Gwennap Pit

Today's primary objective was to travel to the far southwest tip of England and visit Gwennap Pit near Redruth in Cornwall, one of John Wesley's favorite places to preach. It is also a World Heritage Site, as part of the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site.


John Wesley preached to the tin miners here many times and tried to make at least one trip down per year. It is now an amphitheatre (renovated as such in 1806 and has been functioning that way ever since). We were hosted by Ian and Margaret Haile, learned about the pit, had worship together, and then a cuppa. Ian had powerful words to share with us about being at peace with everyone and sharing in the work of God with others from all traditions and backgrounds. Jesse shared about loving one another, and doing good for "the least of these" out of thankfulness for God's grace rather than as a way of earning favor.

Group pic!

Lovely monument and mosaic at the entrance of the pit


Jesse preaching in Gwennap Pit

The chapel that was built at Gwennap Pit

An artist's rendering

Gwennap Pit is still used for special worship occasions and worship is held there on Sundays once a month by various churches in the area. Many other groups also use the amphitheatre for musical or dramatic performances. It's a beautiful space, and touching to worship there.

When children visit, they are told that if they go around each circle of the pit from top to bottom, then back up again, it is one mile. They are given a certificate if they complete it. Russ and Bruce both earned their certificates. Mine had to be edited as a consolation prize, because I only did about 3/4 of it.

Another side note about Gwennap... one of our group members, Cindy Jackson, has the maiden name Guinnup. I looked up earlier today and found that they are variations of the same surname!

It was a good drive down and a good drive back, so this was our only activity of the day. Other than eating. We just had a quick bite for lunch, but I was able to get a famous Cornish pasty.



We did drive through Plymouth on our way back to Exeter.... the last stop for the Mayflower before heading to America!



Our evening meal in Exeter was an exercise in patience for these time-minded Americans (and Latvians)... we waited almost two hours for our meals! But we were determined to stick it out and wait for dessert. Mine was another caramel apple betty, which I didn't photograph.

Comments

  1. UnknownMay 8, 2017 at 3:36 PM

    Yum, and meat information. My Scottish neighbor used to make the most awesome Brown Betty. How are the Janis's doing? We will see them soon!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

London, Too

Image
Thursday was our day of touring London with a guide on our bus. I've been to many of the key places in London, so I was glad to get a tour that told more about the different areas of the city and how they are changing. The area where our hotel is located is known as the "Silicon Valley" area of London... so you can imagine the people we've seen commuting by foot to work around here. All young(ish). I won't go over all of the places we drove through... if you've been to London you know and if you haven't you can imagine. We stopped at the Methodist Central Hall across from Westminster Abbey for a toilet break and hoping to see the inside. Unfortunately, the hall was booked for a conference and so all we did was have a coffee in the Wesley Cafe and use the toilet. This was one place I didn't get to go the last time I was in London, so I was happy to read a little more about it and go inside, even just for a minute. Central Hall was built
Read more

Epworth

Image
The first stop on our Wesleyan Tour was the small town of Epworth, where John Wesley was raised, baptized and became the man he was. I'm not sure how this town would be if it hadn't been for the Wesleys... it's almost as if they loved to hate Samuel Wesley and his family when they were living, but when they died or went away and became "famous" they became hometown heroes. I guess this would just be any-old little town if it weren't known for the Wesleys. We visited the rectory that was John Wesley's home (rebuit in 1709 after being destroyed by a fire that John himself barely survived). Among the displays there was a listing of what Susannah Wesley's day typically looked like... That's a lot more time for spiritual reflection than I would have thought. I wonder how many mothers of 10 children have a schedule that looks like this? A simpler time perhaps. So far, what I've learned of John Wesley makes me wonder whether I would ha
Read more

Curiouser and Curiouser

Image
We slept in a little bit this morning and had brunch at the appropriately named Curiosity Coffee Bar, a highly-rated little place just a couple of blocks from the White Rabbit (our Alice-in-Wonderland-themed bnb). Curiouser and curiouser, we spent the rest of the day at the South Carolina State Library.  The library staff were quite accommodating of our multiple requests from the stacks (I don't have a pic of the big pile of books we left behind at the end of the day).  The things we're curious about make some people (Kef and Dad specifically) shake their heads. Today's finds included a listing of early settlers to South Carolina, among which was my 5 greats grandfather Samuel McGill, described among the "poor protestants lately arrived from Ireland on the encouragement of the Bounty given by this Province." His age was listed as 23, and he was granted that bounty of 100 acres. Although we knew he was born in Ireland, we didn't know what year. So this 1766 lis
Read more