James wrote his autobiography in 1904.  It covers the years 1847 to 1890 and was published in A Cornish Farmer’s Diary (edited by P.A.S. Pool) in 1977.

I was 57 years of age the 1st of last August.  I was born at Jownes in Zennor halfway down between Churchtown and the Mill. And it is well known that Jownes house was once a mill house and some pieces of millstones can be seen around the place in the garden hedge.  In times past Jownes had three dwelling houses, and twice I have heard of a school being kept there.  First by my Grandmother Philis Stevens, and I’ve heard my Mother say that she attended there to school whilst she lived at Foage, and later Henry Nicholls kept a school there.

He lived in his latter days in a little house near the western side of the river half ways up between Churchtown and Foage, where he built his house and a water wheel stamps with three heads, where he stamped tin stones that he raised in a mine in Trewey downs called the White Works and in other places.  Before then he lived in a house at Churchtown near the Church stile where he kept a grocery shop and had a pair of millstones which he worked by a horse, I remember it but it was not a success.  He was perhaps the most learned man in Zennor in his time and was very inventive and handy.  I could write much more about him and his doings but have not space here.  I have drunk a glass of sweet drink (in his house that he named the Cuckoo Stamps) that he made of honey.

I lived in Jownes for about 6 or 7 years (rent paid for Jownes £6 6s per year for 4 meadows) and there we milked a cow, and my Father was engine driver in Wheal Reeth in Lelant Parish and also at Ding Dong mine, and the garden at Jownes that is now grown over was once the neatest in Zennor Parish for which my Mother had the Cottage Garden Society’s prize of 10/-.

Jawnes (or Jownes) has almost disappeared, but it stood in this area

Afterwards I lived at the lower mill – Eglos Meor – for about 31 years, and had much to do with the grinding of grist corn for the people of Zennor when they did eat their own grown barley and wheat.  The rent of mill and about 4 acres of land £14 per year, where we milked 2 cows.  Father and Mother died at the Mill, also one of our children in her infancy.  Below the Millhouse, (which is washed away by a flood a few years ago) is a garden about 10 lace, in which I have grown much vegetables and have had 6d per lb for new potatoes early in May.  One year I made £2 10s with potatoes grown in that garden and another year I sold about £5 worth.  I also grew currants, gooseberries, strawberries, tomatoes and tobacco and also kept a few stocks of bees (and my Father had at one time in Jownes garden 30 stocks of bees at one time).

At the Mill I have helped James Thomas, Carpenter and Millwright of Zennor to repair one water wheel and to make a new one.  I also helped Gilbert of Gulval to make a new water wheel with Iron sides.  My eldest brother Will used to go down to Pendower sand in summer nights to catch lances, and when coming up one night he and Edward Banfield caught and killed two badgers, and he has also killed an otter at Pendower.  I saved a wreck of 800 cooper staves at Pendower and brought them up and carted them to the coastguard station at Poniou, and the salvage part I got was £1 5s.  I also saved 20 battens which were sold on the beach and my salvage part was 15s.  At another time I saved 20 deals (planks 3 inch thick), some at the Galers and some at the Vear and Pendower, and my salvage part was £1 10s.  I once saw our two horses out on that narrow strip of cliff which is called the Horse Back grazing, one of them some time afterwards fell over the cliff at Porth Zennor and got killed.  A colt newly born fell over the cliff at the Horse Back and was killed, and so did one of our cows, and a heifer fell over near Pendower and another near Porth Zennor and were both killed, and an aged horse fell over at Penbean Cove, and very many sheep has fallen over them cliffs.

Eglosmeor Mill: pre-1894 and its ruins today

I remember the tin mine in Churchtown Cliff (called Wheal Grylls) to work on two occasions, the last time in 1866, and I’ve heard that tin dues were paid there so early as 1666.  The first working that I knew was under the management of Captn. Retallick, he had a water wheel stamps put in of 9 heads near the mill garden, the wheel pit is there yet.  The last working was under Captn. Dunstan, he got a counting house with material house and carpenters shop built under one roof on the top of the cliff.  In the counting house I have spent many hours in the evenings with Captn. Dunstan, he used to read and lend me a paper, the Christian World.  He made a fore plain for me out of beach wood that grew in the grove above New Mill in Gulval.  I worked at the mine on the two occasions that it worked.  At the first working I carted tin stones to the stamps, and my Father carried some tin stones to the stamps on horse back in sacks from a working adit or lode in the Horse Back.  At the second working under Captn. Dunstan I worked in a adit that is drove in under the croft called the Cruddaws or Curnows, and I worked in the shaft above to which the adit is holed.  I also worked in a shaft at Lucky Lace, the shaft was called Lucky Lace.  I also drove the horse whim to another shaft a little to the west called Wheal Sherriffs, the ring of the whim yet stands at the bottom of Carnequidden or Churchtown point.  Them both shafts had rich bunches of tin in them, and two donkeys were employed to carry the tin stones to the top of the cliff through a road called the donkey road.  From there I used to cart them to the stamps, I drove the donkeys for the space of one day.  I have also worked at the stamps with the tin dresser, and with him have in the black-smiths shop near the Cruddaws burnt the tin by night to get the mundic out of it.  The Vear Mine was working too under the management of Captn. John Roach, he was also a friend of mine in lending me books etc.

I had my first schooling in Zennor National School, the Master Mr. Burns was a retired Coast-guard.  My next master was James Hall a miner that had lost one arm, he lived at Noonvares.  My next place of schooling was in the Parlour of the house nearest the lower Church stile, the Mistress Miss Mary Jane Stevens.  After that I was at school in an upstairs room in one of the Coast Guards houses at Poniou, the Mistress Mrs. Olds a coast-guard’s wife, and when it was not allowed to be kept in that Government House, we had to attend her school in a bedroom of a little disused house in Boswednack.  After that I attended again at the National School, and Mr. Olds the retired coast-guard kept school.  After that I attended John Green’s school at Towednack for six months, I walked forth and back from the Mill, then I came back to Zennor National School again for some months and the master was my first master Mr. Burns.   I afterwards attended an evening school at the Eagle’s Nest, kept by a Gentleman who was staying for a while there and lastly I attended a night school kept by the Schoolmaster Mr. Phillips at the National School.

And when I left living at the Mill I lived at Foage for about 12 years and milked six or seven cows, paying £33 for a part of Higher Foage and about £13 for Lower Foage.  My mother when young lived at Foage with her father (my Grandfather) who shot three hares at one shot with his gun.  I have grown extra good crops of potatoes in Foage hilly fields at Lower Foage side.  Whilst living at Foage I was Vicar’s Warden for six years, and before then I was Parish Warden for a year or two, and it was then that the Parish Church was restored.

The house at Foage Farm (now called ‘Honor’s House’), a mile inland from Zennor Churchtown