Chapter XIV: Part V (4)

In this parish, upon a cove or creek of Falmouth Harbour, stands the borough of St. Mawes, also St. Mary’s, so called from the manor of land on which it is situate, heretofore pertaining to the Canons Regular of the Priory of St. Mary de Plym in Devon, both dedicated to the blessed Virgin Mary, and thence from her denominated St. Mary’s. It is the voke lands of two ancient manors, named Tolverne and Bohurra, privileged time out of mind with the jurisdiction of court leets, held before the Steward or Portreeve, who governs the same, and is annually chosen by the majority of the homage or tenants of the manor of Tolverne Court; the lords of which formerly were the Priors aforesaid, afterwards Arundell of Tolverne, now Tredinham as aforesaid. It sendeth two Members to sit in the Lower House of Parliament, who are chosen or elected by the freeholders or freemen of the said borough. It hath a weekly market, and an annual fair on Friday next after Luke’s day; and giveth for its arms, a bend lozengy of six pieces ermine, between a castle in the sinister chief and a ship rigged without sails in the dexter.

The writ to remove an action at law depending in this Leet to a Superior Court, and the precept for election of Members of Parliament, must be thus directed: Præposito et Senescallo ville sue de St. Mawes alias St. Mary’s in Com. Cornub. salutem.

At the north end of this borough, upon a well advanced promontory, stands the Castle of St. Mawes, alias St. Mary’s, first built, fortified, and supplied with a small garrison of soldiers, by King Henry VIII. in his French wars, for defence of the harbour of Falmouth, against invasion of enemies; having now about thirty cannon, demy cannon, and culverins pertaining thereto (but scarcely so many soldiers of war). The Captain and Keeper whereof hath from the King 54_l._ 15_s._; his Deputy 27_l._ 7_s._ 6_d._; three Gunners, in all 72_l._

After the dissolution of the Priory of St. Anthony, 26 Henry VIII., 1535, this Castle and the land whereon it stands, together with the government thereof, as I am informed, was given by that King to Sir Robert Le Greice, Knight, an Arragonist or Spaniard, whose son, in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, sold the inheritance thereof to Hanniball Vyvyan, Esq. of Trelowarren, who thereupon was made Governor thereof; as some say after his decease, Sir Francis Vyvyan, Knight, his son; after his decease Sir Richard Vyvyan, Bart., his son; after his decease Sir Vyell Vyvyan, Bart., who was so far imposed upon by John Earl of Bath, by licence of King Charles II., as to sell the inheritance of the lands whereon this Castle stands, to him for 500_l._; who forthwith transferred it over to Sir Joseph Tredinham, Knight, who then became Governor thereof, but was displaced by King William III., and the government thereof given to his Privy Councellor, the Right Honourable Hugh Boscawen, Esq., now in possession thereof at the writing of these lines.

There was a great controversy in Parliament, 4 James I., between Cotterell and Legrice, about Legrice’s lands. See the Memoirs of Parliament, page 68, and modus tenendi Parliamentum.

During the interregnum of Cromwell, Sir Richard Vyvyan, as a person dissaffected to his government, was displaced from the gubernation of this Castle, and one Captain Rouse put in his place, which gentleman, as I have been informed, before the war broke out between King Charles I. and his Parliament, was of such low fortune in the world that he lived in a barn at Landrake, and lodged on straw, till he got a commission to be a Captain in the Parliament Army under the Earl of Essex, which brought him into money and credit; so that at length he was posted the Commander or Governor of this Castle, who behaved himself so very proud, grand, severe, and magisterial towards the neighbouring gentlemen of the royal party, that it gave occasion to John Trefusis, Esq., to make this short description of him in verse; which the Cavalier party, when they met to drink the King’s health, would commonly sing in derision of the Governor, and called it their passado, viz.:

In wealth Rouse abounds;
He keepeth his hounds,
Full fourteen couple and more.
When he lived in a house
With an owl and a mouse,
Oh! they say he was wondrous poor.――Oh! they say.

Part of this barn aforesaid, tempore William III., as I am informed, was converted to a dwelling house, the other part was made a Presbyterian meeting-house, by Mr. Robert Rouse of Wootton, son of the gentleman before mentioned, who with his family commonly on Sundays met there with great numbers of people of that profession, to hear the predicaments of their Priest. This Mr. Robert Rouse married Harrington of Somersetshire, and resided there during his father, the Governor, Rouse’s life, with his wife, during which stay there he had by her one or two sons; and after his father’s death, he came down to Wootton in this county.

As the Captain or Keeper of St. Mawes Castle hath a salary as aforesaid, so the Governor of its opposite Castle of Pendenis, hath yearly from the Crown 182_l._ 10_s._; his Lieutenant-Governor 73_l._; the Master Gunner 36_l._; and two other Gunners 36_l._ each; and the like payments are made to the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor and Gunners of Scilly Castle and Islands.

TONKIN.

The patronage of this parish is in Sir Joseph Tredenham, in right of his manor of Tolvern.

A great part of this parish is included in the manor of Tolvern, but as the capital place is in Philly I shall there treat of it.

Treveres; the town in the ways or roads, veres being the plural of ver or vere, a road, way or lane.

This place has been for several generations, by lease from the Arundells and the succeeding lords of Tolvern, the seat of the Jacks, the last of whom, Richard Jack, Esq. dying without issue, left this estate to his sister’s only daughter, heiress of William Hooker, of Trelisick, in St. Ewe, Esq. and married to John Pomeray, Clerk.

Near this place lies Rosecossa, the woody valley, which I am told was formerly the seat of Sir John Rosecossa, who had here a large house and a chapel, but lately demolished. He left two daughters coheiresses, married to Trefry and Woollcumbe. This estate, with another called Tolcarne, that is the stone with a hole bored in it, have descended to Roger Woollcumbe, of Langford Hill, Esq. the present possessor of both.

THE EDITOR.

Mr. Hals has given a long history of St. Just, the companion of St. Austin, and his successor in the See of Canterbury, all of which is omitted. The parish is supposed to be under the patronage of St. Just, or Justus Archbishop of Lyons, about the year 350. This Saint, already a Bishop, began his career towards beatitude, by assisting St. Ambrose in his furious hostility against the Arians, and completed it by retiring into the deserts of Egypt, to prepare himself for the society of superior beings, through the favour of Him who is the author of all wisdom, of all knowledge, and of all benevolence, to be obtained by discarding or stupefying in solitude every kind affection, and every faculty of intelligence bestowed on him by the Almighty.

He is commemorated in the Roman Calendar on the second of September.

St. Mawes and its castle are by far the objects of greatest curiosity in this parish.

The shelter afforded for boats must at all times have rendered this place a resort of fishermen, but it acquired more importance and a name by the residence of St. Mawes, who seems to have come from Ireland with the other missionaries.

Accounts respecting him are extremely various. Some assimilate his history to that of St. Just, stating that he attained the episcopal dignity, and then, in compliance with the taste of that age, retired to an ascetic solitude; other legends represent him as a schoolmaster, and in early paintings he may be seen with the well-known emblem of scholastic authority in his hand.

The castle at St. Mawes was undoubtedly built by King Henry VIII. but a tradition universally believed in Cornwall is much less certain.

It is said that the King came to view the situation of his two projected castles of St. Mawes and Pendennis; that he passed two nights at Tolvorn, then a seat of the Arundells; and that he crossed the river from thence to Feock, at a passage that has ever since gone by his name. There is not, however, any trace of this journey to be found in histories of the times, nor in any public document.

The privilege of sending Members to Parliament was given to this village by Queen Elizabeth, in pursuance, probably, of the Tudor policy noticed under Michell; and if the creation of a close borough were the object really intended, it proved invariably successful up to the general disfranchisement of 1832.

This right of sending Members to Parliament, accompanied by the pageantry of maces and sergeants-at-arms, and combined with various personal advantages, could not fail of exciting feelings of envy and ridicule. In this instance the village of St. Mawes, extending in a single line of houses in the direction of the beach, has readily presented a topic, which was, to inquire whether the new mayor lived on the same side of the street as his predecessor.

Corrack Road, the best anchorage for large vessels in all Falmouth harbour, lies off this parish, called by Mr. Hals King Road, but the popular appellation is St. Just, or Sainteast, Pool.

Mr. Lysons gives the following inscriptions, said to have been written by Leland, and cut in the castle walls.

“Henricus, Octavus Rex Angliæ, Franciæ, et Hiberniæ invictissimus, me posuit præsidium reipublicæ, terrorem hostibus.

Imperio Henrici naves submittite vela,
Semper honos, Henrice, tuus laudesque manebunt;
Edwardus famâ referat factisque parentem,
Gaudeat, Edwardo duce nunc, Cornubia felix.
Semper vivat Aiâ Regis Henrici Octavi, qui
anno XXXIVᵒ sui regni hoc fieri fecit.
Honora Henricum Octavum Angliæ, Franciæ, et
Hiberniæ Regem excellentissimum.”

The advowson of this parish has passed by succession from Tredinham, through Schobells, to Hawkins. The present incumbent is Edward Rodd, D.D. of Trebartha, late Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, and Proctor of the University in 1802.

St. Just in Roseland measures 2340 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 4714 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 817 8 0
Population, {in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 1416 | 1639 | 1648 | 1558
giving an increase of 10 per cent. in 30 years; there being
a decrease of 90 in the last 10 years.

GEOLOGY, BY DOCTOR BOASE.

This parish, which forms the eastern shore of Falmouth harbour, is composed of the same rocks as the adjoining parishes of Filley, Gersons, and St. Anthony.

ST. JUST, NEAR PENZANCE.

HALS.

Is situate in the hundred of Penwith, and hath upon the north-east Morsa, west St. George’s Channel and Sennan, east Saneret, south Buryan. For the modern name, it is taken from the tutelar guardian to whom this church is dedicated, viz. St. Just the Roman, first Bishop of Rochester, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury.

At the time of the Norman Conquest this district passed in tax, either under the jurisdiction of Buryan or Alverton. In the taxation of benefices made by the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, into the value of Cornish Benefices, 1294, ecclesia Sancti Justi in decanatu de Penwith is rated viii_l._; in Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, 11_l._ 11_s._ 0½_d._; the patronage in the Crown; the incumbent Millet; the rectory in possession of Borlase, and the parish rated to the 4_s._ per pound Land Tax, 1696, by the name of St. Just, 133_l._ 7_s._; which name is derived from the Latin words jus, justus, right, just, lawful, righteous, well-meaning, upright.

At Pen-dene, or Pen-dayn, in this parish, is the dwelling of John Borlase, Esq. Commissioner for the Peace, who married Lydia Harris, of Kenegye, and giveth the same arms as the Borlases of Borlase in St. Wenn and Newland; this gentleman’s father greatly advanced his wealth by tin adventures, and is descended from the Borlases of Sythney, as I am informed.

Bray in this parish, situate on the Irish sea coast, gave name and original to an old family of gentlemen surnamed de Bray who by the tenure of knight service, held in this place two parts of a knight’s fee of land, 3 Henry IV. Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, p. 39.

I take the Lord Bray of Hampshire to be descended from this family. This place is now in the possession of that well-known quaker, John Ellis, Esq.

On the south side of this parish, upon a lofty hill, stands Chapel Carne Bray, that is to say Bray’s spar-stone Chapel, and suitable to its name it is situate upon the top of the most astonishing burrow or tumulus of Carnes, or spar stones, that ever my eyes beheld; artificially laid together perhaps upon the bodies of human creatures, interred upon the mountain before the fifth century; on the top of which burrow of stones, which is about fifteen feet high from the ground, stands the chapel itself; which riseth about ten feet higher, well built with moor-stone and lime, with a window in the east, and a durns, or door, on the south of the same stones; the roof all well covered or arched over with large flat moor-stones, wrought with the hammer and strongly fastened together. The chapel being about ten feet broad and about fourteen feet long (as that on Roach Rock) on the outside; and round this chapel may be seen, the downfalls of many sparstone-stairs and walks, by which heretofore the people ascended to this chapel, and diverted themselves with a full prospect of the contiguous country by sea and land――St. George’s Channel, the British Ocean, and the Atlantic Sea towards the Scilly Islands, of which from hence in fair weather you may have a full view; which lands of Scilly seem to stand in equal height with this chapel, though the ground towards the Land’s End, in St. Leucan and St. Lennan, on the sea-shore towards it, are at least eighty fathoms lower, or under it, as is the sea itself, betwixt that and the Scilly Islands. Such another chapel as this, though not built upon a burrow of stones, is to be seen on Mountague Hill, in Somersetshire, and dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel, for half a mile ascended up the hill upon stone stairs, embowed or arched over head right artificially. (See also Camden in Somerset.) Thus it appears that this tribe of Bray were heretofore men of great wealth, fame, and renown in those parts; since their name adheres not only to two local places in this parish, but divers others, as Castle Carne Bray in Luggan, Bray in Morvall, and many other places.

In this parish also was formerly St. Ewny’s Chapel, now dilapidated; see Redruth and Lelant for more of this St. Ewny.

Those spar-stone monuments of Carne Bray Castle, and Chapel Carne Bray aforesaid, will I suppose perpetuate the name and memory of those Brays till the final consummation of all things, as aforesaid. Bray, in Battle Abbey Roll, is recorded to have come into England with William the Conqueror; but by the names of those local places and the fabrics aforesaid, it is probable they were here long before.

In this parish is a large flat stone, on which, as tradition says, seven Saxon Kings at one time and day, dined thereon, at such time as they came into Cornwall to see the Land’s End thereof, and of Great Britain; which Kings are said to have been: 1. Ethelbert, 5th King of Kent; 2. Cissa, 2nd King of the South Saxons; 3. Kingills, 6th King of the West Saxons; 4. Sebert, 3d King of the East Saxons; 5. Ethelfred, 7th King of the Northumbers; 6. Penda, 5th King of the Mercians; and 7. Sigebert, 5th King of the East Angles; who all flourished about the year 600, and were all crowned heads, as Samuel Daniell in his Chronicle tells us.[7]

TONKIN

Has not any thing in addition to what is stated by Mr. Hals, except a description of Mayne Scriffer, or the “inscribed stone,” which he ends by saying is really not in this parish, but in Madders, where he purposes to give a more full account of it.

THE EDITOR.

Pendeen claims the first attention of any place in this parish. It was for some ages the residences of the Borlases, since removed to Castle Horneck, near Penzance. At Pendeen resided in the early part of his life Mr. John Borlase, sometime member for St. Ives. Here were born his two sons the Rev. Walter Borlase, LL.D. Vice Warden of the Stannaries; and the Rev. William Borlase, LL.D. by diploma from the university of Oxford, the justly celebrated writer of the Antiquities and of the Natural History of Cornwall.

Pendeen exhibits an excellent specimen of the large but comfortless houses, inhabited by gentlemen two centuries ago.

Near the house may be seen one of those very ancient excavations called vaus or faus. See Borlase’s Antiquities, p. 293, 2d edit. 1769. They are conjectured to have been made for places of refuge in times when predatory descents on the coast were of frequent occurrence, and always causes of alarm. Yet the entrance could not be concealed, and the five kings of the Amorites had left an example, confirmed at no remote period by the cruel fate of a northern clan, proving the utter insecurity of such a retreat.

On the sea-shore below the house is a small cove, where boats and nets are kept for fishing; but so small is the shelter on this iron-bound coast, that the boats are drawn up by ropes or chains, and kept suspended during the winter, on the sloping surface of a steep cliff.

Some miles westward of Pendeen, and near the sea, is Botallock, the seat of the Usticks; one among the many families that resided for centuries in this remote peninsula, moderately endowed with gifts of fortune, but possessed of the honour and feelings of gentlemen.

This parish has been productive of tin from the most early periods; and Botallock would have elevated its proprietors in the scale of wealth, but times and manners had changed, so that the last Mr. Ustick of that place having spent his estate, and then got it redeemed by a productive mine, sold it at last to Admiral Boscawen, to whose grandson the property now belongs. The veins or lodes of tin having been wrought within the last fifty years to depths unattainable before the introduction of improved steam-engines, copper has, in very many instances, been found under the tin; and this has occurred at Botallock, where situated on the edge of a cliff, the workings with the steam-engines, whims, &c. present a spectacle more unique and more imposing than any other in Cornwall.

Further from the shore is Busvargus, the seat of an ancient family of the same name, the heiress of which was the mother of the Rev. Jonathan Toup, whose eminence as a scholar has been noticed under St. Ives. He died without issue in 1785; and the estate of Busvargus, having been settled on the children of his half-sister, is now the property of his niece, Mrs. Nicholas of Looe, the present representative of the Busvargus family.

The families of most distinction in latter times, inhabitants of St. Just, were Allan and Moddern, but both names are now extinct.

The great tithes appertained to the monastery of Glaseney, in Penryn. They now belong to Borlase.

The vicarage is in the presentation of the crown, and was held for many years by Doctor William Borlase, the historian.

And here perhaps the Editor may be allowed to mention the name of one whom he esteemed and admired, although his connection with Cornwall was so little permanent as to consist only of his serving the curacy of this parish.

The Reverend John Smyth, Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, received his title for deacon’s orders from Doctor William Borlase, as vicar of St. Just, where he remained about six or seven years, till Cornwall lost one of its greatest ornaments.

Leaving St. Just, after Doctor Borlase’s decease, he became the friend and assistant of the Reverend Sir Richard Kaye, Dean of Lincoln, and through his recommendation made the tour of Europe with Mr. Langley, a gentleman of Yorkshire. He then went back to College, and on a vacancy became tutor, and succeeded to the Headship; returning from a visit to Penzance, in 1809, he died in consequence of some local complaint at Exeter, where a monument has been placed to his memory in the Cathedral Church, with the following inscription:

Juxta conditur
Joannes Smyth, S. T. P.
Magister Collegii Pembrochiæ
apud Oxonienses,
Qui Academiam remeans, hac in Urbe,
vi morbi grassantis, cito abreptus est,
die 19 Octobris, A.D. 1809, ætatis suæ 66.
Grata recordatione ejus in Collegiam beneficentiæ,
in amicos comitatis et benevolentiæ,
imo in omnes Φιλανθρωπιας,
hoc marmor posuêre
Successor ejus et Socii.

There is also a cenotaph in the Cathedral at Gloucester, a prebend of which church is annexed to the mastership of Pembroke College, by the liberality of Queen Anne.

Few men were ever more universally esteemed, or were more deserving of being so. His abilities and learning commanded respect; kindness, generosity, and benevolence endeared him to every friend; whilst good nature and convivial manners made him the favorite of each casual acquaintance.

To him the Editor is indebted for his good fortune in being himself a member of Pembroke College.

The parish feast is celebrated on the Sunday nearest to All Saints, November the first; but the church is known to claim for its patron St. Just, the companion of St. Austin, Bishop of Rochester, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. Little is handed down to posterity of St. Just, but that little is entirely to his praise; at the command of Pope Gregory the Great, he undertook the perilous but successful service of converting the English Saxons; he attained the highest ecclesiastical dignity from the suffrages of those who had been brought by the labours of St. Austin and of his followers, within the pale of the church; and he obtained deserved commendation from Pope Boniface, either the third or fourth, who with one intermediate Pope, were the successors of St. Gregory, when the apostolic confirmation of his appointment to the metropolitan see was given, and himself honoured by the investure of a pall. He is stated in the Rubrics to have died on the 10th of November in the year 627.

Nothing seems to be more obvious, or to be more congenial to the human mind, than an annual celebration of particular events. Nature has completed in twelve months the most distinctly marked of her cycles. The seasons are renewed in the same order; and, if experience did not soon convince us of the contrary, we might be induced to think that our own existence in this world was destined to tread the same perpetual round.

Birth-days appear to have been celebrated in honour of living persons from times the most remote, either by nations, provinces, or private families, in proportion as their claims to attention were more or less wide. After the decease of those who have been supposed to confer benefits on mankind, “Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo,” and more especially of those to whom nations owed their spiritual light and hopes, the days of such persons leaving this scene of trial, of sorrow, of anxiety, and of disappointment, to obtain their reward in Heaven, became epochs for uniting religious observance with joy and gladness. Churches were, therefore, dedicated to their memories and festivals instituted; but in England at least this instinctive propensity received the aid of a policy similar to that which, in still earlier periods, had fixed the Christian festivals on the very days previously occupied by the celebration of ancient superstition. Bede has preserved the following letter from Pope Gregory to St. Mellitus, who led a second band of missionaries into England, after the successful preaching of St. Austin, and became the first Bishop of London, where he is said to have founded the two Cathedrals, and finally to have attained the Archbishopric of Canterbury.

Historiæ Ecclesiasticæ Gentis Anglorum Libri Quinque, autore Sancto et venerabili Baeda. Lib. 2, ch. 30.

Exemplar Epistolæ quam Mellito Abbati Britanniam pergenti misit Sanctus Gregorius.

Abeuntaibus autem præfatis legatariis misit post eos beatus Pater Gregorius litteras memoratu dignas, in quibus apertè quàm studiosè erga salvationem nostræ gentis invigilaverit ostendit, ita scribens:

Dilectissimo filio Mellito Abbati GREGORIUS Servus Servorum Dei.

Post discessum congregationis nostræ, quæ tecum est, valde sumus suspensi redditi, quia nihil de prosperitate vestri itineris audisse nos contigit. Cum ergo Deus Omnipotens vos ad reverendissimum virum, Fratrem nostrum Augustinum Episcopum perduxerit, dicite ei quod diu mecum de causa Anglorum cogitans tractavi; videlicet quia Fana Idolorum destrui in eadem gente minime debeant, sed ipsa quæ in eis sunt Idola destruantur; Aqua benedicta fiat; in eisdem Fanis aspergatur; Altaria construantur; Reliquiæ ponantur, quia, si Fana eadem bene constructa sunt, necesse est ut a cultu Dæmonum in obsequio Veri Dei debeant commutari, ut dum gens ipsa eadem Fana sua non videt destrui, de corde errorem deponat, et Deum Verum cognoscens ac adorans, ad loca quæ consuevit familiariùs concurrat. _Et quia boves solent in sacrificio Dæmonum multos occidere, debet eis etiam, hac de re, aliqua sollemnitas immutari; ut Die Dedicationis, vel Natilitii sanctorum Martyrum, quorum illic Reliquiæ ponuntur, Tabernacula sibi, circa easdem Ecclesias, quæ ex Fanis commutatæ sunt, de ramis arborum faciant, et Religiosis convivis sollemnitatem celebrant._ Nec Diabolo jam animalia immolent; et, ad laudem Dei, in esu suo animalia occidant, et Donatori omnium de satietate sua gratias referant; ut dum eis aliqua exteriùs gaudia reservantur, ad interiora gaudia consentire faciliùs valeant. Nam duris mentibus simul omnia abscindere impossibile esse non dubium est; quia et is qui summum locum ascendere nititur gradibus vel passibus, non autem saltibus elevatur; sic Israelitico populo in Ægypto Dominus re quidem innotuit; sed tamen eis sacrificiorum usus, quæ Diabolo solebat exhibere, in cultu proprio reservavit, et eis in suo sacrificio animalia immolare præciperet, quatenus cor mutantes, aliud de sacrificio amitterent, aliud retinerent; ut etsi ipsa assent animalia quæ efferare consueverant, vero tamen Deo hæc et non Idolis immolantes jam sacrificia ipsa non essent.

Hæc igitur dilectionem tuam prædicto Fratri necesse est dicere, ut ipse in præsenti illic positus perpendet, qualiter omnia debeat dispensare.

Deus te incolumem custodiat, dilectissime Fili! Data die decima quinta kalendarum Juliarum, imperante Domino nostro Mauricio Tiberio piissimo Augusto, anno decimo novo; post consulatum ejusdem Domini anno decimo octavo; Indictione quarta. A. D. 601.

It may be presumed that the Jesuit missionaries to China and to Paraguay were not unacquainted with this letter from the Pope.

St. Just in Penwith measures 6,984 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 7776 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 817 8 0
Population, }in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
} 2779 | 3057 | 3666 | 4667
giving an increase of 68 per cent. in 30 years.
Present Vicar, the Rev. John Buller, presented by the Lord
Chancellor in 1825.
This parish is called St. Juest as a distinction from the
name of the parish in Roseland pronounced St. Jeast.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

This parish, with the exception of a narrow band of slate which skirts the coast from Pendeen Cove to Cape Cornwall, is situated entirely on granite. It has been long celebrated for its mines, which generally are placed on or near to the junction of the granite and the slate; and in consequence of the narrow limits of the latter rock, their workings often extend under the sea. Botallack mine is a noted instance of this description; and its steam engine and machinery, perched on the side of a steep rocky cliff, present one of the most picturesque objects in the country. St. Just has afforded specimens of by far the greater number of British minerals. Its slate has a basis of compact felspar, and exhibits many interesting varieties of this rock; but the most rare is that which abounds with disseminated garnets at Botallack. The principal lodes of this parish exhibit some peculiarities in their direction, and the little coves are generally covered with beds of diluvium, some of which are composed of large granitic pebbles and boulders, which appear to have once formed a beach, although at present they are elevated above high-water mark. St. Just abounds with so many interesting objects as to make it impossible to enumerate them in these short notices. Ample details may be found of all these productions in the Transactions of the Geological Society of Cornwall.

[7] This is said by modern tradition to have happened at
Mean, in the adjacent parish of Sannen. _Edit._

ST. KEYNE.

HALS.

Is situate in the hundred of West, and hath upon the east Leskeard and the Loo river, south Dulo, west Lanreth, north St. Pynnock; at the time of the Norman Conquest this district passed under the jurisdiction of Leskeard, and so in the Domesday Tax as part thereof. In the Inquisition into the value of Cornish benefices made by the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester 1294, ecclesia de Kayne in decanatu de Westwellshire was rated xx_l._ In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, 5_l._ 18_s._ 6_d._ The patronage in ――――; the Incumbent Doweringe; and the parish rated to the 4_s._ per pound Land Tax, 1696, 53_l._ 16_s._ by the name of St. Kain.

The presidual guardian of this church is one of those two holy women mentioned by writers as famous for their piety and supernatural facts; the one of the British blood, the other of Saxon race. That of the British is St. Kayne, daughter of Braghan, king and builder of the town of Brecknock in Wales, who flourished about the year 500; the which King Braghan had issue also twenty-three other daughters, all for the like reasons aforesaid entered into the catalogue or calendar of saints; and also two sons, St. Canock and St. Caddock, to whose honour and memory a chapel in Padstow parish was erected; and still, though disused from divine service, bearing his name. The other St. Kayne was born about the seventh century, upon the river Avon in Somersetshire, at a place which after her decease sprung up a town, still flourishing in fame and wealth, from her denominated Kainsham, i. e. Kain’s house, home, habitation, or dwelling. She is famous amongst agonal writers for miracle working, particularly for turning serpents into stones wheresoever she saw them, so that they had not power either to hurt man or beast; a woman very much wanted now in Cornwall, where adders or serpents abound to the great hurt of man and beast.

She is also highly praised by John Capgrave in his book of the English Saints, for her purity, piety, and chastity.

To one of these two women is also dedicated the vicarage church of Cainham, in Holderness hundred in York; as also Caynham vicarage church in Ludlow hundred in Salop.

In this parish at ―――― lived some of the Coplestons of Colbrook in Devon, as I take it; which place descended to them by some of the heirs of Flemmen, Berkley, Turvey, Courtney, Bonvill, Pawlet, Chichester, Bridges, Graas, Hawley, Huish, Wiedbury, Fitzwalter, or some others, which they married with successively; and thereby obtained such a mighty estate in Cornwall and Devon that they were generally distinguished by the name of the “great Coplestons.” But, alas! maugre all their great riches and wealth, the last John Great Coplestone, tempore Elizabeth, for killing his natural son and godson in discontent, was indicted at the assizes at Exeter, tried and found guilty of wilful murder, and sentenced to death for the same; and lay in gaol till he sold thirteen manors of land in Cornwall to obtain a reprieve or pardon; and left of legal issue only one son, named John, who had issue only two daughters that became his heirs; married to Bamphield and Elford, in whom the estate, name, and blood of those Coplestons is terminated, who gave for their arms, Argent, a chevron Gules, between three leopards’ faces Azure. These gentlemen were hereditary esquires of the white spur, who, together with the Champernowns and the Carmenows, possessed and enjoyed the profits of their private estates in Devon and Cornwall, to that great degree, in former ages, that the like great riches was not then to be found in any other family for value in those counties, though now I know not of any lands in Cornwall remaining in those tribes, or any of those names now extant there.

TONKIN.

Camden, in Somersetshire, mentions Keine as a devout British Virgin, whom many of the last age, through an over credulous temper, believed to have changed serpents into stones, because they find sometimes in quarries some such little miracles of sporting nature. She is said to have been born on the banks of the river Avon in that county, at the place where after her decease sprung up a town, from her denominated Keynesham. She is famous among the agonal writers for her purity, piety, and charity, as also for many miracles, particularly for turning serpents into stones.

There was one other St. Keyne famous among the Britains of Wales, daughter to Brechanus, King, and namer of Brecknock Town. He had twenty-four daughters and two sons, all Saints.

It is possible, however, that both these St. Keynes may be one and the same.

THE EDITOR.

Mr. Lysons says, that the ancient name of this parish was Lametton, and that the manor still exists.

This manor he further states was the property of Sir Robert Tresilian, Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, attainted in the reign of King Richard the Second, by whom this portion of his property was bestowed on John Hawley, of Dartmouth, supposed to have married a daughter of the Chief Justice. His daughter and heiress brought it to the Coplestones.

In the reign of James the First it belonged to the Harrisons of Mount Radford in Devonshire, and from them it passed by marriage to the Rashleighs.

Mr. William Rashleigh, of Menabilly, is now the proprietor of the whole or nearly the whole of this parish, and in it of the celebrated well, which Mr. Carew notices in the following manner, p. 305, Lord Dunstanville’s edit.

“Next I will relate to you another of the Cornish natural wonders, viz. Saint Keyne’s Well; but lest you make wonder, first at the Saint before you notice the well, you must understand that this was not Kayne the Manqueller, but one of a gentler spirit and milder sex, to wit, a woman. He who caused the spring to be pictured added this rhyme for an explanation:

In name, in shape, in quality,
This Well is very quaint;
The name to lot of Kayne befell,
No over holy Saint.

The shape, four trees of divers kind,
Withy, oak, elm, and ash,
Make with their roots an arched roof,
Whose floor this spring doth wash.

The quality, that man or wife,
Whose chance or choice attains,
First of this sacred stream to drink,
Thereby the mastery gains.”

Mr. Tonkin quotes this passage from Carew, and adds:

“Did it retain this wondrous quality, as it does to this day
the shape, I believe there would be to it a greater resort
of both sexes than either to Bath or Tunbridge; for who
would not be fond of attaining this longed-for sovereignty?”
And Mr. Tonkin adds further, “since the writing of this the
trees were blown down by a violent storm; and in their place
Mr. Rashleigh, in whose land it is, has planted two oaks, an
ash, and an elm, which thrive very well; but the wonderful
arch is destroyed.”

For a most interesting account of St. Keyne’s Well, and of all that portion of Cornwall, the reader is referred to Mr. Bond’s “Topographical and Historical Sketches of East and West Looe, and of the Neighbourhood,” 1 vol. 8vo. 1823, printed by John Nichols and Son, No. 25, Parliament Street, Westminster.

Mr. Bond says that the trees were blown down by the great storm of November 1703, and that Mr. Philip Rashleigh, who succeeded his father in the property about that time, planted soon afterwards the trees which have now acquired their full growth, and probably equalled those which stood there before them.

Mr. Bond has also printed the beautiful as well as humorous lines composed by Mr. Southey, and referred to other verses on the same subject in the Gentleman’s Magazine for June 1822, vol. XCII. i. p. 526.

Mr. Southey’s lines cannot be too frequently reprinted.

SAINT KEYNE’S WELL.

BY ROBERT SOUTHEY.

(_From Carew’s History of Cornwall._)

A well there is in the West Country,
And a clearer one never was seen;
There is not a Wife in the West Country,
But has heard of the Well of St. Keyne.

An oak and an elm tree stand behind,
And beside does an ash-tree grow;
And a willow, from the bank above,
Droops to the water below.

A trav’ller came to the Well of St. Keyne;
Pleasant it was to his eye,
For from cock-crowing he had travelling been,
And there was not a cloud in the sky.

He drank of the water so cool and clear,
For thirsty and hot was he;
And he sat down upon a bank
All under the willow tree.

There came a man from the neighbouring town,
At the Well to fill his pail;
So on the well side he rested it,
And bade the stranger hail.

“Now art thou a bachelor, stranger?” quoth he,
“For if thou hast a wife,
The happiest draught thou hast drank to-day
That ever thou didst in thy life.

“Or has your good woman, if one you have,
In Cornwall ever been?
For, and if she have, I’ll venture my life
She has drank of the Well of St. Keyne.”

“I left a good woman who never was here,”
The stranger he made reply,
“But that my draught should be better for that,
I pray you answer me why.”

“St. Keyne,” quoth the countryman, “many a time
Drank of this crystal Well;
And before the angel summon’d her hence,
She laid on the water a spell:――

“If the husband of this gifted Well
Shall drink before his wife
A happy man thenceforth is he,
For he shall be master for life.

“But if the wife should drink of it first,
God help the husband then!”――
_The stranger stoopt to the Well of St Keyne,
And he drank of the water again!!_

“You drank of the Well, I warrant, betime?”
He to the countryman said;
But the countryman smiled, as the stranger spoke,
And sheepishly shook his head.

“I hasten’d, as soon as the wedding was done,
And left my wife in the porch;
But i’ faith! she had been wiser than me,――
For she took a bottle to church.”

It is almost unnecessary to observe, that the stones said to originate from serpents petrified at the intercession of St. Keyne or St. Kenna, and supposed by Mr. Tonkin, according to the philosophy of his day, to be _Lusus Naturæ_, are the shells of extinct Nautili, called Cornua Ammonis, from their resemblance to the horns sculptured on the statues of Jupiter Ammon, found in abundance throughout the neighbourhood of Kainsham, and in most of the formations intermediate between the iron sand and red marle.

Transforming serpents into stone, seems to have been an achievement as appropriate to Saints as was the encountering of dragons to knights errant. St. Hilda cleared her favourite Island from these venomous reptiles; and St. Patrick, more powerfully gifted, swept them from the whole of Ireland at once.

It was at last observed, with no small degree of wonder, that those metamorphosed snakes invariably wanted a head, and the times of fabricating legends having passed by, this phenomenon never received a solution from the cloister.

St. Brechan, the British Saint and King, the happy father of twenty-six children, all sainted like himself, is represented in the second plate of St. Neot’s Church, in what is called the Young Women’s Window, displaying these twenty-six Saints, small in stature, within a fold of his kingly robe.

This parish measures 769 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 1,017 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831, 68 12 0
Population, {in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 139 | 157 | 153 | 201
giving an increase of 44½ per cent. in 30 years.

THE GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

This little parish is situated entirely on rocks of the calcareous series, like those of Dulo, one of the adjacent parishes.

KEY, OR KEA.

HALS.

Is situate in the hundred of Powdre, and hath upon the north Kenwyn and Truro, and the sea channel thereof, south the Vale River and sea, west Feock. As for the modern name Keye, it signifies in British a hedge or mound, against sea or land, as sepes in Latin; from whence we have our English words key or keys, wharfs for exportation and importation of goods and merchandize over seas; no improper appellation to the circumstances of this place, where are several of that sort. It was taxed in the Domesday Book, 20 William I., 1087, by the name of Landegey, (and from thence the manor of Lan-digge in this parish, contiguous therewith, and surrounding the same, is denominated; now corrupted to Lansagey, alias Keye.) From whence it is plainly evident that before the Norman Conquest here was an endowed rectory church that received tithes or tenths, of the profits of the earth, predial or otherwise, towards the maintenance of the worship and service of God, and doubtless invested with that benefit by the Bishop of Bodmin or Cornwall, before that was united to Kirton and Exeter.

In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester into the value of Cornish Benefices, 1294, ecclesia de Landigh in decanatu de Powdre was rated viii_l._ vi_s._ viii_d._ Vicar ejusdem xx_s._ In the grant of fifteenths, granted by the clergy to the King, the 24th Henry VI., 1447, the parish and church of Landege was rated £2. 7_s._, Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, p. 90. In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, Landegge was then rated together with Kenwyn, £16.; the patronage formerly in the Bishop of Cornwall that endowed them, now the Bishop of Exeter; the late incumbent Mitchell, now Borlase; and the parish rated to the 4_s._ per pound Land Tax, 1696, £171. 8_s._

Nansa-Vallan, in this parish, is the dwelling of Charles Boscawen, Esq. Barrister-at-Law, second brother to the Right Honourable Hugh Boscawen, of Tregothnan, Esq. who for many years hath retired himself in this place in great esteem and respect of all that know him; doing good to all those that, for his counsel, hospitality, friendship, or charity, make addresses unto him; though he hath hitherto lived a bachelor’s life, and whilst he lives I suppose ever will, with a kind of abhorrence of women and marriage. I take this place either to be part of or the voke lands of the manor of Blanchland, i. e. white land, formerly the lands of Albalanda, now Boscawen’s of Tregothnan, the waste lands of which lordship is not only abounding in tin and tin mines, but for about twenty years last past hath yielded its owner about twenty thousand pounds out of its coppermines, though the waste or down lands in which it is found, is in many places scarce worth eighteen pence per acre.

Guddarne in this parish, part of Blanchland manor, by lease is the dwelling of Reginald Bauden, Gent. that married Pendarves, his father Paynter, his grandfather Trewoolla.

In this place of Guddarne, in my youth, I was showed by Mr. Bauden a brass or iron crock, containing about eight gallons; wherein, as he said, his father found by virtue of a dream of one Hendra, under Key Cross, in a tempestuous night of wind, thunder, lightning, and rain, so vast a quantity of gold and silver as not only advanced him from the rank of rack-renter to that of a freeholder, but from the distinction of a plebeian to that of a gentleman.

Kelleho, Kellyow, Killeyow, synonymous words in this parish, id est Hazell Copps, a place it seems heretofore notable for those sort of nut trees called hazells, one of the sweetest and best sorts of nuts this island affordeth, if left to grow full ripe and well saved. This place is the dwelling of John Hawes, Esq. that married Sprye, his father Vosper, and giveth for his arms, Azure, a fess wavy between three lions passant Or.

Trelogas, in this parish, is the dwelling of Robert White, Gent. that married Philips, of Poughill.

From this family was descended Mr. John White, linendraper in London, who having got much money by trading in tin, settled lands of ten pounds per annum beyond reprizes for ever, to be divided into four equal parts, between the poor inhabitants of the four ancient coinage towns in Cornwall, viz. Leskeard, Lestwithell, Truro, and Helston; to be distributed by the ministers and churchwardens of those churches on St. John’s day yearly; the remainder, being forty shillings, to be divided into four equal parts between the four ministers of those churches, who on that day in their respective churches annually are to preach an anniversary sermon in remembrance of him for ever, of which elsewhere (see Truro.)

In this parish of Kea on the open downs, by the highway or street, are situate the four burrows, i. e. the four sepulchres, tumuli, or graves, after the British-Roman manner, to put those travellers that passed by in mind of mortality and death; one of them is called Burrow Bel-les, i. e. the far off, remote, broad or large burrow or sepulchre, (viz. on the confines of this parish) and suitable to its other names it is one of the broadest or largest burrows in those parts; into which some tinners, temp. William III. in hopes of finding money, pierced a hole or adit into the centre thereof, where, though they missed their expectations they found in the same two of the broadest and flat moor-stones as a cover, supported by three perpendicular stones of suitable strength or bigness, that they had seen in the adjacent country. In the vacant space, vault, or arch under those stones, they found decayed or broken pieces of the urn or ossilegium, and about a gallon of black matter and ashes, which doubtless was the gleanings or remains of that once famous human creature, before the fifth century interred here, with many thousands others, doubtless of less degree in the contiguous lands thereof, who had not money to raise such troublesome, laborious, and costly funeral monuments as those four burrows were, and still are.

Cur-Lyghon in this parish is now transnominated to Carlyon; and here for many descents lived the family from thence denominated Curlyghon, who were gentlemen of considerable fame, lands, and revenues in those parts, as appeared to me from several old Latin deeds, some bearing date 6 Henry V. (see Truro); from whence it came by marriage, descent, or purchase to Burleigh, and from him to Hawes, as I was informed.

TONKIN.

I take the name to be a corruption of Caius; and that St. Caius, Pope and kinsman to the Emperor Dioclesian, who suffered martyrdom under the said Emperor in 296, is the tutelar patron of this church, which is a daughter to Kenwyn, and passes in the same presentation, being valued with it in the King’s Books at 16_l._ The patronage in the Bishop of Exeter. The incumbent Mr. Mitchell, the oldest clergyman now living in this county; who though aged, and his churches three miles apart from each other, regularly serves them both every Sunday; he is since dead, in 1731, and has been succeeded by the Reverend Walter Borlase, LL.D. and vicar of Maddern.

In this parish lies the extensive manor of Blanchland, latinized into Albalonda. This manor gave name to a considerable family, in which it continued for many descents. The last of them, Otho de Albalonda, had only one daughter and heir, Johanna, married in his lifetime to John Boscawen, of Tregothnon, in the 31st year of Edward III. and carried this rich inheritance into that family; in which it hath ever since continued, to their very great advantage, having within these fifty years brought them more money for copper than almost all the other mines in the county together, if the last twenty years are excepted, during which time great discoveries have been made in various other places. Neither are the wastrels of this manor destitute of good mines of tin; one of which, called the White Works, occasioned a law-suit between Mr. John Mayo, of Truro, owner of the tin bounds thereon, and Mr. Hugh Boscawen, lord of the soil, towards the latter end of the reign of Charles the Second.

Mr. Mayo claimed the farm or toll of the copper-ore, as well as of the tin, in right of his bounds; but the suit was very justly determined in favour of Mr. Boscawen, as Lord of the Soil, for that the right of the tin as bounder was only by the custom of the Stannaries, and that no such custom could be pleaded for copper ore.

This one suit put an end to all disputes between the lords of the soil and the bounders, which otherwise would have been endless, and very much to the discouragement of copper mines; and there have not been wanting some designing people of late, who made application to King George II. then Prince of Wales, falsely representing that much tin ore was carried into Wales with the copper ore, and there separated from the copper, to his great loss of duties.

Guddern. This place hath been for several generations the seat, on lease from the family of Boscawen, of the Bowdens; perhaps ever since the Albalonda’s time, although they were possessed of fair estates in fee elsewhere.

Reginald Bowden, Esq. is the present possessor.

Nansavallan. Avallan is an apple-tree, and the name signifies the valley of apple-trees. This I take to have been the chief seat of the Albalondas, as it hath been since of some of the Boscawens; and particularly of late years that of Charles Boscawen, Esq. a younger son to Hugh Boscawen, Esq. and sometime Member of Parliament for Tregony, and a Justice of the Peace. The arms of Albalonda were, Gules, three bends Argent; Mr. Bowden’s, Azure, a chevron between seven griffins’ heads couped Or, each head transfixed by a dagger, the pommel Or, the blade Proper.

Adjoining to Nansavallan is Kelliou, the groves, this name being the plural of Kelli, a grove. It was once the seat of a family of the same name, but whether they were of the same stock with the Kellios of Lanleke and Rosiline I am yet to learn. By a daughter and heir, this place, if I am not mistaken, came to Edward Vivian, Esq. a younger son to Vivian of Trenoweth, by whom he had only one daughter and heir Jane, married to John Howeis, of Redruth, whose great-grandson Reginald Howeis, Esq. is the present owner of it. He was Sheriff of Cornwall in the tenth year of George I. 1724, and hath married Susanna, the eldest daughter and coheir of Edward Harris, Esq.; and his brother Edward Howeis, Jane her younger sister, and both have issue. The family of Howeis, give for their arms, Azure, a fess wavy between three lions passant Or, armed and langued Gules.

Trevoster. This place is very pleasantly situated on Truro river, facing the town, from which it is but two miles distant by water. This was a seat of a younger branch of the Trevanion family, for here lived John Trevanion, youngest son of John Trevanion, of Carhays, Esq. which John Trevanion had by his wife, the daughter of Holland, Esq. of Devonshire, a son of the same name, who married Marianne, the daughter of John Somaster, of Painsford, in Devon, Esq. by whom he had three daughters and coheiresses. Mary, married to Richard Trefusis, of Trefusis, Esq.; Joan, to William Bligh, of Botathon, Esq.; and Alice to Nicholas Boscawen, of Tregothnan, Esq.

Since that, Trevoster has been held on lease by one of the family of Davies, and now Mr. Howeis, of Killion, has a lease of it on lives.

All these estates before mentioned, I take to be within the manor of Blanchland, and I have passed by one place in it to the north-west of the Great Works, called Kelly freth: this was for several generations the seat, in lease from the Boscawens, of the Winters, a younger branch of that eminent family in Gloucestershire, and the family remained here till very lately, giving for their arms, Sable, a fess Ermine.

I don’t know whether it be worth while to take notice of a place to the south of it, called Chase Water, which being on the great road between Truro and Redruth, and very near the Great Works, hath now several houses built in it.

_The manor of Key, alias Landegay._