Chapter IX: Part 9

The house is extremely pleasant by its situation, and would be much more so were it built a little higher up. To the south of the house is a fine grove, and a walk, at the end of which is a pleasure-house, built by this gentleman’s father, from whence there is a very beautiful prospect.

Adjoining to Trefusis is Nankersy, that is the winding valley, from ceirsie, to twist or wind about. This place, by a lease from the Trefusises, has been for two or three generations the seat of a younger branch of the Littletons, of Lanhidrock; the late owner, William Littleton, Gent. died a bachelor in the year 1734, and by his decease the estate is fallen into the lord’s hands. The arms of Littleton are Argent, a chevron between three escallops Sable.

On this Nankersy hath been lately built by the Dutchmen a considerable town, called by them Flushing, after a town of the same name in Zealand, by which name it is now generally known. And had these Dutchmen had the continuing of this town, they would have made it in some measure to resemble its namesake, by digging a canal to discharge all sorts of merchandise through the middle of it, there being a large marsh adjoining, that seemed by nature to have been placed for that purpose; but as it is, though there are some good houses here, the whole is without any order, contrivance, or regularity. The late Samuel Trefusis, Esq. was at no small expense in levelling the place, the buildings, quays, &c. for loading or unloading the vessels; and could he have settled the packet boats here, for which it lies far better than Falmouth, the water being deeper, and they all lying before it, Flushing would soon have been a place of great resort; but, having failed in that, the town is now falling to decay, and many of the houses of which it consists are uninhabited.

THE MANOR OF MYLOR.

A small lordship which takes its name from the parish, and in which the church is situated, so that probably the churchyard and the glebe were taken out of it by the gift of some former proprietor, although the fact is now forgotten. The present lord of this manor is Martin Lister Killigrew, Esq. an adopted heir to Sir Peter Killigrew.

The church is situated at the south-east end of the parish, near that branch of Falmouth haven called Mylor pool. It is but a small building, consisting of a nave, one aisle of the same length, with a handsome north cross aisle, belonging to Carclew; and a little distance from the west is a low square campanile covered with slate, in which are three bells.

THE EDITOR.

Mr. Tonkin seems to have fallen into an error respecting the valuation of this living in the taxation of Pope Nicholas; which he says was £6. 8_s._ 4_d._ But no name in the least degree resembling Milor, can be found under Kerrier hundred in the parliamentary publication of that record, nor is any parish rated at that sum.

The church contains several monuments. The most interesting is one of marble, placed there to the memory of her father, mother, and husband, by Jane, the heiress of the Bonithon family, and widow of Samuel Kempe, who built the house at Carclew, and died on the 20th of October 1728, in the 59th year of his age.

There is also a monument to Francis Trefusis, who died in 1680, decorated by handsome sculpture. And one to the memory of Edward Baynton Yescombe, esq. who fell while he was bravely defending the King George, Lisbon packet, against the enemy, in August 1803. And another executed by the celebrated artist Mr. Westmacott, to the memory of Reginald Cocks, youngest son of Charles Cocks, Lord Somers, and Anne his wife, sister of the late Mr. Reginald Pole Carew.

Carclew was devised by Jane Kempe to her relation Mr. James Bonithon, of Grampound, from whom it was purchased by Mr. Lemon in 1749, who immediately began to finish the house, and to complete the whole as a family residence on the scale appropriate to every thing that he undertook. Here Mrs. Lemon resided after she became a widow, and here the family have resided ever since. Mr. and Mrs. Lemon had an only son William Lemon, who married Anne, daughter of Mr. John Willyams, of Carnanton. Both died in early life, leaving three children.

William, born Oct. 6, 1748, who succeeded his grandfather in 1760, married Jane, daughter of James Buller, of Morvall, esq. was elected member of Penryn, on the decease of Mr. Francis Basset in 1769, and at the general election of 1774 succeeded in a contest to represent the county, which, universally esteemed and respected, he continued to do by ten subsequent unanimous elections, during a period of fifty years, up to his decease on the 11th of December 1824. This gentleman was created a Baronet, and commanded for several years the county militia.

John, the second son, became a colonel in the army, commanded the militia of Cornish Miners, served in parliament for the borough of Saltash, and four times for Truro. He died unmarried in 1814, at Polvellan, a place that he had created with great taste on the southern side of the lake, loch, or loo, formed by the two rivers above East and West Looe, and close on the margin of a large salt water pond, made to retain the sea water at high tide, afterwards to give motion to the machinery of grist mills, from whence Mr. Lemon named his new place Pol-Vellan, in Cornish the mill-pool.

Colonel Lemon was such a proficient in music as to perform extemporaneous voluntaries; and several psalm tunes and chants of his composition have been printed.

Anna Lemon, the sister, married Mr. John Buller, of Morval.

Sir William Lemon greatly improved Carclew, and added most materially to the extent of the property round his seat, by purchasing from Mr. Trefusis the manor of Restronget, which had been acquired some years before from Mr. Trevanion.

He is most worthily succeeded by his son Sir Charles Lemon, now member for the county, to whom the house at Carclew is indebted for still further improvements made in the best taste; the grounds and gardens have also been enlarged and beautified, and further arrangements and other decorations are still in progress. It is a very curious circumstance that several acres of ground at Carclew have been recently found covered with the _eria ciliaris_, not known before as an English plant.

Of his eight sisters three have married Cornish gentlemen. Harriet, married to the late Lord de Dunstanville. Caroline, to John Heale Tremayne, esq. late member for the county. Jane, to her double cousin-german Mr. Anthony Buller, Barrister-at-law, and knighted on his going to India as a judge.

The family of Trefusis can now scarcely be considered as connected with Cornwall, Robert George William Trefusis having succeeded, on the death of George Walpole, Earl of Orford, to the barony in fee of Clinton, created by writ of summons in the year 1299, the 28th of Edward the First, and under a deed of settlement, made by the same Lord Orford, having succeeded also to a very large estate, chiefly in Devonshire; and finally, in consequence of their having alienated by far the greater part of their possessions in this county.

This gentleman having married Marianne Gaulis, a lady of Switzerland, and died in 1797, has been succeeded by his son Robert Cotton St. John Trefusis. He married one of the daughters of William Stephen Poyntz, Esq. and niece of Mark Anthony Browne, last Lord Montague, of Cowdray Castle, in Sussex; but having died without issue, he is succeeded by his brother Charles Trefusis. The widow is recently married again to Colonel Horace Seymour.

The situation of Trefusis is very beautiful, the whole jutting into Falmouth harbour, with Penryn river on the south and Milor river to the north.

Mr. Tonkin has given a picture of Flushing, very far from corresponding with its present features: instead of falling into decay it has grown up to be an elegant town, although the packet station has not been fixed there, nor is it in all probability suited to that purpose.

If the word Gas, or Guys, which Mr. Tonkin says means deep in Cornish, should also, as in some other languages, bear the correlative sense of lofty, his explanation of Restronget would be more complete.

Present Vicar, the Rev. Edward Hoblyn, collated in 1823 by the Bishop of Exeter.

This parish measures 3,463 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 6724 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 951 12 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 1665 | 1897 | 2193 | 2647
giving an increase of 59 per cent. in 30 years.

THE GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The eastern part of Milor appears to belong to the calcareous series, but the rocks of the western part correspond with those of Gluvias.

MINSTER.

HALS.

The manuscript relating to this parish is lost.

TONKIN.

Minster, a rectory in the hundred of Lesnewith, is bounded to the west by Trevelga, to the north by Farrabury, to the east by St. Juliot, and to the south by the parish of Lesnewith.

In the taxation of Pope Nicholas this parish is named Talkarn, and is valued at £5. In Wolsey’s valuation it is taken at £22. 17_s._ 10_d._ The patronage in Edward Amy, Esq.; the incumbent Mr. James Amy his brother.

THE EDITOR.

Near the church are some ruins still to be seen of a monastic establishment, said by Mr. Lysons, on the authority of Doctor William Borlase’s manuscript collections, to have been a priory of Black Monks called Minster, or Tolcarne, founded by William de Botreaux, as a cell to Tywardreth, itself subject to the abbey of St. Sergius and Bacchus, in Angiers. Tywardreth, however, after having been seized into the King’s hands, as an alien priory, was made independent and denizen, and continued till the general dissolution by Henry the Eighth. Probably therefore Minster remained as a parcel of Tywardreth up to the same eventful period.

Tanner, however, calls it merely an alien priory to the abbey of St. Sergius and Bacchus at Angiers, without any notice of Tywardreth.

In Dugdale’s Monasticon is the following addition to Tanner: Minster Prior, alienigena habet in proprios usus Ecclesias de Minster et Bodecastell; and in a note there is a reference to muniments in Exeter Cathedral, and to MS. collections in the British Museum, vol. XL. p. 39, for a resignation of this priory by the abbot and convent de Valle, or Vale Royal, in Cheshire; from which it would seem that this house was not restored to Tywardreth after the sequestration of both.

The manor of Pollifont, in Lewannick, (see that parish) which formerly belonged to this priory, is now an appendage to the living, so that the rector of Minster is lord of the manor of Pollifont; and the customs of the manor are said to be, that on the accession of a new rector, after the decease of the former, but not otherwise, the tenants pay him thirty pounds and one penny, raised according to some ancient schedule among themselves.

Several small fees are due on surrenders and on admissions at the manor courts, and on the death of each tenant a heriot becomes due to the lord, which is either his best beast or six guineas, and in addition to these, there is an annual payment of four pounds.

Minster church lies in a deep valley, surrounded by trees, giving the strongest impression of its forming the quire of a sequestered monastery. It contains several monuments to the Henders, Cottons, &c. One has a Latin inscription, with the curious pedantic device of certain letters standing prominent among others in the different words, and indicating, as Roman numerals, the various dates. Four lines on William Cotton, son of William Cotton who held the see of Exeter from 1598 to 1621, and on Elizabeth his wife, daughter and coheir of John Hender, have been frequently transcribed, on account of their extreme simplicity:

Forty-nine years they lived man and wife,
And what’s more rare, thus many without strife,
She first departing, he a few weeks tried
To live without her, could not――and so died.

This church is one of the very few in Cornwall that want the decoration of a tower, and strange legends are circulated to account for this defect, probably of a more ancient date than the Reformation. The bells are said to have arrived in a vessel almost to the spot where they would have been landed, when an expression of the captain, implying confidence in the powers which God had given him, construed into blasphemy by Anthopomophites of all religions, is supposed to have caused the immediate destruction of the ship, with every one on board; but when the ground seas roll with their accustomed violence on this iron-bound coast, the bells are still fancied not only to ring a peal, but to indicate by particular sounds the cause of this reputed miracle, intended to convince mankind that they are bound to neglect and to render vain whatever gifts the Almighty may have bestowed on them, and thanklessly to employ their time in imploring more.

This place was in feudal times the residence of a baronial family, bearing the name of Botreaux, which they imparted to a manor, or, as the Court Rolls would testify, to an honor, having manors dependent, and enclosing the town of Botreaux Castle, dignified by the appellation of a borough; a term, it may be observed, that had not in ancient times any reference to the privilege of sending members to parliament.

Mr. Lysons says, that William Lord Botreaux, the last of this family, fell in the second battle of St. Alban’s, leaving an only daughter, married to Sir Robert Hungerford.

The honour of Botreaux, and the manor of Worthyvale, went with the heiress of Hungerford to the family of Hastings, by whom this property was sold to John Hender, esq. in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

John Hender appears to have had four daughters and coheiresses: Katharine, married to John Molesworth; Frances, to Richard Robarts, of Truro; Mary, to Ellis Heale, of Devonshire; and Elizabeth, to William Cotton, son of the Bishop; Boscastle and Worthyvale came as a portion to the last.

Sir John Cotton, probably the grandson of William Cotton, resided here, and died in 1703, without a family; he gave the property to his sister’s son, Mr. Amy, Sheriff of Cornwall in the year 1714, whose father had the living of Minster. His son, Cotton Amy, esq. married one of the two daughters and coheiresses of Samuel Gilbert, of Tackbear, in Bridgerule, and had two daughters: Grace, married to Mr. Jonathan Phillipps, of Camelford, a Captain in the Cornwall Militia. This lady had several children, who all died at early ages; and her sister never married, having continued in a state of derangement at Botreaux Castle for many years.

Sir Jonathan Phillipps (for he had been knighted on the occasion of presenting an address from Camelford, when a female offering a petition to King George the Third, was observed to have a knife in her hand,) left his share of this property, with the remainder of his own estate, to Mr. Thomas Winslow, the son of his sister, on his taking the name of Phillipps, which he did, and was succeeded by his son, who now resides at Landue, in Lezant, but having purchased that place and lands about it, Mr. Phillipps has parted with much of the estate at Botreaux Castle to Mr. Avery, a gentleman who carries on a very considerable trade there, and seems likely to raise the place into greater opulence and importance than it can have experienced since the fall of its feudal grandeur.

An elevated piece of ground, rendered steep by artificial scarping, is pointed out as the site of the castle, which gave a termination to the honour of Botreaux. This castle had, however, disappeared before the time of Carew; and the dwelling of Sir John Cotton, probably constructed after the castle had become a ruin, which used to be called _The Great House_, was scarcely habitable fifty years ago, and has now disappeared.

The port of Botreaux Castle admits coasting vessels in fine weather, and considerable trade is carried on there by exporting the excellent slatestone with which that neighbourhood abounds, and by importing coal and lime, in addition to such articles of commerce as the adjacent country may require.

It is generally believed that the harbour might be rendered safe and commodious for a sum much within the limits of private expenditure. Ponderous articles might be raised to any required level by the power of water wheels, and from the summit of the acclivity, a flat plain extends to the distance of many miles inland; so that a possibility at the least seems to exist, of Botreaux Castle becoming the site of an extensive commerce.

The advowson of the living belongs jointly to Mr. Thomas John Phillipps, representative through his great uncle of Miss Grace Amy, and the representatives of her sister. The late incumbent was the Rev. R. Winsloe, uncle to Mr. Phillipps.

The manor of Worthyvale was sold to Mr. Hugh Boscawen in the early part of the last century, and was used as a hunting seat; it has again been sold by one of his descendants, and it belonged some years since to a gentleman of the name of Farnham.

The single stone laid over a stream, having some letters cut on its lower surface, and which is believed to have marked the exact spot where Arthur received his death wound, is nearly in front of the house at Worthyvale.

This parish measures 2838 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 2089 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 253 19 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 311 | 396 | 425 | 497
giving an increase of 25½ per cent. in 30 years.
Present Rector, the Rev. Charles Woolcombe, presented in 1825 by the
Rev. R. Winsloe.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The geological structure of this parish is similar to that of Lesnewith, except that at its northern extremity it contains pyritous and carbonaceous rocks like those of Farrabury.

ST. MINVER, OR ST. MYNFER.

HALS.

Minver, or St. Mynfer, vicarage, is situate in the hundred of Trigg, and hath upon the north and west the Irish sea cliff and Padstow harbour, south Egleshayle, east St. Endellyan.

In the Domesday Book this parish was taxed by the name of Ros-minver. In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, into the value of Cornish benifices, 1294, Ecclesia de Mynfred, or Mynfer, in decanatu de Minor Trigshire, was rated £7, vicar ejusdem 20_s._ In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, £13. 10_s._ 1_d._ The patronage, formerly in the Prior of Bodmin, who endowed it, now Prideaux, of Netherton; the incumbent Lewellen; and the parish rated to the 4_s._ per pound Land Tax, 1696, temp. William III. £385. 13_s._

At Trevill-va, alias Trevellva, there is yet extant an ancient free chapel for divine service, kept in good repair by the lord of this place, furnished with an old English Bible, heretofore made use of in this chapel.

This barton is the dwelling of William Silly, Esq. commissioner for the peace temp. James II. and one of his corporation regulators. He married Kekewich, of Trehawke; and had issue Hender Silly, his son and heir, that died without issue; after her death he married Honour, one of the coheirs of Carter, and hath issue by her also; his father married Cotton (sister to Sir John Cotton, of Botreaux Castle). His grandfather, John Silly, gent. attorney-at-law, of St. Wenn, married Marks, of that place, where he got a great estate by the inferior practice of the law, and altered his name and arms from Ceely to Silly, for what reason I know not; in testimony whereof he and his posterity ever since gave the arms of Ceely, viz. in a field Azure, a chevron between three mullets Or.

King James the Second’s regulators of corporations in Cornwall, were Humphrey Borlase, esq. of Treludrow, Sheriff, William Silly, esq. aforesaid, William Cood, of Pensiple, esq. Mr. Edward Vincent, of Truro, and Edward Noseworthy, esq.

Here Mr. Hals’ manuscript is deficient, and several subsequent parishes are lost.

TONKIN.

Mr. Tonkin has merely copied a few of the introductory sentences from Mr. Hals.

THE EDITOR.

The great tithes of this parish, and the presentation to the vicarage, were parts of the possessions belonging to the priory of Bodmin at the dissolution.

In the taxation of Pope Nicholas the rectory and vicarage are assessed:

Ecclesia Sancte Minfrede Rec. £7 0 0
Vicar ejusdem 1 0 0

In the returns made to First Fruits officers for King Henry the Eighth, of the Ecclesiastical and temporal property belonging to this house, is this entry:

Mynfrey Decimæ Garbæ £14 13 6

The manor of Bodmin was bestowed by the King on the well-known poet Mr. Thomas Sternhold, for his translation of The Psalms, which may fairly be considered as a very adequate reward; but almost all the ecclesiastical possessions were given to the Prideauxes, and were finally sold about fifty years ago, soon after the decease of the last representative of the Devonshire branch of that family. Both the appropriated rectory and the vicarage were purchased by the Rev. William Sandys.

Mr. Sandys distinguished himself at Oxford, and was in consequence elected a Fellow of All Souls. He travelled through the south of Europe with Mr. Francis Basset, afterwards Lord de Dunstanville, and held the living of Illogan till Mr. John Basset, a younger brother, received priest’s orders. He married Miss Mary Praed, of Trevethow; and dying in 1816, he left the larger part of a handsome fortune to Mr. William Warren, a sister’s son, who married Miss Marshall, another sister’s daughter, and their son having taken the name of Sandys, is now the possessor, and resides at St. Minver.

A presentation to the vicarage was given by Mr. Sandys to the Rev. George Treweeke, the son of a third sister, who has also the rectory of Illogan.

Mr. Sandys, in consequence of some incident or of some allusion now forgotten, but not in diminution of the respect most justly due to his talents and his learning, acquired the appellation of Cardinal, perhaps from his having worn a scarlet dress at Rome, on some public occasion.

A monument is placed in the church to Mrs. Sandys, with the following inscription:

M. S.
Mariæ fil: sec: H. M. Praed de Trevethow in hoc Agro,
et Gul. Sandys, A.M. olim Col: Om: Anim: Oxon: Soc.
Deinde hujus Parochiæ Vicarii
Uxoris dilectissimæ.
Quæ ob. 4^{to} die mens: Aprilis A.D. MDCCCIX ætatis LX.
Amoris ergo et desiderii
Maritus superstes heu! et mœrens
H. M. P. C.

Mr. Lysons says that the manor of Penmear was given by the Black Prince to Sir William Woodland, usher of his chamber, but that it reverted again to the Duchy.

Trevernon, or Trewornan, belonged in the reign of king James the First, to Thomas Clifford, D.D. It afterwards became the seat of the Howes; from whom it passed, with an heiress, to the Darells. It is now the residence of the Rev. Darell Stephens, their representative.

There is a monument to Thomas Darell, esq. who died in 1691.

Pentire Point in this parish is the boldest promontory on the southern side of the Bristol Channel. The barton of which this headland forms a part, belonged to a family of the same name, till it passed with an heiress to Roscarrock, and from them by an heiress to Tremayne; and it belongs at present to John Hearle Tremayne, esq. of Heligon.

Trevelver, once a seat of the Arundells, belongs now to the family of Yeo.

This parish is divided on the eastern side from St. Kew, by an estuary dangerous to passengers, and where lives were not unfrequently lost, till Mr. Sandys took the lead in constructing a bridge across the ford, which he effected after much exertion, and at a considerable expense to himself.

Although St. Minver is strictly one entire parish, yet there are two ancient chapels still remaining with districts assigned to them, out of which some of the parish officers are annually chosen.

The parish church, with its more appropriate division, is called Highlands, and the remaining part annexed in some degree to the chapels, is called Lowlands, subdivided into north and south. One of the chapels, according to Mr. Lysons, is dedicated to St. Michael; which, if the fact is so, must be a very unusual circumstance, as the wings of the archangel appear to have associated his habits, in popular opinion, with those of birds, which led him to delight in elevated situations; the other chapel has for its patron St. Enodoc or St. Gwinnodock.

One of these chapels happening to require repair about the middle of the last century, the vestry or the parish officers sold the bells to reimburse the expense, notwithstanding their being tenfold consecrated by the inscription:

ALFREDUS REX.

It is perhaps too much to assume that they were given by the Great Alfred, although his visits to St. Neot must have brought that most illustrious of our kings into this neighbourhood.

The baptising of bells, and their dedication, have so much prevailed, that these were in all probability cast long since the time of Alfred; but his name should have been their protection, if other protection were wanted than their consecrated use.

The following monkish lines not unfrequently appear on bells made prior to the reformation:

Laudo Deum verum――Populum voco――Congrego clerum
Defunctos ploro――Fugo fulmina:――Festa decoro.

Great Tom of Oxford, (called Thomas Clusius) while it remained at Oseney Abbey, and before it was re-cast for its present station in 1670, had this curious legend:

In Thomæ laude resono BIM BOM sine fraude.
It weighs 17,000 lbs.

St. Minver measures 6604 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 8,354 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 834 17 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 788 | 851 | 1028 | 1110
giving an increase of 41 per cent. in 30 years.
Present Vicar, the Rev. George Treweeke, also Rector of Illogan,
presented by William Sandys, esq. in 1817.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The part of this parish which lies parallel with Endellion, resembles it in geological composition; but one part of it extends further north, and contains a compact rock of the same nature as that of Trevose Head in St. Merryn.

MORVA.

HALS.

The manuscript relating to this parish is lost.

TONKIN.

Morva is situated in the hundred of Penwith, and is bounded to the west by St. Just, to the north by the sea, to the east by Zennor, to the south by Sancred and Maddern. It is a daughter church to Madderne, the vicar of which performs divine service, and preacheth in the morning on the first Sunday in every month. The said vicar hath the small tithes.

Morva signifies Locus Maritimus, a place near the sea, as this parish is. The name is sometimes written Morveth, implying much the same sense.

The chief place, and almost the only one of note in this little parish, is Tregamynyon, that is, the stony dwelling, which was for several generations in the family of Lanyon, and the residence of a younger branch thereof ever since the 30th of Queen Elizabeth; for in Trinity term the 31st year of her reign was a fine passed at Westminster between William Lanyon, gent. and Richard Lanyon, esq. and John Lanyon, gent. of three messuages, ten acres of meadow, sixty acres of pasture, one hundred and fifty acres of furze, one water-mill, &c. in Tregamynyon. Here his posterity flourished in good repute till the reign of Queen Anne, when John Lanyon, of this place, gent. and John Lanyon, jun. his son and heir, joined in the sale of this estate to John Borlase, of Pendeen, esq. who is the present possessor thereof. The said John Lanyon, jun. married to his wife Frances Brydges, sister to James Lord Chandos, and aunt to the Duke of that name, who is since dead without issue, being well stricken in years when he married, and twice a widower before. John Lanyon, the father, married ―――― Borlase, of Pendeen. His grandfather was commonly called the Golden Lanyon, as having gotten great riches by tin, which he divided among his numerous issue; but before I quit this place I must relate for the benefit of my readers what Mr. Lanyon, sen. told me respecting the covering of his house, as it may be of great use to persons building in high and exposed places. That not being able to keep his house here in good repair, it being rifled and uncovered by every storm, he at last resolved to plaster it with lime and hair on the lathes within, where the stones are fastened; after which he had not the least stripping of his healing for thirty years. This same thing was tried with the same success by Mr. Hector Trelevant, of St. Agnes; and it is, I verily believe, a certain and cheap prevention of damage.

THE MANOR OF CARVOLGHE, OR CORVAEGHE.

This manor was one of those forfeited by Francis Tregian, esq. (See Probus).

It appears by an inquisition taken in the fifth year of King Charles the First, that the manor then belonged to Ezekiel Grosse, of Comborne, gent.

THE EDITOR.

The church of this parish has been recently new built with the assistance of the parliamentary grant. Its situation near the sea adds much probability to Mr. Tonkin’s interpretation of the name. The great tithes are appended to those of Maddern, and belonged to the family of Nichols, now Le Grice.

This parish has to boast of an ancient military work, more curious perhaps than any other in the west of England. It consists of two inclosures nearly circular; the inner 174 feet in diameter, the inner wall 12 feet thick, and still remaining from 10 to 12 feet high; outside this is a vacant space 30 feet wide, and then the second wall, having a diameter of almost 230 feet, and built like the other, but less solid and not so high. The stones are all laid after the Cyclopian manner, unhewn and without cement; yet, by great labour and repeated trials, so adjusted as to form a close, even, and apparently smooth front. All round the interior surface of the inner wall are traces of rooms resembling in their situation modern casemates, and near it appear the simple remains of an ancient town. A description and plan of this most interesting ruin called Castle Chiowne, or Chioune, contracted into Choon, which is well known to mean the house in a croft, have been given by Doctor Borlase, in his Antiquities, p. 346 of the 2d edition. There is also a description by Mr. Britton in the second volume of the Beauties of England and Wales; and a very accurate plan and section, with a full description, may be found in the Archæologia published in 1829, volume the 22d, p. 300, by William Cotton, esq. M.A.

It is to be hoped that the proprietors of the soil will take care to prevent any further destruction of this most ancient and curious fortress, by effectually prohibiting a practice which has disfigured even Rome itself, that of recklessly removing the materials for domestic purposes.

At about 500 yards to the south-west of the Castle, is a cromleigh noticed by Doctor Borlase, p. 232.

Morva also contains, either in the whole or in part, the most romantic granite hill of the western formation. Carn Galva is entirely covered with blocks of the largest size; and being deep in the granite district, they have escaped that destruction of natural grandeur which inevitably accompany the useful or beautifying improvements effected by the hands of men.

Morva measures 1060 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 775 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 18 1 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 282 | 273 | 325 | 377
giving an increase of 33½ per cent. in 30 years.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

This parish is entirely situated on granite, which presents the same varieties as the granite of Madron, of which indeed it is a continuation, the granite of both parishes belonging to one and the same mass.

MORVAL.

HALS.

The manuscript relating to this parish is lost.

TONKIN.

Morval lies in the hundred of West, and has to the westward the rivers Looe and Duloe, to the north St. Kayne and Leskeard, to the east St. German’s, and to the south St. Martin’s.

In the year 1291, the 20th of Edward the First, (if, at least, I am right in taking this to be the church there called Capella de Lamana,) it was valued at £1. 10_s._ being then appropriated to the Priory of St. German’s.

Morval, a vicarage, stands in the King’s Book at £6. 14_s._ 9_d._

The name of this parish signifies the Sea Valley, it being written anciently Morevale; not that I would from thence insinuate that the sea came up formerly to this place, though the same be not impossible. But as Morval may be interpreted the Mory or Fenny Valley, I rather take that to be the right.

THE EDITOR.

It is with much diffidence that I venture to approach the subject of etymologies, but it seems at least to be clear that Mr. Tonkin is mistaken. Val or Vale is not Cornish for a valley, but an inclosure. More, in its original signification is great, large, vast, whence figuratively it has acquired the substantive meaning of a widely extended tract of land; as the Sea is in English, called the Deep. I conjecture, therefore, that Morval may be The Enclosed Sea, in reference to the Loch, which gives names to the towns of East and West Looe; or, if the substantive and adjective are inverted, and More resumes its primitive sense, it may be The Large Inclosure.

Mr. Bond states, in his History of Looe, and of the neighbourhood, that the principal seat in this parish, and a place of the same name in Cumberland, belonged to Sir Hugh de Morville, “a foul disgrace to knighthood’s fair degree,” one of those villains who murdered Becket at the altar in Canterbury Cathedral; but the honour of Cornwall is not stained by the assassin’s birth. The manor of Morval passed in early times to the family of Glynn.

Mr. Bond has also preserved a very curious memorial of the lawless and unsettled state of Cornwall, and probably of all England, during the contests for plunder, glossed over by the fiction of adverse rights between two branches of the Plantagenets.

In the year 1471, John Glynn, esq. was barbarously murdered at Higher Wringworthy, in this parish, by several ruffians, employed by Thomas Clements, whom he had superseded in the office of Under-steward of the Duchy. In the preceding year he had been assaulted and grievously wounded in the face by the retainers of Clements as he was holding the King’s Court at Leskeard, and thrown into Leskeard prison, where he signed a compulsory obligation not to prosecute. Some months preceding the murder, the retainers of Clements went to Morval, and plundered the house and premises of goods and chattels to the value of two hundred pounds and upwards, as then estimated. All this appears from the petition of Jane Glynn, the widow, to Parliament, which sets forth, that she could have no redress for these terrible outrages in the county of Cornwall, by reason of the general dread of the malice of Clements and his lawless gang; she prayed, therefore, that her appeal might be tried in London by a Cornish jury; and that, in default of Clements appearing to take his trial, he might be dealt with as convicted and attainted. Her petition was granted.

The words of Jane Glynn’s petition to Parliament are:

“The said Thomas Flete &c. then and there, at four of the
clock in the morning, him feloniously and horribly slew and
murdered, and clove his head in four parts, and gave him ten
deadly wounds in his body; and when he was dead they cut off
one of his legs and one of his arms, and his head from his
body, to make him sure; and over that, then and there his
purse and twenty-two pounds of money numbered, and a signet
of gold, a great signet of silver in the same purse
contained, a double cloke of muster-de-viles, a sword, and a
dagger, to the value of six marks, of the goods and chattels
of the said John Glynn, feloniously from him they robbed,
took, and bore away.”

The following enumeration of the particulars, as contained in the schedule annexed to Jane Glynn’s petition, may perhaps be thought interesting, as giving some idea of the furniture and stock of a gentleman’s mansion in the reign of Edward the Fourth.

“Fourteen oxen, ten kien, a bull, eight hors, sixty bolokis,
four hundred shepe, ten swine, six flikkes of bacon, three
hundred weight of woll, three brasynpannes, everych
containing sixty gallon, ten pair of blankets, twelve pair
of sheets, four matres, three fether beddes, ten coverletys,
twelve pillowes of feders, four long gounes, six short
gounes, four women gounes, two drought beddes, a hanging for
a chamber, three bankenders, twelve quyssions of
tapsterwork, four cuppes of silver, three dozen of peauter
vessell, two basons counterfet of latyn, two other basons of
latyn, two dozen of sylver spoons, a saltsaler of sylver,
two basons of peauter, two saltsalers of peauter, three
pipes of Gascoyn wine, a hoggeshede of swete wyne, two pipes
of sider, four hoggeshedes of bere, four hundred galons of
ale, three folding tabules, two feyre long London tabules,
four peyre of trestell, a pipefull of salt beef, a hundred
of milwell and lyng drye, a quartern of mersau’te lynge, a
hundred weight of talowe, forty pounds of candell, two
hundred hopes, ten barrell, fyve large pypes, eight keves,
ten pots of brasse, fourteen pannes of brasse, four pettys
of yron, four andyeris, two knedyng fates, a hundred galons
of oyle, six galons of grese, three hundred pounds of
hoppes, two hundred bushell of malt, forty bushell of barly,
sixty bushell of oyts, four harwyis, ten oxen tices, two
plowes, ten yokk, ten London stolys, four pruse coffers, and
three London coffers within the same conteyned, four
standing cuppes covered, whereof one gilt, dyvers evidences
and muniments concernyng the possession of the said John
Glynn.” See also Mr. Lysons.

In the very early part of the sixteenth century, Richard Coade, esq. married Thomasine, daughter and heiress of John Glynn, with whom he acquired Morval, and in this family the manor continued till Anne, the daughter and heir of John Coade, carried it by her marriage to John Buller, second son of Francis Buller, of Shillingham. Their grandson, John-Francis Buller, married Rebecca, daughter and coheir of Bishop Trelawny; and on the death of his relation James Buller, of Shillingham, he succeeded to the family estate, very greatly increased by a marriage with the heiress of Grosse, a family from Norfolk, which settled first at Leskeard and afterwards resided in the parish of Camborne and Trescobays in Budock.

James Buller, son of John-Francis Buller and Rebecca Trelawny, represented the county in Parliament, and died in 1765.

Mr. Buller married twice, and left Morval, with a considerable portion of his estate, to John, the eldest son of his second marriage with Jane Bathurst, daughter of Allen Bathurst, esq. created one of the twelve Peers by Queen Anne in 1711, and an Earl sixty-one years afterwards by King George the Third, in 1772. Their second son, Francis, became one of the Judges of the King’s Bench; and a third son, Edward, having married a Miss Hoskin, of Looe, lived and died at Port Looe, in the parish of Tallend. Their eldest daughter, Jane, married Sir William Lemon, during fifty years member for the county of Cornwall.

The eldest son of his first marriage settled at Downs, near Crediton in Devonshire, a property that he acquired by his marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of William Gould, of that place, which is now the residence of his grandson James-Wentworth Buller.

Mr. John Buller resided at Morval, represented Exeter, Launceston, and West Looe in Parliament; and married Ann Lemon, only sister of Sir William Lemon. He has left a numerous family, and is succeeded by his eldest son, John Buller, this year (1835) Sheriff of the county.

Arms of Buller: Sable, on a cross Argent, pierced of the Field, four eagles displayed of the First.

Coode: Argent, a chevron Gules, between three moorcocks Sable.

Glynn: Argent, three salmon-spears Sable.

Grosse: Quarterly Argent and Azure, on a bend Sable three martlets Or.

The manor house at Morval is situated in a beautiful valley surrounded with trees; and it exhibits a good specimen of a gentleman’s residence of about two centuries old. The whole place has been very much improved within the last thirty years.

The seat next of importance in this parish is Bray. And Mr. Bond says of it, “Bray, Bre, Brea, in Cornish signify a hill; and this place is situated on the side of Bindown Hill. Bray commands very beautiful prospects.”

The manor of Bray, then held under the Vyvyans, as of their manor of Treviderow, was in the reign of Charles the Second in the family of Heles, who were succeeded by the Mayows, of which family was Dr. John Mayow, an eminent physician in the reign of Charles the Second, who contributed some papers on Respiration, and other subjects, to the Philosophical Transactions. Bray is now the property and occasional residence of Philip-Wynill Mayow, esq.

Another account which I have met with states, that Philip Mayow, of Looe, purchased in the sixth of Elizabeth (anno 1504) the manor of Bree or Bray, in the parish of Morval, of Christopher Copplestone, of Warleigh, esq. These accounts, therefore, vary; and which is right I cannot ascertain.

This Philip Mayow, of Looe, is buried in St. Martin’s church, and has the following epitaph:

Here lyeth the body of Philippe Mayowe, of
East Looe, Gentleman, who deceased this lyfe the
27th day of August in the year 1590, being then
of the age of 72 years.

Here under this great carved stone
Is Phillippe Maiow entombde,
Who in his life for merchandice
Was through this land renown’d;
His trade was great, his dealins just,
The poor did feel his bountie,
Great cost he put for sea and land,
In buildyng verye plentie.

Dr. John Mayow, mentioned by Mr. Bond, and who has been noticed under St. Martin’s, must have been a very extraordinary man, worthy of being ranked with the first chemists or philosophers of any age.

In the forty-first number of the publications made by the Royal Society previous to the regular series of the Philosophical Transactions, anno 1668, p. 833, will be found an account of two works by John Mayow, LL.D. and M.D. Tractatus duo. Prior de Respiratione, Alter de Rachitide (the rickets); see also the Abridgment, vol. i. p. 295, where the authors say in a note, “As an account of the life and opinions of Dr. Mayow was published only a few years ago by a physician now living, we deem it unnecessary to insert in this place a biographical notice of this distinguished chemist and physiologist. We shall only remark, that in his writings are to be found the primordia of some of the most important theories and experiments of modern chemical philosophers.”

The physician alluded to was Thomas Beddoes, of Pembroke College, Oxford, and afterwards of Clifton, near Bristol, whose life has been given to the public by Dr. John Edmonds Stock, in one vol. 4to, printed for Murray in 1811; and his pamphlet is entitled, “Chemical Experiments and Opinions extracted from a Work published in the Last Century. Printed at the Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1790.”

Doctor Beddoes here bestows on Mayow the praise he most justly merits, and to be praised by Doctor Beddoes is laudari a laudato viro. Few persons ever displayed more genius or power of invention; and to him we mainly owe the preparation of Humphry Davy for his splendid philosophical career, after a most fortunate introduction by the Editor of this Work.

Anthony Wood gives the following particulars of Mayow:

“John Mayow descended from a genteel family of his name,
living at Bree in Cornwall; was born in the parish of St.
Dunstan in the West in Fleet-street, London, admitted
scholar of Wadham College the 27th of September 1661, aged
sixteen years; chosen Probationary Fellow of All Souls
College soon after, and upon the recommendations of Henry
Coventry, esq. one of the Secretaries of State; where,
though he had a legist’s place, and took the degrees in the
civil law, yet he studied physic, and became noted for his
practice therein, especially in the summer time in the city
of Bath; but better known by these books, which show the
pregnancy of his parts.
De Respiratione, Tractatus Unus. Oxon. 1668-69, 8vo.
De Rachitide, Tractatus Unus.――Ibid.
De Sale Nitro et Spiritu Nitro Acerbo.――Oxon. 1674, in a
large octavo.
De Respiratione Fœtus in Utero et Ovo.――Ibid.
De Motu Musculari et Spiritibus Animalibus.――Ibid.
And all the five were printed again at the Hague in 1681.

“He paid his last debt of nature in an apothecary’s house in
York-street, near Covent-garden (having been married a
little before, not altogether to his content) in the month
of September 1679, and was buried in the Church of St. Paul,
Covent-garden.”

Mr. Bond adds, with respect to this parish, that Polgover, sometime a seat of the Mayows, still belonging to that family; and Lydcott (about a mile from thence) a seat of the family of Hill, now the property of Mr. Braddon, are both farm houses.

A manor, or reputed manor, called Wringworthy, belongs to the Copleys of Bake.

The only place of trade in this parish is a small village, situated at the spot where the Looe River ceases to be navigable for barges at high water. There are several kilns for burning lime, which is used to a great extent throughout all the neighbourhood as a manure; but the modern name of Sand Place indicates a recent origin. Here the canal to Leskeard terminates.

The church is in the same beautiful vale as the manor house. It contains several monuments in memory of individuals belonging to the families of Mayow, Kendall, Coode, &c.

The great tithes belonged to the priory of St. German’s; and in the Valor Ecclesiasticus in the time of King Henry the Eighth, preserved in the First Fruits Office, they are rated,

Morvall, decimæ garbæ - £10.

The great tithes now belong to Mr. Buller.

The presentation to the vicarage is in the Crown; and the present Vicar is the Rev. Stephen Puddicombe, presented by Lord Chancellor Eldon in 1803.

Bindon is the prominent feature in all this country. It commands a most extensive prospect over Plymouth, and to the range of the Dartmoor hills; in the other direction the view extends to the high lands near St. Austell, southward it is bounded by the horizon of the sea, and it almost reaches St. George’s Channel to the north. The elevation cannot be less than eight or nine hundred feet; yet strange to say, the road from Looe to Leskeard still continues to pass very nearly over the summit of this hill.

Morval measures 2925 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 3910 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 415 10 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 533 | 574 | 615 | 644
giving an increase of 21 per cent. in 30 years.

THE GEOLOGY, BY DOCTOR BOASE.

The rocks of this parish all belong to the calcareous series, and are similar to those of the adjoining parish of Duloe.

MOREWINSTOW.

HALS.

The manuscript relating to this parish is lost.

TONKIN.

Morewinstow is in the hundred of Stratton, and has to the west the sea, to the north part of Devon, to the east the river Tamar and part of Devon, to the south Kilkhampton.

This parish is so called from the son of St. Morwen, to whom Marham church is dedicated.

It is a vicarage, valued in the King’s Books at £10. 8_s._ 6_d._ The patronage in the Bishop of Exeter.

In the year 1291, the 20th of Edward the 1st, this church was valued at £13. 6_s._ 8_d._ having since been appropriated to the hospital of Bridgewater in Somersetshire.

THE EDITOR.

At the general dissolution, the tithes of this parish were valued at £5. 6_s._ 9½_d._ being a part of the ecclesiastical possessions of the hospital of St. John at Bridgewater.

The great tithes now belong to the family of Trefusis, through those of Walpole and Rolle.

This parish forms the north-eastern extremity of the county, and gives origin to the river Tamar, (Ta-more, the great water,) which flows to the south coast, there forming the superb harbour of Plymouth. The portion of Morewinstow adjoining to the Irish channel, partakes of the rugged grandeur common to this district. The church stands near the cliff, commanding a fine view of the sea. The building is large, containing several fine specimens of gothic architecture. It is also decorated by monuments to the Kempthornes, Waddons, &c. Mr. Lysons states, that the principal villages in this parish are Coumbe, Crosstown, Eastcot, Gooseham, Hallabeer, Woolford, and Woolley.

He also states, that Stanbury, a seat and manor in this parish, belonged to a family of the same name, and gave birth to Richard Stanbury, Bishop of Hereford, who died in 1471. But Mr. Lysons seems to have fallen into an error respecting the Christian name of this individual, and also as to the year of his decease.

John Stanbury was confessor to King Henry the 6th, and made by him the first Provost of the College, which that unfortunate king founded at Eton in the 19th year of his reign, 1440-41. He was made Bishop of Bangor, May 4th, 1448, and translated from thence to Hereford, on the 7th of February, 1453, and died May the 11th, 1474. Little more seems to be known of this prelate, although he must have been a man of learning and of much consideration in his time, and one who may fairly be reckoned among the distinguished persons of the county. The property of the Stanburys passed to the family of Mannings, and has been subdivided among heiresses. The great tithes of this manor, and of some other lands in the parish, have been endowed on the vicarage.

Tonacombe belonged to a family said to have changed their name from Lea to Kempthorne, although the reason of their doing so is not known. The family resided there during several descents, till it passed by an heiress about a hundred and fifty years ago to the Waddons. It has again passed by a female descent, and is now the property of William Waddon Martyn, esq.

There is also a farm in this parish called Lea, belonging to George Thynne Carteret, son of Henry Frederick Thynne, second son of Thomas Thynne, and Louisa Carteret, daughter of Grace Granville, daughter and coheir of John Granville, created Earl of Bath by King Charles the 2d.

George Thynne Carteret is Baron Carteret, by a creation, dated Jan. the 29th, 1784, granted to his father.

This farm may have caused the double names of Kempthorne and Lea.

Cleave house is said to be pleasantly situated; and Chapel house, a modern building, was the residence of the Hammetts, a family from Carmarthenshire, and bequeathed to Zachariah Hammett Drake, by his maternal uncle. It is now by purchase the property and residence of Thomas Troad, esq.

Morewinstow measures 7038 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 4201 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 707 7 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 874 | 940 | 1091 | 1102
giving an increase of 26 per cent. in 30 years.
The Rev. Denis Young died Vicar of Morewinstow in 1834, having held
the living from 1807.

GEOLOGY, BY DOCTOR BOASE.

Like the adjoining parish of Kilkhampton, Morewinstow is entirely confined to rocks of the calcareous series, known in Devonshire by the name of Dunstone. The schistose and compact varieties of this rock are extensively exposed on the shores, and in the precipitous cliffs of Stanbury Creek, where they may be seen curved and contorted in the most intricate manner.

MULLION.

HALS.

The manuscript relating to this parish is lost.

TONKIN.

Mullion is in the hundred of Kerrier, in that part of it called Maneage, bounded to the west by the Channel, to the north by Cury, Gunwallo, and St. Mawgan, to the east by Ruan Major, and to the south by Grade.