Chapter XIV: Part 14

This foundation deed states that Sir Stephen de Haccombe had formerly applied to Bishop Grandison to erect the parish church of St. Blase at Haccombe, the burial place of his ancestors, into an archpresbytery; that before the prelate could comply with his wishes, the knight died, but that his heir Sir John L’Ercedekne had entered into his views, and renewed the application to the Bishop, who had acceded to the request, and consented to the appropriation of the parish church of St. Hugh de Quedyock in Cornwall, for the better support of the archpriest and his community. The community, besides the archpriest, consisted of five clergymen, who were called Socii, who were bound to sing the canonical office, and to celebrate obits; they dwelt under the same roof with the archpriest, and lived in common. The archpriest was obliged to pay six marks per annum to the Treasury of the Cathedral of Exeter.

Mr. Lysons says, in his Devonshire, p. 250, that the archpriest or rector, as he is now called, continues to exist as the sole representative of this college, enjoying its revenues: but certainly not the great tithes of Quethiock, since they belong to Sir Henry Carew of Haccomb, derived through the Courtenays. The vicarage is in the gift of the Bishop.

It is stated in Dr. Borlase’s Collections, that there was formerly a chapel in this parish, or tower, dedicated to St. Mary.

Quithiock measures 3774 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 5756 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 354 5 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 587 | 585 | 684 | 692.
giving an increase of 18 per cent. in 30 years.
Present Vicar, the Rev. J. R. Fletcher, collated by the Bishop of
Exeter in 1816.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

This parish is situated within the boundary of the calcareous series, and with the exception of the serpentine at Clickitor in Menheniot, it exhibits the same kind of rocks as that parish.

RAME.

HALS.

The manuscript relating to this parish is lost.

TONKIN.

Rame is in the hundred of East, and is surrounded to the west, south, and part of the east by the sea, to the rest of the east by Maker, and to the north by St. John’s.

This church is a rectory, valued in the King’s Book £12. 7_s._ 4_d._ ob.; the patronage in the Honorable Richard Edgcumbe, esq.; the incumbent Mr. Thomas Wolridge.

In anno 1291, 20 Edward I. (Tax. Benef.) this church was valued at xlvi_s._ viii_d._ having never been appropriated.

THE MANOR OF RAME.

In the extent of Cornish acres, 12 Edward I. this is valued in twenty (Carew, fol. 48 b.) In 3 Hen. IV. Johanna de Rame held one great fee of Seviock, meaning (I suppose) that she held this place as a great knight’s fee of the said manor.

I take this Johanna de Rame to be the person that was married to Stephen Durnford, esq. who was Sheriff of Cornwall, 7 Henry V. whose only daughter and heir Jane brought this lordship, with a large inheritance, to her husband Sir Pierce Edgcombe of Cuttvyle, and in their posterity it still remaineth, the honorable Richard Edgcombe, esq. being the present lord of this manor, and in right thereof, patron of this parish, as was said before.

The arms of Rame were, in allusion to the name, Azure, a scalp of a ram’s head Argent, armed; and Durnford’s Azure, an eagle displayed Or.

But the barton of Rame hath since often changed its owners.

THE EDITOR.

Rame church is situated in a very peculiar manner, far out on the point of land, and immediately near a rocky cliff. It has several monuments to former rectors and others, but none of general interest.

The manor of Rame, and the advowson of the living, continue in the Edgcumbe family; but the barton has for some generations belonged to the Edwardses, and, under the name of Rame Place, is still their residence.

The remarkable feature of this parish is Rame Head, or as it is usually called, the Ram; and it is a general belief that the name is really taken from the resemblance of the point to the Roman battering ram; as the Lizard is supposed to be so called, from the long flat serpentine formation resembling the body of a saurian animal: but it seems to be much more probable that these observed resemblances should have corrupted some former names accidentally agreeing with them in sound, than that the promontories should be really distinguished by appellations so very modern.

Near the extremity of the point are the ruins of a chapel still very visible, dedicated to St. Michael, as all chapels similarly situated were dedicated by our ancestors, from the habits of a winged angel being assimilated to those of birds.

The Ram Head itself exhibits the appearance of a grand mass of rocks gradually tapering into the sea, much resembling Cudden Point in the Mount’s Bay. It forms the exterior boundary of Plymouth Harbour to the westward, as Penlee Point does of what is technically called the Sound. The extreme point of the Ram Head is laid down in the best tables with lat. 50° 18′ 52″ long. 4° 12′ 29.″ In time 16m. 50s. west from Greenwich. The time of high water at Plymouth dock yard at the new and full moon is 3h. 33m.

As this is the point of land nearest to the Eddystone lighthouse, it may be interesting to add, that the lighthouse is distant from the Ram Head just 8¼ sea miles, bearing about somewhat less than a point to the westward of south, and from Looe Island 11½ sea miles bearing very nearly south-east. Lat. 50° 10′ 55″, lon. 4° 15′ 3.″ In time 17m. west of Greenwich. The Eddystone rocks had been for ages the dread of mariners; they lie nearly in the direction of the line joining the Lizard and the Start, and directly in the way of ships making Plymouth harbour from the westward; their extent is moreover considerable, reaching in one direction to about a mile, with only a small rock appearing above the water.

The desire of a lighthouse was therefore strongly felt, and at last, in the year 1696, Mr. Winstanley, of Littlebury in Essex, undertook this arduous work, and completed it in about four years; but Mr. Winstanley made his wooden fabric of a large size, and of great height, trusting to the tenacity of chains and iron rods for its support; not having learnt from experience that those materials are incapable of resisting, for any considerable time, the repeated percussions of a tempestuous sea.

Mr. Winstanley himself happened to be there on the 26th of November, 1703, when the storm took place, which is believed not to have been equalled since that time. On the following day every thing had disappeared, with the exception of two iron rods which were fastened in the rock, and not a trace of the building was ever discovered.

Three years afterward, in the year 1706, Mr. John Rudyard undertook to erect another light-house, undismayed by the terrible catastrophe of the former; and this gentleman adopted the correct principle of opposing the impact of waves by the force of gravity, a power equally constant, certain and stable, as that by which it is opposed. He therefore constructed a plain framework of wood, nearly cylindrical, with cross beams, and filled the whole with large blocks of granite, leaving no more room than was requisite for the lights, for the attendants, and for their stores; and he made so rapid a progress as to display the light on the 28th of July 1708, and completely to finish the whole in the year following: notwithstanding that a French privateer took off some workmen and their tools in the progress of the work. But Louis the XIV. displayed on this occasion the real spirit of generosity and honour, of which he had endeavoured to support a weak resemblance throughout his long reign. He ordered the workmen and their effects to be restored, and committed to prison the persons concerned in this unprincipled act publicly; declaring that, although he was at war with England, he was at peace with the human race, for whose common benefit such works was constructed.

In Mr. Rudyard’s lighthouse the wooden frame was evidently an imperfection. It must be liable to decay, and might become the prey of flames. To obviate in some degree the former defect, contrivances were adopted for shifting the beams; but on the 2d of December 1755, after the work had stood forty-seven years, the wood-work actually caught fire and was entirely consumed. Boats were dispatched from ships as well as from the shore, when the flames became visible, which brought away the three men, who had used their utmost endeavours, but in vain, to extinguish the fire. Fortunately at that hour the tide was at its ebb, which allowed the men to retreat sufficiently at a distance from the heat to preserve their lives; two had received very little injury, nor was the other apparently much hurt, but standing near the foot of the building in front, and looking intently at the flames as they issued through the top, he gave way to an innate propensity, which anatomists have endeavoured to explain by two tubes leading from near the palate to the ear, by keeping his mouth wide open; when some melting lead descended and passed down his throat, which would otherwise have glanced from his skin without occasioning the least injury. This man, although he had advanced so far in life as to his ninety-fourth year, lived several days, and without suffering much pain. After his decease, a mass of lead weighing seven ounces, five drams, and eighteen grains, little less than half a pound, was taken from his stomach. See a communication by Mr. Edward Spry, Surgeon of Plymouth, in the Philosophical Transaction, vol. XLIX. p. 459, and vol. X. p. 673, of the Abridgment.

Notwithstanding this second disaster, the lessees under the Trinity House were still resolved if possible to discharge their duty. They applied in consequence to Lord Macclesfield, then President of the Royal Society, who recommended the most eminent of our civil engineers, with whom no one can be thought to compare, excepting perhaps the late Mr. John Rennie.

Mr. Smeaton was in consequence of Lord Macclesfield’s recommendation applied to by the proprietors, and most fortunately for mankind he undertook the work.

Mr. Smeaton adopted the essential principle of his predecessor Mr. Rudyard, by opposing weight to the force of the waves: but he made improvements in many respects, by contriving a better figure, by more completely uniting the work into one mass, and by discarding wood altogether.

The construction and the dimensions of every part are given by Mr. Smeaton in an elaborate work with plates; and it may be a sufficient recommendation to say, that the greatest work of this kind executed since his time, and by a most able engineer, that on the Bell Rock near the Forth, is almost an exact copy of the Eddystone.

Mr. Bond, who visited the Eddystone on the 4th of August, 1788, has given the following description of it in his History of Looe, published in 1823.

“Immediately opposite Looe church, fourteen miles off and
visible from the parade and hills, is the Eddystone
lighthouse, built by the late Mr. Smeaton of Yorkshire. The
lantern is an octagon of about nine feet diameter. Till
within a few years last past, it used to be lighted with
twenty-four very large candles, sixteen in one round frame,
and eight in another. Now Argand lamps are used, with highly
polished reflectors. The candle light was not frequently
seen from Looe by the naked eye: now the light is very
strong, and in dark nights does not appear above a league
distant.

“At highwater the sea nearly embraces the base of the
building. You ascend to the door by a ladder on the outside,
almost perpendicular, according to my recollection, about
fourteen staves long. You then arrive at the stairs within
the building, which have, as no space can be lost, a coal
place under them. The first room you come to is where the
men keep their water, &c.; the next is a store room, where
they keep their provisions, candles, &c. Round the room is
engraved, as in relief, “Except the Lord keep the house,
they labour but in vain that build it.” From this room you
ascend to the next, which is the kitchen, by a ladder which
goes up into a circular hole in the centre of the room. A
large copper cover, like that of a saucepan, is placed to
prevent falling through. You ascend to the next room, which
is the bed room, in the same manner, this room is about
twelve feet diameter. You next ascend in like manner into
the lanthorn, which has a seat round it. Outside the
lanthorn is a walk railed in round it. The view from hence
is singularly and awfully grand, and perhaps has not its
like. On the outside of the lanthorn are engraved the
cardinal points of the compass, and over the door, “24th
August, 1759.――Laus Deo.”

The village of Cawsand in this parish gives name to a bay, which before the construction of the artificial reef, afforded the only shelter in Plymouth Sound.

Rame measures 1296 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 2,872 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 333 15 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 904 | 978 | 807 | 896
giving a decrease of one per cent. in 30 years, with great
fluctuations in the middle period, in consequence of the
differences round Plymouth between war and peace.
Present Rector, the Rev. Thomas Hunt Ley, presented by the Earl of
Mount Edgcumbe in 1824.

THE GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

This parish is principally composed of strata of red and greenish-grey slate, inclosing here and there beds of a compact quartzose rock. These rocks are all similar to those of St. Anthony, and to those in the cliff under Mount Edgcumbe, and at Saltash; but whether they belong to the calcareous series, or to a more recent one associated with the fossilliferous limestone of Plymouth, remains to be ascertained.

REDRUTH.

HALS.

The manuscript relating to this parish is lost.

TONKIN.

Redruth is situated in the hundred of Penwith, and is bounded to the east and north by Illogan, to the east by St. Agnes, to the south by Gwenap and Stithians. This town and parish takes its name from ryd, a ford, and ruth, red, the red ford, from its being a ford over a river so coloured by the tin works round it. [Ryd (C.) is a ford, as ryd-helik is the Willow-ford; and rydh, rud (C.) is red, as pedn-rydh is red-headed. W.]

It is a rectory, valued in the King’s Book at £19. 11_s._ but by the Bishop’s Book, £20. The patronage in John Pendarves Basset, esq. in right of his manor of Tehidy, which extendeth itself all over this parish; the incumbent Mr. Hugh Ley. (dead in 1734, now Mr. John Collins.) All the lands in this parish are within the royalty, and held from the manor of Tehidy. I shall begin with

THE MANOR OF REDRUTH,

properly so called, which comprehends the town of the same name, and part of the parish, but not entire, and intermixed with several other gentlemen’s lands.

This manor is now divided between three lords, the Right Hon. Henry Earl of Radnor, John Hawkins, D. D. (by purchase lately from Francis Scobell, esq. as heir of Tredenham), and Reginald Haweis of Kelliow, esq.

THE TOWN OF REDRUTH.

This was formerly so inconsiderable as to be wholly past in Mr. Carew’s Survey; who indeed is so much in haste in the whole hundred of Penwith, that he seems to be like a weary traveller, glad to come to his journey’s end. But this town is of late years grown very considerable, and its market the greatest in the West, especially for corn. It owes its rise to the great confluence of people drawn together by the mines of tin and copper, with which it is surrounded; yet it must have been in former days of some note, since in the reign of Edward the Third, William Basset of Tyhiddy, got a patent from that king, to keep “duo mercata” weekly, “et duas ferias annuatim” here. But whether it did not turn to account, or however it was, the market was neglected, and only the two fairs kept, which still continue in that family.

John Buller, of Morval, esq. being trustee for Francis Basset, esq. and finding such an old patent lying neglected among Mr. Basset’s papers, (as I have heard the late Mr. Basset often say,) took out a new patent from Oliver Cromwell (which he got afterwards confirmed by King Charles the Second), for one market weekly on Friday, and another additional fair on ――――. And the better to colour the matter, [he] took it in the name of his nephew Francis Buller of Shillingham, esq. grandson to the above-mentioned John Buller, in whom the whole estate is centred.

The town of Redruth consists chiefly of one large street, near half a mile in length, and in it are several fair buildings, the principal inhabitants being Mr. John Cock, Mr. Anthony Cock, Mr. Paul Michell, Mr. Richard Banbury, &c. many of which live upon their own land. At the bottom of the great street, near the river, was the chapel, where service was performed twice a week within the memory of some living; but now it is unroofed, and the bell carried to Trefusis, it lying in Mr. Trefusis’s land.

The family of Trengove, alias Nance, have several houses and lands in and about this town, which being annexed to their manor of Penwinnick and Melgisy, are now enjoyed by Chester Nance, esq.; as had likewise the family of Pendarves, which were sold by Sir William Pendarves, not long before his death, to Samuel Harris, gent. of the family of Park in St. Clement’s, whose son ―――― Harris now enjoys them. So had too the family of Haweis, who are very antient in the parish; and I have been told that Mr. Haweis of Kelliow is descended from a younger son of this family, but the eldest by a second marriage, to whom came a third of the manor, and several good estates adjacent. Their dwelling-house here, now turned to several tenements, was sold about thirty years since to Mr. Richard Remfry, by David Haweis, gent. father to the present; and his grandson, Mr. John Hussey, now enjoys it. John Collins of Treworgan, esq. hath likewise an estate here, and was born in this town. The estate came by his mother.

Adjoining to the south of the town is

THE MANOR OF TRERUFF.

Abundance of good tin and copper hath been lately dug out of this manor, chiefly out of a mine called Pedenandre; the present lord of which is Robert Trefusis, esq.

Next is the MANOR OF TOLLGUS, which I take to signify the hole in the wood, though there [be] but little [of wood] there at present. [Toll-gus, like Tol-verne and Bar-gus before, is Tol (C.) and Kuz (C.), the high wood. W.]

The first place of note in it, is Treworthey, i. e. a house on an hedge, suitable to its situation. This has been long in lease, the seat of the Haweises, and is now so of David Haweis, gent. whom I could only wish male issue to, which might inherit his many good qualities.

Next is Tollgus [itself], which gives name to the manor, and was lately the seat of Richard Remfry, gent. an eminent attorney; who having buried his two sons (the eldest of which, Henry Remfry, esq. was a barrister at law), left this to his grandson, by his eldest daughter, John Hussey, gent. who now enjoys it. This manor was anciently Tregian’s, and came as you may see in Golden to Grosse, and is now vested in John Francis Buller, esq.

THE MANOR OF TRELEIGH.

Id est, the dwelling place, lies adjoining to Tollgus, the river only parting them. The barton hereof hath been for three generations the seat of that most ancient family of Pollard, being the chief stock from whence all the others of that name were descended, which is now extinct by the death of the late John Pollard, esq. who died at his lodgings in London, Oct. 25, 1731, leaving only one daughter Margaret, yet unmarried, having buried a few years before two very hopeful sons, Hugh and John, both grown to men.

Yet I cannot leave this place without paying a due respect to the memory of my deceased friend, and saying that for quick natural parts, integrity, and true endeavours to serve to the utmost of his power those whom he pretended friendship to, he hath but few surviving equals. Some time before his death he purchased the manor (which is but a small thing) from Richard Erisey, esq. whose family had been [latterly the lords] of it, and their memory is still preserved in a tenement in it called Park Erisey.

This barton hath produced of late years vast quantities of tin and copper, though but little to the advantage of its owner, who had the misfortune to have his good nature too much abused by a parcel of villains he intrusted to his ruin. To the south of Treleigh, are a long row of houses belonging to the barton, on a level piece of ground called Plain an Guary [a level for sports], from a round in the middle of it for a public playing place.

The church lieth near a quarter of a mile out of the town, at the very western extremity of the parish, with a profitable glebe round it. In anno 1291, 20 Edw. I. (Tax. Ben.) it was valued at 50_s._ having never been appropriated.

THE EDITOR.

The church of this parish stands about half a mile south-west from the town, and is wholly modern; having been constructed on the exact situation of the former, so as to adopt its handsome and well-proportioned tower. The new church was built about the middle of the last century, when attention to propriety in adapting architectural designs to their respective uses, civil or religious, seems to have been at its lowest state of depression. This and the church at Helston, constructed nearly about the same time, present in the interior one large room, much more resembling a gymnasium for training cavalry, than a place for religious worship.

This parish, with Crowan and Lelant, are dedicated to St. Uny, or St. Unine, of whom nothing is known, and therefore conjecture represents this saint as one of the missionaries from Ireland. The advowson of the rectory is appurtenant to the honor and manor of Tehidy, which has been in the Basset family since early times of the Plantagenets.

In the town a chapel has very recently been built, probably near to the spot where the one formerly stood, that was dedicated to St. Rumon, of whom little more is known than of St. Uny.

The abbey of Tavistock was dedicated to the honor of Almighty God, in the names of the Blessed Virgin and of St. Rumon, by Ordgar Earl of Devonshire, about the year 960, and confirmed by King Ethelred about twenty years after. In Leland’s Collectanea de Rebus Britannicis, vol. IV. p. 152, are noticed the following heads of a Life of Rumon:

“Rumonus genere fuit Scotus Hiberniensis. Nemea sylva in
Cornubia plenissima olim ferarum. Sanctus Rumonus faciebat
sibi oratorium in sylva Nemæa Falemutha. Ordulphus Dux
Cornubiæ transtulit ossa Rumoni Tavestochiam.”

Doctor Butler says of this saint:

“William of Malmesbury informs us, that the History of St.
Rumon’s life was destroyed by the wars, a misfortune he says
that has also happened on other occasions in England.

“He was a bishop, although it is not known of what see; his
veneration was famous at Tavistock in Devonshire, where
Ordulf, Earl of Devonshire, built a church under his
invocation, before the year 960. Wilson, upon information
given him by certain persons of that country, inserted his
name on this day (January the 4th) in the second edition of
his English Martyrology.”

Since there seems to be very little probability in the supposition that the name of this parish can have reference to the Druids; and as two strong objections may be alleged against its being derived from a ford of red water, from the absence of any red stream, or ford; is it too hardy to conjecture, that with variations in the orthography, and in the pronunciation of the name, and perhaps with some adjunct syllable, the long-sought-for etymology may be found in a patron saint, when three other parishes, Ruan Major, Ruan Minor, and Ruan Lanihorn, are dedicated to his name.

In consequence of the immense extension of workings on lodes of copper all round the northern and eastern junctions of the forest granite, with the killas or slate, the town of Redruth has grown into a large size, and into considerable opulence. The main street is rendered splendid on both sides by continued lines of shops, and the market on Friday is supplied in great abundance with every thing that can be wanted in the ordinary concerns of life. Large quantities of fish, of pork, and of home manufactures, especially of shoes, are brought from Penzance market, held on the preceding day, so that the road over Hayle Causeway is thronged with carts throughout the intervening night; and the long street of Redruth is scarcely adequate to contain the people who come there from all these populous mining districts, although a new and spacious market place has been constructed within about thirty years, on the south side of the main street, in which all the standings were previously fixed. Much more recently a bell tower and clock have been added, by the liberality of the late Lord Dunstanville.

To the northward of Redruth, and running nearly parellel with it, lies the village of Plengwary, a name undoubtedly connected with the Amphitheatre or Round, which, till within half a century, remained distinctly marked adjacent to it. See Doctor Borlase’s Antiquities, second edition, p. 208; and his Natural History, p. 297, and all that is stated on this subject respecting the Round in Perran Zabuloe.

That gwary means a play or exhibition of games and sports, cannot admit of a doubt. In Lhuyd’s Archæologia Britannica, theatrum is rendered in Cornish guardy. But Mr. Tonkin’s exposition of the first syllable, plan or plen, by flat, level, is very doubtful, being founded perhaps on no other basis than an accidental coincidence in sound with an English word. This village, frequently called Little Redruth, is not only grown into a town, but extends so as almost to join the larger portion.

A curious document relative to this parish was placed in my hands by the Rev. Samuel Gurney, during thirty-two years vicar of St. Erth, and for many years preceding curate of Redruth.

The paper has the following attestation:

Taken from the original, by me, William Rowle, 28th
November, 1772.

Redruth 1500.

The copy of a muster book for the said parish made in the
year aforesaid, and now in the custody of Richard Crane,
esq. Camborn, captain.[13]

24 light horse, and six men to carry meat, and them
appointed victuallers; the rest where [wear] bows and
arrows.

John Nacothan, senior, doth horse and harness Thomas Renfry.

Richard Michell doth horse and harness Henry Jenkin.

Thomas Polkenhorn doth horse and harness John Raile.

John Robert Lytho doth horse and harness John Robert Vean.

John Torleh doth horse and harness George Monhure.

Edy Webber doth horse and harness Sondry Renfry.

John West doth horse and harness Richard Clemowe.

Regnald Trevingy doth horse and harness Perkin Jenkin.

John Davie doth horse and harness Henry Gwihter.

John Hawes doth horse and harness Thomas Perre.

Thomas Sondry doth horse and harness Richard Vivian.

John Roben doth horse and harness John Stephens.

Thomas Andrews doth horse and harness himself.

Richard John Rawe doth horse and harness himself.

Henry Refry doth horse and harness himself.

Thomas Cocke doth horse and harness himself.

John Henry Woolcock doth horse and harness himself.

George Brend doth horse and harness himself.

Nicholas Rogers doth horse and harness himself.

Pasco James doth horse and harness himself.

Richard Angove doth horse and harness himself.

John Hack doth horse and harness himself.

In all 24 men, with horses, weapons, harness, and
victuallers for the same.

(Signed) William George, Richard Andrew, Thomas Webber,
Thomas Oppie, David Warren, Henry Gwiator.

On the same paper is the following:

Memorandum.――In the year 1697 there was in Cornwall a great
dearth of corn. Wheat was sold at 39 or 40 shillings per
bushel (the treble Winchester bushel, or 24 gallons); Barley
at 28 shillings per bushel, on Saturday the 27th August, at
Helstone, being their market day. On the next market day the
barley was sold for 7 or 8 shillings per buhels.

* * * * *

This array was made three years subsequent to the Cornish insurrection, when Michel Joseph and Thomas Flammock led their followers to Blackheath in Kent.

* * * * *

Having omitted to notice in its proper place under Illuggan, the very remarkable coincidence between the measurements of former times and of our own, in respect to the honor and manor of Tehidy, it will not be improper to do so here.

The Cornish, in adopting the Saxon word acre (æcer) applied it in the most extraordinary manner, either through utter ignorance of its meaning, or from an absurd attempt to designate by this term a previously existing measure of their own, between two and three hundred times as large.

The Saxon acre in its true extent, was however adopted afterwards in Cornwall, consisting of one hundred and sixty square poles, each eighteen feet long. The Normans for some reason quite unknown, reduced the length of the pole from eighteen to sixteen feet and a half, and thus established the difference between Saxon or customary, and Norman or statute acres. They differ in the proportion 18 squared to 16½ squared, or as 12 squared to eleven squared, that is as 144 to 121. As 6 to 5 for any approximate conversion, and as 25 to 21 very nearly. This Saxon acre continues, up to the present time, in very general use throughout Cornwall, and is the measure by which woodlands are estimated in most parts of England.

The absurdly denominated old Cornish acre, is believed to contain 280 Norman acres.

Mr. Carew, fo. 46 of the original edition, p. 131 of Lord Dunstanville’s, gives the measurement in these Cornish acres, of various manors and lands as they were returned before the King’s Justices at Launceston, in the 12th year of the reign of Edward the First, A. D. 1284, where the very first article is Decunar. de Tihidi, seventy. Now 70 multiplied by 280, give 19,600 Norman or statute acres.

Mr. Hitchins’s measurement gives for

Illuggan 8,028 acres
Camborne 5,933
Redruth 3,763
――-----
17,724;

and the manor extends into Crowan: so that if a nearer coincidence were required, land might probably be found there sufficient to complete the exact amount.

The abbreviation “Decunar.” stands in Mr. Carew’s list before de Tehidi; but no word beginning with these letters can be found either in Spelman’s Glossary, or in that of Ducange.

It is impossible for me to turn away from this incidental mentioning of Tehidy, without adding, that scarcely had the press closed on the notes respecting Illuggan, containing a most imperfect and inadequate tribute to the virtues, to the manly character, to the liberality and steady private friendship of its proprietor, then in a state of bodily affliction demanding the commiseration of every one, when the final scene of life came to an end, and he was no more. The event took place on the 5th of February, 1835.

Lord Dunstanville now claims neither our commiseration nor our pity: he has nobly performed the part assigned him by Providence, and we doubt not is receiving the just reward; but by an unanimous impulse the whole population of Cornwall have resolved on recording to future ages, not so much his merits, for that would be superfluous, as their own high sense, consciousness, and estimation of them; and not without the hope that such memorials may tend to excite all persons in their different stations and degrees of life to emulate examples so recorded. Meetings have in consequence been assembled, and contributions made, amply sufficient for placing a monument on Carnbre, a part of Tehidy manor, and visible from the house; on a hill the most romantic of any in the west of Cornwall, venerated as a seat of the religion of our remote forefathers, and now about to be truly consecrated by the spontaneous tribute of a whole country, to the merits of a great and good man.

The families chief proprietors of land in Redruth are:

Basset――High lands of the whole parish, as a part of the manor and honor of Tehidy, and possessed of some part in demesne.

Trefusis.

Buller, through the family of Grosse.

The representatives of the late Mr. J. M. Knighton of Greenofen, in the parish of Whitechurch near Tavistock.

Doctor William Pryce, author of the Mineralogia Cornubiensis, one vol. folio, 1778, and of the Archæologia Cornu-Britannica, one vol. quarto, 1790, practised here as a physician, and was, I believe, a native of the place. He took a considerable part in first making Portreath a safe harbour for coasting vessels, from whence Railways are now extended to all the neighbouring mines.

Redruth measures 3763 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 7631 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 2482 2 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 4924 | 5903 | 6607 | 8191
giving an increase of 66 per cent. in 30 years.
Present Rector, the Rev. J. Webster Hawksley, presented by Lady
Basset in 1835.

GEOLOGY, BY DOCTOR BOASE.

A small triangular portion, forming the extreme southern part of this parish, rests on granite, as does also an irregular tract on the south-eastern boundary; but all the remainder, that is by far the greater part of the parish, is situated on felspathic rocks, belonging to the porphyritic series, which are very metalliferous, constituting, with similar rocks in Camborne and Gwennap (all surrounding the same central mass of granite) the most important mining district in Cornwall.

[13] The Cranes (of Crane) are noticed by the Heralds as
residing in Camborn for five descents previously to 1620.
Their arms, Argent, a crane Sable, on a perch raguly Vert.

ROACH OR ROCHE.

HALS.

Roach is situate in the hundred of Powdre, and hath upon the north St. Wenn and Withell, east Luxsillian, South St. Austell, West St. Dennis. For the name, in old Gaulish British it signifies a rock of stone, not unsuitable to the natural circumstances of this place; where, on a level piece of ground, stands the loftiest single ragged rock this county can shew, at least thirty foot high, and by it several other rocks of less magnitude.

In the Domesday Book, 20 William I. 1087, this district was partly taxed under the jurisdiction of Tre-roach, that is the rock town, now Tre-garrek, or Trecarrek, (i. e. the rock town, also in Cornish,) the voke lands of the still notable manor or lordship here so called; from whence may be inferred, that before the Norman Conquest here was an endowed rectory church, called Roch (i. e. Rock), and the village adjoining, still Roach Town, and Roach Church Town.

Moreover, in the inquisition of the bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, into the value of Cornish Benefices, 1294, Ecclesia de Rupe, in decanatu de Powdre, i. e. after the Latin, the church of the Rock, or the Rock church, was valued £6. 6_s._ 8_d._

In Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521, the rectory of Roach was valued in £20. The patronage in coparcenary between Arundell of Lanherne and Heart alternately, (by a title derived from the heirs of De Rupes, or Roaches, who endowed it). The incumbent Treweeke. This parish was rated to the four shillings per pound Land Tax for one year, 1696, £147. 13_s._ 6_d._

Moreover, in this parish, whereof I treat, upon the top of the stony rock before mentioned, is still extant the moorstone walls, durnes, and windows (the roof long since dilapidated or demolished by time), an ancient chapel for divine service; though now, by reason the old stone stairs ascending thereto are pulled down by the tenants of the manor aforesaid, and converted to common uses, the access thereto is very difficult and dangerous. The wall consists of about twenty feet in length, ten feet in height, and about twelve in breadth; one part of it is cut by art out of the natural rock, about thirty feet high from the ground; the other part built of lime and stone, so strong and curious, that neither time, wind, nor weather can yet disfigure it. In its garret over, as appears by the beam holes, there was formerly a lodge or planchin (both which as aforesaid, long since, with the roof, are fallen to the ground). In this chapel wall is towards the east a large moorstone window where the altar stood, with a moorstone door or durns on the south for entrance, and another such door leading to the west, through which you are brought out into a little garden plot and tye-pit on the Rock, that overlooks the country many miles round. Who built this chapel, whether the De Rupes, lords thereof, or others, it is not recorded, nor at what time. But most certain it is, that from this stone rock, the chapel, church, and parish have the denomination Roach.

Mr. Carew in his Survey of Cornwall, p. 139, (p. 324 Lord Dunstanville’s edit.) tells us, that near this rock there is another, which having a pit in it, containeth water, which ebbs and flows as the sea doth. I was thereupon very curious to inspect this matter, and found it was only a hole artificially cut in a stone about twelve inches deep and six broad; wherein, after rayne, a pool of water stands; which, afterwards with fair weather vanisheth away and is dried up; and then again on the falling of rain water is replenished accordingly; which, with dry weather, abates as aforesaid (for upon those occasions I have seen it to have water in its pit, and again to be without it), which doubtless gave occasion to the feigned report that it ebbs and flows as the sea: of all which premisses thus speaks Mr. Carew further out of the Cornish Wonder-Gatherer:

You neighbour-scorners, holy, proud,
Goe people Roache’s cell,
Far from the world and neer to the Heavens;
There, hermitts, may you dwell.
Is’t true the Springe in Rock hereby
Doth tidewise ebb and flowe;
Or have we fooles with lyars met?
Fame says its, be it soe.

The last tradition of this hermitage chapel is, that when it was kept in repair, a person diseased with a grievous leprosy, was either placed or fixed himself therein, where he lived till the time of his death, to avoid infecting others; who was daily attended with meat, drink, washing, and lodging, by his daughter, named Gunett or Gundred; and the well hereby from whence she fetched water for his use is to this day shown, and called by the name of St. Gunett’s well, for St. Gundred’s well.

Tre-Roach, alias Tregarreck, i. e. the Rock town as aforesaid, before the Norman Conquest was in the possession of an old British family, from thence denominated Treroach, afterwards surnamed De Rupe or De Rupes after the Latin; and again, after the Gaulish French De Roach, i. e. of the rock: of which family Ralph de Rupe held in Cornwall by tenure of knight service three knight’s fees of land, tempore Richard I. 1189.――Mr. Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, p. 49. That is to say, for a man to bear arms in defence of his country was the tenure thereof: viz. at his own proper cost and charges.

Tremoderet en Hell, in this parish, i. e. Aunt’s Hall Town, a place heretofore notable for its hall, was the vokelands of a considerable manor in Roach, taxed in the Domesday Book 1087 (near which is yet to be seen the ruins of Sacra-fons, or Holywell, free chapel or burying place); which formerly was the lands of Bodrigan, who forfeited it by attainder of treason on the part of Richard III. against King Henry VII. who settled it by an entail gift upon his privy councillor Sir Richard Edgcumb, knight, whose posterity are now in full possession thereof.

Hens, alias Hains Burrow, i. e. old ancient graves or tumuli, situate upon the confines of this parish and St. Austell, being the highest mountain or pyramid or promontory of land in Cornwall, upon the top of which unparalleled great tumulus or burying place was the Cornish Avoh Bicken, becken, or beacon; that is to say, the signal, the bakininge watchhouse, or proclamation house; wherein, in times of war, one person was lodged to discover the approach of enemies’ fleets of ships on the sea coasts of Cornwall, and from this place he overlooked part of the Irish sea, Atlantic ocean, and British channel; who, accordingly on the discovery of enemies, was to set fire to his little hut of combustible materials wherein he slept and resided, to give notice, alarm the people, and to make signal, beconinge, or proclamation, to all other bickens to do the like. For heretofore every other parish in Cornwall, upon the highest lands of their said parish, had one of those bickens, beckeners, or beacons, for the same end and purposes. Now those words bicken, becken, beacon, in British, are synonymous, and signify to becken, cry out, to publish, to make known, or to proclaim any matter or thing. (See also Floyd on the word Proclamation.) Of this Hainsburrow Bicken. Mr. Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, out of the Cornish Wonder-Gatherer, supplies me with those rhymes:--

Haynes-burrow’s wide prospect at once
Both feeds and glutts your eye;
With Cornwall’s whole extent, as it
In length and breadth doth lye.

Note further, that at coll-freth, i. e. strong neck or promontory of land, is the ruins of an old decayed Christian or Druidan chapel, under the walls of which is a well of pure, rapid, and chrystalline water, not far from Pen-ta-vale Fenton aforesaid.

Note also, that haine in French is hatred, strife, contention.

In the side of this mountain or promontory of land, under a rush bush in the Downes, is the original fountain of water called in British Pen-ta-vale Fenton; that is to say, the head, sacred, or consecrated vale, or valley well, or spring of water; from whence in Ptolemy, the Greek Geographer, Anno Dom. 140, we have Valubia and Cornwalia; as from it also we have the old name of Grampound Burrough, coyt-vala; that is, the vale wood, or wood on the river vale, part of which wood is still extant. Also the name of the priory of St. Mary de Vale, formerly in St. Anthony parish in Powdre; as also the name of the famous harbour of Fal or Vale Mouth, known heretofore to Phœnicians, Greeks, and Romans, under the names of ικτα, Ikta, cove, or harbourgood, and, οςτει, Ostei; οςτειονες, Osteiones; that is, the mouth or entrance into the promontory of Cornvaile, or the Vale river.

In this parish, at ――――, liveth Mr. John Keen, a surgeon, who hath by his skill and care in his profession got himself considerable reputation and riches thereby,

TONKIN.

St. Roach, in the hundred of Powder, hath to the west St. Dennis and St. Stephen, to the north Great St. Columb, St. Wen, and Withiell, to the east Lanivet and Luxilian, to the south St. Austell.

This parish takes its name from, and is dedicated to St. Roche, born at Montpelier in France, of which city his father was lord. After his father and mother were dead, though but then twenty years of age, he took a resolution to dispose of part of his estate, which he distributed amongst the poor, left the administration of the remainder to his uncle, and from a prince became a pilgrim. He took the way to Rome, and both in his journey thither, and in that city, cured several people of the plague, by making only the sign of the cross. Being at last attacked by it himself, he withdrew into a wood, where a neighbouring gentleman’s dog brought him every day a loaf of bread; at last, being cured, he returned to his own country, but it being in troublesome times, he was taken up for a spy, and by his uncle (who did not know him) shut up in prison, where he suffered incredible evils; and dying there in 1327, he was at last discovered by a writing found about him. The church celebrates his memory the 16th of August. [But this parish was called Roch before this saint was born, without the addition of saint; for it is named De Rupe in Taxat. Ben. 1291, from its remarkable rock, and was then dedicated to St. Conant, whose memory is still preserved by his well on Trefrank, his park and meadow corruptly called St. Gonnet’s. W.]

It is a rectory, valued in the King’s Book, £20. 0_s._ 0_d._; the patronage in the heirs of Sir John Arundell; the incumbent Mr. Treweek, dead in 1733, now Mr. John Tregenna, Rector of Mawgan in Pider, who holds them both together by [dispensation,] having bought the perpetual patronage of three times out of four from Lord Arundell, [which was sold again by his daughters and heirs to a Society in London, self-combined for the laudable purpose of purchasing the advowsons of livings, to confer them on religious clergymen. And on the death of Mr. Tregenna in 1754, the representatives for the Society nominated Samuel Furley, M.A. the present rector, the sale of the patronage having been so far completed as to belong to the Society, and yet not so far as to enable it legally to present. W.]

This parish was valued (Tax. Ben.) in anno 1291, 20 Edw. I. at £6. 6_s._ 8_d._ having never been appropriated.

There being several manors in this parish, I shall begin with one of the largest extent, royalties, &c. viz. the manor of Tregarick, so called by corruption [rather by the customary variation of a letter in composition, from carick, a rock, the dwelling of the rock, as having in it the famous great rock, which (as is said above) gave the name to this parish. W.] This was antiently the seat of a family of the same name, whose pedigree I have not been able to recover, or to say any more of them, than that John Tregarrek was knight of the shire, 7 Richard II.; [and that] the last of them, ―――― Tregarick, left only one daughter and heir, Matilda, married to Ralph Trenowth of Fentongollan, esq. anno ――――, by whom she had only one daughter and heir Johanna, who as being heir to her mother, carried this manor to her husband, Hugh Boscawen of Tregothnan, esq. anno ―――― [about 1400, see Peerage.] Ever since which it hath been in the possession of this family, the Lord Viscount Falmouth being the present lord thereof.

[Authors cannot always draw conclusions from their own premises: we have an instance of this here. The parish of Roch has no relation to the noble pilgrim of France. It was called Roch before this saint was born; and the saint of the church was St. Conant, whose memory is still preserved by his well on Trefrank, his park and meadow, corruptly called St. Gonnet’s. But this saint was afterwards superseded by a more modern one, a nameless one, who, actuated with the spirit of the pilgrim in France, renounced the world, retired to this rock, built a small house of stone upon a point at one end of it, and there spent his days in hermetical devotions. The house is still entire in the shell of it, having a small sort of common window at the outer end of it, and a little flat for a garden upon one side; this, from its proximity to the church and church town, was very near to the haunts of men for a hermitage, but it was raised upon a most extraordinary mass of rock, that here rises upon the ridge of a heath in a rough and huge kind of carcass, and spreads in its large limbs to a considerable distance along the heath. On a tall and pillar-like spire of this rock, ascendible only by a ladder, is the hermitage, and the view from it must have been then, not much more wild and savage than it is at present; the house and lands of Tregarick being just under it. Indeed, the hermitage must have been built by the family itself, as it is planted upon their ground. Even one of the family I suppose was the very hermit. Nor could it have been constructed for this purpose at any period earlier than 1291, as appears from the Valor of Edward, which calls the parish only Roche, and knows of no saint of the name; the look of the whole building, and the form of the window particularly, concur to fix the hermit probably as late as the year 1400, and to mark him perhaps for the last of the Tregaricks. Deprived of all male issue, he perhaps grew disgusted with the world, resigned up his mansion and his estate to his daughter, and devoted himself for the remainder of his life to poverty, to sequestration, and to prayer; and from the natural tendency of mankind to revere those virtues of self-denial and devoutness in others, which they are too gross and too indulgent to practise themselves; he became revered in his life, he was canonized after his death, and the parish took its denomination from its native saint, its saint of the rock, and its own St. Roche, preferring him to its old saint, Conant, and for his sake attaching the name of saintship to its old name of Roche. W.]

THE EDITOR.

Roach rock and tower are very conspicuous objects. The tower, like some others in that neighbourhood, is lofty and without pinnacles.

The rock is in itself the most remarkable object in all that range of crystaline formations, and it is crowned by the building described by Mr. Hals, which bears every appearance of having been the cell of an anchorite, a Stylites, or pillar saint, so far as this climate would admit. Mr. Lysons, but without quoting any authority, says it was dedicated to St. Michael. Mr. Whitaker, clearly drawing on the resources of his own fancy, has transformed Gunett or Gundred, the traditionary daughter of the Leper who retired to this place, into a masculine saint, whom he names St. Conant, and to whom Mr. Whitaker says, that not only the hermitage but the church is dedicated.

As Mr. Whitaker and Mr. Lysons have failed of producing any document, or of alleging any tradition worthy of the smallest reliance, it may fairly be concluded that nothing is known with respect to the origin or specific use of this cell. It may therefore have been constructed as they think, by some proprietor of a neighbouring estate impelled by the insane mythology then in fashion, for it cannot be called religion; and afterwards, as appears to have been the case in various other situations, it may have been used for a place of penitentiary exile from St. Petrock’s Monastery. Mr. Lysons has given a perspective view, and an exact plan of this building, accompanied by measurements, from which it appears to be 14 feet 8 inches long, by 10 feet 6 inches wide, and the wall about 2 feet 3 inches thick, except at the south-eastern end, where the wall is laid down 3 feet 6 inches. No one can wish to see this building again appropriated to its former superstitious purposes; but it may be a fair subject of regret, that such a remnant of antiquity should not be protected from injury by the addition of a roof.