Dear Susannah,
I have been thinking of you as I drive past your home in the woods at Tehidy and wander down the beach in Portreath. I know it seems irrational to feel connected to someone just because you share a name but it did make me interested in your story.
It was the square pools that first caught my attention, apparently cut by William Harry for you and your daughter around 1782 on Amey’s side near your beach house. Those straight edges amongst the worn rocks and massed barnacles, muscles and limpets; mans obvious attempt to carve a human space into the coastline.
As I read further it seems that you were trying to create your own Brighton beach with bathing hut and pools to take the waters from. Another connection across time as that was where I had just moved from. Were you trying to create a little cosmopolitan slice of the London you left behind to marry Francis Bassett in 1780?
‘After divine service, I went with the ladies to Portreath, where they have everything for a breakfast or repast, with books to amuse those who read and admire the prospect. Near this place, in Baths formed on rocks, Miss Bassett frequently comes to bathe, and this in scenery as would be quite poetical’, Joseph Farington, artist, Farington, J, 1926. The Farington Diary, Vol 6 (1810-1811), Hutchinson and Son, London
Your husband is remembered for many things; patriot, political writer, and patron of science, literature, and art, M.P. for Penryn from 1766 to 1769, and most particularly for marching 600 Cornish miners to strengthen the defences of Plymouth in light of a Franco-Spanish invasion fleet gathered off the coast . His reward from the King was the title of Baronet of Tehidy, County Cornwall, on 24 November 1779 and later the title of Lord de Dunstaville. His importance to the county marked by the high and mighty cross on Carn Brae. Funded by public subscription it showed his standing in the local community.
When he died on the 5th February 1835,“ The funeral procession left London at walking pace on 14th February reaching the Tamar nine days later. On the 23rd they reached Bodmin and on the 24th, Truro. Mr Ashley Rowe has written ‘The next day some 200 of the Tehidy tenantry came to the town on horseback and the last stage of the journey commenced. Once again the Civic party headed the procession and the Clergy of Truro in their gowns, accompanied them. The actual interment took place at Illogan on Thursday. It is stated that not less than 20,000 were present including some hundreds of horsemen and 150 carriages. All the children belonging to the school supported by Lady Basset [your daughter and only heir of the Basset family name] were neatly dressed in black and walked immediately behind the tenantry and mine-agents on horseback” http://saint-illogan.org.uk/history/
Your daughter is remembered for her work with local schools.
‘She was a pioneer in local education, founding the Bas-set Schools which were precursors of the National Church and (later) Council Schools both at Illogan and Pool. She was a generous donor to the building of the new Church and first occupant of the Basset pew in that Church …. She died in 1855 outliving both the next male heirs – her uncle, the Rev. John Basset, Rector of Illogan and her cousin, also a John Basset…. John died in 1843, and the estate passed to three of his sons in succession. First, John Francis Basset [and then] Arthur Basset who, dying in 1870, only enjoyed Tehidy for a year; and lastly, Gustavus Lambert Basset, who survived until 1888 and was the father of Arthur Francis Basset, who sold Tehidy in 1913.’ http://saint-illogan.org.uk/history/
You, however, are only remembered in that glorious portrait by Gainsborough and the rock cut pools of Portreath. But what is your story? Did you spend much of your time in the beach cottage at Portreath, did you bath and swim and enjoy the summer sun on your skin? Or did you spend more of your time in the company of society in London?
There is so little said about you beyond your role of wife and yet your pools endure in the rocks and were even expanded to include the Rocky pool on the western side of the beach.
‘The present tidal bath pool amongst the rocks adjoining the pier, an area known as ‘Rocky’, was enlarged in 1902 when the West Briton reported : “Rocky Pool near the pier is being slowly excavated between the tides so that the facilities of the bathers may be extended.” It was further enlarged in 1910 to celebrate the Coronation of King George V.’ Portreath by Michael Tangye, 2012, pg 121.
Your passing is marked in Illogan Church with a plaque moved from the old village church to the new Victorian one, but your family’s crypt has disappeared beneath concrete slabs and the surrounding undergrowth.
But still, you will be remembered by the stone baths forever cut into the rocks at Portreath, enjoyed by everyone not just those with the money to carve out what nature continues to change.
Yours sincerely
Susannah
Portreath Pools 