On a spot where he had seen the lambs sheltering from wind and weather, Mr. Hawker built the vicarage. With one of his personality as architect, it was impossible it should quite resemble any other manse; therefore it is not surprising to find that in the chimney-stacks he has reproduced the forms of certain church towers that he admired, while inset over the doorway is the distich:
"_A house, a glebe, a pound a day, A pleasant place to watch and pray, Be true to Church, be kind to poor, O Minister for evermore!_"
Not far from Morwenstow lie--or rather did lie, for though Tonacombe still preserves its original design, Stowe, near Coombe Valley, the home of the Grenvilles, was unfortunately destroyed in 1715--two old manor-houses. The former, which was built in the fifteenth century, has a fine stone-floored hall with timbered roof, old open fireplace, and minstrel's gallery. Some of the rooms, which have lattice windows, are panelled, and Charles Kingsley stayed in this "in some respects the most remarkable mediæval house in the west of England," while he was writing "Westward Ho."
Of far greater interest, however, is Stowe (Anglo-Saxon for a stockaded place), at one time a magnificent building. Of it only the moat remains, but when Sir Beville rose for Charles I., many a Cornishman, who in his boyhood had stayed at Stowe, practising arms under the eye of Anthony Payne, rose with him.
To Stratton, a little south of Stowe, came in 1643 the Parliamentarian General, Lord Stamford. The cavaliers, not then very prosperous, but gallant gentlemen all, were lying at Launceston, and the Roundhead made the mistake of underestimating their strength. Sir Ralph Hopton and Sir Beville Grenville marched the twenty miles from the capital town without more food than a few biscuits. Intent on intercepting and driving out the intruder, they found when they reached Stratton late in the evening that he had entrenched himself strongly on a neighbouring hill. As he had the advantage in numbers, having about twice as many men and must know that they were tired, hungry, and in poor condition, the Royalists stood to their arms through the short May night in momentary expectation of an attack. Their leaders were at one of the Poughill cottages--they bear date 1620 and are still to be seen--and Sir Beville, while he waited anxiously, must have wondered how it had gone with wife and children, over above in the moated and stockaded house of Stowe.