Mr E. G. Hamley, coroner, concerning the body of a female infant discovered on the 9^th of the month close to the cliff edge at Campdowns, a short distance from Charlestown harbour. The child had been found wrapped in linen cloth and tied with tape.

Mr J. P. Berryman, a surgeon from St Austell, examined the body, but decomposition was so advanced that he was unable to establish with certainty how the child had died. The infant was described as full-grown and was believed to have been born approximately a month earlier. The jury returned an open verdict, and the police began inquiries in an attempt to identify the mother.

The Rashleigh Arms underwent a major alteration during the summer of 1887, when it was extended to approximately its present size. I have been unable to find surviving building records for this work, but fortunately I have a photograph showing the extension actually under construction. Older photographs provide further evidence, as the roofline is clearly much shorter than it is today.

The extension was built eastwards from what is now the entrance to the lounge bar. Originally there were only four upstairs bedroom windows; today there are five. This change is particularly useful when trying to date old photographs of the building.

Another small but remarkable piece of history survives on the slate windowsill beside the old public bar door. Scratched into the slate is the image of a schooner, carved by village children more than 120 years ago. Despite all the changes made to the building over the years, it remains there to this day.

The pub’s famous cobbled car park is equally interesting. It is the only surviving ore floor in the village and is something of a geologist’s delight. Thankfully, it has now been listed. The surface consists largely of ballast stones brought up from the beach and set into the ground, preserving another direct link with Charlestown’s industrial and maritime past.

By the turn of the twentieth century the Coade family were still running the Rashleigh Arms, appearing in both the 1891 and 1901 censuses. By 1911 the landlord was Samuel Tonkin, aged 55. Living with him were his wife, Eliza, aged 53; their daughter Clara Harriett, aged 19, who was described as her mother’s help; and their son William A., aged 18. Also in the household was Clara Golley, aged 26, who worked as a servant. By 1914 the landlord was recorded as Absalom Beard Junior. The 1921 census records Abraham John Beard, aged 51, as publican, together with his wife Gertrude, aged 42. Also staying at the Rashleigh were Lillian May Sleeman, aged 21, a servant, together with several visitors: Oliver Read, aged 35; Ether Beatrice Read, aged 30; Robert Vessey Read, aged two; Rolande Arthur Read, aged 19; Pellie E. Norris, aged 35; and Harold S. Aglett, aged 37.

Harbour master William Hendra with the hat, standing in the doorway of the pub. The landlord's name, Beard, can clearly be seen above and behind.

Electoral records show further changes during the following decade. In 1927 the occupants were Mr Charles Thomas and Mrs Elizabeth Winnifred Smith. By 1928 the Rashleigh Arms was occupied by Mr Wilfred Albertus Johns and Mrs Reney Frances Johns, who were still recorded there in 1931, together with Lilian May Bond.

By 1939, Wilfred Albertus Johns was still recorded as landlord, this time with Mrs Muriel Johns. Assistance was provided by Beatrice Gilchrist and Doris Arthur. The Johns family also rented garage number 100a for £3, paid quarterly.

During the 1970s the Rashleigh Arms made national newspaper headlines, although for entirely the wrong reason. The notorious Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs was on the run, and for a short time police believed that he might have stayed at the pub.

The story appeared in the Daily Mirror on 27 January 1971. A police hunt for Biggs, who was thought to have been in the St Austell and Truro districts during the previous weekend, had suddenly been called off on the Monday night. A police spokesman confirmed that a man named Mr Birch, who had stayed at the Rashleigh Arms, had been traced to Penzance and established not to be Biggs.

Mrs Dulcie Honey, wife of the licensee, had reported that a man who arrived at the Rashleigh Arms with a woman at about 5.30 p.m. on the Saturday and left at 8 a.m. the following morning bore a strong resemblance to the escaped train robber. Her suspicions triggered a sizeable police operation around St Austell and Truro and alerted officers throughout Cornwall.

Dulcie had been reading a Sunday newspaper when she saw a photograph of Biggs and immediately noticed the resemblance to the man who had stayed at the pub.

“I decided to call the police and report my suspicions,” she later explained.

The couple had spent the evening in the bar, and the man mentioned that they were considering going to Truro. They had been unable to make up their minds whether they wanted early morning tea, but eventually had tea at 7.30 a.m., breakfast fifteen minutes later and were gone by eight.

Dulcie thought their early departure rather unusual for a Sunday and decided that, given the resemblance to the newspaper photograph, it would do no harm to contact the police.

Officers in Truro subsequently checked hotels and boarding houses during the Sunday night, while St Austell detectives took photographs and fingerprints from the room in which the couple had stayed. The whole affair, however, turned out to be a false alarm. Mr Birch was not Ronnie Biggs.

Another dramatic incident occurred during the long, scorching summer of 1976. The village awoke one morning to discover that a mineshaft had opened beneath the Rashleigh Arms car park. Villagers were astonished to see a flatbed lorry trailer, loaded with bags of clay, partly swallowed by the hole.

Lorries were often parked in the car park overnight so that they could be ready for loading early the following morning. On this occasion a crane was needed to recover the vehicle. Charlestown Estate staff then capped the shaft, and the concrete patch marking the site can still be seen today against the bottom wall of the car park.

Until the mid-1970s, the interior of the Rashleigh Arms was surprisingly small. There was a tiny lounge bar, a snug and a larger public bar. A sliding hatchway known as the “jug and bottle” allowed staff to serve customers outside during the summer months and was also used for off-licence sales.

There was no beer garden as there is today. That was added in 1975. The public bar was largely open, although a substantial chimney dominated the middle of the room. The toilets, which I remember as being particularly cold, were outside in the backyard beside the old bottle store. That entire area now forms part of the lounge bar.

A lovely old image taken from my charlestown book-Batten Down The Hatches. Rashleigh Arms circa 1890.

My earliest memories of the Rashleigh Arms date from the end of the 1960s, when Ken and Dulcie Honey were the proprietors. On numerous occasions my father would send me across to buy a bottle or two of Newcastle Brown Ale. I was only young, but off I would go with the money in my hand.

Ken would open the jug-and-bottle hatch and ask me what I wanted. I would tell him what my father had sent me for, and he would hand it over. He would then give me a bar of fruit-and-nut chocolate for free, accompanied by a great big smile, telling me that the chocolate was for me but that I was not to tell my father. Looking back, I think he probably felt sorry for me, knowing that things were not particularly good at home.

The pub had a smell all of its own: a pungent mixture of alcohol and tobacco that seemed to waft out through the hatch. Looking inside, I could see men sitting at the bar, which was frequently crowded with ships’ crews. Many of them were Dutchmen, and I particularly remember seeing them wearing their wooden clogs.

During the 1970s, after Ken Honey had left, David Adams took over as landlord. Dave had previously worked as a representative for Harvey’s Bristol Cream. His wife was Ann, and they had three children: Timothy, Nicola and Ross.

Ross was the same age as me, and we became great friends. We remain friends to this day although he now lives thousands of miles away in America. He still regularly returns to the village of his childhood.

Dave knew exactly how old I was, so there was no chance of my being served underage, which I found rather disappointing at the time. He also bore more than a passing resemblance to a certain landlord in the hit television sitcom Rising Damp, and before long the locals had nicknamed him “Rigsby”.

Dave moved on when I was seventeen, and Geoffrey Ridpath became the new landlord. Geoff did not know my age, so I started drinking there with a few of the others.

On my eighteenth birthday we were having a right old knees-up when Geoffrey asked what the occasion was. I told him that it was my eighteenth birthday. His face was an absolute picture.

Geoff had originally come to Charlestown as a crew member on the tall ship Marques. He later fell in love with Nicola, Dave Adams’s daughter. It was Dave who put Geoff’s name forward to the Charlestown Estate as the incoming landlord.

Geoff was a great landlord, although I probably did not appreciate just how good he was at the time. He showed remarkable tolerance towards our crowd of rowdy youngsters. Geoff and I remain great friends to this day.

In 1989, the Rashleigh Arms was sold to only the third ownership since the building had first opened around 1830. The new owners were George, June and Rodney Morcom. They employed Robert Caithness as manager.

Rob was a village boy. He had grown up first at number 70 Charlestown Road and later at number 25 Quay Road. He was also a very great friend of mine.

Rob ran a fantastic pub and, at one point, made the Rashleigh Arms one of the top-grossing pubs in Cornwall. It was an extremely successful business and remained so for many years.

Then, in 2005, the Rashleigh Arms was sold to St Austell Brewery, ending approximately 175 years of trading as a free house. The interior was extensively altered and remodelled in the brewery’s house style. In my opinion, much of the character that had made the Rashleigh special disappeared with those changes, and it is sad to say that I regard it as a shadow of the pub I once knew.

For generations the Rashleigh had been very much a locals’ pub. It enjoyed tremendous support from nearby residents and had thriving pool, darts and euchre teams. It was a place where villagers met, socialised, argued, laughed, celebrated and occasionally probably drank more than was good for them.

Today St Austell Brewery has a dominant presence among the pubs in the village, which I think is a shame. Good competition never hurt anyone.

Who knows what the next hundred years will bring for the Rashleigh Arms? One thing is certain: whatever happens will simply become another chapter in the extraordinary history of this iconic Charlestown building.

Written by Lyndon Allen, 2022