Hand Drawn Cornwall Map With Lost Place Names Sells For £15 This Saturday

Only a limited number will ever exist. If you want one of Agan Tavas’s new hand drawn maps of Cornwall, you’ll need to be in Camborne on Trevithick Day with fifteen pounds in your pocket and a bit of luck on your side.

A Tolkien Style Map Of Cornwall

The Cornish language society Agan Tavas is publishing a limited run of hand drawn maps featuring historic Cornish place names, and they’ll be sold exclusively from the Cowethas an Yeth Kernewek Cambron (Camborne Cornish Language Fellowship) stall at this year’s event.

The art has been done in a Tolkien inspired style by Matt Iewin. Most of the place names come from the works of the late Craig Weatherhill, with additional Cornish name translations provided by Ray Chabb and Matt Blewett, chairmen of Cowethas an Yeth Kernewek Cambron and Agan Tavas respectively.

How The Map Came About

The idea started in a Cornish language class. Joe Hunt, a student at Cowethas an Yeth Kernewek Cambron, came up with the concept after a lesson with his teacher Clive Baker in which place names became a topic of discussion.

From classroom chat to a printed map you can hold in your hands, all in time for one of Camborne’s biggest days of the year.

Where To Buy One

The maps will be on sale at the Cowethas an Yeth Cambron stall in front of the White Hart pub, priced at £15 each. In Cornish:

Why a yl prena an mappa ma deth Trevithick orth stalla Cowethas an Yeth Cambron arak tavern carow gwyn, £15.

Given the limited print run, anyone hoping to pick one up would be wise to get there early.

A Quick Reminder About Trevithick Day

For anyone who hasn’t been before, Trevithick Day celebrates Richard Trevithick, Camborne’s most famous local hero and the inventor of the very first steam-powered locomotive. Its inaugural drive took place on Christmas Eve, 1801, up Camborne Hill, and has since been immortalised in song. Every steam engine across the world is a descendent of Trevithick’s invention.

The day has been celebrated in Camborne for more than forty years and is a whole-town occasion. Roads are closed, and things kick off with a procession of pipes and drums through the main street. Children from local primary schools dance through town dressed in replica mining costumes, followed in the afternoon by the adults’ dance, with participants wearing Cornish tartan ties or sashes.

A map of old Cornish place names, drawn in a style borrowed from Middle-earth, sold on the day a Camborne man changed the world. It’s hard to think of a more fitting combination.