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Trewint - Where Time Stands Still
Dr Herbert McGonigle,
Chairman of the Wesley Fellowship, writes about
a visit to the Isbell cottage in Trewint, Cornwall.
About eight miles
south-west of Launceston in Cornwall lies the
parish of Altarnun and its hamlet, Trewint. The
busy A30 cuts through the parish and if you don’t
know where to look, you will miss the hamlet altogether.
And that would be a pity for in that hamlet there
is a stone-built cottage rich in spiritual history
and Methodist lore. Recently my wife, Jeanne,
and I made another visit to that lovely spot.
The shadows were beginning to be noticeably longer
as we drove off the A30 and soon we were on what
remains of the old mid-eighteenth century turnpike
road that ran from London to Penzance. The mail
coaches used to come this way and for many a year
they would have rattled past just a few feet away
from the cottage we had come to see.
And there it
was - Digory Isbell’s cottage, quiet and
unpretentious, as the long pink fingers of a fading
sun threw shafts of light on its roof and walls.
It’s not for nothing that Cornish folk are
known for their hospitality and we were warmly
welcomed by Mrs Joyce Pooley, the warden of this
very special place. We passed through the narrow
hallway and stood in the small room, so full of
history and memories of the men and women of faith
who had made that little cottage a true Bethel
- a house of God. We looked around the room with
its simple furniture, then upstairs to look again
at the collection of Methodist books and pottery.
Knowing the story, it was easy to imagine how
it all began, two hundred and fifty-six years
ago. It happened like this....
In the late evening of August 29th 1743, two of
John Wesley’s preachers, John Nelson and
John Downes, found themselves in Trewint, on their
way into Cornwall to prepare for Wesley who was
following behind them. Finding that the village
had no inn, Nelson suggested they should knock
at the door of the cottage with ‘the stone
porch.’ The woman of the house answered
the door and, on hearing their request, offered
them bread, butter and milk and hay for the horse.
The woman was Elizabeth Isbell, who with her husband,
Digory, a stone-mason, had lived in the cottage
since their marriage four years earlier. When
the two preachers had rested they insisted on
paying their hostess a shilling in spite of her
protests. Later, when Digory returned, Elizabeth
told him of the two travellers she had entertained
but that was not all. ‘Before they left,’
she told him excitedly, ‘they prayed - without
a book’! What a scene and how easy to imagine!
Here were two of Wesley’s most trusted itinerant
preachers, John Nelson, formerly, like Isbell,
a stone-mason, and John Downes, something of a
self-taught mathematician and philosopher. They
had only one horse between them as they travelled
into Cornwall, and they took turns at riding while
the other walked behind. Now, having been warmly
welcomed in this humble cottage, it was unthinkable
they would leave without praying for God’s
blessing on the home. Both Digory and Elizabeth
were devout Church people and were familiar with
the prayers of the Prayer Book but these two strangers
prayed, Elizabeth reported, without a book! They
had prayed from the heart in a way that was common
among the early Methodists and it made a lasting
impression on Elizabeth Isbell.
Some weeks later
John Nelson returned to Trewint and when he knocked
at the cottage, Elizabeth welcomed him: ‘The
Lord bless you, come in.’ Later, after supper,
Nelson and both his hosts sang a hymn together
and the preacher gave them an exhortation from
Scripture. Early the next morning Digory Isbell
invited his neighbours to hear Nelson preach and,
in his words, ‘about three hundred heard
the word with joy.’ That was the first Methodist
service conducted in the cottage but it would
not be the last. The word preached by Nelson was
made a blessing to many and, as he recorded in
his Journal, ‘the man and his wife who had
received us received the Lord who sent us.’
Seven months later the Isbells welcomed another
visitor into their cottage, another Methodist
preacher, John Wesley himself! The hills were
covered with snow that April day and, in Wesley’s
words, ‘wet and weary enough, having been
battered by rain and hail for some hours,’
he arrived at Trewint at two in the afternoon.
It is easy to imagine the warm reception he was
given by the couple still rejoicing in their new-found
faith. How privileged they felt to welcome the
celebrated preacher into their home. Digory must
have known that Wesley was coming that way and
invited his neighbours, for at seven in the evening
Wesley preached ‘to many more than the house
would contain.’ The next morning Digory
piloted Wesley across the wildness of Bodmin Moor
where driving hail accompanied him for seven miles
as he made his way to Gwennap.
Two weeks later,
leaving Cornwall, Wesley preached again at the
Isbell’s cottage, at five in the morning!
But this was to be a very special day in the Isbell
home and one they would never forget. Their third
child, Hannah, had been born and this was the
day of her baptism. By a remarkable turn of events,
four ministers were present for the ceremony;
John Wesley, George Whitefield, George Thompson,
vicar of St Genny’s and John Bennet, the
evangelical incumbent of the near-by parish of
Laneast. Wesley officiated and many years later
Hannah’s older sister recalled how the ministers
prayed for ‘parents and child with great
importunity and God heard them.’ What a
remarkable providence had brought England’s
two great evangelists to this humble cottage,
and, their doctrinal differences forgotten for
a while , they joined with the two local clergymen
to baptise baby Hannah. We can surely guess how
often that unforgettable day was recalled over
and over again and how Hannah would have grown
up with the story of how she was baptised by John
Wesley with George Whitefield sharing in the service!
As far as we know from the history of Methodism
this was the only occasion when Wesley and Whitefield
shared in a baptism service.
By now Digory
and his wife Elizabeth were fervent Methodists,
though like most Methodists of the time, were
also faithful members of their local parish church.
It was Methodist preaching that brought them to
personal faith in Christ and their home was not
only blessed with salvation but often they had
the honour of giving hospitality to passing Methodist
preachers. One day while reading his Bible Digory
came to the story in 2 Kings of how the woman
in Shunem entertained the prophet Elisha and later
furnished a room for ‘ the man of God.’
Digory felt moved by the story and said to Elizabeth:
‘We have the servants of God in this home,
and I can build. Why don’t we build a room
for the preachers.’ And so the enterprise
was no sooner thought of than it was begun. Digory
set to and built a narrow, covered sleeve passage
along the side of the cottage. Then he added two
rooms, one above the other and each about ten
feet square. The lower room had a large hearth
to provide heat while the upper room was furnished
with a bed, a table and a stool. A prophet’s
chamber indeed!
John Wesley made
six visits in all to the Isbell cottage. During
a visit there in July 1745 he rejoiced at how
the work of God was increasing in that part of
Cornwall, ‘among young and old, rich and
poor, from Trewint quite to the sea-side.’
Two years later, late in July 1747, he was back
in Trewint and preached from a favourite text;
‘Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem....’
( Matt. 2:1). Fifteen years later, in September
1762, he made his last preaching visit to Trewint
In the years between John Wesley’s visits
and in the years after, many of his preachers
came there to preach and rest in the ‘preachers
rooms.’ Among them was good old John Nelson
under whose preaching the Isbells’ hearts
had been opened and his visit there was the beginning
of this moving story. The cottage became a centre
for the Methodist work in that part of Cornwall.
Four years after Wesley’s last visit the
Isbell home was visited with great sadness when
Hannah, the daughter baptised by Wesley twenty
four years earlier, died of small-pox, ‘witnessing
to the last a good confession.’ Her father
outlived her by another twenty-seven years, and
died, strong in the faith of Jesus Christ and
repeating words written by Charles Wesley:
Ah!
why did I so late Thee know
Thee, lovelier than the sons of men?...
Nine years later
Elizabeth followed Digory to glory, in her 87th
year. A slab over their grave in Altarnun churchyard
gives the dates of their decease and then adds:
‘They were the first who entertained the
Methodist Preachers in this County, and Lived
and died in that connection, but Strictly adhered
to the duties of the Established Church. Reader,
may thy end be like theirs.’ Although not
strictly accurate for Charles Wesley had been
entertained at St Ives two months before Nelson
and Downes arrived in Trewint, nevertheless the
Isbell cottage has been part of Methodist history
in Cornwall since both the Wesley brothers crossed
the river Tamar for the first time in 1743.
Today the cottage
and its surroundings stand much as Nelson and
Wesley and Whitefield and other Methodist preachers
viewed them long, long ago. There are cars, and
TV aerials and some newer houses, but in a remarkable
way Trewint is a kind of time capsule from the
18th century. Across from the door of the cottage
is the ‘Pilgrim’s Garden,’ laid
out as a place to stop and rest and remember.
In the middle of the garden stands a sundial,
a replica of the sundial at John Nelson’s
house in Birstall in Yorkshire, a reminder that
Nelson was the first of many Methodist preachers
who proclaimed the Good News on Digory Isbell’s
door-step.
Trewint is not
Jerusalem, or Antioch, or Canterbury or Geneva,
and most Church historians make no mention of
it. But Church history was made here for in this
cottage and around its stone porch the gospel
was preached, lives were transformed, a Methodist
Society was begun, and generation after generation
people who know the story have come here to mediate
and remember and thank God for all that Trewint
stands for. How often these old walls resounded
to Methodist preaching and even louder Methodist
singing! Here good men and women of God met to
encourage one another on the way to heaven and
the ‘prophet’s chamber’ gave
homely comforts to scores of weary preachers....
But our visit
was at an end and it was time to go. We prayed
there, as we have done on every visit, and felt
that blessed communion with the saints who’ve
gone before. The shadows were long and darkening
over the cottage as we turned the car where John
Nelson and John Wesley and so many others rode
their horses on the old turnpike road. We left
the Isbell’s cottage in its quiet, rural
setting, thanking God for the story it has to
tell. This is indeed Trewint - where time stands
still.
Revd Dr Herbert
McGonigle
Principal and Senior Lecturer in Historical Theology
and Wesley Studies
Nazarene Theological College
Manchester
England
HMcGonigle@nazarene.ac.uk
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