CURY, or CURYE.

HALS.

Is situate in the hundred of Kerryer, and hath upon the east St. Martin’s, south Mullion, west Gunwallo, north Maugan in Meneage.

At the time of the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, 1294, into the value of Cornish Benefices, this parish church was not extant or named; but I find, 24th Henry VI. the same was rated to fifteenths by the name of Curytowne 15s. In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, it is called Curyton, of the same signification. It goes in presentation and consolidation with Breock, Germow, and Gunwallow. The patronage in the Crown; the rectory in ——; the incumbent Trewinard; and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, 108l. 12s.

At the time of Domesday Roll (1087) this district was taxed under the jurisdiction of Buchent, now Bochym, that is to say, the cow, kine, or cattle house or lodge; which place gave name and origin to an old family of gentlemen surnamed de Bochym, tempore Henry VIII. who were lords of this manor and barton, till such time as John Bochym, tempore Edward VI. entered into actual rebellion against that prince, under conduct of Humphry Arundell, Esq. Governor of St. Michael’s Mount, and others, whose force and power being suppressed by John Lord Russell, lieutenant-general of that prince at Exeter (as is elsewhere shown), and those rebels attainted of high treason, their lands were forfeited to the Crown. Whereupon King Edward VI. gave this barton and manor to Reginald Mohun, sheriff of Cornwall 6 Edward VI. who gave this barton of Bochym to one of his daughters, married to Bellot, but settled it upon his great-grandson, William Mohun, Esq. now in possession thereof. Lastly, by

this rebellion Bochym lost not only his lands, but his life also. The arms of Bochym were, Argent, on a chief Sable three mullets pierced of the Field.

If those Bellots came not into England with William the Conqueror, they were of the number of those three thousand French gentlemen that came out of France into this land with Isabel, wife of King Edward II. who all settled themselves in this kingdom, as our chronicles and Verstegan testify. Since they came to Bochym they married with Mohun, Monk, Pendarves; and the present possessor, Renatus Bellot, esq. one of her majesty’s commissioners for the peace, married the inheritrix of Spour of Trebatha, who is dead without issue. The arms of Bellot are, in a field Argent, on a chief Gules three cinquefoils of the Field.

Since the writing of the above, this estate of Bellot’s is all spent by riot and excess, and, as I take it, the name extinct in those parts; and this barton sold to Robinson.

Bonython is in this parish; from whence was denominated an ancient family of gentlemen surnamed de Bonithon, who for many descents flourished here in good reputation till the reign of Queen Anne; at which time Charles Bonython, Esq. serjeant-at-law, sold this barton to one Carpenter, now in possession thereof. The arms of Bonithon were, Argent, a chevron between three fleur-de-lis Sable.

TONKIN.

Charles Bonython, of Bonython, in this parish, was a serjeant-at-law, and steward of Westminster, which city he also represented in parliament. He married Mary, the daughter of —— Livesay, Esq. of Livesay, in Lincolnshire. His father, John Bonython, married Ann, a daughter of Hugh Trevanion, of Trelegon, Esq. His grandfather, Thomas Bonython, married Frances, the daughter of Sir John Parker, of London.

From this place also were descended the Bonythons of Carclew, in Milor.

This Charles Bonython, however, in a fit of madness shot himself in his own house in London, leaving two sons, Richard and John, and a daughter, married to Thomas Pearse, of Helatin. Richard Bonython, the eldest son, a very ingenious gentleman, was called to the Bar; but being tainted likewise with his father’s distemper, first sold portions of his estate in parcels, and at last this barton, which had been so long in his family, to Humphry Carpenter, jun.; and then, to complete the tragedy, for he was never easy in his mind after this sale, first of all he set fire to his chambers in Lincoln’s-inn, burnt all his papers, bonds, &c. and then stabbed himself with his sword, but not effectually; but he then threw himself out of the window, and died on the spot.

John Bonython, the second son, was bred in King’s college, Cambridge, and is now an eminent physician in Bristol.

Roskymer Bonython, of this place, was Sheriff of Cornwall in the 17th James I. A.D. 1619.

Bochym. In 1703 this barton belonged to Renatus Bellot, Esq. who then represented the borough of Michell in parliament. He married the inheritrix of Spoure of Trebartha. He died of a fever in 1709, leaving an only son of the same name, who died soon after his father, when the estate was sold for the payment of debts to George Robinson, Esq. who has made it his seat.

In this parish is the manor of Skewys, supposed to be so called from skeu, a shadow. It was formerly the seat of a family of the same name, of which John Skewys was sheriff of the county in the 12th year of Henry VIII.

THE EDITOR.

Several supposed etymologies have been omitted from Mr. Hals and from Mr. Tonkin, as being evidently unfounded. Bonython appears to be derived from the well-known word for an house, and possibly ethon, furze.

This parish contains 2,673 statute acres.

£.s.d.
Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815252900
Poor Rate in 183122190
Population,—
in 1801,
304		in 1811,
347		in 1821,
505		in 1831,
525

giving an increase of 73 per cent. in 30 years.

Parish Feast on the nearest Sunday to November the second, or to all Souls Day.

THE GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The most southern portion of Cury forms a part of Goonhilly Downs, which rest on a dark and rather hard serpentine, spangled with small scales of diallage, and having asbestos, indurated talc, and other magnesian minerals, lining the joints, by which this rock may be easily split. The remainder of the parish is composed of compact and schistose hornblend rocks, of the calcareous series, which are best exposed on the shores of Gunwalloe.

DAVIDSTOWE.

HALS.

Is situate in the hundred of Lesnewith, and hath upon the north Lesnewith, west Lanteglos, south Altar Nunn, east Treneglos. Its present name David refers to the tutelar guardian or patron of this church, David, Bishop of Menevia in Wales. At the time of the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester into the value of Cornish benefices, 1294, Ecclesia de Sancto David in Decanatu de Major Trigshire was rated viil. vs. Vicar ibidem xvs. In Wolsey’s Inquisition and Valor Beneficiorum 8l. The patronage in the Crown, the incumbent Pennington; the

rectory in possession of ——, and the parish rated to the four shillings in the pound Land Tax 1696, 163l. 10s.

The History of St David. He was a Welsh Briton by birth, but of what place in Wales I know not, about the year 840; bred up in the Christian religion; afterwards became learned in all the liberal arts and sciences; was ordained priest, and by reason of his regular living and sanctity of life, was constituted Presul or Bishop of Menevia, and held the Christian faith in great purity, opposite to the doctrines of Arius and Pelagius.

Near this church is situate the barton of Davidstowe, formerly the lands of —— Pearse, Gent. whose daughter and heir carried it, together with herself, in marriage, to John Nicholls, Esq. whose son married Erisey, his grandson a daughter of Sir Joseph Tredinham, Knight, as his father did Pearse.

Since which time the heir general of this family of Nicholls is married to —— Glynn, of Glynn, Esq.

TONKIN.

That this parish was called Davidstow from St. David, the titular saint of the Welsh, I make no question; for I have never heard that the holy King David was ever enlisted for the patron of a Christian church. I shall say no more of St. David, than that he was uncle to King Arthur, and therefore it is not wonderful that this church should be dedicated to him; and that after he had attained the age of a hundred and forty-six years he died at his bishopric of Menevia, in Wales, since called from him St. David’s, A.D. 642.

EDITOR.

St. David appears to have been a very extraordinary person, in reference to the period in which he lived. Giraldus Cambrensis, in his Itinerarium Cambriæ, published with annotations by David Powell, at London, 1585, 8vo. and by Sir Richard Hoare, in 2 vols. 4to. 1806, gives

many particulars of St. David, his predecessor in the bishopric; and the praises bestowed by Giraldus on a founder of monasteries may be esteemed deserving of credit, as he was a professed and violent enemy to the monastic orders. He is even said to have added to the Litany, “A monachorum malitia libera nos, Domine,” in an age when their power and influence were esteemed irresistible.

St. David is said to have been the son of Xantus, Prince of Caretica, since named Cardiganshire. He was made a priest early in life, and then participating in the opinion universally prevalent, that the Deity would alone be propitiated by men rendering themselves useless to their fellow-creatures, by assuming almost the feelings and habits of brute beasts, and by adding, so far as they were able, to the misery and wretchedness of the human race, he betook himself to an ascetic life in the Isle of Wight, under the guidance of one Paulinus. But having at length acquired a sufficient stock of reputed sanctity by these efficacious means, he emerged like others from the desert, added to the establishments at Glastonbury, or as some say refounded the great work of St. Joseph of Arimathea, and then created twelve monasteries in Wales.

But St. David owes the largest share of his popularity to the active part which he took in the controversy at that time dividing the Western church; one party maintaining that it had pleased Almighty God to bestow at once on his creatures, and from their births, the inclination and capability of serving him; the other, that these gifts were reserved for some future period, or dealt out from time to time, and bit by bit. The latter opinion having been voted to be the orthodox faith, was zealously supported by St. David against the former, known as the Pelagian heresy.

He certainly lived to a very advanced age, and was buried in the cathedral at Menevia; from whence, we have the testimony of St. Kentigern that his soul was visibly carried by angels into heaven. It is more certain that about the year 962 his relics were transported to Glastonbury,

as this transaction is circumstantially related by John of Glastonbury, in his history of that splendid abbey, published by Hearne.

St. David affords a remarkable instance, not merely of the fact that events are wrested to suit the taste or the prejudices of aftertimes, but of their being utterly inverted and transformed.

When Eastern fictions became blended with the chivalry of Europe, this anchorite, polemic divine, and apostle of his native country, appeared as a military hero, expelling the Saxons from Wales, at the head of an army in which each individual was distinguished from their Pagan adversaries by affixing to his helmet the plant which has since been ever venerated by the Welch. And finally, Mr. Richard Johnson, a canon of Exeter, having adopted the mystical number seven for the Champions of Christendom, and bestowed the undue proportion of four out of seven on these Islands, makes St. David, the champion of Wales, perform all the ordinary achievements of knight errantry, and adding, as was highly proper, a spirit of gallantry to that of valour, presents him as a lover eloping from Jerusalem with an Hebrew princess, who on her part had previously, by entreaties to her father, preserved the hero’s life.

The great tithes of this parish belonged to the priory of Trewardruth, the vicarage to the duchy.

This parish contains 5734 statute acres.

£.s.d.
Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815339300
Poor Rate in 183123550
Population,—
in 1801,
217		in 1811,
262		in 1821,
363		in 1831,
389

giving an increase of nearly 80 per cent. in 30 years.

THE GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

This parish extends southward from the church to the foot of the granite hills near Roughtor. The northern

part consists of the same rocks as St. Cleather. On the common near the church numerous large blocks and boulders of rock occur, composed of crystalline hornblend, in a basis of compact felspar. It resembles the rock already noticed on the side of the hills descending to Pollaphant, in the parish of Alternun.

ST. DENIS.

HALS.

Is situate in the hundred of Powdre, and hath upon the north, St Columb; east, Roach; south, St. Stephen’s, in Brannell; west, St. Enedor. As for the name, it is derived from the tutelar guardian and patron of this Church, St. Denis or Dionysius the Areopagite, President of Athens, in Greece, whose name Dionisius in Latin, hath a Greek original, viz. from διονυσος Dionusos, Bucchus, Vini Inventor; quod excitet mentem.

This place I take to be that Landines, or Landineri, taxed in Domesday Roll 20 William I. 1087, that is to say, Denis’s church, temple, or chapel; though, indeed, I meet not with the name thereof in any other authentic record till Wolsey’s Inquisition into the value of benefices in Cornwall 1521; at which time it was wholly appropriated, or impropriated, together with St. Stephen’s, to the Rector of Carhayes, and consolidated into it; and this parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, 62l. 4s. The patronage in (Tanner[39]) Pitt. The incumbent (Tanner[39]) Sutton.

St. Denis was born in the city of Athens in Greece at the time of Tiberius’s reign over the empire; a place renowned

for wisdom, learning, arts and sciences. He was descended of a rich and honourable family, morally just, courteous, and loving to strangers. From his youth he was bred up and addicted to learning, and became so eminent therein, that he had a chief place amongst the magistrates and rulers of the academy and city of Athens. He was most elegant in the Attic tongue, as being the dialect of his native country, and consequently a good rhetorician. But that which made him more eminent was his skill in the doctrine of the Stoics, Epicureans, and other philosophers.

Mr. Hals continues through several pages the history of St. Denis, but as the facts want altogether the support of historical authority, and do not include the most interesting of all, that of his walking from Montmartre, where the sentence of decapitation was executed, to the place since denominated from him, with his head under his arm, I shall omit the whole; as also an account of blood having fallen in this remote and sequestered churchyard, as the best and most authentic mode of apprising the whole nation that their fleet would be defeated by the Dutch, and that a plague would break out in London; notwithstanding that some of the stones, having blood upon them, were seen by the author himself.

TONKIN.

Mr. Tonkin has not a single observation different from Hals on this parish.

THE EDITOR.

The church of St. Denis is placed on the top of a hill, without any appearance of habitations, and very little of cultivation; and the flat country round it is destroyed in the most efficacious manner, having been turned over and over again down to the solid rock, in what is termed streaming for tin.

The only village of any size in the parish is called Hendra. The late Mr. Thomas Rawlings, of Padstow, had

some property in the parish, but much the greater part belongs to Lord Falmouth.

This parish, united in the same presentation with St. Michael Carhayes and St. Stephen in Branwell, may claim a share in the honour of Robert Dunkin, who was ejected in the interregnum and restored with the monarchy, and who has acquired celebrity by entering the field as a controversialist with the great John Milton.

This parish contains 2789 statute acres.

£.s.d.
Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815152400
Poor Rate in 183131810
Population,—
in 1801,
318		in 1811,
478		in 1821,
592		in 1831,
721

giving an increase of 126 per cent. in 30 years.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The southern part, situated on granite, amounts to more than half the parish. Near Restowrick the granite is large-grained and crystalline, like that of the range of Roughtor and Brown Willy; but it is associated with porcelainous granite, similar to that of Breage and of St. Stephen’s (which will be noticed under the latter parish), and also with shorl and shorl rocks, as in Roach where the rocks are better displayed.

[39] Erased, and the other names substituted.

ST. DOMINICK.

HALS.

Is situate in the hundred of Eastwellshire, and hath upon the north, Calstock; east, the Tamar river; south, part of Landulph; west, St. Mellen. For the modern name of this parish and church, it is derived from St. Dominick the monk of Spain, presidual saint and tutelar guardian of this

church, who instituted that religious order of men called Ordo Prædicatorum, or the Order of Preaching Monks or Friars, (who taught the Gospel without hire or reward, except what was given them of charity or alms, as the Franciscans did); he flourished anno Dom. 1215. At the time of Domesday Roll 20 William I. 1087, this district was taxed under the name of Halton. In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester 1294, Ecclesia Sancti Dominici, in Decanatu de Estwellshire, was rated to first fruits or annats iiil. vis. viiid. In Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521, it was valued at 23l. 11s. The patronage in Clarke, the incumbent Clarke, and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, 164l. 8s.

History of St. Dominick, abridged from Hals:

He was born at Calarvega in Spain, about the year 1167. His father was Don Felix de Gusman, his mother Donna Giovanna Deza, both well descended and faithful servants of God. Dominick early distinguished himself by his great ability, diligence, and proficiency in learning. He first studied at the University of Placentia, and from thence he was removed to Salamanca by Frederick the Second, King of Castille. He here obtained a reputation so far above all the other students as to induce Don Diego, Bishop of Osuna, to select him as the most proper person to become a canon in his church. Dominick was soon after appointed by Don Alonzo, King of Castile, to accompany his ambassador to the Court of France. On this journey the saint first encountered some of the Albigenses, and to the extinction of their heresy he chiefly devoted the remainder of his life, by instituting his celebrated order of Dominican Preaching Friars A.D. 1215, in imitation of the Franciscans, established about six years before. St. Dominick did not, however, implicitly rely on his own exertions, or on those of his order, suited as it was to the ignorance and abject slavery of those times; but called loudly to their aid the secular arm, and established the Inquisition, so that after thousands had been converted from their heresy, and tens

of thousands massacred, the conquerors enjoyed in the possession of their plundered property the additional conscious satisfaction of having freed the church from heretics so audacious as to deny that wheaten[40] flour was entirely changed into the body of Christ.

Dominick departed this life in the odour of sanctity on the 6th of August 1221, having completed his fifty-first year. Having performed various miracles, and even raised people from the dead, he was canonised by Gregory IX. in 1234. Before the close of his short life, a great number of houses were founded throughout Europe for his disciples, and, faithful to the original object of the new order, he bequeathed to their charge the Tribunal of the Inquisition.

The Dominicans and Franciscans for a long time supported the power of Rome, according to the dream of Pope Innocent III. in which he saw the Lateran Church in danger of falling down, and St. Dominick sustaining its weight. But finally, the sale of indulgences, through the medium of this order, excited the resentment or the envy of others, and Friar Martin Luther, assisted by the growing genius of the age, crumbled to pieces a spiritual authority, of which it was fondly believed that destiny had said with more truth than of its temporal predecessor,

His ego nec metas rerum nec tempora pono;

Imperium sine fine dedi.

Hall-ton, in this parish, id est, either a town notable for a hall, or a moor-town; wherefore, the natural or artificial circumstance of the place must be considered to determine

which. By this name the now parish of St. Dominick, as aforesaid, was taxed in the Domesday Roll 20 William I. 1087, which place gave name and original to an old family of gentlemen, surnamed De Halton, who flourished here in gentle degree from the Norman Conquest to the ninth year of Edward the Second, at which time Joan, the only daughter and heir of Richard de Halton, Lord also of the Manor of Hardfast, in this county, was married to Robert Wendyn, of Compton Gifford, in Devon, who had issue by Joan de Halton, one only daughter, that became his heir, married to John Whiteleigh, of Efford, in Devon, father of Richard Whiteleigh, Sheriff of Devon 9 Richard II. grandfather of Richard Whiteleigh, Esq. Sheriff of Devon 6 Henry VII. whose two daughters and heirs were married to Roger Grenvill, of Stowe, and Richard Hals, of Kenedon, from whom the writer of this book is lineally descended. Of this family was John de Halton, Bishop of Carlisle, who died 1318.

The 19th of Elizabeth, Anthony Rous, Esq. then Sheriff of Cornwall, was possessed of this place; as was also his son Anthony Rous, Esq. Sheriff of Cornwall 44th Elizabeth. But —— Rous, Esq. the last possessor of this barton, dying without issue, as I take it, passed these lands to his widow for payment of debts, who afterwards married —— Cossens, and then sold it to her brother Henry Clerk, gent, that married —— Sescomb, of St. Kevorne, now in possession thereof. Mr. Clerk’s father came into those parts as steward to the Lady Drummond.

Rous’s arms are, Or, an eagle displayed Azure, pruning her wings, langued Gules.

TONKIN.

Crockaddon in this parish is the mansion house of James Trevisa, Esq. descended from John Trevisa, born in this place, as I am informed, and bred at Oxford. He became a secular priest and chaplain to James Lord Berkeley, by whom he was made vicar of Berkeley in Gloucestershire,

and at his request he translated the Bible into English, although the same had been done by John Wickliff fifty years before, but not with that perfection of language that Trevisa did it, although Trevisa’s translation fell as far short of Tindall’s in Henry the Eighth’s days; by reason the English language was still improving to a higher pitch, for they all agreed in the original sense and meaning of the text. Trevisa also translated Bartholomew de Proprietatibus Rerum, the Polychronicon of Ralph Higden, and divers other Treatises. He died a very aged man, about 1410, since which time the descendants of his family have flourished in good fame in those parts.

Their arms are, Gules, a garb Or.

Pentilly is the mansion of Sir James Tilly, Knt. formerly steward to Sir John Corington, who married first, a daughter of Sir Henry Vane, and was afterwards knighted by King James the Second. After this, having assumed the arms of Count Tilly, of Germany, together with his supporters, he had them taken from him, and was fined by the kings at arms several hundreds for his presumption. This occurrence gave rise to an unfounded story of his having been degraded from his knighthood, for that he was not a gentleman either of blood, arms, or descent; but it is clear that a knight need not be a gentleman of blood, witness the number at present that are not so. To his second wife he married the widow of Sir John Corington, his former master; she was one of the daughters of Sir Richard Chiverton, of London; but he did not leave any remaining issue by either of his wives. This Pentilly is a new name given by himself to this his seat, from its situation on the side of a steep hill, having a pleasant prospect of the river Tamar, and of the country round about. He has adorned it with fine new buildings, composed of several towers with gilded balls, and several walks of lime-trees on the side of the hill. All which together at a distance made a pretty show, Sir James Tilly dying without issue, left his estate and his house to his sister’s son, James Tilly Woolley, who,

by the name of James Tilly, Esq. is now, 1734, sheriff of Cornwall.

The manor of Halton, the town in the moor. In Domesday Book it is called Haltone; and it was one of the manors given by William the Conqueror to his brother Robert Earl of Morton, when he created him Earl of Cornwall.

I believe this parish does not derive its name from St. Dominic de Gusman, the first author of that barbarous tribunal the Inquisition, the name being anterior to him; but that it has a female patroness, Sancta Dominica, for in the Taxatio Beneficiarum, A.D. 1291, it is called Ecclesia Sanctæ Dominicæ, and valued at 3l. 6s. 8d.

THE EDITOR.

I believe that St. Dominica must be sought for in the same Canon with St. Veronica and St. Kurie Eleeeson.

Mr. Lysons says that Francis Rous, distinguished as a member of both houses during the Protectorate, was born at Halton about the year 1579. He was made provost of Eton College, and died at Acton, in Middlesex, in January 1659. The property now belongs to Mrs. Bluett, daughter and heiress of Mr. John Clerk, in whose family were this manor, and the advowson of the living.

Mr. Lysons further states that Charles Fitz-Geoffry, rector of this parish, where he died in 1637, published the Life of Sir Francis Drake, written in lofty verse and when he was only Bachelor of Arts, a Collection of Latin Verses, &c.

Sir James Tillie appears to have been at the least an eccentric man, from the fanciful directions which he gave respecting his funeral. He was succeeded, as has been stated, by his nephew, James Woolley, who took his name; and the only daughter of this gentleman’s grandson married the late Mr. John Coryton, of Crockadon, descended by a female line from the Corytons of Newton. Mr. Coryton was Sheriff of Cornwall in 1782. His son,

Mr. John Tillie Coryton, has built a splendid Gothic mansion on Pentillie, and made it one of the finest seats in Cornwall.

Both Mr. Hals and Mr. Tonkin have reference to Crockadon and Pentillie in the parish of St. Dominick, whereas Pentillie is in Pillaton, and Crockadon in St. Mellion.

The parish of St. Dominick measures 2,778 statute acres.

£.s.d.
Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815414900
Poor Rate in 183159540
Population,—
in 1801,
538		in 1811,
534		in 1821,
690		in 1831,
726

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

Present Rector, the Rev. E, J. Clarke, presented by Edward Bluet, Esq. in 1803.

THE GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The geology of this parish is the same as the southern part of Calstock and the eastern part of Callington.

[40] The bread about to be transmuted by consecration into actual flesh must be made, at least as to the larger part, of flour from wheat, or the conversion will not take place. See the Summa totius Theologiæ, by St. Thomas of Aquine, Part iii. Quæstio lxxiv. Articulus iii. Conclusio, where the authority of St. Augustine is adduced to prove that the meal of any inferior or harder grain would be typical of the severity enacted by the Laws of Mount Sinai, whereas “Hoc Sacramentum pertinet ad suave jugum Christi, et ad veritatem jam manifestatam, et ad populum spiritualem. Unde non esset materia conveniens hujus sacramenti panis ordeaceus.”—Edit.