Foreword

In 1967 F.E. Halliday, best known for his 1953 edition of Richard Carew's Survey of Cornwall, produced a volume entitled A Cornish Chronicle, an account of the Carew family of Antony from the time of the Spanish Armada to the Civil War. It is a good book but for me one of its most memorable passages is that which describes the location of Boconnoc, the Cornish house and estate. 'One of the most delectable - and inaccessible - regions of Cornwall,' wrote Halliday, 'is the country defined on the north by the upper waters of the Fowey where it cuts the southern slope of Bodmin Moor, on the west by its lower reaches as it turns abruptly at Lanhydrock and slides below teh Black Prince's castle at Restormel, on the east by the Looe River, and on the south by the sea.'