Chapter II: Part 2

LYSONS.

Advent contains the small villages of Treclogoe or Trelogoe, Pencarow, and Tresinny. Most of the estates in this parish are parcel of the duchy of Cornwall, being held as free and customary lands of the manor of Helston in Trigg. The manor of Trelagoe, Treclegoe, or Trenelgoe, after having been for some descents in the family of Phillipps, was bequeathed by the late Rev. William Phillipps, Rector of Lanteglos and Advent, to his nephew John Phillipps Carpenter, of Tavistock, Esq. whose son is the present proprietor.

THE EDITOR.

Advent contains 2,844 statute acres.
Annual value of the real property, as £. _s._ _d._
to Parliament in 1815 1,396 0 0
Poor Rates in 1815 115 1 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 170 | 219 | 229 | 244.
or 43½ per cent. increase in thirty years.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The eastern part of this parish consists of granite, forming a portion of an extensive group of this rock, in which are situated Roughtor and Brown Willy, the highest hills in Cornwall. This granite is of the ordinary kind, large grained, and often porphyritic. It contains beds of fine-grained rocks, in some of which crystalline felspar, quartz, and mica, constitute the entire mass; but in others these minerals are embedded in a basis of compact, or rather of granular felspar, which is itself apparently a compound of felspar and quartz. The junction of the granite with slate is concealed by a large track of marsh and bog; adjoining to which is a dreary waste of common, resting on an irregular bed of quartzose gravel, derived from the granite hills, and evidently of diluvial origin. This eastern part is sterile, merely affording a scanty subsistence to cattle during the summer. The remainder of the parish is composed of felspar and hornblend rocks, traversed here and there by courses of granitic elvan, a rock in every respect similar to that occurring in the granite. One of these courses may be seen by the road side near the rivulet of Pencarrow. Here the country is wooded and cultivated, exhibiting some picturesque scenes of hill and dale; so characteristic of the hornblend rock near granite.

[2] See Mr. Whitaker’s remark on this etymology, hereafter
under the parish of Lesnewth.

[3] Jewell contra Harding, p. 582.

[4] In the Exchequer 61_l._ 17_s._

ST. AGNES.

HALS.

St. Agnes is situate in the hundred of Pyder.

At the time of the Conqueror’s tax there was no such parish or district as Saint Agnes; but the same passed in rates under the jurisdiction of the Earl of Cornwall’s manor, now Duchy, of Twarnhayle; together with Peransand: which now parish of St. Agnes was taxed to the four shillings in the pound land-tax, 9th William and Mary, 1696, 137_l._ 5_s._

The present church of St. Agnes was of old only a small free chapel dedicated to her, without endowment, till the same was augmented and rebuilt, of three roofs, as it now stands, by charitable collections, and the proper charge and cost of the inhabitants thereof, in 1484; consecrated and dedicated to the honour of Almighty God, in the name of St. Agnes, as a daughter church to Peransand, by Dr. Peter Courtenay, then Bishop of Exon.[5]

St. Agnes was a Roman by birth, anno Dom. 285, descended of noble ancestors, and being beautiful of body and mind, at 13 years of age was courted in marriage by the son of Sempronius, then governor of Rome; but because he was no Christian she utterly refused his address, who complained thereof to his father; that immediately he sent for Agnes, and renewed the proposals of marriage made to her by his son, making larger offers for her advantage, which altogether proving ineffectual, Sempronius asked her whether she would adore and sacrifice to the Roman gods, and abandon the superstition of the Christians, but she, proving constant to her religion, utterly refused to do that also; whereupon she was committed to prison, from thence, after much hard durance, sent among persons of ill fame, where her innocence and purity were miraculously preserved, till at length, by the Governor’s order, she was committed to the flames, which immediately parted asunder, and did her no harm; whereupon the Governor, and Auspitius his agent, commanded her to be taken out of the fire, and forthwith to be beheaded by the common hangman, 20 January, anno Dom. 304, in the latter end of the reign of Dioclesian, or in the beginning of Constantius and Galerius. St. Ambrose wrote her life. St. Isidore, St. Augustine, Demetrius, and Prudentius, with Aloysy Lessomanus, Bishop of Seville, have all written very commendable things of her. In the glass windows of this church I remember to have seen written the remains of a broken inscription,――“in carcere serat Agnes,”――referring, I suppose, to her sowing or preaching the Word in the prison, jail, or hold, to which she was confined as aforesaid. The parish feast is holden on the Sunday following St. Agnes’ Day.

In this parish stands Carne Bury-anacht, or Bury-anack, synonymous words, only varied by the dialect; id est, the still, quiet, spar-stone grave, or burying-place, where, suitable to the name, on the natural, remote, lofty circumstances thereof, stand three sparstone tumuli, consisting of a vast number of those stones, great and small, piled up together, in memory of some one notable human creature before the 6th centuary interred there.

This is that well-known place called St. Agnes’ Ball, that is to say, St. Agnes’ pestis, or plague, so named from the hard, deep, and dangerous labour of the tinners there, out of which mountain hath been digged up, for at least 150 years’ space, about ten thousand pounds worth of tin per annum; which keeps daily employed about the same 1,000 persons, who for the most part spend their time in hard and dangerous labours as aforesaid, in order to get a poor livelihood for themselves and families, in the pursuit of which, here and in other places, many of those poor men yearly by sad accidents lose their lives.

The natural circumstances of this Ball is a subject as worthy the consideration of the most sage virtuosos, or natural philosophers; for, though it be a stupendous and amazing high mountain, abutting upon the Irish sea, or St. George’s Channel, rising pyramidally from the same at least 90 fathom above the sea and contiguous lands, yet on the top thereof, under those spar-stone graves, or burying-places, is discovered by the tinners, five foot deep, good arable land or earth; under that, for six foot deep, is found a fine sort of white and yellow clay, of which tobacco-pipes have been made; beneath this clay is a laying of sea-sand and nice totty-stones. Two or three hundred fathoms from the sea, and about eighty fathoms above it, under this sand, is to be seen for about five foot deep, nothing but such totty-stones as are usually washed on the sea-shore, and in many of them grains of tin. Under those stones the soil or matter of the earth, for five or six feet deep, is nothing to be seen but _carne-tyer_, id est, spar-stone land or earth, under which spar-stone earth appears the firm rock, through which tin-loads are wrought or pursued by the tinners fifty, sixty, and seventy fathoms deep. This Ball, or lands containing this diversified matter or soil, contains about eighty acres in circumference; which amuseth most men how the earth, clay, sand, totty-stones, or spar-stone land, should yet be so high above the solid rocks to the top of this mountain, unless Noah’s flood was universal, and reached to this island, as the labouring tinners believe and tell us. More sure I am, from ocular demonstration, that a quantity of the white sort of sand in this Ball, or hill, washed in a stream or river of clear water, will instantly turn the same water into a milk-white colour, and not to be discerned from milk, as long as you continue to pour the said sand into the river; but this is to be understood only of such clean white sand as is made use of and prepared for writing sand-boxes.

* * * * *

The manor of Mithi-an, i. e. of whey, a notable grange for cows and milk (otherwise, if the name be compounded of my-thyan, Saxon, my servant or villain by inheritance) was formerly the lands of Winslade of Tregarick, in Flint, an hereditary esquire of the white spur, who forfeited the same, with much other lands, by attainder of treason, tempore Edward VI.; so that that King or Queen Mary gave those lands to Sir Reginald Mohun, of Hall, knight, or his father, who settled them upon his younger son, by which conveyance it lineally descended to my very kind friend William Mohun, of Tenervike, Esq. now in possession thereof. In this manor is an ancient free chapel, now converted to a dwelling-house, wherein God was duly worshipped in former ages by the tenants thereof. [William Mohun, Esq. the last heir male of this family, bequeathed this estate to his wife Sibella, (who was afterwards married to John Derbyshire Birkhead, Esq.) and his sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Prowse. Sir Christopher Hawkins, Bart., who is the present proprietor of the whole, bought it in 1777; one moiety of Mr. Birkhead, and the other of Matthew Grylls, brother and heir of Robert Grylls, who had purchased it in 1758 of the devisees of Mrs. Prowse. _Lysons._]

Treu-ellis, i. e. the son-in-law by the wife’s town; otherwise, if the word be compounded of Tre-vell-es, it signifies the well or spring of water town; is the dwelling of Michael Crocker, Gent. that married Gwynn, and giveth for his arms, Argent, a chevron engrailed Gules between three crows Proper, originally descended from the Crockers of Ireland. Croker, after the English Saxon, is a crock-maker or seller. [It belonged afterwards to Mr. Joseph Donnithorne,[6] and is now the property of Mr. Chilcot. The mansion is occupied as a farm-house. _Lysons._]

Tre-vaw-nanes, i. e. the town of the boys’ valley, alias Tre-vawn-nanes, i. e. the town of the fanning or vawning valley; where continually great numbers of boys, or human youths, are employed about washing, cleansing, or vanning tin in the rivulets thereof, is the dwelling of Thomas Tonkin, Esq. that married Kempe, his father Vincent, his grandfather Bawden, his great-grandfather Guye; and giveth for his arms, by virtue of a late record taken forth of the College of Arms tempore William III. in a field Sable, an eagle displayed Or. The name Tonkin, alias Tankin, synonymous words, signifies a person or thing in the tank or tonk, viz. an artificial cistern, pool, pond, or fountain of water.

TONKIN.

This being the first parish in the hundred of Pider, I take the opportunity of stating my opinion, that the name clearly imports the fourth,――Perwith, Kesrier, Powder, and Pider, all of which meet in one point, where the four parishes of Redruth, Gwennap, Kenwyn, and St. Agnes, actually touch; and the spot is called Kyvere Ankou, the place of death, on account of the frequent burial there of felones de se, or persons who have destroyed themselves.

Trevannence I believe to mean the town in a valley of springs. This barton has belonged to my family upwards of five hundred years, so that we have used the name de Trevannence, by customary inheritance of the manor of Tywarnhails. But in 1559 Henry Earl of Rutland, then Lord of the Manor, sold the fee of his right in Trevannence to Richard Carne the younger, of Camborne, Gent. who reconveyed it the same year to John Jeffry; and he conveyed it, in 1593, to Thomas Tonkin.

[This estate was the property and the seat of Thomas Tonkin, of Trevaunance, Esq. who made large collections for a parochial History of Cornwall. Mr. Tonkin enjoyed his estate but a few years; he died in 1742. His two sons, who did not long survive him, successively inherited his estates, which, after their death, were for a while in the possession of Thomas Heyes, Esq. who married the daughter and heir of his son James, but left no issue; the only child of his daughter, who married Foss, having died unmarried, they descended to the representatives of the three daughters of Thomas Tonkin, who died in 1672; which daughters had married into the families of Jago, Cornish, and Ley. Mr. John Jago, and Mr. Hugh Ley, the immediate descendants of two of the daughters, are now possessed of two thirds of the manor of Trevaunance, and of such portion of the manor of Lambourn as extends into this parish, and was part of the Tonkin estate (except some lands sold to J. Thomas, Esq. of Chiverton). The other third part has been subdivided. Mr. Thomas has one half of it by purchase, the other is divided between Mr. Geach, a descendant of the family of Cornish, and Mr. Paul Clerk.[7] Trevaunance House was taken down a few years after the death of Mr. Tonkin; there is now a cottage on its site. _Lysons._]

The above-named Richard Carne gave for his arms (as appears by his seal) a pelican in her nest, with wings displayed, feeding her young ones, which coat is still to be seen in Trevannence seats, and in the roof of St. Agnes’ church. He was descended from the Carnes of Glamorganshire, in Wales, who derive their pedigree from Ithal, King of Gwent, whose direct ancestor was Belimaur, the father of Cassibelan; which Carne settled in Cornwall, as we have it by tradition, upon his ancestor’s marriage with the heiress of Tresilian, of Tresilian in the parish of Newlyn.

Westward of Breanis riseth with a gentle ascent the great hill commonly called St. Agnes’ Beacon; formerly Carne Breanic. On the top are three stone barrows; to the westward of the one now used for a beacon, are visible remains of a small square fortification.

This parish is of a large extent, but for the most part barren, with abundance of wortzel and downs; but withal very populous, and not without some parcels of very good land, particularly from Trevannence to Perwennack, Tewan, Trevisick, Mewla, Meuthion; and neither are the barren grounds the least considerable, as producing large quantities of excellent tin, according to the Cornish saying,

Stean San Agnes an guella stean in Kernow.
(St. Agnes’ tin is the best tin in Cornwall.)

As likewise in some places very good copper, with some quarries which produce excellent stone for building; and some of slate for roofing, but not of the best quality. The land lies very heathy and dry, but too much exposed to the raging north-west wind for trees to thrive on it.

From the top of the first hill a part of Devonshire may be seen; also the North and South Seas; with thirty-four parishes. The Bowden or Boen Marks, called in sea charts the Cow and Calf, lie about two miles from the shore.

LYSONS.

An attempt was made by the Tonkin family to form a harbour at Trevaunance-Porth as early as the year 1632; it was attempted again in 1684, and, after a considerable expence had been incurred, again given up. In 1699, a third attempt was made with the assistance of Mr. Winstanly, the celebrated engineer; the works then constructed were destroyed by a violent storm in 1705. Mr. Tonkin, from whose notes this account was taken, again commenced his works in 1710, at the expense of £6,000; he formed the foundation with large masses of rock laid in hot lime made of lyas stone from Aberddaw, in South Wales. These works having become decayed, a jetty pier of moorstone was built about the year 1794, at the expense of £10,000, by a company of gentlemen, and a considerable trade in coals, lime, slate, &c. is now carried on with Ireland and Wales. The proprietors are enlarging the harbour, and rendering it more commodious and safe for shipping. A small stream of water which rises in the manor of Tywarnhaile, turns several stamping mills in Trevaunance Comb.

The market, for which there does not appear to be any charter on record, has been held from time immemorial for all sorts of wares and provisions, except corn. In 1706, Mr. Tonkin procured the Queen’s patent for a weekly market and two fairs; but after the writ of _ad quod damnum_ had been duly executed, and the Queen’s sign manual obtained, the grant was revoked in consequence of a petition from the inhabitants of Truro. A small market is nevertheless kept up; the market day is Thursday.

In a dingle called Chapel-comb, was an ancient chapel known by the name of Porth Chapel, the ruins of which were taken down about the year 1780. Near this spot is St. Agnes’ well, of which many miraculous stories are told; the water is of an excellent quality, and much esteemed. Hals speaks of an ancient free chapel in the manor of Mythian, which had been made a dwelling house. There are remains of an ancient chapel at Mola. Nicholas Kent, of Mingoose, by his will bearing date 1688, gave for the term of 499 years a dwelling house, divided into four tenements and a garden, for poor widows of this parish, and charged his lands of Mingoose and Tereardrene with the repairs of the house; but it does not appear that it was endowed. One of the schools, founded by the trustees of the fund left for charitable uses by the Rev. St. John Elliot, who died in 1760, is at St. Agnes; the endowment is £5 per annum. There is a Sunday school at St. Agnes, supported by subscription, and numerously attended.

THE EDITOR.

For various particulars respecting the Tonkin family see the edition of Carew by Lord Dunstanville, vol. I. 1811, 4to. pp. 353-357, with monumental inscriptions in St. Agnes church. The arms of Tonkin are noticed in a copy of the last Heraldic Survey, communicated to the Editor by Mr. Gregor of Trewanthenick, although a pedigree is alone recorded in the original. Sable, an eagle displayed Or, armed and langued Gules, a crescent for difference. Crest, an eagle’s head erased Or. See the exemplification of them by Robert Cooke, Clarenceux Roy d’Armes, temp. Reg. Eliza.

The reason of the arms being then omitted was this: Mr. Tonkin of Trevannence, the chief representative of their family, was more than eighty years of age in 1620, a bed-lier, and had been blind for many years, so that he was not able to appear himself; and, the chief business of the Heralds at their Visitations being to put money into their own pockets, they never registered any arms without their fees. The ancient motto used by this family is said to have been:

Kenz ol tra, Tonkein! ouna Deu, Mahteror yn.
(Before all things, Tonkin! fear God, the King also.)

St. Agnes contains 6,657 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 9,929 0 0
The Poor Rate in 1831 1,914 3 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 4161 | 5024 | 5762 | 6642
Increase on an hundred in thirty years 59.63, or nearly 60 per cent.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

This parish is one of the great mining districts of Cornwall, abounding in tin and copper ores, but more particularly in the former. It differs, however, from all the other districts, in being remote from the great central masses of granite. This peculiarity has often attracted the notice of several observers, and has long been considered as a strange anomaly by geologists.

The case is not, however, without example; for, although this tract is distant from the granite both of Redruth and of St. Dennis, yet a small mass of that rock does not exist at Cligga Point, on the confines of the parish. This granite has, indeed, been called by some an elvan, and by others a secondary formation of granite, as has been also that of St. Michael’s Mount; but, although the rock is not in this place of any great extent, it has all the mineralogical and geological characters of the larger masses.

Large courses of granite elvan are common in the northern part of the parish, containing short irregular veins and bunches of tin ore. These courses are extensively exposed in the cliffs, and present a singular appearance, somewhat resembling a bank of earth perforated by rabbits’ burrows, in consequence of the miners having taken the ore wherever it has been exposed to view.

The Beacon, a high hill near the church town of St. Agnes, merits particular attention. The lower part is formed of a schistose rock, composed of granular felspar intermixed with particles of quartz and minute scales of mica. Ascending towards the summit, the quartz gradually increases in quantity, till at last it becomes the prevailing ingredient of the rock, and preserves it against the natural causes of decay; whilst lower down, where the felspar abounds, the rock is extensively disintegrated. On the side of the hill, about three or four hundred feet above the level of the sea, is a deep deposit of diluvium, consisting of alternate layers of clay and sand. To point out the origin of these layers, and to explain the reason of their occurrence in such an elevated situation, would require long details. For this, and for other interesting particulars respecting the phenomena of this parish, the fourth Volume of Transactions, published by the Geological Society of Cornwall, may be consulted.

St. Agnes’ Beacon was chosen as one of the principal western stations in the great Trigonometrical Survey of England. The position of the summit was then determined with extreme accuracy: Latitude 50° 18′ 27″, Longitude 5° 11′ 55″.7. In time 20 m. 47″.7. Height above low water 621 feet. See the Philosophical Transactions for 1800, pp. 636 and 714.

[5] It appears, however, by Mr. Tonkin’s notes, that St.
Agnes was deemed a distinct parish, and had a parochial
chapel in it, so early as the year 1396. A licence to build
a new chapel was dated Oct. 1, 1482. _Lysons._

[6] This gentleman was the lessee of the great mine before
described. Borlase says, “It is judged that the late Mr.
Donnithorne, who had the whole adventure, and worked it at
his own expense, in a few years last past got at least
40,000_l._ clear by this mine, and much more he might have
raised yearly if he pleased.”

[7] For the latter name Hitchins substitutes Thomas Warren,
Esq. and Mr. John Tregellas, of St. Agnes.

ST. ALLEN.

HALS.

St. Allen is situate in the hundred of Pow-dre-ham, id est, the hundred of the old ancient county or province town (viz. Lestwithell), for so it is called in the first Duke of Cornwall’s charter 1336――now contracted and corrupted to Powder Cantred.

At the time of the Norman Conquest this district of St. Allen was taxed under the jurisdiction of Laner or Lanher, i. e. templer; so called, for that long before that time was extant upon that place a chapel or temple dedicated to God in the name of St. Martin of Tours, the memory of which is still preserved in the names of St. Martin’s fields and woods, heretofore perhaps the indowments of that chapel or temple; this Laner is still the voke lands or capital messuage of the Bishop of Exeter’s manor of Cargoll, whereunto it was annexed; in which place of Lanher (formerly a wood or forest of trees) the Bishops of Cornwall, and afterwards the Bishops of Exon, had one of their mansion or dwelling-houses for many ages,[8] till Bishop Voysey, tempore Henry VIII. leased those manors to Clement Throckmorton, Esq. cup-bearer to Queen Katherine Parr, from whom it passed by sale to Williams, and so from Williams to Borlase, by whom this mansion or barton of Laner was left to run to utter ruin and dilapidation, having now nothing extant of houses but old walls, stones, and rubbish. Out of this manor of Lanher the Bishop of Exon endowed the church of St. Allen with the glebe lands thereof now in being, and the sheaf of two tenements, viz. Laner and Tretheris,[9] so that the said church is a vicarage endowed, and was valued by Oliver Sutton, Bishop of Lincoln, and John de Pontefexia, Bishop of Winchester, to the Pope’s taxation of benefices, in order to take his first-fruits, 20 Edward I. 1294, Ecclesiam de Sancto Alune, in Decanatu de Powdre;――vi _s._ & viii _d._ The patronage of this church is still in the Bishop of Exon for the time being, the incumbent Richards. The rectory or sheaf formerly in Cook, now Boscawen [Viscount Falmouth]; and the parish as aforesaid rated to 4_s._ per pound Land Tax, in 1696, 157_l._ 14_s._ 10_d._

Gwarn-ike, _i. e._ lake, river, or leate, summons, notice, or warning, so called from Gwarnike Castle, a treble intrenchment or fortification lately extant on the woody lands thereof, is the voke lands of the manor and barton of Gwarnike, the old inheritance and dwellinge of the once rich and famous family of the Bevills for many generations; whose ancestor came out of Normandy into England with William the Conqueror, and was posted an officer at Truro under William Earl of Morton and Cornwall (or Robert his father). Of his posterity, tempore Edward III. Sir Richard Bevill held by the tenure of knight service 20_l._ per ann. in lands and rents, and therefore was commanded by that king to attend him, with a horse-trooper furnished cap-a-pee, on his expedition into France, in the 25th year of his reign. (Carew’s Survey of Cornwall.) John Bevill of this place was sheriff of Cornwall 5 Richard II. Finally, the name, blood, and estate of those Bevills terminated in two daughters and heirs of John Bevill, Esq. sheriff of Cornwall 16 Eliz. 1573, married to Grenville of Stowe, and Arundell of Trerice, to whose younger son by Bevill’s heir this barton and manor of Gwarnike was given, but the said Mr. Arundell, commonly called the Black Arundell by reason of his complexion, dying without issue, gave those lands to his kinsman Mr. Prideaux, of Fewburrow in Devon, whose heir sold the same to Mr. Kempe, of Penryn, now in possession thereof. Over the entry door of this house, in a stone or piece of brass, is cut the arms of Bevill, viz. Ermine a bull passant Sable, surmounted with an oak-tree Proper or Vert; near which is this inscription likewise in stone in Saxon-English letters:

Man, aboue all thinge
Feare god and the kinge.

[In 1704 it was sold by the Prideaux family to Jamss Kempe, of Penryn, and in 1731 purchased by Edward Prideaux, Esq. of Place House, Padstow, ancestor to the Rev. Charles Prideaux Brune, of the same place, who is the present proprietor. There were formerly two chapels at Gwarnike; one at a small distance from the house, which was demolished before the year 1736, and another attached to it, which, together with “the old hall, curiously timbered with Irish oak,” was then remaining. These old buildings were not long ago pulled down, and a farm-house built on the site with the materials. Talgrogan, in this manor, was some time the seat of a younger branch of the Prideaux family. _Lysons._]

For the name of this parish (Allen), Alfred the Saxon grammarian and Verstegan tell us that it is plain Saxon, and is the common contraction of Alwyn, all-beloved, or beloved of all, and for St. Allen church must be construed as the holy or consecrated church, beloved of all Christians, which perhaps was the old name of that little ancient chapel, now the minister’s chancel, to which in after ages the present church of St. Allen was annexed; however, let it be remembered also, that in Armoric-Cornish, St. Alan or Allen is holy breath or respiration, or gift of speech.

Treon-ike, Saxon-Cornish, trees on the lake, or spring leate, or bosom of waters, in this parish, is the dwelling of James Borlase, Gent. who married Hobbs, and his father Cooke’s heir, by whom he had this place; and giveth for his arms in a field Ermine, on a bend Sable two hands issuing out of two clouds, or nebules, tearing of a horseshoe in sunder Argent (see St. Wenn). Otherwise, Tre-on-ike is the town or tenement situate on the lake or river of water.

[Mr. Hals here relates a story of some child being missed by his parents and afterwards found; imputing the temporary loss to supernatural agency, perhaps of fairies, usually denominated in Cornwall “The Small People, or Piskies.”]

From the inferior officers of this church, the sexton and clerk, or sub-deacon tempore James I. have sprung two notable rich and eminent families in those parts, of justice of the peace and senators or parliamentary degree; viz. Tregeagle and Vincent; viz. Vincent from the clerk of Resheafe, and Tregeagle from the sexton of Bosvallack, of whom more in their proper places; the one burgess or member of Parliament for Truro, the other for Mitchell, whose sons by ill conduct have wasted and sold all their lands, tempore George II.

In this parish, at Tretheris, is yet extant the walls and ruins of an ancient free chapel and cemetery, wherein heretofore God was duly worshipped, built perhaps by the Bishops of Cornwall and Exon, when they resided at Lanher aforesaid contiguous therewith.

TONKIN.

Partly in this parish is the great lordship of Gwairnick, id est, the Hay River; a name not unsuitable to the circumstances of the place, for a pleasant river passeth through most fertile meadows beneath the house.

This place was the seat of the Bevill family, whose ancestor came into England with the Norman Duke, and was an officer under William Earl of Morton and Cornwall. One of his posterity married a Gwairnick heiress, and so it became the seat of the Bevills for about ten descents; and then, for want of issue male, this lordship, with other fair lands, descended to the two daughters of the last gentleman of that name, who were married to Grenville of Stow and to Arundell of Trerice.

The manor of Boswellick, which I take to signify the house by the mill-river, upon the division of Bevill’s estates between Grenville and Arundell, this fell to Grenville, who sold it to Sir Richard Roberts, of Truro. This gentleman, afterwards Lord Roberts, was in possession of the estate towards the latter part of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, for his son John Roberts, first Earl of Radnor, was nursed here by Mrs. Tregeagle, the daughter of Degory Polwhele, Esq. and wife of John Tregeagle, Gent. who held a lease of this estate from Sir Richard Roberts. And this was the rise of the Tregeagles; for John Tregeagle, their son, being foster-brother to the said Earl, was afterwards by him made his chief steward, and brought forwards in the world. [The heiress of Tregeagle brought the lease to the Cleathers, who continued to possess it for several generations. The manor is now the property of John Thomas, esq. Vice-Warden of the Stannaries, by purchase from the representatives of the Robartes family. _Lysons._]

Adjoining to this barton is Nancarrow; and this being the first occasion for noticing the adjunct word “carrow,” I shall be somewhat the more prolix in discussing of it. Karo, or Caro, signifying in Cornish a hart or deer, Nancarrow has generally been considered to be the deer’s valley, and Pencarrow the head of the deer; but how improperly let any one guess who sees these places. I rather take Carrow therefore to be softening of Karrog, a brook or rivulet, so as to signify, in this instance, the valley of brooks; and in Pencarrow, the head of the brooks. Nancarrow was formerly inhabited by a family of that name, one of whom was stannitor for Blackmore in the Convocation of 13th Elizabeth. It passed by sale to the Borlases of Treludra, and from them to the Scawns. [It now belongs to Mr. Oliver Adams Carveth. _Lysons._]

Adjoining to the barton of Gwerick, which means simply “on the river,” is a tenement called the Gerras, that is, “the summit or top,” from its high situation; which I notice in this place on account of its lead mines.

Trerice in this parish belonged to a younger branch of the Arundells of Trerice in Newlyn; from whom it is said to have been wrested not very fairly, by an attorney, Mr. John Coke. The estate now belongs to Lord Falmouth.

Near to Trerice is Trefronick, contracted, as I believe, from Tre-vor-in-ick,――“the dwelling in the way to the rivulet.” This also belonged to the Arundells; passed to John Coke, from him to Borlase, and from Borlase to Kempe.

Adjoining is Talcarne――“the high heap of rocks of stones.” Tal properly signifies the forehead, and hence any high or eminent thing; whereas Tol, often confounded with it, means a hole.

LYSONS.

The principal villages in this parish are Lane and Zela or Zealla, through which the high road from Exeter to the Land’s-End passed, before the present turnpike road was made. The antient mile-stones remain, and a house at Zelah is still called the Tavern.

THE EDITOR.

Nothing satisfactory appears to be ascertained respecting the name of this parish; nor does the anniversary of the Feast afford any clue, as it is celebrated on Rogation Sunday, that is on the Sunday before Easter.

St. Allen contains 3493 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 2468 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 388 19 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 360 | 418 | 471 | 637.
Increase of population on a hundred, in thirty years 76.9, or 77
per cent.
Present Rector, Rev. Nicholas Dyer, instituted in 1794.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

To the geologist this parish does not afford many interesting objects. It is, however, more favourable than the last to agriculture; although it contains several tracts of barren ground of the same nature as Prince’s Common, which will be described in another place. Its rocks are not distinctly characterised, being situated on the transition between the porphyritic and the calcareous groups of slate formation.

[8] William of Worcester describes the Bishop’s castle here
as dilapidated temp. Edw. IV.

[9] The church of St. Allen was given to the college of
Glaveney by Bishop Stapleton, and appropriated to the vicars
of that college in 1314. Rot. Pat. 8 Edw. II. p. 2. m. 15.

ALTAR NUN.

HALS.

Altar Nun is situate in the hundred of Lesnewth, and hath upon the north Davidstow and St. Cleather, south part of Northill and Lawanack, east Trewenn, west Temple, and was taxed in Domesday Roll either under the name Trewint, Treuint, the spring, fountain, or well town, situate upon the fens or springs, otherwise under the jurisdiction of Trewen. In the inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester aforesaid, 1294, this church was rated to the Pope’s first-fruits, Ecclesia de Altar Nun, in Decanatu de Lesnewith viii_l._ the vicar xl_s._ In Wolsey’s inquisition 1521, temp. Hen. VIII. 18_l._ 14_s._ 10_d._; the patronage in the Dean and Chapter of Exon, who endowed it; the incumbent Hatton. This parish was rated to the 4_s._ per pound Land-tax 1696, 204_l._ 16_s._

For the modern name of this church, Mr. Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, is of opinion it is derived from the Altar of St. Nun’s Pool in this parish, heretofore much frequented for the cure of mad people, the manner of which cure is set down by him, liber ii. p. 123, (p. 289 of Lord Dunstanville’s edition,) but, for my own part, I conceive the word Altar in this place is not to be construed as a derivative from altare, an altar, whereon offerings or sacrifice was made to God by fire or otherwise at this pool; but rather, as I am better informed, the chancel of the present church was a chapel pertaining to the nuns or nunnery once here, afterwards augmented and converted to a vicarage church as it now stands; and that the ground whereon the vicarage house is now extant. Contiguous therewith was of old the nunnery-house itself, wherein those virgins resided; the stones and materials of which old house are concerted in the new vicarage brave mansion, and, to prove this tradition, there yet appears in the fields the channel or water-course wherein the waters of St. Nun’s Pool was carried into this old nunnery-house in former ages.

So that I conclude the name Altar Nun must be interpreted as a corruption of or derivative from Alter-Nun, to alter or change from one thing to another, from that of a nunnery of religious votaresses, to that of a parochial and vicarage church, from whence the same hath its present denomination, as aforesaid.

In this parish stands the barton of Tre-lawn-y, id est, the oak grove town, or, “I am the oak grove town,” a name at first given and taken from the natural circumstances of the place, situate between two hills, then notable for woods or groves of oak timber. Though now there is not left standing any house or trees to countenance this etymology, yet I have been told by some of the inhabitants of this parish, that tradition saith the greatest part of the stones that built the present church and tower of Altar Nun, were brought from the dilapidated walls of Trelawny, and much of the oak timber that roofs the same was also cut and carried from that barton.

From this place was denominated that old and famous family of gentlemen surnamed Trelawney, now baronets, as I was informed by my very kind friend Coll. John Trelawney, of Trelawney, deceased, and that one Sir William de Trelawney, lord of this place, suffered it to go in marriage with his base daughter to ――――, from whose heirs, by descent or purchase, it came to Cloberry Hickes, and ―――― now in possession thereof, and is now set for about 70_l._ per ann. The arms of those Trelawneys were, in a field Argent, a chevron Sable between three oak-leaves Vert, probably in allusion to the leaves of that sort of timber whereof this _lawne_ consisted.

In this parish, tempore Charles II. lived Peter Jowle or Joull, _id est_, Peter the Divell, under clerk or deacon of this church, who was 150 and odd years old when he died, and at the age of 100 years had new black hairs that sprung forth on his head amongst those that long before were white with age; and then also new teeth grew up in his jaws in the places of those that many years before were fallen out of his head. [The name of Joll is still extant in the village; and the family have been remarkable for longevity; but we cannot learn that any tradition exists relating to Peter Joll, nor does his name appear in the register. _Lysons._] Fuller tells us, that John Sands, of Horborne in Staffordshire, lived 140 years old, and his wife 120, he died 1625. Thomas Parr lived 153 years old, and is buried in Westminster Abbey, tempore Charles II. It is reported of Zamkees, the Samothracian, that after he had lived 104 years, new young teeth sprung up in his jaws in the room of those that were fallen out long before. Henry Brenton, of St. Wenn, weaver, lived 103 years old, and died tempore George I.

This parish hath in it tin loads and streams.

TONKIN.

It is obvious to any one, that the name of this parish can signify no other than an Altar or church dedicated to St. Nunne; which St. Nunne, being in some accounts called Naunita or Nannites, and in others Novita, is (as Leland tells us) said to have been the daughter of an Earl of Cornwall, and mother of St. David, the famous Archbishop of Menevia, from him called St. David’s.

THE EDITOR.

St. Nun is stated to have been the mother of St. David. About a mile from the cathedral of St. David’s are the remains of a chapel, near a consecrated pool or well, dedicated to St. Nun, where trifling oblations are said to be still made. This coincidence of the two pools is curious, although I do not find that the water at Menevia has the virtue of curing insanity. The account given by Mr. Carew of the practice at Altar Nun is as follows:

“The water running from St. Nun’s well fell into a square
and inclosed walled plot, which might be filled at what
depth they listed. Upon this wall was the frantic person set
to stand, his back towards the pool; and from thence, with a
sudden blow in the breast, tumbled headlong into the pond;
where a strong fellow, provided for the nonce, took him, and
tossed him up and down, alongst and athwart the water, till
the patient, by foregoing his strength, had somewhat forgot
his fury. Then was he conveyed to the church and certain
masses sung over him; upon which handling, if his right wits
returned, St. Nun had the thanks; but if there appeared
small amendment, he was bowssened again and again, while
there remained in him any hope of life or recovery.”

The second of March is dedicated to St. Nun, and said formerly to be observed throughout Wales, as was the third to St. Lily, surnamed Gwas-Dewy, David’s men.

This parish is the largest in Cornwall. It measures 12,770 statute acres. The principal villages are Tredawl, Trethym, Treween, and Trewint. At Five-Lanes, in this parish, are fairs for all sorts of cattle, on the Monday week after June 24th, and the first Tuesday in November. The tower of Alternon church, which is said to be the highest in the county except Probus, was much damaged by storms in 1791 and 1810.

Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 6147 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 497 18 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 679 | 784 | 885 | 1069.
Increase of population on each hundred in thirty years, 57.44, or
57½ per cent.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The western and south-western parts of this extensive parish are composed of granite and of hornblend rocks, which surround the former, and recline upon them. This portion is in every respect similar to the parish of Advent. At Trewint a very fine compact felspar occurs, imbedded in green stone; and proceeding eastward on the Launceston road, hornblend slate prevails, and affords a very fertile soil. Descending the hill to Pellaphant, masses of compact rock protrude from beneath the soil. They are composed of compact felspar, aggregated with lamellar hornblend, forming a kind of sienite. But the most interesting object in this parish is to be found a little to the north of this last place, on the side of the hill sloping down to the river Inny. It is a magnesian rock, and it is quarried for building-stones, yielding large blocks, which are sufficiently soft at the time of their being raised, to allow of their being cut through by a common handsaw. A considerable quantity of this stone has been used in building a very large house, denominated a cottage by the Duke of Bedford, at Ensleigh, on the eastern bank of the Tamma. The stone appears, however, to have one bad quality: the surface, after a slight disintegration from exposure to the atmosphere, becomes covered over with ocherous spots, owing to the presence of a scaly mineral resembling diallage, which is disseminated through the rock. This magnesian rock has all the characters of pitstones, the lapis ollaris of the ancients; and it is a curious circumstance, that on opening some old workings near this place, several antique vessels were found resembling pipkins and shallow pans made out of this material.

The immediate connection of this bed of ollareous serpentine with the adjacent rocks, is not disclosed; but it is succeeded by talc ore, slate, and limestone, on the other side of the river.

ST. ANTHONY IN POWDER.

HALS.

St. Anthony in Powder is situate in the hundred of Powder; and hath upon the east Gerance and St. Just; north, Carike road, or part of Falmouth harbour; upon the south and west the British Channel. In Domesday Roll there is no such parish or district charged as St. Anthony, neither therein had any church in Cornwall the appellation of Saint given to it, except St. Wene or St. Wena. But this district was then taxed under the jurisdiction of Treligan or Tregeare, and obtained not the name of St. Anthony till the year of our Lord 1124, at which time William Warlewast, Bishop of Exon, founded here a church, and dedicated it to St. Anthony, having before dissolved the dean and four prebendaries in the collegiate church founded at Plympton in Devon by the Saxon kings, and in the room thereof erected a priory of Black Canons (and dedicated the same to the Virgin Mary): who also in this church of St. Anthony erected a priory or cell of two Black Canons, canons regular or Augustines, under the same tutelar guardian as its superior, so called from St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in Africa, who died in the 4th century, and was institutor of their rule; viz. 1. to live in common as the Apostles did, on the stock revenues or endowment of their church. 2. That all such as received baptism should for several days wear a white garment in token of their new birth. 3. That all priests should wear a black cassock over their white garment, as himself did; such afterwards became the habit of his order, whether collegiate or hermits. 5. Over their sculls he appointed a hood or scapular of the same black cloth as their cloaks, and the hair of their heads to be worn at full length, whereas the monks were always shaved. 6. He gave a liturgy or rule to be observed by those of his order in time of divine service (whereas before every one in a monastery served God, prayed, and fasted, as they best liked). 7. To live single persons, without marriage. This Priory was called St. Mary de Vall or de Valle, to distinguish it from St. Mary de Plym in Devon, so named from the rivers on which they are situate. This priory, together with its superior’s revenues, when it was dissolved, was valued at 912_l._ 12_s._ 8_d._ per ann. 26 Henry VIII. See Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum.

Ecclesia de Sancto Antoni, in Rosland, 20 Edward I. was valued to the Pope’s first fruits xl_s._ though its value be not mentioned in Valor Beneficiorum, or Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521. The patronage formerly in the Prior of Plympton, afterwards in Hals of Fentongolan, now Boscawen, its revenues being wholly impropriated. The parish rated to the 4_s._ per pound land tax 1696, 45_l._ 4_s._

St. Anthony’s name is derived from ανθος (anthos) flos, a flower; and for his person, he was a native of Egypt, about the yeare of our Lord 253: a most strict and severe Christian, that lived a retired and hermetical and begging life in the deserts thereof.

Plase, Place, id est, in Cornish a palace, was heretofore the mansion and dwelling of the prior and his two black canons, erected here as aforesaid. This house and barton is now in possession of Arthur George Sprye, Esq. that married Bullock; his father Martyn; his grandfather Heale, his great-grandfather, of Blisland, attorney-at-law, married ――――. He gives for his arms, in a field Azure, two bars and in chief a chevron Or. The name Spry, Sprey, Spray, is Cornish, and signifies a sprout, branch, sprig, twig, split, or slip of any matter or thing. The name Spye I take it is local, from some place called Spye in Devon.

This promontory of land, commonly called St. Anthony point, which on the east side boundeth Falmouth harbour from the British Ocean, not only from the name of the priory here St. Mary de Vall aforesaid, but from the natural circumstances of the place, I take to be the Valuba or Valubia of Ptolemy, which consisteth of a compound of two British words Val and Ubia, which signifies the Vale point or promontory, or the point or promontory of land that bounds or terminates the river Val as aforesaid. Note also, that in British Cornish, B, V, and F, are letters indifferently used one for the other; so that Falubia and Valubia are synonymous words. Otherwise, Val-eba is the ebbing or reflux of the river Val.

TONKIN.

In this parish lies the manor of Bohurtha, or Boswartha. The higher house or dwelling under Boswartha, is situated on a small creek of a sea, a small place called Porth: this belongs to the family of Spry. The land immediately beyond it, being covered with sand, is known by the name of Tower, which is common to all like places along the coast.

THE EDITOR.

Mr. Hals states St. Anthony, the hermit of Egypt, to be the patron Saint of this parish, and of the other two known by the same name. This St. Anthony is the reputed founder of the ascetic Anchorites, from whose assemblies in after times, monks, and subsequently friars, or begging monks, derive their origin. He is said to have lived from the year 251 to the year 356; to have been the friend of St. Athanasius, and to have held some correspondence with Emperor Constantine. But as the two western points form part of the sea coast, and the third is situated on a navigable river, it seems to be most probable that they are all dedicated to the more popular Saint in modern times, St. Anthony of Padua, the universal patron of fishermen.

This St. Anthony was a native of Lusitania, having been born at Lisbon in 1195, and christened Ferdinand, which name he laid aside for that of Anthony, in honour of the Egyptian hermit, on his entering into the order of St. Francis. His long residence at Padua is said to have procured for him the cognomen of that place, but the addition of Padua is much more likely to have derived its origin from the locality of his legendary miracle. Actuated by the spirit of fanaticism common in those times, St. Anthony endeavoured to conceal and to render useless all the learning and all the powers of eloquence which he had previously acquired as a canon regular of St. Austin at Lisbon, and during a residence of eight years with the same order at Coimbra. Having become a friar, he employed himself as a menial in the kitchen, or in sweeping the cells, till an accident discovered to the superiors the value and importance of their newly acquired brother. The intelligence was conveyed to St. Francis, the renowned founder of the Friars Minors, from whom a letter to our Saint is preserved:

“To my most dear brother Anthony, Friar Francis wisheth
health in Jesus Christ. It seemeth good to me, that you
should read sacred Theology to the friars; yet so that you
do not prejudice yourself by too great earnestness in
studies; and be careful that you do not extinguish in
yourself or in them the spirit of holy prayer.”

All the accounts remaining of St. Anthony agree in representing him to posterity as an example of learning, of piety, and of zeal. These qualities, possessed however in common with thousands of others, would have failed to make his name known to after times, if a legend had not established his fame as a Saint, and elevated him to the high station of protector and patron of fishermen all over the Christian world.

The legend may be best conveyed in the poetry of Dr. Darwin:

So when the Saint from Padua’s graceless land,
In silent anguish sought the barren strand,
High on the shatter’d beach sublime he stood,
Still’d with his waving arm the babbling flood;
“To man’s dull ear,” he cry’d, “I call in vain,
Hear me, ye scaly tenants of the main!”
Misshapen seals approach in circling flocks,
In dusky mail the tortoise climbs the rocks,
Torpedoes, sharks, rays, turbots, dolphins, pour
Their twinkling squadrons round the glittering shore;
With tangled fins, behind, huge phocæ glide,
And whales, and grampi swell the distant tide.
Then kneel’d the hoary Seer, to Heaven address’d
His fiery eyes, and smote his sounding breast,
“Bless ye the Lord!” with thundering voice he cry’d;
“Bless ye the Lord!” the bending shores reply’d;
The winds and waters caught the sacred word,
And mingling echoes shouted, “Bless the Lord!”
The listening shoals the quick contagion feel,
Pant on the floods, inebriate with their zeal,
Ope their wide jaws, and bow their slimy heads,
And dash with frantic fins their foamy beds.

The parish feasts do not serve in these parishes to indicate the patron saint.

Anthony in Kerrier has its feast on the Sunday nearest St. Stephen’s day, December 26th.

Anthony in Powder on the Sunday nearest to the 10th of August.

Anthony in East has not any feast.

The day consecrated to St. Anthony of Egypt is January the 17th; to St. Anthony of Padua June the 13th.