Catchfrench

source: Growing With America: The Fox Family of Philadelphia -by Joseph M. Fox

“On the way back to London, Bob and I decided to try to find the 17th century Fox residence called Catchfrench. The name rang a bell with some people at the church in St. Germans but they could not tell us how to get there. It took an encounter with a milkman, solving his heavy brogue and exhibiting some real perseverance to find the place. Just as the milkman had said, the road petered out, becoming a dirt lane, until it veered past some chicken coops and pig sties and out onto a broad expanse of lawn overlooking the lush Cornwall countryside. 

There was a large well-built brick mansion on the property but, next to it, lay the ruins of the old Catchfrench. The owner came to the door and said we were welcome to look around. “I’ve had British Foxes here before but never an American,” he told me.

Figure 2 is another photograph taken by Bob Chu at that time and shows me pointing out the old Catchfrench ruins. It seems that the British like to leave such relics of the past undisturbed, I at down on those stone steps, mesmerized. I looked down into the crumbled foundations of that old place and, for a moment, was transported back in time. I found myself lost in thought, imagining people coming and going, and a chill ran down my spine, So my story has, indeed, some basis in personal experience. In a sense, I was there.

I have no idea whether a meeting of the Plymouth Friends actually occurred at Catchfrench but Francis and Dorothy Fox (parents of James Fox) did live there and it was sold to Hugh Boscawen “sometime during the reign of Charles II.” Charles II died at the end of 1685. It is reasonable to assume that the sale coincided with the departure of some of the family for America. The property that I saw in 1974 was sold and is now run as a retreat and conference center by Judy and John Wilkse. My cousin, Mary Anna Fox, visited there in 1998″