DAVIES GILBERT, (continued 4)

Wm. Noye. (l. s.)

Probatum fuit testament. suprascriptum apud London. coram judice 5^o Septembris 1634.

Several of Mr. Noye’s works have been printed, and others remain in manuscript.

154 Noye’s Grounds and Maxims of the English Law, various editions; the last, with additions by Charles Barton, Esq. in 1800.

Noye’s Reports, printed in 1656, 2d edition in fol. 1669.

Noye’s Perfect Conveyancer, London 1655.

Noye’s Complete Lawyer, London 1661, and a second edition in 8vo, 1674.

Noye’s Treatise of the Rights of the Crown, declaring how the King of England may support and increase his Annual Revenues, in 12mo, 1715, but written in the 10th year of Charles the First. The Editor has two MSS. of this work.

The following MSS. are preserved in the British Museum.

Some Notes from Mr. Attorney-general Noye’s Reading in Lincoln’s Inn, Aug. 1632, where he showed that Law Readings are of great antiquity.—Harl. MSS. No. 980, art. 164.

From the same Readings. That every Inn of Court is an University, extolling the Ancient Lawyers for not assuming Lofty Titles, &c.—Ibid. art. 165.

From the same, relative to Officers in the Forest.—Ibid. art. 166.

His Opinion that Espousals in Facie Ecclesiæ are but pro honestate publicanda.—Ibid. art. 174.

Ex Ultima Voluntate sive Testamento Willelmi Noye, Attornati Generalis.—Harl. MSS. 980, art. 226.

Mr. Noye’s Argument on the Earl of Suffolk’s case, 16th April 1628—Harl. MSS. 2305, art. 51.

The Will of Mr. Wm. Noye, (Lat.) June 3d, 1634.—Cotton MSS. Titus B. VIII. 344.

Memoirs of William Noye.—Sir Hans Sloane’s MSS. see Ayscough’s Catalogue, vol. II. p. 736.

Mr. Noye also left in manuscript several collections from the Records in the Tower, especially two large volumes:—

One respecting the King’s prerogative for maintaining the Naval Power according to the practice of his Ancestors.

155 The other relating to the Privileges and Jurisdiction of Ecclesiastical Courts, to which Doctor Thomas James, the learned Compiler of the Bodleian Catalogue, acknowledges his obligation in a work, entitled “A Manuduction or Introduction into Divinity,” Oxford, 1625, 4to.

Mr. Noye had the honour of receiving the public thanks of his College, under the following circumstances: Sir William Petre, son of John Petre, of Torbryan in Devonshire, well known as Secretary of State in the time of King Henry the Eighth, and successively in the reigns of his three successors, had been a Commoner of Exeter College, and from thence elected a Fellow of All Souls. He afterwards became Principal of Peckwater Hall, one of the Visitors of Religious Houses, and finally Secretary of State. Sir John Petre, by participating in the good fortune of all those who were favourites at Court in this eventful period of our history, appropriated to himself a share of the Confiscated Church Lands, most profusely distributed; and by so doing became the founder of a family still existing, with an hereditary seat in Parliament, and professing the Catholic religion. Wishing perhaps to make some restitution, Sir John Petre founded eight Fellowships at Exeter College, in the Protestant University of Oxford, to all of which, called Petrean Fellowships, he continued to nominate during his life, according to an ancient custom in similar cases; but when his successors attempted to exercise the same right or privilege, they were resisted by the College, and the cause came to be tried in the Court of Common Pleas, under the form of a replevin; they were successfully and gratuitously supported by Mr. Noye, as will appear from the passage in the College Register.

A. D. 1614. Circa idem tempus reclivimus vaccas Edmundi Lord per replevin de Walton Court, ubi hæsit paulisper negotium donec Baro Petreius illud transferri curavit ad Communia Placita, ut ibidem decernatur.

Petimus autem nos per Dominum Chamberlyne, servientem ad Legem, ut, bonâ cum judicum veniâ, in Comitiis 156 Oxoniensibus coram Justitiario Regis hoc transigeretur, sed obnixe obstitit Baro Petreius. Sic convenerunt Rector et Magister Chambers, ex Collegii consensu, ad causam promovendam in Communibus Placitis. Qui adeuntes Dominum Gulielmum Noye, olim hujus Collegii Baccellarium, virum in jure municipali (si quis alius per totam Angliam) perspicacissimum et profundissimum, ab eo semper acceperunt quod esset faciendum.

Perlegit ille, et diligentissime perpendit omnes evidentias nostras et statuta, expendit rationes utriusque partis, conteruit solide compendia sive brevia quibus servientes (nam tales solum audiuntur in Communibus Placitis) informabantur. Ipse (sc. Dominus Gulielmus Noye) eos, relictis propriis negotiis, una cum nobis edit et instauravit; quæ omnia sponte fecit et alacriter, sine omni expectatione præmii, quæ ideo in fastos referenda duximus, ut agnosceret talis viri in Collegium pietatem grata posteritas.

The Editor possesses a picture of Mr. Noye painted on oak, by Cornelius Jansen; and at the desire of Exeter College, he has recently presented to them a copy, which is placed in the Hall.

Mr. Noye was succeeded by his eldest son Edward; but the melancholy forebodings expressed in his will: “I have left all the remainder of my property to my son Edward (whom I have constituted executor of this my will) to be squandered, nor have I ever hoped any better,” were rendered vain by the death of this young man, soon after that of his father, in a duel with a Captain Byron.

Humphrey then succeeded as eldest son, and in the year 1637 allied himself by marriage with the very distinguished family of Sandys, of The Vine, near Basingstoke, in Hampshire.

The Editor has their marriage contract, which may be esteemed a curiosity, as compared with the more lengthened writings of recent times.

“Articles of agreement, indented, had, made, and agreed upon the three and twentieth day of May, in the thirteenth 157 year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord Charles, by the grace of God, of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Between Henry Sandys, of the Vine, in the county of Southampton, Esq. and Hester Sandys, one of the daughters of the said Henry Sandys, of the one part, and Humphrey Noye, of Carnanton, in the county of Cornwall, Esq. of the other part, as followeth, viz.:

“Whereas a marriage is intended to be had and solemnized between the said Humphrey Noye, of the one part, and the said Hester Sandys, of the other part, if the laws of God and the Holy Church shall permit the same,

“In consideration of which marriage it is covenanted and agreed, by and between the said parties, as followeth:

“Imprimis, the said Henry Sandys, for himself, his heirs, executors, and administrators, and for every and either of them, doth contract, promise, and grant, to the said Humphrey Noye, his executors, administrators, and assigns, and to and with every and either of them, by these presents, that in consideration of the said marriage, he the said Henry Sandys do and shall give and pay unto the said Humphrey Noye, his executors, administrators, or assigns, the full sum of two thousand pounds current money of England, as a marriage portion for and with the said Hester Sandys his daughter, to be paid unto the said Humphrey Noye, his executors, administrators, and assigns, in manner and form following, viz.: the sum of one thousand pounds current money, parcel of the said two thousand pounds portion, to be paid in hand at the very day of the marriage aforesaid, and the sum of one thousand pounds residue, parcel of the said two thousand pounds portion, to be paid in manner and form following, that is to say, five hundred pounds in and upon the first day of November next ensuing the date hereof, and the other five hundred pounds residue thereof, in and upon the feast day of the Ascension of our Blessed Lord and Saviour, then also next ensuing.

158 “Item. The said Humphrey Noye, for himself, his heirs, executors, and administrators, and for every and either of them, doth covenant, promise, and grant, to and with the said Henry Sandys, his executors, administrators, and assigns, and to and with every and either of them, by these presents, that he the said Humphrey Noye, in consideration of the said marriage, at or before the feast of All Saints next ensuing, shall and will in due form of law convey, settle, and assure, to and for the use of the said Hester, his intended wife, so much of his lands and tenements as shall be of the clear yearly value of three hundred pounds, by the year, for and during the term of the natural life of her, the said Hester, for and in lieu of her jointure, freed and discharged of and from all and all manner of incumbrances whatsoever, the security thereof to be made in such manner and form as by Counsel learned in the law, of the said Henry Sandys and Humphrey Noye, shall be reasonably devised, advised, or required.

“In witness whereof the parties abovesaid, to these present indentures, interchangeably have set their hands and seals the day and year first above written.”

The seals appended under the signatures Henry Sandys and Hester Sandys, bear the impressions: Argent, a cross raguly Sable; arms of their maternal ancestors, Sandys, of The Vine.

This lady’s grandfather, Sir Edwin Sandys, nephew of Edwin Sandys, Archbishop of York, whose family originated from St. Bees, in Cumberland, bearing for their arms, Or, a fess dancette between three crosses crosslet fitchy Gules; married Elizabeth, daughter and sole heiress of William Baron Sandys, of The Vine, by tenure in fee, under a writ of summons issued by King Henry VIII. on the 3d of November 1529, in the 21st year of his reign. Their son Henry Sandys, party to the above marriage settlement, married his first cousin Margaret, daughter of Sir William Sandys, of Hedbury, in the County of Worcester, and lost his life in one of the battles of the Civil 159 War, in 1644. They had several children, of whom William, Henry, and Edwin, were in succession summoned to Parliament on the right deduced from their grandmother, and with the last of these the barony fell again into abeyance. Hester, their eldest sister, married Colonel Humphrey Noye, and their daughter, Catharine, on the 21st of July 1679, married William Davies, of St. Erth. John Davies, their son and ultimate heir, married Elizabeth Phillips, of Tredrea; and their daughter and heiress married the Rev. Edward Giddy, whose only son is the Editor of this work.

Another daughter of Colonel Humphrey Noye and Hester Sandys, christened Bridgman, in remembrance of Sir Orlando Bridgman, an early friend and patron of the Attorney-general, married Mr. John Willyams of Roseworthy, in Gwiniar, and, dying without issue, left him Carnanton, which had fallen to her share. Mr. Willyams married secondly Dorothy, daughter of Mr. John Day, by whom he had two sons.

John, the elder, married the daughter and heiress of Mr. Oliver, a gentleman of Falmouth. They had a son, Mr. John Oliver Willyams, for many years Colonel of the Cornwall Militia; and a daughter Ann, married to Mr. William Lemon, jun. only son of the great Mr. Lemon. The younger son was James; whose son James Willyams succeeded to Carnanton, under the will of his first cousin John Oliver Willyams, in the year 1809; and his son, Humphrey Willyams, Esq. now resides there, having so much altered and improved the house and gardens, as to place Carnanton among the gentlemen’s residences of the first class in Cornwall.

Thomas Willyams, a Captain in the Navy (brother of Mr. John Willyams, who married Miss Bridgman Noye,) married —— Fox, of Deal; they left a son John Willyams, also a Captain in the Navy, who married Anne Goodyere, and their son, the Reverend Cooper Willyams, 160 Rector of Kingston, near Canterbury, is known to the world by various publications:

A History of Sudeley Castle.

A Campaign in the West Indies, with the reduction of the Island of Martinique, &c.

A Voyage up the Mediterranean, with description of the Battle of the Nile; and some others.

He married Elizabeth Snell, of Whitby.

Mr. Cooper Willyams died July the 17th, 1816, leaving two sons and two daughters.

The late Mr. John Oliver Willyams related to me an anecdote, illustrative of the contingencies which are incident to human life, and of the concatenation between public and private events.

His grandfather, Mr. John Willyams, had undertaken a journey to Oxford in the year 1685, but was stopped at Exeter by the Duke of Monmouth’s invasion; he returned in company with a gentleman of St. Columb, and remained there a few days, where at some public exhibition he met with Miss Bridgman Noye, who soon afterwards became his wife.

Mr. Hals devotes some pages to the virulent abuse of Colonel Humphrey Noye, against whom it is obvious that he must have entertained a personal animosity; but the Editor, having omitted various similar effusions, hopes that he shall not be accused of any partial favour towards his own ancestors, by omitting this also, which does not carry with it the semblance of truth.

Mawgan in Pider measures 6078 statute acres.

£. s. d.

Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 4016 0 0

Poor Rate in 1831 360 6 0

Population,—

in 1801, 543 in 1811, 622 in 1821, 580[6] in 1831, 745

giving an increase of 37 per cent. in 30 years.

Present Rector, the Rev. Philip Carlyon, instituted on his own presentation in 1806. Net income in 1831, 585l. 161

GEOLOGY, BY DOCTOR BOASE.

This parish is situated entirely within the calcareous series, and its rocks are the same as those of the adjoining parishes, St. Colomb Major and St. Evall.

The parish feast is celebrated on the nearest Sunday to St. James’s Day, July the 25th.

ST. MELLION, or ST. MELLYN.

HALS.

St. Mellyn Rectory is situate in the hundred of East, and hath upon the north Kellaton, east St. Dominick, south Pillaton, west Quethiock.

In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, 1294, into the value of Cornish benefices, Ecclesia Sanctæ Meliani in decanatu de East £4. In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, £11. 12s. 6d. The patronage in Coryton; the incumbent ——; and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, for one year, £96. 13s.

Niew-tone, now Newton, synonymous words, signifying after the English Saxon a new town, was another district or voke lands of a manor taxed in the Domesday Book, 1087; which lordship for many ages hath been the seat of that ancient British family surnamed de Coryton.

William Coryton, Esq. Member of Parliament for Killaton, was one of those imprisoned Members of Parliament, temp. Charles I. 1628, who asserted the prerogative of Parliament, the liberty and property of the subject, against the despotic and arbitrary power of the Monarch, set up by Noye, his Attorney-general; for which he was fined five hundred pounds, and could not be delivered from 162 prison till he had paid that sum, but forced to make a submission and acknowledgment of his offence, and put in security for his good behaviour.

He was the father of Sir John Coryton, of this place, who, the 27th February 13 Charles II. 1661, was by his letters patent of that date, created the 605th Baronet of England. He married Mills of Exeter, and had issue by her Sir John Coryton, Bart. his eldest son; who married one of the heirs of Mr. Richard Chiverton, Knight, bred a Skinner in London, and was Lord Mayor of that city 9 Charles II. 1657, by whom he had issue two daughters. He was Sheriff of Cornwall, 1682.

After his decease his younger brother, William Coryton, Esq. Barrister-at-law, succeeded to his honour and estate; who married the daughter of Sir Theophilus Biddulph, of Westcomb, in Kent, the 744th Baronet of England, by letters patent, bearing date 2 November 16 Charles II.; by whom he had issue Sir John Coryton, Bart. now extant.

After Sir William’s first wife’s death, he married the widow and relict of Thomas Williams, Gent. a goldsmith or banker of Lombard Street, in London; by whom, though a very aged woman, to recompence that defect he had much riches or wealth. After his death she married Sir Nicholas Trevanion, of St. Germans, who followed in marriage the Delphic Oracle’s direction, and Dion’s,

His sisters, Anne was married to John Peter, of Porthcuthan, Esq. and Catherine to Clarke and Dobbins, and —— to Goodall, of Fowey, Esq.

The arms of Coryton are Argent, a cross saltier Sable.

Croca-don, or Croucadon, Cruco-don, words of one signification, signifying bank, hillock or tumulus, hill or town; a place notable for barrows, wherein human creatures were heretofore interred, before and after the Roman Invasion. (See Tacitus in the life of Agricola.) This place was the 163 dwelling of Charles Trevisa, Gent. that married with Fortescue; who giveth for his arms, Gules, a garb Or. Denominated, I suppose from Trevisa, or Tre-wisa, in St. Enedor, and originally descended from John Trevisa, born in Gloucestershire (as Baker saith), who being for some time bred in Oxford, afterwards took orders, and became a secular priest, that might marry; and then became domestic chaplain to Thomas Lord Berkeley, by whom he was afterwards made Vicar of Berkeley in Gloucestershire; where, at that Lord’s request, he translated the Sacred Bible into the English tongue, though the same was done by John Wickliff fifty years before, but not with that perfection of language that Trevisa did it; although Trevisa’s translation is altogether as far short of Tyndall’s in Henry the Eighth’s days, by reason the English tongue was still improving to a higher perfection; and yet Tyndall’s translation was far inferior to that of King James I. notwithstanding they all agree in the original substance, sense, and meaning of words in those translations; wherein Wickliff, Trevisa, and Tyndall, made use of infinite Cornish-British words to express the same. Neither is the last translation of King James I. altogether void of them.

Mr. Trevisa also translated Bartholomew de Proprietatibus Rerum; the Poly-chronicon of Ralph Higden; a treatise of all the Acts of King Arthur; and divers other things. Lastly, this learned and painful priest died about the year 1470, aged about eighty-six years.

Westcot, in this parish, was another district taxed in the Domesday Book, 1087; it is now the dwelling, as I take it, of Mr. William Brendon, Gent.

In this parish is Pentyley, or Pillaton, a house and church built and so named by Mr. James Tillie, afterwards knighted, and married the widow of Sir John Coryton.

Since the writing of the above premises, about the year 1712, Sir James Tillie died, and as I am informed, by his last will and testament, obliged his adopted heir, one Woolley his sister’s son, not only to assume his name, 164 (having no legitimate issue) but that he should not inter his body after death in the earth, but fasten it in the chair where he died with iron, his hat, wig, rings, gloves, and best apparel on, shoes and stockings, and surround the same with an oak chest, box, or coffin, in which his books and papers should be laid, with pen and ink also; and build for reception thereof, in a certain field of his lands, a walled vault or grot, to be arched with moorstone; in which repository it should be laid without Christian burial; for that as he said but an hour before he died, in two years space he would be at Pentillie again; over this vault his heir likewise was obliged to build a fine chamber, and set up therein the picture of him, his lady, and adopted heir for ever; and at the end of this vault and chamber to erect a spire or lofty monument of stone, from thence for spectators to overlook the contiguous country, Plymouth Sound and Harbour; all which as I am told is accordingly performed by his heir, whose successors are obliged to repair the same for ever out of his lands and rents, under penalty of losing both.

However I hear lately, notwithstanding this his promise of returning in two years space to Pentiley, that Sir James’s body is eaten out with worms, and his bones or skeleton fallen down to the ground from the chair wherein it was seated, about four years after it was set up; his wig, books, wearing apparel, also rotten in the box or chair where it was first laid.

TONKIN.

I take this parish, as well as Mullion in Kerrier, to take its name from its tutelar saint, Melania. The church is a rectory; the patronage in Sir John Coryton.

The principal manor and seat in this parish is West Newton Ferrers, so called from its relative situation to another Newton, and from its ancient lords the Ferrers. As for the name Newton, it signifies no other than the plain meaning of the word, a new town or house. In the valuation 165 made by Edward the First this manor is called Newton, without any addition, as is the case at present in common speech.

William de Ferrers was Knight of this shire with Thomas Sereod, Knight, 8 Edward II.

THE EDITOR.

Mr. Hals has given a long history of St. Melania, the supposed patron of this church, containing, however, little more than the usual details of effects produced by the ascetic fanaticism popular in those days. Personal sufferings and privations were then endured, under a persuasion that bodily pain, mental stupidity, and a course of life utterly useless to the human race, could alone ensure the divine favour, in opposition to the sentiments,

Newton came into the family of Coryton, by a marriage with the heiress of Ferrers, and continued till that family became extinct in the male line, on the decease of Sir John Coryton in 1739, who gave the property to his widow Rachael, a daughter of Weston Helyar, Esq. of East Coker in Somersetshire; and it has continued with her relations nearly to the present time, under an entail, which carried Newton from Mr. Weston Helyar, probably a great-grandson of the gentleman above mentioned, to several other younger brothers; till the failure of heirs male in all these brought it back to the son or grandson of the elder brother, who, wishing to concentrate his property in Somersetshire, has parted with the whole Cornish estate to Edward Collins, Esq. of Truthan.

Although Sir John Coryton alienated his principal seat 166 and manor by this bequest to his widow, he devised a large share of the family property to the descendants of his eldest sister Elizabeth, who married William Goodall, of Fowey; and their grandson, on succeeding to the estate, assumed the name of Coryton. The present representative of this ancient family, John Tillie Coryton, Esq. has built a magnificent house or castle at Pentilly in a most beautiful situation, on the Tamar river, so that he need not regret the loss of Newton.

Sir John Coryton had two other sisters, one of whom, Johanna, married John Peter, of Harlyn, Esq. The third sister married a gentleman of the name of Vaughan.

In addition to the tales relative to Sir James Tillie’s funeral direction, Mr. Hals has added several others, all to this gentleman’s disadvantage, but not in any way illustrative of the times in which he lived, or of the general manners prevalent in the country: they are therefore omitted, with the exception of one respecting armorial bearings.

It is certain that Mr. Tillie was one of those persons, most justly esteemed, who advance themselves in the world without being beholden in any considerable degree to their ancestors. Mr. Tillie was knighted by King James II. and then not finding himself provided with a coat of arms, he assumed, as Mr. Hals states, the blazon of Count Tillie, a German Prince, which coming to the knowledge of King James, an inquisition was ordered, the fact was established, and a fine imposed on the knight, in addition to the demolition of the assumed arms, with some acts of indignity.

It is moreover proper to add, that although Sir James Tillie did without all question express some absurd fancies in respect to his mortal remains, which were in part executed, yet they are far from bearing the colour of impiety cast on them by Mr. Hals, and still less are they chargeable with the blasphemies imputed to them by Mr. Gilpin.

The church and tower are plain on the outside, but within are several handsome monuments to the Corytons.

It seems much more probable that this church is dedicated 167 to Mellitus, the first Bishop of London, and third Archbishop of Canterbury, than to an obscure African lady.

Bede has given various particulars of this eminent person, and his life may be found in Capgrave’s Aurea Legenda. He led a second body of missionaries in aid of the great St. Austin, and the conversion of a Pagan temple into a Christian church, since expanded into St. Paul’s Cathedral, and also the foundation of Westminster Abbey, are imputed to him. He departed this life on the 24th of April, in the year 624.

St. Mellion measures 2410 statute acres.

£. s. d.

Annual value of the Real Property as returned to Parliament in 1815 1928 0 0

Poor Rate in 1831 163 8 0

Population,—

in 1801, 284 in 1811, 326 in 1821, 321 in 1831, 330

giving an increase of 16 per cent. in 30 years.

The Rev. George Fortescue died Rector of St. Mellion in 1835.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The Geology of this parish is precisely the same as that of St. Dominick.

MENHENIOT.

HALS.

Men-hyn-yet, Men-hin-iet vicarage, is situate in the hundred of East, and hath upon the north Linkinhorne, east Quethiock, south St. Germans, west Leskeard. For the modern name of this parish, it is taken from the manor of Men-hin-iet within the same; which is compounded or 168 conjugated of Cornish and Saxon, and signifies old or ancient stone gate; for the terminative particle yet, jet, in Saxon signifies a gate (as porth in British). This manor is one of the franchises of Cornwall, privileged with the jurisdiction and freedom of a court leet, for plea of debt or damage between party and party, within the precincts thereof, by the Kings of England or Earls of Cornwall; and hath its steward and bailiff to attend the public services thereof, as the hundred of East hath.

At the time of the Norman Conquest this district was taxed under the jurisdiction of Trehavock, now Trehawke, of which more under. In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, into the value of Cornish benefices, 1294, Ecclesia de Manyhynyet, (id est, English Saxon, and Cornish, many ancient or old gate,) in decanatu de Est, is rated £8. In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, £21. 15s. 4d. The patronage in Exeter College, in Oxford; none but Fellows admittable to the cure; the incumbent Snell; and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, temp. William III. £332. 6s. by the name of Men-hyn-iet, as aforesaid.

Men is the common contraction of meyn, mein, main, a stone; and hyn, him, the corruption of hen, heyn, hain, old, ancient. See Floyd upon Lapis.

This manor of Men-hyn-yet, as I remember, was formerly the lands of one Carmenow, a soldier or military man; by whose daughter and heir it came first in marriage to Trelawny, in Edward the Fourth’s days. Within the precincts of which lordship is situate the house and barton of Poole, so called after the English from the natural circumstances of the place; where, by reason of the level or evenness of the town place, in winter season many lakes and pools of water stand. Of which place thus speaks Mr. Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall: “Poole, for its lowe and moyst seate, is not unaptly named, houseth Sir Jonathan Trelawny, far beneath his worth and callinge. He 169 marryed Sir Henry Killigrew’s daughter, his father the coheir of Reskimer, his grandfather Lamellyn’s inheritrix. His arms are Argent, a chevron Sable, between three oak leaves Vert.”

There is a public fair held yearly in this church town, on June 11.

Ten-creek, Den-creek, in this parish, was formerly the lands and possessions of Richard Earl of Cornwall, King of the Romans, second son of King John; who probably at some time lived at it (as also at his castle of Leskeard), for in the old dilapidated houses of this once famous fabric, I saw the ruins of a moorstone oven, about fourteen foot diameter, in testimony of the hospitality once kept here. And moreover, in the front of the castlewise moorstone gate, or portal, I beheld his arms cut in stone; viz. within a bordure bezantée, a lion rampant crowned, whose arms in colours I think ought to be thus blazoned: ill port ung lyon rampant de Gowles, en Argent, bordure de Sable, talentée.

Here groweth a sort of tree, bearing a strange sort of leaves and fruit, or berries, not seen in any other part of Cornwall, and therefore without name given it by me or others.

Tre-havock, in this parish, Cornish Saxon, id est, the hawk town, was taxed in the Domesday Book, 1087, as the voke lands of a parish or manor which now is suitably called after the Cornish English Tre-hauke; for that it seems heretofore it was a place notable for keeping, mewing, or breeding hawks (or for that those lands were held by the tenure of paying hawks to its lord); from which place was denominated an old family of gentlemen surnamed de Tre-hauke, who gave for their arms, in a field Sable, a chevron between three hawks. It is now in the possession of Peter Keckwich, Esq. descended from the Keckwiches of Catch-French, as they were from the Keckwiches of Essex; who give for their arms, Argent, two lions in bend passant Sable, cottised Gules.

170 Cur-tuth-oll, lands as I am informed heretofore pertaining to the nuns or nunnery of Clares, at Leskeard, according to the name thereof; after whose dissolution, 32 Henry VIII. it came to Becket, who gave for his arms, in a field Sable, a fess between three boar’s heads couped, and six cross-crosslets fitchee Or; in memory of the Archbishop.

From Becket this place came by sale to Harris; from Harris to Hamlyn; from Hamlyn to Cole, now in possession thereof, who was steward to Francis Roberts, Esq. and got riches in the service of the Earl of Radnor.

Tre-wint, in this parish, id est, the spring or well town, is the dwelling of Thomas Kelly, Gent.

Dr. John Moorman, Vicar of this church, was the first minister in Cornwall that said or taught the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Creed in the English tongue. (See Feock and Creed.) He also catechised the children therein; which I judge was in the latter end of King Henry the Eighth’s, or the beginning of King Edward the Sixth’s reign, 1549; for then by proclamation were called in all books of the Latin service for churches; and the Bishops commanded in their several dioceses that forthwith should be warned, all prebendaries of their cathedral churches, all parsons, vicars, curates, and the churchwardens of every parish within their dioceses, to bring in and deliver up particularly.

In this parish was formerly extant a hospital for lepers, that had competent lands and revenues.

TONKIN.

Pool, adjoining to the church town, was the seat of the Trelawnys, and their chief dwelling for many generations, till they fixed at their present one of Trelawen, in the parish of Pelynt. The chief manor in this parish is called Menheniot, or Tregelly.

THE EDITOR. 171

The church of this large and opulent parish is of size proportioned to it, having three large aisles. The tower is low and surmounted by a spire. In the church are some monuments, but not of much antiquity.

Archbishop Courtenay appears to have settled the right of presentation to this parish, by giving it to the Chapter of Exeter, with the limitation of their always bestowing it on some one who is at the time, or has been, a Fellow of Exeter College. The vicarage is endowed with the great tithes, on a payment of £20 a year to Exeter College, and it is therefore considered as a rectory. Mr. Carew observes (p. 277, Lord de Dunstanville’s edition) that this parish has been successively graced with three well born and well educated incumbents, Doctor Tremayne, Master Billett, and Master Dennis; and it is believed that William of Wykeham held this preferment for some time previously to Archbishop Courtenay’s endowment.

The late incumbent, the Reverend William Holwell, may be noticed for his taste and skill in the fine arts. He was the son of a medical practitioner at Exeter, and nephew of William Holwell, student and tutor of Christ Church soon after the middle of the last century, and then Vicar of Thornbury, in Gloucestershire, where he died in 1798, having distinguished himself by the following, among other works:

The Beauties of Homer, selected from the Iliad, 8vo.

Extracts from Pope’s Translations of Homer compared with the Beauties of the Original. 8vo.

A Mythological, Etymological, and Historical Dictionary. 8vo.

Mr. William Holwell, the nephew, was of course a Fellow of Exeter College. He travelled through France and Italy about the year 1780, where he began forming a collection of pictures, bequeathed on his decease to the National 172 Gallery. He is said to have taken Orders with some reluctance, for the purpose of accepting this valuable living. But the most important event in this gentleman’s life was his marrying Charlotte, daughter and heiress of James Carr, Earl of Erroll. He in consequence assumed the name of Carr. He died in the year 1830, having survived his wife nearly twenty years, who has a monument to her memory in Menheniot church.

In the valuation of Pope Nicholas, the name of this parish is written Manyhinyhet, or Saihinet, proofs of the small reliance that can be placed on mere phonic etymologies.

Cartuther, noticed by Mr. Hals, became the property and the residence of the Morsheads, but having been sold, with all the other possessions of that family, it was purchased by Mr. Kekewich.

Mr. Lysons gives a detail of other manors and bartons of little interest.

This parish has the reputation of being the most fertile of corn, especially of wheat, in the whole county. The aspect of the church town gives a strong impression of monastic remains, but there is not any tradition on record of a religious establishment in the place.

Menheniot measures 6047 statute acres.

£. s. d.

Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 10599 0 0

Poor Rate in 1831 1422 11 0

Population,—

in 1801, 918 in 1811, 1024 in 1821, 1170 in 1831, 1253

giving an increase of 36½ per cent. in thirty years.

GEOLOGY, BY DOCTOR BOASE.

The southern part of this parish is bounded by the hill of Clicker Tor, which is entirely composed of a dark compact serpentine, abounding in steatite, asbestos, tremolite, and other magnesian minerals. The occurrence of this 173 large mass of serpentine, amidst an extensive tract of rocks belonging to the calcareous series, imparts no little geological interest to this parish, which deserves therefore to be more minutely examined; for the cursory observations hitherto published have not satisfactorily developed the connection of this serpentine with the adjoining rocks. In crossing the parish from north to south, the rocks are first seen to consist of compact felspar and hornblend, resembling those at Rosecradock in St. Clear; next they become more schistose, and the hornblend forms only the colouring material, as it does on the north of Leskeard town; at Pengover the hornblend again abounds, and is intermixed with calcareous spar, as in the vicinity of St. Ives. Approaching the church of Menheniot, the rocks again put on the appearance of a true hornblend schist, and this is succeeded by the serpentine of Clicker Tor.

THE EDITOR.

Not only is the serpentine of the Lizard found at Clicker Tor, but the plant also indicative of that formation, the great ornament of our southern promontory, the Errica Vagans, the multiflora of Hudson and Ray, and the didyma of Withering. Nothing seems to be more extraordinary, nor what, independently of experience, would be more unexpected, than the existence of the same rare plants at distant and unconnected places, where the peculiarities of soil and climate happen to agree; but to increase the wonder still further, even this diffusion has its limits. The southern hemisphere is said not to be decorated by a single wild rose, the Ανασσα Ανθων Anassa Anthôn of the northern world. And the whole continent of America is believed not to produce a single heath.

Our preconceptions of what would be fitting for intelligences superior to our own, and a fortiori as to what might be expected from infinite wisdom and power, have been 174 established beyond the shadow of a doubt by Sir Isaac Newton, in respect to the great bodies moving in our universe. They perform all their revolutions in obedience to the simple and general laws of gravity and inertia; and the rapidly progressive discoveries of each succeeding year, establish the same principle respecting causes acting conformably to general laws in the internal construction, preservation, and renovation of our planet; and we are moreover induced to believe that a like system must prevail in the moral world, not from analogy alone, but from a deep conviction that such a plan, and no other, can reconcile the existence of partial evil with universal good: and thus conciliate the actual state of things with the attributes of unlimited goodness, wisdom, and power; but in respect to animal and vegetable life, although an arrangement as plain and as demonstrative of infinite wisdom may exist, it is, in the actual state of our knowledge, utterly hidden from our view. Thousands of distinct species or genera have ceased to exist, and their remains, varying from the most gigantic skeletons to objects suited for a microscope, are daily brought under our view—animals and plants have succeeded each other in the various geological periods, tending in succession towards more elaborate construction and greater general perfection; but not a trace is laid before us of the plan by which this beautiful system is arranged; our ignorance compels us therefore to suppose the immediate agency of the Divinity itself, when a plant indigenous to an old formation appears on one more recently elevated to the surface; or when any of the innumerable changes take place in an organized inhabitant of this or of some other plant.

175

ST. MERRAN, MERIN, or MER-YN.

HALS.

Mer-in or Mer-yn, is situated in the hundred of Pedyr, and hath upon the north the Irish sea, west St. Evall, south St. Ervyn, north-east Padstow.

In the Domesday Book this district was taxed by the name of Trevoes or Trevose, id est, the maid or virgin’s town; then and now the voke lands of a manor annexed to Pawton, or Polton, (parcel of the lands of the Prior of Bodman and Bishop of Exon before the Norman Conquest,) on the confines of which, towards the sea, is yet extant the ruins of an old church, chapel, and cemetery pertaining thereto, dedicated to St. Constantine, the first Christian Emperor of Rome: which, upon the encroachment of the sea-sand on the marsh beneath, which surrounded and overwhelmed the same, was discontinued, and thereby gave occasion to the inhabitants to build their now church of Merin in a more secure place, further up in the country from the sea and sand, and moor or marsh ground; the church of St. Constantine being in part converted now to a dwelling house for poor people.

Near this church is yet extant St. Constantine’s Well, strong built of stone and arched over; on the inner part hereof are places or seats for people to sit and wash themselves in the streams thereof; the consequence of which facts, if the inhabitants may be credited, is not only very refreshing and salubrious, but, if it be dry weather, immediately showers of rain will follow.

The barton of Trevose is now, by lease, in possession of Gregory Peter, Esq. and Lawrence Growden, that well-known Quaker, the reversionary fee pertaining to Sir Nicholas Morice, Baronet, as parcel of his manor of Pawton; and is a large lofty promontory of land, shooting out far 176 into the Irish sea, beyond all other lands there, yet notable for its production of sheep, barley, and rabbits, and not altogether unprofitable for bullocks in winter season; and as fatal and unfortunate for wrecking ships, that happen by night or stormy weather to fall on the rocks thereof, at that or any other time.

Arel-yn, alias Har-lyn, in this parish. This barton is the dwelling of my very kind friend and brother-in-law, Gregory Peter, Esq. Sheriff of Cornwall part of the last year of William III. and first of Queen Anne, 1701; he married Elizabeth, daughter of Gove of Devon, the relict of William Wadland, merchant, by whom he had issue two sons, William and John; William died without issue, and John that married Anne, the daughter of Sir John Coryton, of Newton, Baronet, by whom he hath a numerous issue of children of both sexes. After the death of the said Elizabeth, he married the daughter of Anthony Carveth, of Peransand, Gent. his cousin-german removed, and hath issue by her Francis Peter.

Gregory Peter aforesaid was the son of Thomas Peter, of Treater, in Padstow, Gent. who married the daughter and heir of Mitchell, lord of Harlyn; the which Thomas Peter was the son of John Peter, of Trenaran, in Padstow, Gent. that married Toms, as John Peter was the son of John Peter of Trenaran, that married Kestell.

Whether this surname of Peter be derived from the Christian or font name of some of their ancestors, or from their being ancient inhabitants of Pedyrstowe, id est, Peter’s dwelling, now Padstow, I cannot resolve. Their arms are in a field Gules, on a bend between two escallops Argent, two Cornish dawes Proper; much resembling the arms of the Lord Petre of Exeter, now of Essex.

If this church of Merin, or Meran, were extant, it was not endowed with any revenues at the time of the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, into the value of Cornish Benefices, 1294, since it is not named therein. And the five churches of Peran-sand, St. Agnes, 177 St. Colomb Minor, St. Breock, Lanhidrock, were then under the same circumstances.

The tutelar guardian of this new church of Merin is St. Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, whose festival is duly celebrated by the inhabitants of this parish of Meran on July the 7th, being commonly called his day, a hundred and twenty-two years after his death made a calendered Saint, who was slain at the altar in his cathedral church of Canterbury, the 30th of December 1172.

In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, this vicarage of Merin was valued for its revenues £15. 16s. 8d. The patronage in the Bishop of Exeter, or the Dean and Chapter, who endowed it; the incumbent Gurney; the rectory or sheaf in possession of Francis Peter aforesaid; and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax for one year, 1696, £241.

One Margaret Tregoweth, of Crantock, temp. Henry VII. gave lands in Harlyn, viz. a dwelling-house and garden, with commons there, towards the repair of blessed St. Meran and St. Thomas Becket’s church, of about £12 per annum for ever. [But who this Sanctus Meranus, or St. Meran, was I know not.]

TONKIN.

Mr. Tonkin does not add any thing to the history of this parish except the following assertion.

This parish takes its name from a female patroness, Sancta Merina, so that the name should be written Merin.

THE EDITOR.

Mr. Tonkin has not given any information respecting St Merina, nor is any such name to be found.

The barton of Harlyn, or Arlyn, belonged to the family of Tregewe; from that family it passed by a marriage to the family of Michell, and with the heiress of Michell to Peter. Perthcothen, which belonged to the family of Trevethen, is now the seat of another Mr. Peter.

178 The manor of Trevose having formed a part of the very extensive property acquired by the Roberts’s, was purchased from them by the Morices of Werington, and in the division of property between the coheiresses of that family, it fell to the share of Molesworth of Pencanow; one part of it is held on lease by Mr. Peter, of Harlyn, and another belonged to the late Mr. Rawlings, of Padstow.

There is not any thing remarkable about the church. The stone in that immediate neighbourhood, at a place called Catacluse, is very favourable for building, and for ornamental work, as may be seen in the fonts at this church and at Padstow, and also in the ruins of the old church, dedicated to Constantine.

The Editor has been favoured with the following communication respecting this ancient building, by William Peter, Esq. of Harlyn.

“Constantine church is now in ruins, and the parish (if it ever was one) has been long merged in that of St. Merryn. The festival of Constantine is still celebrated by an annual hurling match, on which occasion the owner of Harlyn supplies, and has (according to parish tradition) from time immemorial supplied, the silver ball.

“Adjoining the church of Constantine was a cottage which a family of the name of Edwards held for generations, under the proprietors of Harlyn, by the annual render of a pie, made of limpets, raisins, and various herbs, on the eve of the festival. This pie, as I have heard from my father and from more ancient members of the family, and from old servants, was excellent. The Edwards’s had pursued for centuries the occupation of shepherds on Harlyn and Constantine commons. The last died about forty years ago, and the wreck of their cottage is almost buried in sand.”

The font and the pillars of Constantine church are handsomely carved out of Catacluse stone, and Mr. Peter adds, that the font was transferred by his great-grandfather to St. Merryn Church, when it underwent a thorough repair.

179 Under Catacluse Cliffs is a small pier, constructed by the late Mr. Peter for the shelter of coasting vessels and boats.

The feast of Constantine is kept on the nearest Sunday to the 10th of March.

The feast in honour of the comparatively modern Saint to whom St. Merryn Church is dedicated, is celebrated on the nearest Sunday to July the 7th, the Translation of St. Thomas of Canterbury (Becket).

The great tithes belong to the Chapter of Exeter, and the Bishop collates to the vicarage. It has been remarked that three successive gentlemen of the name of Gurney held the living for above a century.

The diversion of hurling, mentioned by Mr. Peter as taking place on the festival in honour of Constantine, is now wholly discontinued, or kept up on this particular occasion as a mere remembrance of former times, when the manners of society were more adapted to such rude exertions of activity and strength. For an account of hurling see Carew, p. 195, Lord Dunstanville’s edition.

St. Merran measures 3,644 statute acres.

£. s. d.

Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 4,084 0 0

Poor Rate in 1831 428 18 0

Population,—

in 1801, 425 in 1811, 458 in 1821, 537 in 1831, 576

giving an increase of 35½ per cent. in 30 years.

The Rev. John Bayley, the present Vicar of St. Merryn, was collated in 1803 by the Bishop of Exeter.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The rocks of the southern part of this parish resemble those of St. Ervan, but near the church a lamelar blue slate prevails, like that of Endellion, and like it also abounding in veins of the sulphurets of lead and of antimony.

180 The western part of the parish, which extends into the sea, forming a promontory called Trevose Head, is composed of crystalline rocks, which are massive, and differ from all the rocks that are interposed between it and the granite of St. Dennis. Both the composition and the relative situation of these rocks are very interesting. They appear to be the equivalents of the masses of serpentine of Clicker Tor, and of the Lizard district; of the felspathic rocks which form the downs between Launceston and Davidstow; and of that curious mass of rock at King Arthur’s Castle, in Tintagel. Geologists have yet to learn the precise relation of these crystalline masses with the calcareous series in which they are situated.

MERTHYR.

HALS.

Merthyr, Murder, vicarage, is situated in the hundred of Powder, and hath upon the north and east Probus and Tresilian river, south Lamoran and St. Michael Penkivell, west an arm of Falmouth Harbour, towards Clemens. As for the name, it refers to the tutelar patron and guardian saint of the church, who it seems was murdered and slain for the Christian religion, as a martyr; viz. one St. Cohan, a Briton of this parish, whose little well, and consecrated chapel annexed thereto, was lately extant, upon the lands of Egles Merthyr barton, (that is to say upon the lands of the Martyr’s Church,) though now in a manner demolished by greedy searchers for money.

This church goes in presentation and consolidation as a daughter to St. Probus, which vicar is to present the curate, vicar, or chaplain of Merthyr to the Bishop for licence and confirmation; though the eight men of the said parish are by ancient custom to choose and name him, in 181 consideration whereof the vicar of Probus is to receive annually from them, on the high altar, three shillings and four pence.

However, great controversies have happened in the Bishop’s Consistory between the vicar of Probus and the inhabitants of this parish, before and since Henry the Eighth’s days, upon the death, removal, or translations of the vicar of Probus, concerning the right of the jurisdiction, presentation, or patronage of this church; whether in the vicar of Probus, or the eight men of the said parish, the vicar presenting one clerk or curate to be confirmed by the Bishop, and the eight men another; but generally it hath passed as a rule in the Ecclesiastical Court, where this matter, by learned counsel or proctors, hath been debated, that the right of patronage and presentation of this church lay in the eight men of the parish, and not in the vicar of Probus, though the same hath been often controverted.

There is a Latin deed which I have seen yet extant, between Bar. Combe, vicar-general to Dr. Peter Courtenay, Lord Bishop of Exeter, 1480, under seal of the diocese, and John Fullford, perpetual vicar of Probus of the one part, and Thomas Tresithney, John Hallvose, Thomas Webber, and others of the eight men of the parish of Merthyr on the other part, wherein those premises are concerted or regulated; and moreover, therein a confirmation, covenant, or agreement, made and established between them, according to ancient custom; that in case the said eight men and their successors should annually pay to the vicar or curate of the said parish of St. Cohan Martyr, of Merthyr, for ever annually the full and just sum of twenty marks lawful moneys of England, that then the lands of the said parish, and every part and parcel thereof should be exempt and free from the payment of small tithes in kind, oblations, or obventions to the vicar thereof for ever. Which privilege hath ever since been kept and enjoyed by the inhabitants of the said parish accordingly; to the great loss of the vicar, and greater gain of the inhabitants.

182 Now, though when this compact was made and confirmed, the vicar had much the better bargain, not one vicarage church in Cornwall being of that value in the King’s or Pope’s Books towards Annats in the first inquisition, 1294, nor many in Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1520; yet now the inhabitants have great profit thereby, since the plenty or commonness of money lessens the intrinsic value thereof, whereby much number of money will buy but little lands, goods, or chattels, whereas in those days a little quantity of money would purchase much of those things. (Witness Baker, and other our chronologers, temp. Henry VII. soon after the compact aforesaid was made, wherein we may read that a bushel of wheat, Winchester measure, was sold for 6d., a bushel of salt for 3½d., a ton of Gascoign wines 40s., and all other things sold after a proportionable price.)

In the Domesday Book, 1087, this district was taxed under the jurisdiction of Penkivell. Afterwards, upon the setting up the vicarage of Probus, it was concerted into that parish about the beginning of King Henry the Third’s days; for in the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, into the value of Cornish Benefices, 1294, its superior or mother church was rated for it, as also the five chaplains for their salaries, that officiated in Probus, Cornelly, and Merthyr. It was endowed by the treasurer of the cathedral church of Exeter, which must be after that dignitary was first set up there, by William Brewar, Bishop thereof 1224. The patronage as aforesaid; the incumbent, Monsieur Baudree, a French Protestant; and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, temp. William III. £83.

At Tre-saws-an, alias Tre-saus-an, id est, the Saxon town, or dwelling, a place heretofore pertaining to some Saxon, is the possession by lease of James Hals, Gent., granted him by his mother in the time of her widowhood, as parcel of the manor of Fentongollan, whereon she had power of leasing during her widowhood. He was a younger 183 son of Sir Nicholas Hals, of Fentongollan, Knight, by Grace his wife, daughter of Sir John Arundell, of Talverne, Knight; and was first bred a soldier in Pendenis Castle, whereof his father was Governor, under King James I. and Charles I. Afterwards he was made lieutenant of his brother Captain William Hals, in the expedition of the Duke of Buckingham in the French war, at the Isle of Rhé and Rochelle. And after that war was over was sent with his said brother by King Charles I. with a foot company of soldiers to supply or reinforce the garrisons of the Barbadoes, St. Christopher’s, and Mountserat Islands in America, where he remained about seven years; and after his brother’s death, who died returning into England, Captain Ayleworth was displaced, and the said James Hals made Governor of Mountserat Island, by King Charles I.

After which, the wars breaking out in England, between that King and his Parliament, he and divers other officers were commanded to return back into England for the King’s service; where soon after his arrival at Plymouth, that stood for the Parliament, then besieged by the King’s army, he was cajoled out of his allegiance to King Charles I. by his country gentlemen then in that place in garrison, and engaged against that King, to become Lieutenant-Colonel to Colonel Nicholas Boscawen’s troop of horse, then posted there. From whence he was commanded, with several other troops of horse, to go outside the lines, under conduct of the Earl of Stamford, then Governor of Plymouth for the Parliament, and to fight the King’s army that besieged it under conduct of Sir Ralph Hopton, Knight, and Sir Richard Grenvill, Knight and Baronet, the King’s Generals in the West; where, after a sharp engagement and loss of many men between both parties, the victory fell to the King’s army; and then and there the said James Hals, and many other gentlemen were taken prisoners of war, and forthwith sent prisoners to Lidford 184 Castle in Devon, under custody of Marshall Ellery, of St. Colomb Major.

Where soon after several of his companions, or fellow officers and soldiers, viz. Mr. Leach, Mr. Morris, Mr. Brabyn, and others, were executed without trial or judgment, as guilty of high treason. But the said James Hals had his life spared or given him by the General Sir Richard Grenville, Knight, upon account of consanguinity, but not without many frowns and angry threats; (a sure token of his clemency, as his smiles and embraces were of death and destruction, suitable to those of King Richard III. and King James I. and Caius Caligula, Emperor of Rome,) to dissuade him from the Parliament service to that of the King’s, with promise of greater preferment in his army; all which proving ineffectual, he was sentenced a straight or close prisoner to that tremendous castle, in daily expectation of death; where he remained immured up for about twenty months space, in great want, durance, and misery, till General Essex came into those parts with the Parliament army, and set at liberty him and other Lidford prisoners, by Captain Braydon raised the siege of Plymouth, and sore distressed Hopton and Grenville in Cornwall.

During the time of this James Hals’ imprisonment in Lidford Castle, amongst others there came to visit him one Mr. Doctor William Brown, of Tavistock, who gave him a copy of rambling verses and observations he had made upon the borough and castle of Lidford, for his diversion; which verses, for want of the original, I find false and imperfectly set forth and printed in Mr. Prince’s Worthies of Devon, therefore I have hereunder set it down verbatim from the Doctor’s own copy, given Mr. Hals, viz.:

This custom of executing malefactors before trial on common fame, was also an old law amongst the Germans and Swiss Cantons; and if upon trial, after execution done on the criminal, he or she appeared to be innocent, a priest was appointed to pray for his soul. (See Glover’s Somerset, and Duverdier’s History of the Swiss Cantons.)

The same law was in force amongst the people of Carinthia, a country adjoining to the Alps and Italy on the south, and Styria on the north; moreover, if upon the trial three days after the offender’s execution, he appeared to be guilty, his body should be left so long to hang upon the gibbet, till his members rotted piecemeal from his body. But if innocent they took it thence and gave it venerable obsequies, with prayers, oblations, and alms deed for the salvation of his soul.

This James Hals married Anne, one of the coheirs of John Martin, of Hurston, Gent. attorney-at-law, (lineally descended from the Martins of Pittle Town, in Dorset,) by Anne his wife, daughter of John Mundy, of Rialton, Esq. by Jane his wife, daughter of Walter Kendall, of Pellyn, Esq.; by whom he had issue James Hals, his eldest son and heir, that married Martha, daughter and heir of Thomas Penrose, of Lefeock, Gent. commander of the Bristol, Maidstone, and Monck frigates, during the several Dutch wars of Oliver Cromwell and King Charles II. with the States of Holland; by whom he hath issue James Hals, his eldest son, of Hungerford Park in Berkshire, and Thomas Hals, bred a gentleman volunteer, upon King William the Third’s ship the Sunderland, Captain Tudor 187 Trevor, Commander; but being from thence transferred to the Kingfisher, Captain Tallat, Commander, in order to go to St. Helena, with other men of war, to convoy home the East India fleet, the air on the south part of Africa, near the Cape of Good Hope, not agreeing with his constitution of body, he sickened there of a consumption and died 1702.

James Hals aforesaid, father of those young men, proved a man of ill conduct, and wasted all his lands and leases, of a very considerable value.

James Hals first above-mentioned had also issue William Hals, the author of these lines, who married three wives, Evans of Landrini family in Wales, Carveth of Peransand, and Courtney of Tremeer, but had issue by none of them.

He had also issue Thomas Hals, of the City of London, first bred a merchant, who married Jane, daughter of Captain Richard Bourchier, of that city, and hath been a merchant, factor, and traveller in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Venice, Greece, Smyrna, Egypt, Constantinople, and Alexandria, in which last places he was a factor for several years; afterwards as merchant he went in an East India ship into Africa, Persia, Arabia, India, and China, where he died about the year 1710, without issue.

As also Nicholas Hals, bred a scholar, who died at Leskeard, and lies buried in the minister’s chancel of that church, 1682.

As also Grenvill Hals, that married Martha, daughter of Reginald Hawkey, Gent. attorney-at-law, of Trevego, but died also without issue, 1718, and lies buried in Fentongollan Isle, in St. Michael Penkivell church, near his father and mother’s graves.

As also Henry Hals, bred a merchant, who for several years was a factor at Constantinople and Alexandria. But coming back into England to marry the only daughter and heir of one Doctor Cooke, at London, to whom long before 188 he had been contracted, he sickened of the small-pox, died there, and lies buried at Stepney or Whitechapel, 1689.

Anne, married first to William Roscorla, of Roscorla in St. Austell; and after his death to Thomas Penrose, of Nance, in St. Martin’s in Kerryer, but hath issue by neither. She died in the year ——, and lies buried in the north isle or chapel of St. Wenn church, in Cornwall.

At Trewortha Vean, in this parish, that is the little higher town, by lease, is the dwelling of Joseph Halsey, clerk, Master of Arts, and some time Fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge, and rector of St. Michael Penkivell church, in this county; lineally descended from the Halseys of Huntingdonshire, whose arms are Argent, a pile between three griffons’ heads erased Sable, out of a supposed allusion to their name, derived from Alce and Sey. He married Mary, daughter of Henry Vincent, of Tresimple, Gent. attorney-at-law, by whom he had issue Joseph Halsey, practitioner in physic, who took the degree of Doctor beyond the seas, at Leyden in Holland I take it. He now resideth at London, where he married ——, and hath got himself considerable wealth and reputation in his profession. He had also issue Nathaniel Halsey, bred a merchant, and is now a factor for the East India Company, at Bombay or Bengal in India; also Edward Halsey, of the same occupation, now a factor for the said Company at Surat, or some other part of India; also a daughter, married to Bromley, of Lefeock, a Presbyterian priest.

This Mr. Joseph Halsey being ordained priest, was made rector of the parish aforesaid, in the interregnum of Oliver and Richard Cromwell, after the discipline of Calvin, or Geneva.

TONKIN.

This is a daughter church to St. Probus, with which and Cornelly it is valued in the King’s Book.

189 The vicar of Probus names the curate, but cannot remove him afterwards. The present curate, who holds both this and Cornelly, is Mr. Jonathan Daddoe.

The manor of Fentongollan comprehends a great part of this parish, but the mansion house is in St. Michael Penkivell.

THE EDITOR.

Trevilian bridge is the most remarkable spot in this parish. It is situated in a beautiful valley, with a fine stream navigable for barges from Falmouth, which conveys large quantities of limestone from Plymouth, and of coast sand dredged in Falmouth harbour.

In consequence also of the new line of road, completed about four years ago from Bodmin, and therefore from London to Truro, through Ladock valley, the Earl of Falmouth has made a private road to his own house, from the eastern end of this bridge, equal perhaps in beauty to any drive of an equal extent in the whole county. Some fairs are annually holden at this place, and it is recorded in history as the place where the treaty was agreed on for the surrender of the army of about five thousand men, commanded by Lord Hopton, then lying in Truro, to the troops of General Fairfax, on the 14th of March 1646.

The church is very small, and, what is quite unusual in Cornwall, has a wooden edifice, it cannot be called a tower, to contain its single bell.

Merthyr measures 1,492 statute acres.

£. s. d.

Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 2103 0 0

Poor Rate in 1831 230 8 0

Population,—

in 1801, 305 in 1811, 350 in 1821, 370 in 1831, 411

giving an increase of 35 per cent. in 30 years.

GEOLOGY, BY DOCTOR BOASE.190

This parish is composed of the same rocks as St. Clement’s, from which it is divided by one of the streams communicating with Falmouth harbour.

MEVAGISSEY, or MENA-GUISE-Y.

HALS.

Mena-guise-y vicarage is situated in the hundred of Powder, and hath upon the north St. Mewan, east St. Austell, south the British Channel, west Gurran. For the modern name it may be interpreted either the hill custom; otherwise, Mena-gusseg, after the Welsh, is the hill and waves or surges of the sea.

I know Mr. Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, (contrary to this etymology) tells us that this church is called Menaguisey from its two tutelar guardian Saints, Meny and Isey; query who they are or were, for in the Agonal, or Legend, I can find no such Saints; besides, in the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, into the value of benefices in Cornwall, 1294, Ecclesia de la Mor-ike, in decanatu de Powdre, (which must be this church) that is to say the church of the sea cove, lake, or creek place, is valued at 40s. In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, it is called Menage-zey church, with the appellation of Saint, and rated £6. The patronage formerly in Bodrigan, now Edgecumb; the incumbent Mitchell; the rectory I take it in Edgecumb; and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, £151. 13s.

In the Domesday Book, 1087, this district or parish was taxed either under the jurisdiction of Pentewan, or Goran, now on the east and west side thereof.

191 Penwarne in this parish heretofore, if not now, the voke lands of some manor, (as I take it still it is,) gave name and original to an old family of gentlemen, surnamed de Penwarne; whose daughter and heir, together with herself, carried those lands to Cosowarth, by whose heiress it passed to Otwell Hill, Esq. that married Denham, descended from the Hills of Lancashire; who gave for his arms, Gules, a chevron between three garbs Ermine; from whose heir it passed, by sale or descent, to John Carew, merchant, that married Hellman, who by her had issue only five daughters: 1. married to Lewis Tremayne, of Halligan, Esq.; 2. Candia, to Hugh Trevanion, of Treligan, Esq.; 3. Grace, the youngest daughter, was married to Robert Hoblyn, of Nanswiddon, Esq.; 4. to his second brother Richard Hoblyn, of Antron, Esq. barrister-at-law; 5. to Edward Hoblyn, of Bodmin, attorney-at-law.

The which gentlemen, in order to raise their marriage fortunes, sold those lands to Arthur Fortescue, of Filleigh, in Devon, Esq. lineally descended from Sir John Fortescue, Knight, Lord Chief Justice and Lord High Chancellor of England, temp. Henry VI. 1442.

Tre-levan, or Tre-lauan, was formerly the lands of Trewoolla, of Trewoolla, in Gorran; it is now the dwelling of Henry Vincent, Esq. barrister-at-law, and member of parliament for the borough of Truro.

TONKIN.

The church, which is a very indifferent low building, consists of a nave only, with one north aisle and a cross aisle to the south. There was formerly a square tower at the western end with three bells, which being something out of repair, they pulled it down in the rebellious times, and sold the bells, which turned (as all such sacrilegious actions ought to do) to the utter undoing of all those concerned in it; there remaineth however one bell in that part of the tower which is standing, even in height with the roof of the church.

THE EDITOR. 192

Mr. Tonkin has written much more on this parish than on most others, but the details relative to families, and to individuals long since forgotten, and never of any distinction, are quite uninteresting.

Mr. Lysons has abridged it to the following effect, intermixed with additions of his own.

Tonkin says that Mevagissey, lately a poor fishing village, contained in his time two hundred houses; that a pier had been constructed at the expense of the Trewolla family; that it was the most convenient place on the coast for the pilchard fishery; that on an average twelve thousand hogsheads were cured annually. The present number of houses is about 370. The eastern part of the town, which in old deeds is called Porthilly, belongs to the Hoblyns; the middle part to the Grenvilles, of Stowe in Buckinghamshire, as parcel of the manor of Trelevan; the western part is included in Mr. Tremayne’s manor of Penwarne.

Ships of 100 tons burden may ride securely in the pool. The fishing cove of Porthmellin is partly in this parish.

The manor of Trelevan belonged for several generations to the family of Trewolla, of Trewolla in St. Goran. It was by them sold, about the year 1667, to Walter Vincent, Esq. of Truro, who in 1680 was appointed one of the Barons of the Exchequer, but died on his way to London before he had been sworn into that high office. His grandson Nicholas Vincent, who died in 1726, mortgaged this estate, the manor of Tregavethan in Kenwyn, and the greater part of his property, to John Knight, Esq. of Gosfield Hall in Essex. This gentleman’s widow married Lord Nugent, whose only daughter and heiress carried the whole to the Grenvilles, now Dukes of Buckingham.

The barton of Trelevan was successively the seat of the families of Croome and Stevens, as lessees under the Trewollas. The Vincents, having bought in the lease, made it their residence; and, after the decease of the last of the 193 Vincent’s, Mr. Tonkin resided there for some time, being the heir-at-law, but the property was too much incumbered for him to retain the freehold.

The manor of Pentuan was the property and its barton the chief seat of the Pentires, after they removed from Pentire in Endellion. The heiress of Pentire married Roscarrock, from whom this estate passed by a marriage to the Darts, of Dart Ralph in Devonshire, who sold it to Robarts, of Lanhidrock; and the last Earl of Radnor bequeathed it to Mr. James Laroche, a merchant of Bristol, afterwards created a Baronet. This gentleman becoming insolvent, sold the manor, together with a large property scattered over Cornwall, to a friend, who soon afterwards dying restored the whole by his will; but in a little while, and as it would seem with the intention of guarding against the possibility of a similar occurrence, the estate was sold a second time in parcels; when this manor of Pentire was purchased by the late Mr. Tremayne, of Heligon, and the barton, which was reserved by Mr. Dart when he sold the manor, has descended to Mr. Tremayne from that family.

The manor of Penwarne belonged to an ancient family of that name. Vivian Penwarne, who died in the reign of Henry the Seventh, left three daughters, coheiresses, married to Cosworth, Penhallow, and Penwarne, of Penwarne in Mawnan. The elder daughter inherited this manor, which passed in marriage with the heiress of Coswarth to Alan Hill, Esq. There is a monument in the church to his son Otwell Hill, of Penwarne; after his death the estate passed to a nephew, Mr. John Carew, second son of Richard Carew, of Anthony, the Historian of Cornwall.

Mr. John Carew distinguished himself at the siege of Ostend, in 1601, where he lost his right hand by a cannon ball. His only son John died in 1640, leaving five sisters, one of whom married Fortescue, in whom this property continued till within recent times: it is now, however, sold in lots.

194 The barton of Trewincy, sometime a leasehold seat of the Sprys, is now a farmhouse, the property of Mr. Tremayne.

The vicarage is endowed with the great tithes of about one third part of the parish. The remainder of the great tithes has gone with the manor of Treleven to the Grenvelles. The patronage of the vicarage belongs to the Edgcumbe family, of Mount Edgcumbe; the whole were formerly appropriated to the college of Glaseney at Penryn.

Mevagissey is one of the principal stations for taking of pilchards by seine nets, if it is not the very first. The bay is sheltered, free from rocks, and of a depth which allows the leads on one edge of the net to rest on the smooth sand at the bottom, while the other edge is raised to the surface by corks.

All fish are by custom in this parish liable to tithes, which are payable to the vicar, and amount in some years to much more than the ordinary income of the living.

The vicarage house is very pleasantly situated in a valley rising from the town, and the whole glebe received great improvements from the late vicar, Doctor Lyne, a gentleman of much respectability, but most distinguished by his singularities; among other fancies, he entertained such strong apprehensions and fear of contagion, as not to touch even gold coin till it had been flung into water; but this caution seems to have been compensated by a subsequent attachment to the precious metal, as several thousand pounds in specie were found in his house.

A market is held in Mevagissey on Saturdays.

This parish measures 1222 statute acres.

£. s. d.

Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 4,589 0 0

Poor Rate in 1831 1,383 6 0

Population,—

in 1801, 2052 in 1811, 2225 in 1821, 2450 in 1831, 2169

giving an increase of not quite 6 per cent. in 30 years.

But there appears an extraordinary decrease of population 195 in the last ten years. In twenty years the increase was 19½ per cent. very nearly, which, continued for thirty years, would have given 30½ per cent.

Present Vicar, the Rev. John Arscott, presented in 1824 by the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe.

THE GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The geological structure of this parish is the same as those of the adjacent parishes St. Eve and Gorran.

ST. MEWAN.

HALS.

St. Mewan rectory is situate in the hundred of Powder, and hath upon the north St. Stephen’s and Roach, east St. Austell, south Mevagissey, and south-west Creed.

In the Domesday Book this district was taxed either under the jurisdiction of Branell, Tybesta, Towington, or Refishoe, perhaps now Lefisick. In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester into the value of Cornish Benefices, 1294, Ecclesia de St. Mewany in decanatu de Powdre, was rated 40s.; in Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, £10. The patronage in Hamley, formerly in the prior of Tywardreth, who endowed it; the incumbent Mitchell; and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, temp. William III. £91. 6s. 4d.

Pol-godh, Pol-goth, is in this parish. Out of which mine hath been taken up, in less than forty years’ space, about five hundred thousand pounds weight of tin; to the great enriching the labourers, adventurers, bond-owners, and lords of the fee or soil; the same lying for the most part in coarse wastrell ground, therefore boundable, in a valley between two lofty hills. Sir John Arundell, of Lanherne, 196 knight, one of the lords of the soil, did for about twenty years space receive alone one thousand pounds per annum free to his part, as the fifth dish of black tin there made, and other lords proportionable quantities of tin or money, as interested in the lands thereof.

Lefisick in this parish, which I take to be that Refishoc taxed in the Domesday Book, is the dwelling of —— Edwards, Gent. that married Bedford.

TONKIN.

The patronage of this parish is in John Hawkins, D.D. for two turns in four; in Lewes Tremayne, of Heligan, Esq. for one turn; and in Robert Hoblyn, of Nanswiddan, Esq. for the other. The incumbent Mr. William Hambly; since Mr. May; who dying in this present year, 1732, has been succeeded by Mr. Paget, at the presentation of Mr. Hoblyn, whose turn it happened to be.

The manor of Trewoone. This signifies the dwelling in the downs, or croft, a name suitable to the situation of the place, and of the pretty large village which has grown up in this manor.

THE EDITOR.

Mr. Hals has given several etymologies of the word Mewan, but so little probable as not to merit attention. It may be the name of a missionary, as is the case in so many other parishes.

The church does not present any thing remarkable, except a pleasing appearance among trees at a short distance north of the turnpike road leading from Truro to St. Austell, just where a hill has been lowered, and a valley raised within these few years, to the very great improvement of the line of communication westward from Plymouth. A son of our eminently distinguished countryman Doctor William Borlase, was presented to this living by Mr. Christopher Hawkins, of Trewinnard. His grandson is now at the head of that ancient family.

197 The object of most curiosity in this parish is Polgeoth mine, one of those wrought through the greatest length of time, and with the greatest produce of tin, in the whole county.

Pol-gooth is in Cornish the old pit or mine. Mr. Hals mentions, as a matter of astonishment, its having produced above five hundred thousand pounds weight of tin in less than forty years, and that it paid a fifth dish or share to the proprietor of the soil. Nothing can more clearly evince the enlarged scale of working in modern times; 500,000 pounds weight of tin in forty years would give an average of 12,500 pounds weight for each year, and at the recent price of four pounds sterling for a hundred weight of tin, about £2,200 a year. In some of the later workings perhaps thirty or forty thousand pounds have been expended in an outfit, or what is called bringing the mine into a course of working, in the purchase of steam engines, and of various other elaborate machines; and instead of paying a fifth part of whatever minerals are raised, free of expense to the proprietors of the soil, an eighteenth or perhaps a twenty-fourth share is all that can reasonably be demanded or afforded after such an outlay of capital, which small share, however, usually amounts to a greater value than did the fifth or sixth part received in former times.

The manor and village of Burngullo belonged to the Robarts’s, of Lanhidrock, and have descended to Mrs. Agar.

The manor of Trewoon belongs partly to the family of Hawkins, and partly to Tremayne and Hoblyn.

St. Mewan measures 2,240 statute acres.

£. s. d.

Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 1633 0 0

Poor Rate in 1831 322 18 0

Population,—

in 1801, 780 in 1811, 626 in 1821, 1174 in 1831, 1306

giving an increase of 67 per cent. in 30 years.

The fluctuations in amount of population in this parish 198 are owing to the occasional working or discontinuance of Polgooth mine.

Present Rector, the Rev. William Hocker, jun. instituted in 1801.

THE GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The northern part of this parish extends over the central mass of granite, in the form of a long narrow stripe, the base of which is about one mile north of the church. All the remainder of the parish consists of compact and schistose felspar rocks, traversed by beds of porphyry, and intersected by numerous veins of tin and copper, more particularly of tin. On the whole, this parish bears a very close geological resemblance to St. Austell.

See p. 401 of this Volume.

ST. MICHAEL CARHAYES.

HALS.

St. Michael Cary-hayes rectory, is situate in the hundred of Powder, and hath upon the north Creed and St. Ewe, south the British Ocean, east Goran, west Verian.

In the Domesday Tax, 1087, this parish was taxed under the names of Cari-crougi. At the time of the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, into the value of Cornish Benefices, 1294, this church was not endowed, if extant; afterwards it was, by the Cornwalls, Hendowers, or Tregarthins, of Court in Branell, and dedicated to God in the name and honour of St. Michael the Archangel; which gentlemen afterwards wholly impropriated or appropriated their churches of St. Stephen’s in Branell, and St. Denis, to the rector of this St. Michael Carhayes; the patronage now in Tanner; the incumbent 199 Tanner. In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, the rectory of those three churches was valued at £27. 10s. 6½.; the vicarages £14. This parish was rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, temp. William III. 1696, by the name of St. Michael Cary-hayes, £64. 8s.

Tre-vanion, alias Tre-vanyon, in this parish, which place gave name and original to an old British and knightly family of gentlemen, surnamed de Trevanyon, now in possession thereof, and also of Cary-hayes aforesaid; which latter came to those gentlemen’s ancestors by marriage with the daughter and heir of Arundell, lord thereof, temp. Edward III.; since which time they have flourished, at Cary-hayes and Trevanion in great fame, wealth, and reputation in their country. Who have also had bestowed upon them, as tradition saith, by their princes, for their good services, the lands of several rebels and traitors, forfeited by attainder of treason, in those parts; in the York and Lancaster wars, and Flamock’s, Arundell’s, and other Cornish rebellions.

Of this family was Witte, or William, Trevanion, esq. Sheriff of Cornwall 17 Henry VII. 1503; Witte, or Sir William, Trevanion, knight, was Sheriff of Cornwall the 8th of Henry VIII. 1517; Hugh Trevanion, esq. was Sheriff of Cornwall 19 Henry VIII.; Sir William Trevanion, knight, that married Edgcumbe, was Sheriff of Cornwall 23d of Henry VIII. He had issue Hugh Trevanion, esq. Sheriff of Cornwall 34th of Henry VIII. 1543; he had issue Hugh Trevanion, esq. Sheriff of Cornwall 6th of Elizabeth, 1564; who had issue Charles Trevanion, esq. that married the daughter and heir of Witchalse, descended from Benet Witchalse, Steward of Exeter 1440, Sheriff of Cornwall 37th of Elizabeth, 1595; he had issue by her Charles Trevanion, esq. Sheriff of Cornwall 9 Charles I. and by him knighted; who had issue John Trevanion, esq. that married Anne, daughter of John Arundell, of Trerice, esq. slain on the part of King Charles I. at Lansdown; by whom he had issue Amey, 200 married to Joseph Sawle, esq. and Charles Trevanion, esq. Member of Parliament for Tregony, that married one of the coheirs of Sir William Drummond, knight, by the daughter and heir of Sir Nicholas Lower, of St. Wenow, knight; by whom he had issue John Trevanion, esq. twice chosen one of the Shire Knights for this county in Parliament, now living, that married Anne, daughter of Sir Francis Blake, knight. Charles Trevanion, esq. had also issue a son, educated beyond the seas, who entered into Holy Orders after the doctrine and discipline of Rome, as I am informed.

The arms of these gentlemen are, in a field Argent, a fess Azure, charged with three escallops Or, between two chevronels Gules; which arms I suppose heretofore were the arms of two distinct families, and for some peculiar reason united.

TONKIN.

This parish has its name from the Archangel, conjoined to that of the principal place in it.

THE MANOR OF CARHAYES.

The name of this place is derived from caer, a castle, a house, or dwelling, and hay a hazel hedge, as the situation does plainly make out; and did much more so before the great alterations which Mr. Trevanion hath lately made here.

I have reason to believe that this place was part of Carminow’s lands, and that it came into the Arundell family on the match with Jane, the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Carminow, in the reign of Edward the Third. Of this family, in recent times, Col. John Trevanion was killed in his father’s lifetime, at the head of his regiment before Bristol, whose character may be seen in Clarendon. His father, Sir Charles Trevanion, was a very worthy honest gentleman, and suffered much for the king’s cause, to the 201 great detriment of his estate, and dying before the Restoration, lived not long enough to have those amends made to his family, which his own merits and their losses deserved. Col. John Trevanion married Anne, daughter of John Arundell, of Trerice, esq. by whom he had a numerous issue, and among the rest Richard Trevanion, a famous sea commander, under King Charles the Second, and King James the Second, with which last he went to France, and died there in exile. The said Anne, his mother, was afterwards remarried to Sir John Arundell, of Lanherne, by whom she had not any issue.

Sir Charles Trevanion was succeeded by his grandson, of the same name, who first married the daughter and coheir of Sir Adam Drummond, by the heiress of the Lowers of St. Winnow, and had two sons. He died on the night of the great storm, Nov. 26, 1703; being succeeded by his eldest son, John Trevanion, who first married Anne, one of the daughters and coheirs of Sir Francis Blake, of Ford Castle in Northumberland, by whom he had no issue; and secondly Barbara, the daughter of William Lord Berkeley of Stratton, by whom he has one son William, and two daughters, all very young. Mr. John Trevanion has been three times elected knight of the shire for this county, in the 9th and 12th of Queen Ann, and in the 1st of King George the First.

He has bestowed a great deal of money in buildings, gardens, &c. on this place; but as there is nothing of regularity observed, it may more properly be called a pleasant romantic seat than a complete habitation; and although it faces the south, yet it lies too much under an hill, and is therefore cold and damp in winter. The house anciently stood to the north of the present, towards the brow of the hill, according to my opinion in a far better situation. The place where it was built is still called the haller, that is the hall; but the odd desire of our ancestors to settle in our vallies, and to get, as they called it, in the luthe, inclined one of the Arundells to remove the house to where 202 it now stands, and that was done so long since that nothing remains but the name to point out this ancient dwelling.

Trevanion, formerly written Trevagnion, that is, the town or dwelling in an hollow, gave name and was the ancient inheritance of this very eminent family, which they left on their marriage with Arundell’s heiress, for Carhayes. The house at Trevanion is now so wholly destroyed, that it would be hard to guess where it stood, had not the footsteps of two or three ways leading towards it pointed out the former situation. The park is at this place, and not at Carhayes, being well wooded, and having a fine river flowing through it. A portion of the park is in the parish of Gorran, called by the name of Porown Berry, and paying a quit-rent to the duchy manor of Trevennen, out of which it plainly appears to have been taken.

Hurris, or Herys, was formerly the seat of a knightly family, of which family I believe was Henricus de Herys, mentioned by Carew to have held a knight’s fee in the reign of Richard the First.

Near to this place is Treberrick, the fruitful or fertile town. Treberrick in this parish (for there is another place of the same name in St. Ewe) carries with it not only the advowson of St. Michael Carhayes, but also of St. Stephen’s, and St. Dennis in Branwell. It was sold by John Tanner, esq. to Charles Trevanion, of Carhayes. This place is now the seat, under lease, of Simon Slade, gent. a younger brother of the late Mr. William Slade, of Trevennen. Mr. Simon Slade was twice married, first to one of the daughters of Mr. Thomas Hancock, of Pengelly in Creed, and not having any surviving children, he married secondly the daughter of Stephen Thomas, of Tregamena in Verian, gent. by whom he has two sons and two daughters.

The church is but small: being seated however on a hill, it is a good sea mark. This church consists of a nave, a south aisle extending about half its length, a north cross aisle, and a small confessionary to the north of the chancel. 203 The tower is low and without pinnacles, provided with three bells.

A broken flat stone in the chancel has this inscription round its margin:

Here lyeth the bodie of Mr. Zacharie Hooker, of this parish rector, who was buried yᵉ XXV day of Nov. 1643.

On the middle of the stone,

At the end of the verses is an achievement, containing the arms of Hooker, with several quarterings.

THE EDITOR.

The ancient and respectable family of Trevanion, like all others able to trace themselves back, in influential situations, to remote periods, has experienced the vicissitudes arising from civil dissensions. In those times it is quite clear, that love of plunder, and eagerness after confiscations, must have been the sole motives of action on either side; since, trifling as have been the causes of domestic as well as of foreign wars, no one can believe that, in the absence of all contested political principles, men could be found who would deluge their country with blood for the sake of seating on the throne an individual whose name was Edward instead of another designated as Henry, on the frivolous pretence, that, had England been a farm, and its inhabitants farm stock, one of the parties possessed a claim through females superior to the other, if it were not defeated by legal fiction, or by the lapse of time.

In such a conflict three families at the least from Cornwall were engaged, Bodrigan, Trevanion, and Edgecumbe; and when Richard the Third obtained sovereign power, on the division which then look place in the York 204 faction, Bodrigan endeavoured to seize the property of Edgcumbe, with little respect, as it would seem, for the life of the possessor; but in the final struggle at Bosworth Field, where Henry Tudor put an entire end to this contest for power under the guise of property, by seizing the whole to himself, Trevanion and Edgcumbe had the good fortune to appear on the winning side, and subsequently availed themselves to the utmost of belligerent rights against Bodrigan, as he had attempted to do before against them. The last of that family was driven from his home, and seems to have perished in exile. His property was divided between the two families opposed to him, and after the lapse of three hundred and fifty years continues to form a large portion of their respective possessions.