GERANS, GERANCE, or GERRANS.
HALS.
Is situate in the hundred of Powdre, and hath upon the north St. Just in Rosland, east Verian, west St. Anthony, south the British Channel. For the modern name, Gerans, whether it be so called in memory of Geruncius, a king of the Britons, successor of King Rimo, that lived a hundred years before King Lud, according to Galfridus’ Chronicle, or if from Ferint ab Erbyn, one of King Arthur’s admirals at sea, I cannot determine; especially for that, in the Domesday Tax in Cornwall, 20th William I. 1087, this district, St. Just, and St. Anthony, all passed under the name of Ros-land, or Tre-gara-due, now the Bishop of Exeter’s manor of Tregare (of which more under) and Elerchy.
In the Taxation of Benefices in Cornwall aforesaid, 1294, Ecclesia de Sancto Gerando, in Decanatu de Penryn, is rated xl. porcionis Rectoris in eadem xlvis. viiid.; porcionis Prioris Sancti Antonii in eadem xlvis. viiid. From whence it is evident that the Bishop of Exeter, lord of Penryn, and the Prior of St. Anthony endowed this church, the one half as a Rectory, the other as a Vicarage, viz. that of the Prior’s part. For the name of this church in the Inquisition aforesaid, St. Gerandus, whether it may not possibly relate to one St. Gereon, a Roman whose feast is October 12. In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, it is valued 15l. 6s. 0½d. by the name of Gerens. The patronage in the Bishop of Exeter; the incumbent Fowler; and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, by the name of Gerance, 156l. 16s. 4d.
Tregeare, in this parish, was the voke lands of the Bishop of Bodmin, now the Bishop of Exeter’s great lordship, so called. In the Domesday Book for Cornwall, 20th William I. 1087, it is named Tregara-an, id est, the town of the friend, or lover, of God. Concerning the possession of this manor, by virtue of the Bishop of Exeter’s lease, there happened a costly and troublesome suit, both in law and equity, between Edward Nosworthy, Esq. then in possession thereof, and Hugh Trevanion, of Treligan, Esq. in the latter end of the reign of Charles the Second, James the Second, and part of the reign of William the Third (as I was informed). The case being thus:
The tenure of those lands being copy of Court Roll, or freehold for life, the Bishop of Exeter, the lessor, grants to the lessee a fee-farm lease of the said manor, for three lives absolute: and so, by custom and law, each of these lives named in the said lease are entitled to the land successively after each other’s death, and have power successively in like manner to grant copies of court roll to the under-tenants of those lands absolute for three lives, to succeed each other. Now it happened that Trevanion bought the remainder of one of those lives, in reversion, of
Nosworthy or some other first life named in the Bishop’s lease; after the death of whom, Trevanion’s right by custom commenced; who accordingly delivered ejectments upon the lands and tenements of the said manor, by consent and approbation of the Bishop of Exeter for the time being, and brought down a trial at Launceston on the same, where the issue passed for Trevanion.
Thereupon Nosworthy filed his bill in chancery, prays a writ of injunction to stop further proceedings at common law, and to be relieved in the premises; where, after many commissions for examination of witnesses, and hearing of the merits of the cause in favour of Nosworthy’s title, it passed for him. The plaintiff Trevanion thereon prays that another issue at law might be directed out of Chancery to try this matter; which accordingly being granted, upon the issue it again passed for the plaintiff, and afterwards, as before, upon all hearings in Chancery it passed against him, by the universal opinion and judgment of the Lord Chancellors and Lord Keepers for the time being: “That it was contrary to equity and good conscience that any person, who was only named a life on the bishop’s lease, to the farmer of the manor, or the lives named on the farmer’s lease, or copy of court roll, to under-tenants, without ever paying a farthing consideration of money, should sell or carry away the original lessee’s estate, who pays a valuable consideration for it, or from his heirs or assigns after his death.” So that, in fine, Nosworthy’s title was confirmed by a decree in Chancery. But, as I said before, the cost of this controversy pro and con lasted so long, and proved so chargeable, as was very conducing to the ruin of both those gentlemen’s estates, (vide Cargoll in Newland,) Nosworthy absconding into Holland, and Trevanion procuring himself to be made one of the Poor Knights of Windsor.
It was the happiness of Cornwall, in the latter end of the reign of Charles the Second, to behold Mr. Justice Dolben, appointed for two or three Assizes one of the Judges Itinerant
for this county, who so discouraged the injustice, delay, and frivolousness of many Cornish law-suits, and so uprightly and succinctly, upon proof of matters of fact and law, directed the jury as to their verdict, that there was little or no occasion for the wrangling and jangling arguments of counsel at the bar. He further told the people in general, that he admired how they should be so weak in judgment, as to be persuaded into so many lawsuits in this province, wherein was nothing but pride, heat, mistakes, or malice, by the advice and direction of lawyers and attornies, whose trade and occupation was only to get money, without regard had to the merit or success of their causes longer than their client could dispense with cash. Upon those and the like arguments of this upright and conscientious judge, the number of our Cornish trials was much abated, and fell from a hundred and sixty venire facias brought to about seventy; so that it was generally hoped by this means we should have had as few lawsuits depending in this as in other countries, or that all controversies would be ended by references amongst ourselves, and that it would be said of the Court of Common Pleas by commission transmitted to Launceston, as was said of the Court of Chancery when Sir Thomas More was Lord Chancellor thereof, tempore Henry VIII., who by his upright judgment, and discouragement of trivial Chancery suits, had ended all causes depending therein, so that the clerks and counsel had no more business there to do; whereupon one made this rhyme:
When More some time had Chancellor been,
No more suits did remain:
The like will never more be seen,
Till More comes back again.
But, alas! this good Judge Dolben soon after, by the attornies and lawyers of the Western Circuit all in confederacy together, as the shrine-makers of Diana at Ephesus against St. Paul, prompted a petition to Charles the Second against him, suggesting that the overhasty proceedings of
this judge, and his discouraging lawsuits, tended not only to the damage of his Majesty’s revenues proceeding from lawsuits in those parts, but to their great prejudice, hurt, and damage, in point of their support and livelihood, as having little else besides their profession and practice of law to subsist by; which petition Charles the Second taking into further consideration, against the next assizes he ordered the clerk to leave Judge Dolben’s name out of the commission of oyer and terminer, and then he was never more seen in those parts. Since which time the judges that come this circuit are content to hear with great patience the loud, reflective, perplexed arguments of counsel upon trials of small moment and concern, if not to suffer themselves to be at some times imposed upon in point of law and evidence therein, by the importunate arguments of topping serjeants-at-law, according to the magnitude of the fees they receive from their clients; so that it is become a proverb among those men in this province, it matters not what the case be so the client hath store of money.
Tre-ligan, or Tre-ligon, in this parish, (i. e. the legate, nuncio, or ambassador’s town, perhaps the rector’s,) is the dwelling of the said Hugh Trevanion, Gent. a branch of Caryhaye’s family. He married Crossman, the relict of Courtney of Penkivell, and had issue by her —— Trevanion, Gent. his son and heir, whose estate being greatly depressed by his father’s debts and lawsuits aforesaid, hath sold his patrimony, and is by Hugh Boscawen, Esq. Privy Councillor to William the Third, promoted to be one of the Poor Knights of Windsor as aforesaid.
Ros-teage, in this parish, (i. e. the valley house, or fair valley,) is the dwelling of Nicholas Kempe, Gent. that married Sprye; his father Williams of Probus; his grandfather Budge. Ther arms, Gules, within a bordure engrailed three garbs Or.
At Tre-wince, (i. e. the under town, or town exposed to the weather,) is the possession of Nicholas Hobbs, Gent. that married Kempe; his father Prouse; and giveth for his arms, three eagles displayed Purple.
TONKIN.
Most of the lands in this parish, if not the whole, are either part of the manor of Tregear, or are held from it. This hath been, ever since the first erection of the see, in the Bishop of Cornwall, and in the united bishopric seated at Exeter. It has for many ages been held by different gentlemen under the Bishops, on leases for lives.
The family of Nosworthy held it for some time; the last of which family, Edward Nosworthy, Esq. assigned it, a few years before his death, to Henry Vincent, of Trelevan, Esq. but Mr. Nosworthy, who was the last life, dying suddenly at Dunkirk in 1701, it fell into the Bishop’s hands, then Sir Jonathan Trelawny, who granted a new lease of it in trust for his own family, with whom it now resteth. But the barton was separated from the manor and granted apart, as it was in the time when Nosworthy held the manor, to the Trevanions of Trelegar, between whom and the Nosworthys arose a great lawsuit, as is related by Mr. Hals.
Near to this barton is Trewithian, that is, the town of peace. In this village Mr. Edward Cregoe hath lately built a good house. He married Sarah, the daughter of John Foot, of Treleyassick, Gent. and is lately dead, leaving a young widow and three sons, of which the eldest is christened Friend.
To the south of this is Trelegar, the downy town. This is likewise a large village, at one end of which stood the seat of a younger branch of the Trevanions of Carhays. Hugh Trevanion, who was engaged in the expensive lawsuit with Mr. Nosworthy, had a son, Hugh Trevanion. This gentleman was so reduced as to become Governor of the Poor Knights of Windsor. The father sold Trelegar, in the latter end of Charles the Second’s reign, to Stephen Johns, Esq.
Between Trelegar and Trewithian is a double round Danish intrenchment, which being very high, the middle serves for a beacon, by which name of Beacon it is called.
To the westward of Trewithian is Tregalravean, that is the small miry dwelling; and such it really is. This place has recently been leased by copy of court roll from the manor of Tregear, to Edward Hobbs, Gent.
Roseteage. This is rightly interpreted by Mr. Hals, the fair or beautiful valley; and its delightful situation doth fairly entitle it to this appellation.
This place, in the reign of Elizabeth, and of James the First, was the seat of Reginald Mohun, Esq. a younger brother to Sir William Mohun, of Hall, and a captain under Sir Walter Raleigh. This gentleman never marrying, sold the barton (which is held from the manor of East Greenwich, in Kent, by the payment of three peppercorns yearly when demanded,) with the royalty of wreek, and in November 1619, the 19th year of James the First, to Nicholas Kempe, Gent. who was the younger brother of Humphrey Kempe, of Lavethan, in Blisland, Esq. who is the chief of that name in Cornwall.
THE EDITOR.
Since the splendour of the Bishop’s residence has disappeared, if it ever existed, Roseteague has been, without all comparison, the leading place in this parish, and indeed few more beautiful situations can any where be found. It continued in the family of Mr. Kempe from the year 1619 till about 1780, when Roseteague was purchased by Mr. Harris, of Rosewarne, in Camborne, aad given by him to Mr. Richard Harris, one of his younger sons; but this gentleman having remained single, the estate has reverted to the only daughter and heiress of the eldest son, William Harris, Esq. Sheriff of Cornwall in 1773, married to Henry Winchcombe Hartley, Esq. of Berkshire.
Trewince, situated on a hill northward of Roseteague, and separated from it by a deep valley, is also a place well deserving of notice. An extremely good house was built here about the year 1750, by the grandson or great-grandson of the gentleman who made the purchase of Trelegar from Mr. Trevanion, and it is now inhabited by his grandson.
The church commands an extensive prospect from an elevated piece of ground, and contains a splendid monument to the family of Hobbs; and near the church still exists a public bowling-green. Bowling appears to have been the favourite amusement of gentlemen residing in the county up to a later period than the middle of the last century. A weekly meeting used to be here numerously attended during the summer, but as most landed proprietors then occupied a portion of their own estates, it was an invariable rule to discontinue their pastime when the appearance of a single Arrish Mow, indicated the more important avocations connected with harvest.
Mr. Hals has noticed that a Bishop of Exeter endowed this church, the one half as a rectory, the other as a vicarage. This division was effected in a very unusual manner, although in one not quite without example. Instead of apportioning the tithe of corn to the rector, and all other portions, as small tithes, to the vicar, the whole has here been divided into equal shares; so that Mr. Johns, of Trewince, the lay impropriator, is entitled to one-twentieth of every thing titheable, and the incumbent to another twentieth.
On the coast eastward of the church town is a village called Polskatho, or Porthskatho, the boat-harbour; and here an extensive fishery is carried on, more especially for mackarel. This place, with the manors of Pettigrew and Nanquitty, belongs to J. S. Enys, of Enys, Esq. and they have been long possessed by this very ancient and respectable family.
The barton of Tregeare was purchased in 1712 of the Hoblyns of Bradridge, by Samuel Kempe, Esq. of Carclew.
In 1765 it was leased by Frederick Bishop of Exeter, on lives, to Nicholas Kempe, Esq. of Rosteague, of whom it was purchased in 1767 by his cousin Nicholas Kempe, Esq. of Chelsea, and it remained in 1823 in the possession of John Kempe, Esq. of Newington, Surrey. The Kempes sold Rosteague to John Harris, Esq. in 1780.
Trewithian is now vested in Matthew Garland Cregoe, Esq. who married Anna Coryton Kempe, eldest daughter of the late Arthur Kempe, Esq. Admiral of the White.
The Kempes of Cornwall were derived from the knightly family of Kempe, of Olantigh, in Wye, in Kent; Richard Kempe, Esq. grandson of Sir William Kempe, Sheriff of Kent 20 Henry VIII. is the first of the family recorded to have settled at Lavethan, in Blisland.
Gerans measures 2,460 statute acres.
| £. | s. | d. | |
| Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 | 3487 | 0 | 0 |
| Poor Rate in 1831 | 387 | 9 | 0 |
| Population,— | |||
| in 1801, 771 | in 1811, 698 | in 1821, 732 | in 1831, 766 |
giving the unusual result of a diminution, although extremely small, on the population, 5 on 771, or about ⅔ per cent. in 30 years.
GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.
The rocks of this parish belong to the same series as those of St. Anthony in Powder. On the eastern side of Porthskatho Cove the blue slate is very much curved and contorted; and is intersected by innumerable quartz veins, which are exceedingly irregular, and partake much of the same arrangement as the laminæ of the slate. Here also occur, interstratified with the slate, beds of a compact blue rock, which is very hard, and effervesces with acids, occasioned by particles, and minute veins or strings, of calcareous spar. In the cliff also may be seen a small patch of conglomerates, and red sandstone of the most recent formation, such as is common on these shores.
ST. GERMAN’S.
HALS.
Is situate in the hundred of Eastwellshire, and hath upon the east Landrak and Saltash, north Menhynet, west Morvall, south Shevyock, and the British Channel; as for the name of this parish it is derived from the tutelar guardian of the church, St. German, Bishop of Anticiodorum in Gallia, now France, anno Dom. 425. Whether this name be derived from the Latin Germanus, i. e. come of the same stock, very like or natural; or the adverb Germaine, brother or a very brother; or from Garnan or Gernan, Saxon German, signifying altogether a man, or a complete and entire man; I must leave to others to resolve.
At the time of the Domesday Tax 20 William I. 1087, this district was taxed either under the jurisdiction of Abbe one, i. e. Abbey Town, or Cudan-woord, of which more under. In Liber taxationum omnium beneficiorum in Cornubia, folio 148, Ecclesia Sancti Germani, in Decanatu Sancti Germani, by the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester 1294, was valued towards the Pope’s Annates 10l.; Vicar ejusdem xls. But before the statute 15th of Richard the Second, against wholly impropriating vicarages, the revenues of this church were wholly impropriated by the convent, and only 14l. per annum deducted towards maintenance of two vicars to serve the cure, for which reason it is not named in Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521. The patronage formerly in the King of England, afterwards in the Abbat and Prior of St. German’s. The incumbent Kendall, the rectory or sheaf in possession of Glanvill, and the parish rated to the 4s. in the pound land tax 1696, 649l. 6s. 8d. The now minister’s chancel of this church was a chapel, founded and endowed by King Athelstan, at such time as he was in Cornwall, anno Dom. 930 (see Burian
and Bodman) and dedicated to St. German, of which fact thus speaks Roger Hoveden, a priest of Oxford, in his Annals of the Kings of England, anno Dom. 1200, p. 160.
“Rex Athelstanus in potestatem Anglorum dedit unum mansionem Deo, ad fundandum monasterium pro monachis, et Sancti Germani fratribus canonicis ibi famulantibus in Cornubia, anno Dom. 930,” i. e. King Athelstan, being in full possession of all England, gaue to God one mansion, tarrying, or abiding place, for laying the foundation of a monastery of monks, and for St. German’s canonical brothers and servants in Cornwall. He also enriched with jewels, money, or lands, every considerable abbey in this land. Baker’s Chron. p. 10.
This Abbey of St. German’s was afterwards endowed with larger revenues by King Canute, anno Dom. 1020, who turned it, after ninety years continuance in monkery, to a collegiate church of secular canons, which might marry wives, converse in the world, as not tied to a monastic life, first introduced by St. Berinus, Bishop of Dorchester, anno Dom. 635; that is to say, a society or corporation of religious men, under the government of a dean, warden, provost, and master, to whom belonged clerks, chaplains, singing men, or choristers. Of those men, the gloss upon the Canons Clementine tells us, that secular priests have no certain order or fashion of apparel appointed them, forasmuch as there is no express mention made in any canon, neither of the colour or form thereof, by which two differences the other several orders of religious men and women are distinguished or discerned.
In this Abbey of St. German’s, anno Dom. 986, Bishop Stidio placed the see or seat of his Cathedral Church, (for Bodman was before burnt by the Danes,) which he and his successors enjoyed till the year 1032, at which time Livignus, first a monk of Winchester, afterwards Abbat of Tavistock, then made Bishop of Kirton, by King Canutus, who after the death of Berwoldus, the thirteenth Bishop of Cornwall, prevailed with that King to annex the bishopric
of St. German’s, thus translated there, to his bishopric of Kirton, and turned this college of secular priests into a priory of Black Canons Augustine, from whence afterwards Leofrick, chaplain to King Edward the Confessor, 1049, by licence, consent, and approbation of that King, removed both those bishoprics to Exeter. And this fact of Kirton is more manifest from the missal or mass book of the said Leofrick, given to the church of Exeter.
This Monastery or Abbey of St. German’s, founded by King Athelstan, was as aforesaid by King Canute turned into a collegiate church of secular canons, over which a prior was governor or ruler, who, after he had endowed the same with lands and revenues, King Ethelred the Second having before given Bishop Stidio, to recompense his loss by the Danes, the great lordship of Cunan Boake, still pertaining to the Bishop of Exeter (see Prince’s Worthies of Devon, p. 9) he ordained many good laws which sound thus in English:
“We will and command that God’s Ministers, the Bishops, Abbats, Priors, &c. do in especial manner take a right course and live according to rule, that they call to Christ night and day much and oft, and that they do it earnestly: and we further command that they hearken to God, and love chastity; full truly they wit that it is against the right to meddle with women.” Canute’s Laws, No. 6.
The word abbat is derived from the Hebrew abba, pater, for that he is the father or governor of his monks, who together make up a spiritual society or corporation. Some abbats were elective by the convent, others presentative, and under this title also was comprehended other corporations spiritual, as a prior and his convent, friars, canons, and such like; and as there were lord abbats so there were lord priors, who had exempt jurisdiction, and were lords of parliament, and what consecration is to a bishop, the same is benediction to an abbot or prior, but in different respects, for a bishop is not such before consecrated, but an abbat or
prior, being elected or confirmed, is properly such before benediction.
Some abbats were mitred from the pope, and so exempt from the bishop’s jurisdiction, as having granted them from him episcopal authority; and if either abbats or priors were called by the King’s writ as barons to parliament, they were called abbats and priors sovereign; see statute 9th Richard II. chap. 4. But, alas! neither this Abbat of St. German’s, nor the Prior of Bodmin, nor any other in this province, was either a baron of Parliament or a mitred man, but were all subject to the visitation and spiritual government of the Bishop of Exeter, till 23d Henry VIII. when all those orders of religious men were dissolved.
In this abbey of St. German’s, anno Dom. 1040, in the time of Lurginus Bishop of Kirton, lived Hucarius, commonly called the Levite, as Bale and Pits, in their writings of Britain, tell us; either for that he assisted the priest at the altar as the Levites of old did, and was more excellent, or did excel all others in that particular; otherwise, by the appellation Levite we must understand him a priest, and that he was universally famous in performing his function of preaching and divine service. Certain it is, he was a holy and learned man, (according to the laws of King Canutus aforesaid,) as the 110 homilies or sermons, and many other books which he wrote, declare; but whether he was a native of this province or not, I know not.
This Priory of Canons Augustine was dissolved 26th Henry VIII. and its revenues valued per annum 243l. 8s. according to Speed and Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum.
This borough town of St. German’s, as Mr. Carew saith, mustereth many inhabitants, and sundry ruins, but little wealth; occasioned either by abandoning their fishing-trade, as some conceive, or their being abandoned of their religious people, as others imagine. It appears to have been the voke lands of a manor before the Norman Conquest; since it is rated in Domesday Roll, 20th William I. 1087, by the name of Abbytone, i. e. abbey-town, (for that
before that time it was a monastery or abbey of monks,) and consists of a Portreeve and forty Censors; and the Portreeve yearly chosen, in the manor court, by the major part of the Censors. And the Members of Parliament are in like manner elected by the major part of them, and the precept from the Sheriff for their election, (as also to remove any action at law depending in this to a superior court,) must be thus directed: “Præposito et Seneschallo Burgi nostri de St. Germanᵒ, in Comitatu Cornub. salutem,” &c. Note, that in old British, reve, reeve, is rent, tithes, or revenues. Port-reeve is the bearer or gatherer of the gate or borough rent.
The arms of this priory are only the letters G. P.
It is further privileged with a weekly market on Friday, and a fair yearly, August 1.
The history of St. German. He was a native of Gaul, about the year of our Lord 380, born of wealthy, rich, and Christian parents, by whom he was bred up and baptized into the Christian religion. After which he followed the study of the liberal arts and sciences, and so profited therein that he was generally noted for a very learned man. But that which made him most famous was his piety and virtue; wherein he so far excelled most other men of his time, that he could not be at rest, or have peace in himself, till he made known his propensions to a religious course of life. Whereupon he was admitted into deacon’s orders, then into priest’s, and lastly advanced to the dignity of Bishop of Antiscidorum, or Auxerre, in France, anno Dom. 425.
After he took upon him the office of a bishop, he discharged the same with great justice and piety, admitting none into orders within his jurisdiction, but such as were men of great learning and sound faith, but especially such as were neither Arians nor Pelagians. For about that time the Christian church was grievously pestered with two heretics; the one Arius, born and bred at Constantinople; the other an inhabitant of Britain, viz. Pelagius.
But the doctrines of Pelagius manifesting themselves throughout this land, to the great disturbance of the orthodox faith and churches thereof, after great heats and animosities between Catholics and heretics about those doctrines, it was at last agreed upon between those parties that a General Council of the Clergy in Britain should be convened at St. Alban’s, in Hertfordshire, and those tenets further examined and discussed. But the British Catholics, knowing the interest, skill, and subtlety of the heretics to be great, thought it not safe for religion, and the orthodox faith, in this convention to trust alone to their own skill and learning, therefore concluded on this expedient, viz. against the day of meeting to send for some foreign divines for their coadjutors or helpers in this controversy; and accordingly applied to St. German, Bishop of Antiscidorum aforesaid, or Auxerre, in Gallia, now France, a city situate upon the river Auxona, now called Le Disne, and Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, in that country, for their counsel and assistance, who gladly granted their request; and accordingly against the day, and at the place appointed, met the British Clergy on both sides; where the tenets and doctrines being heard, and particularly examined, chiefly by the skill and learning of St. German, were all refuted and condemned, according to the sense of the General Councils, as impious and heretical, to the great satisfaction of the orthodox clergy.
After this dispute and council ended, St. German, as a good bishop, resolved, though out of his country and diocese, whilst he stayed here, to preach the Gospel publicly, and to that end caused a pulpit to be set up in an open place at St. Alban’s, (so called from St. Alban, the Briton, martyred there under Dioclesian, anno Dom. 303,) anciently Verulam; where on set days he preached to the multitude there assembled, and first began to handle the doctrine of Pelagius against original sin, taking for his text the words of St. John the Evangelist: “If we say that we
have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Upon which subject he shewed that the doctrine of Pelagius was contrary to the writings and doctrines of Moses and the Prophets.
These and the like words and preachings of St. German seemed so angelical and full of power to the Britons, that generally they were convinced of Pelagius’s errors, and abandoned their former opinions; and in testimony of their unfeigned respect and remembrance of him, in the very place where he preached at St. Alban’s, they erected a chapel, and dedicated it to the honour of God, in the name of St. German; which chapel was extant (and still bears his name) tempore James I. though misapplied to profane uses. (See Camden, in Hertfordshire.) After St. German had thus preached down Pelagianism at St. Alban’s, he travelled through Britain, Wales, and Scotland, on the same account, as our chronologers tell us; and that, in the place where Oxford stands, he preached six months against the heresies aforesaid. That he was in Cornwall upon the same account I doubt not, since there is still extant in this parish whereof I treat, a large church bearing his name. He was in Wales, for Camden, in Flintshire, informs us a field bearing his name, called Mars Garman, i. e. German’s field, in memory of a battle there obtained by the Welch over the Picts, on the prayers of St. German, and by crying Hallelujah! To him also is ascribed the building or augmenting Landaff cathedral there, and dedicating it to St. Delyan, if there be not a mistake in the chronology thereof, St. German, as appears to me, being dead before Delyan.
That he preached in Scotland, is evident from his meeting and converse with Patrick, born at Bluisdale, in that country, who became his disciple, and afterwards the apostle of Ireland.
This priory-house, before its dissolution, was called Porth-Prior, or Port-Prior, synonymous words, signifying either the prior’s creek, cove, or haven. It is now, after the name of its owner, transnominated to Port or Porth-Eliot,
who derives his title thereto from Champernowne, as he did by a boon from King Henry the Eighth.
These gentlemen I take to be of Scots original, and so denominated from the local place of Eliot, near Dundee, in Scotland, and their descent of later time from the Eliots of Devonshire, Berkshire, or Cambridgeshire, of which last county one Sir Thomas Eliot, Knt. was Sheriff 24th Henry VIII. also in 36th. This gentleman wrote a book called Defensorium bonarum Mulierum, The Defence of good or virtuous Women. But that which made him most famous was, (to the disgrace of the critics and clergy that get their livings by the liberal arts and sciences, he being only a layman,) he wrote and composed the first Latin and English Dictionary that ever was seen in England, about the year 1540. Upon whose stock and foundation Bishop Cooper and others built and grafted all the Latin and English dictionaries now extant in Britain. He died in Suffolk, 1546; and upon the foundation, rules, and observation of this my Parochial History of Cornwall, it will be very easy for any other person to make a better and more perfect History thereof.
Those gentlemen settled here about the middle of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, and there ever since flourished in this place in genteel and worshipful degree, serving their king and country in the several capacities of Justices of the Peace and Members of Parliament for their Borough of St. German’s; and amongst them, in particular, it were great injustice to forget the memory of that worthy patriot Sir John Eliot, Knt. for his bold asserting the prerogative and privilege of Parliament, the freedom and liberty of the subject, in the House of Commons, against the arbitrary and despotic power of the British Monarch, then exerted and setting up by the Attorney-general Noye and others, temp. Charles I. as before it had been done by Cecil Earl of Salisbury temp. James I.: for which reasons and arguments of law he was committed prisoner to the Tower of London by order of that King, where he died, without payment of the 2,000l.
fine laid upon him, but not without suspicion of poison, about the year 1638.
Edward Eliot, Esq. is now in possession of this estate. He married the daughter of Craggs.
Bake, in this parish, is the dwelling of the ancient and gentle family of the Moyles; so called, I presume, from the local place of Moyle, in or about St. Minvor, who have flourished here for several generations in worshipful degree, ever since they married with the sole inheretrix of this name and place; originally descended, as I am informed, from the Moyles of Tresurans, in St. Colomb, or the Moyles of Bodmin. The present possessor, Sir Walter Moyle, Knt. son of John Moyle, Esq. Sheriff of Cornwall 22 James I. that married Morrice, giveth for his arms, in allusion to their name, Gules, a moyle (or mule) passant Argent.
I take Thomas Moile, Esq. Speaker of Parliament 34th Henry VIII. 1543, ancestor of the Moyles of Oxford and Kent, whose name, blood, and estate is terminated in the Finches, to be a younger brother of this family, or those of his.
Colt-dryn-ike, in this parish, i. e. dry neck lake, leate, or riveret of waters, (perhaps so called from some lake or leate that intermits its current in summer season,) is the dwelling of Jonathan Trelawney, Esq. one of his Majesty’s Commissioners of the Peace, a younger branch of the Trelawneys of Poole and Trelawne houses, and therefore giveth the same arms which they do. Since the writing hereof this gentleman is dead without issue; and his second brother, my very kind friend, Major John Trelawney, Fort Major of the royal citadel of Plymouth, succeeded to his estate.
Millin-ike, alias Melin-ike, i. e. the mill lake, leate, or bosom of waters, (so called from some river and a mill heretofore thereon,) was the dwelling of William Scawen, Esq. that died without issue.
The name Scawen is local, and signifies a place where
skawan or elder trees grow, (as I have said before,) and is derived from the Japhetical Greek, σκοβιεμ, sambachus, ebulus, the elder-tree, who, suitable to his name, gives for his arms, Argent, a scawen or elder-tree Vert. This is an ancient and mere British family of gentlemen, as their name implies.
Hendre, in this parish, (i. e. the old or ancient town,) is the dwelling of the gentle family of the Hancocks; particularly William Hancock, Esq.
Catch-French, in this parish, was the seat of the Keckwitches, originally descended from the Keckwitches of Essex, gentlemen heretofore also of considerable estates in those parts, now by ill conduct wasted, so that this barton was sold by John Keckwitch, Esq. temp. Charles II. to Hugh Boscawen, Esq. who settled it upon his daughter Bridget, married to Hugh Fortescue, of Filley, Esq. now in possession thereof. George Keckwitch, Esq. of this house, was Sheriff of Cornwall 17th of Elizabeth, as was also his son George Keckwitch, Esq. 33d of Elizabeth. He was also a Commissioner of the Peace temp. James I. who gave for his arms, Argent, two lions on a bend Sable, coticed Or.
TONKIN.
The town of St. German’s lieth to the southward of Port Eliot, but adjoining with it, and between that and Cuddenbeck: but as Browne Willis, in his Notitia Parliamentaria, has given a particular description of this town and parish, of which he was the most capable, having married his lady out of it, I shall here insert what he has said thereof:
“Its first return of Members to serve in Parliament, was in the session held by proclamation in the 5th year of Queen Elizabeth, A. D. 1562, at which time their having Representatives was questioned; however, Mr. Speaker declared in the House that the Lord Steward agreed that they (i. e. the two Members) should resort there with all
convenient speed to show their letters patent, whereby they be returned. In this indenture the returning officer is called the Mayor, but in the next, and in all other records, the Portreeve; which magistrate is yearly nominated and chosen at the lord’s court-leet, held about Michaelmas by his steward, who impannels a jury for that purpose. As to the choice of Members of Parliament, all the inhabitant householders have votes, that have lived a year within the borough, the bounds of which do not extend very far, and only comprehend about fifty or sixty houses lying near the church, and not the whole vill of St. German’s, great part of which is without the borough, as is the rest of the parish. It is styled in some writings Cuddenbeck Borough; a privilege which it might perhaps have obtained from Walter Bishop of Exeter, temp. Henry III. when Penryn seems to have been made a borough; and from this example the Prior, with the assistance of the Bishop, might also have dignified in like manner the vill of St. German’s, though neither of them, anno 30th Eliz. when they certified respecting their liberties, and claims of privilege, as of markets, fairs, &c. styled this place otherwise than the manor of St. German’s; nor have I met with it under any other denomination than till Queen Elizabeth’s time, or seen any record mentioning its incorporation, nor any other charter of privileges granted thereunto; though the inhabitants have a tradition that they had an ancient charter, which was unfortunately stolen from them by a person imprisoned by the Portreeve, who is by prescription bailiff of the town, and may make what house he pleases within the borough, his prison. As to a description of this borough, called by Carew ‘a church town,’ it mustereth, as that author tells us, sundry ruins, but little wealth.”
Browne Willis gives the following account of the Priory:
“After the removal of the bishoprics from Crediton and from this place to Exeter, A. D. 1050, Leofric, the first Bishop of Exeter, changed the seculars of this collegiate church, founded by King Athelstan, and endowed by
King Canute, into Black Canons, between whom, and his new-erected episcopal see, the manor of this town was divided; and it stood upon that establishment at the time of the Norman invasion, as appears from Domesday Book, which informs us, that the manor or parish of St. German’s consisted of twenty-four hides, whereof the Bishop of Exeter had twelve, and the Canons of that place twelve also. What belonged to the Bishop was valued at 81s. per annum, and what belonged to the Canons at 100s. Domesday also shews us, that in this manor there was then a market on the Lord’s Day; but it became reduced to nothing, by reason of that of the Earl of Morton’s being very near, which I conceive might have been kept at Trematon, that Earl having privilege of a market at his castle there. That such was the state of this town and parish at the time of the Conquest, is plain from the above-stated record; and the division into two manors continues to the present day, the Bishop’s moiety being held by lease for three lives by Edward Eliot, Esq. proprietor of the other manor; whose predecessors have probably ever since the dissolution of the monasteries been farmers, or lessee tenants, to the See of Exeter, by virtue of which lease, as this manor is vested in them, so the other, belonging to the Priory, has thus descended since the surrender thereof, dated March the 2d., anno 30th Henry VIII. when Robert Swimmer, the last Prior, with seven Monks, yielded up the same into the King’s hands, who not long after, by letters patent dated March the 10th, anno regni 33, A. D. 1542, granted to John Champernoun, John Ridgeway, and Walter Smith. Among other lands, the site, &c. of this priory, upon partition, came to John Champernoun’s share, whose heir sold it, about thirty or forty years afterwards, to Richard Eliot, Esq. my wife’s ancestor, in which family both those manors yet continue: which place, soon after Mr. Eliot had made the purchase, was named Port Eliot, since when this appellation has so far prevailed that Port Eliot has been inserted in maps, as if it was a particular vill. This family flourished for eight
or ten generations in Devonshire, before their transplanting themselves hither, and had matched into several considerable families in that county, as the Sigdons, Cotlands, Bonvilles, Sumasters, Fitzes, Careswells, &c. Walter Eliot was returned among the gentlemen of Devonshire anno 1433, temp. Henry VI. And to this family, as it should seem by the arms, was allied Sir Richard Eliot, made by King Henry the Eighth one of the Justices of the King’s Bench, who was, as I take it, father to the famous Sir Thomas Eliot. Richard Eliot seated himself here, where he lived (as Carew tells us) in great hospitality. He left issue John Eliot, born and baptized here April 20, 1592. This John, A. D. 1607, became a gentleman commoner of Exeter College, Oxford, which place leaving about two or three years after, he went to the Inns of Court, and May the 10th, 1618, received the honour of knighthood, and was all his lifetime after a member of the succeeding Parliaments, in one of which, 3d. Charles I. he was chosen knight of the shire for Cornwall. He was a very plausible speaker in the House of Commons, as his speeches published testify, but, being a virulent enemy to the Court, often suffered confinement, and died in custody in the Tower of London; and, as appears by the inquisition on the 27th of November, 8th Charles I. A. D. 1632, leaving issue John, his son and heir, then twenty years old. This John was born at Port Eliot, and baptized October 18th, 1612, where he died and was buried March the 25th, 1685, leaving an only son, Daniel Eliot, my father-in-law, who departed this life about the sixtieth year of his age, and was buried among his ancestors October 28th, 1702. This gentleman, in regard that he had only one daughter, named Katherine, bequeathed his estate, in order to keep up the name of his family, to Edward Eliot, grandson to Nicholas Eliot, fourth son to Sir John Eliot, Knight, aforesaid.”
Mr. Browne Willis then goes on to state respecting the remains of the monastery.
“The Priory fronts the river, now called, as above
noted, Port Eliot. It is a handsome large building, containing several spacious rooms, and has a court before it, adorned with a strong pier by the present proprietor, Edward Eliot, Esq. who has much beautified the whole building.” Since Mr. Willis wrote the above, almost the whole of the ancient building has been taken down, so that except the refectory, now called the gallery, very little remains.
In the 26th year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, this place had an honour bestowed on it (little taken notice of, if not altogether forgotten), by being established by Act of Parliament the see of a suffragan bishop for the county of Cornwall, in the diocese of Exeter.
The advowson of this church, together with the impropriate rectory, late the possessions of the priory, valued at 61l. 13s. 4d. per annum, were granted by King Edward the Sixth to the Dean and Chapter of Windsor, in whose hands they now continue.
THE EDITOR.
St. Germanus is among the most celebrated saints of the fourth and fifth centuries, having gained his reputation by furiously opposing the unpopular doctrines of Pelagius; at the same time that he adopted all the brutalizing austerities, which in those days conveyed power, influence, and reputation to all who practised them.
Pelagius maintained that Almighty God has been pleased to bestow on mankind, from their births, power and inclination to execute his will, and to render themselves acceptable in his sight; while the orthodox supported, on the contrary, a doctrine more analogous to the practices of earthly despots and tyrants, by declaring that such powers were capriciously given, by little and little and from time to time, branding their opponents with an accusation, well suited to the understanding of those from whom distinction could then be obtained, namely, that Pelagius set up man
as independent and in opposition to God; forgetting or concealing that the free gift was and must have been the same in both cases, differing only in the manner after which it is bestowed. Perhaps the arbitrary disposition of fiefs, commencing about that period, afforded an additional analogy for assimilating the practices in heaven to those on earth, while appeals to the capricious exercise of arbitrary power afforded evidently the most ample field for vehement declamation. The saint is stated in his legend to have sprung from an illustrious family, and, while the appellation implied a real office, to have been made Duke of a Roman province, and in that capacity to have been leader of the troops, with whom he obtained repeated victories, and acquired the just reputation of an able warrior. He also excelled in the chace, but neither his skill in military stratagems nor in the devices of the field, could protect him against falling into an ambuscade laid by St. Amator, Bishop of Auxerre, who, having learnt from a dream, that the young Duke should succeed to the bishopric, enticed him into the church, and then, securing the doors and passages, imposed on him the tonsure, with the order of a deacon. Germanus appears to have submitted with perfect resignation to this important change in the whole tenor of his life, and adopting the line afterwards pursued by Sir Thomas of Canterbury in regard to spiritual matters, and that in respect to his wife, which enrolled King Edward the Confessor in the list of saints, he soon obtained a reputation so high as to point him out as the most proper person, first to succeed St. Amator, as Bishop of Auxerre, in fulfilment of the dream, and then to go on a spiritual crusade against the Pelagians of Britain. He accordingly embarked, accompanied by St. Lupus, in the midst of winter, and soon encountered a violent storm, raised, it would seem, on purpose to evince the divine mission of these two saints, for, on their throwing some holy water into the sea, it immediately subsided.
Saint Germanus and St. Lupus not only preached with
such power as to astonish and to convince whole congregations, too large for any building to contain, but they gave sight to the blind, cast out devils, and raised the dead. St. Germanus was even induced to assist the faithful in the way of his original profession; for a Pagan army of Northmen and Picts invading the Christian provinces, the saint took the command of such persons as he found willing to defend their country, and having selected a place suited to his purpose, either by naturally possessing an echo, or by receiving it miraculously from his prayers, he there awaited the enemy, and on their approach shouting three times Alleluiah, and the whole army joining with their utmost might, the divine sounds, repeated and enforced by the reverberation on all sides, so terrified the assailants as to drive them into immediate flight, with the casting away of their arms, who were, in consequence, readily and safely pursued with great slaughter, through the whole space separating them from their fleet, none being spared but such as had the grace instantly to acquiesce in a method of conversion so clear, so powerful, and so coercive.
St. Germanus and St. Lupus soon afterwards left Britain, in the full confidence of having suppressed the heresy; but so obstinate and perverse were the people, that it broke out with increased violence, the circumstance of Pelagius being their countryman having probably more weight with the inhabitants than the arguments on either side, as in modern times all German Protestants are followers of Luther, as those of France are invariably of Calvin.
On receiving this intelligence, St. Germanus made a second voyage to Britain, armed with a small box of relics, suspended round his neck by a leathern string, which acting in aid of his own inherent sanctity, produced a train of miracles more wonderful even than those of the first expedition. Success of course attended him; and when the work of conversion was complete, he deposited the box of relics in the shrine of St. Alban, to be preserved for future use, if the seeds of heresy should again vegetate, taking in
exchange some ashes of the British protomartyr. He then finally left Britain, returning to his diocese of Auxerre, on the confines of Burgundy; but on the way he encountered a second Pagan army, employed by the Christian Emperor of Rome to ravage the saint’s province, in revenge for some popular insurrection. The saint succeeded, however, in converting the general, with all his forces, and then proceeded to Ravenna, in Italy, to obtain a pardon for the offenders. In this he was also successful; but having now filled the measure of his earthly services, and, as was usual in such cases, having predicted the hour of his own dissolution, he expired at Ravenna, in the odour of sanctity, on the last day of July, A. D. 448. His remains were brought back to France, with all the honours due to the successful leader of any party, spiritual or temporal, and they were finely enshrined in the oratory of St. Morice, which he had founded at Auxerre, and where an abbey has since been built. Various places in Britain were dedicated to him as to their tutelar saint. Of these the abbey of Selby was on the largest scale, and the priory in Cornwall distinguished by his own name, held the next place; although a chapel near the church of St. Alban, where he had triumphed in a general disputation with the heretics, became most celebrated, multitudes flocking there, as to St. Mary of Walsingham, for remission of their sins.
The ancient Priory of St. German’s has again assumed a new form since the time of Mr. Tonkin, in consequence of Mr. Richard Eliot having greatly increased his fortune by marrying Harriet, daughter of James Craggs, Secretary of State in the time of King George the First. This gentleman, and still more his son, Mr. Edward Craggs Eliot, who obtained an hereditary seat in Parliament, after representing Cornwall in the House of Commons, added so much to the place, by enlarging the house, by embanking against the sea, and by laying out the grounds, as to make it one of the first among gentlemen’s seats in the West of England. The
statute referred to by Mr. Tonkin, for conferring the honour of a suffragan see on this town, in the 26th Henry VIII. c. 14, passed in the year 1534, by which it is declared that Thetford, Ipswich, Colchester, Dover, Guilford, Southampton, Taunton, Shaftesbury, Molton, Marlborough, Bedford, Leicester, Gloucester, Shrewsbury, Bristow, Penrith, Bridgewater, Nottingham, Grantham, Hull, Huntingdon, Cambridge, Pereth, Berwick, St. Germain’s, and the Isle of Wight, shall be taken and accepted for sees of Bishops Suffragans, to be made in this Realm. This statute appears to have been very little if at all acted on; but two of the towns, Gloucester and Bristol, as is well known, became the seats of independent bishoprics.
At Bake lived Mr. Walter Moyle, of whom Cornwall has reason to be proud. He represented Saltash in the reign of King William; but, notwithstanding several successful efforts in the House of Commons, Mr. Moyle retired to his family seat, and past the remainder of his time in learned leisure, where he died in 1721, not having completed his fiftieth year. Most of his works were published separately, but in 1727 came out in London, “Works of W. Moyle that were published by himself; with some account of his life and writings, by Anthony Hammond, Esq. 8vo.” His works were principally:
An Argument, showing that a Standing Army is inconsistent with a free Government.
Translations from Xenophon.
The Miracle of the Thundering Legion explained.
A Charge to the Grand Jury at a Sessions in Liskeard.
Letters to Dr. W. Musgrave, of Exeter, on subjects of Criticism and Antiquity.
A Dissertation upon the Age of Philopatris, a Dialogue commonly attributed to Lucian.
Letters to and from Mr. Moyle on various subjects.
Remarks on Prideaux’s Connection of the Old and New Testament.
Democracy Vindicated; an Essay on the Constitution of the Roman Government.
Bake now belongs to Sir Joseph Copley, whose grandfather, a brother’s son of Mr. Walter Moyle, having married the heiress of Copley, of Sprotborough, in Yorkshire, assumed her name.
Aldwinnick is the property of Mr. Charles Trelawny, son of Mr. Edward Trelawny, who acquired it under the will of Mr. Charles Trelawny, who died in 1764, the last male descendant of their branch of the family. Mr. Edward Trelawny’s original name was Stephens.
Catchfrench was till lately the residence of Mr. Francis Glanville, Member some time for Plymouth. This gentleman’s ancestors purchased Catchfrench from the Fortescues more than a century ago. Mr. Glanville has given it up to his son, and on quitting the county he has carried with him the regret of every one in it.
Much obloquy having been cast upon Sir John Eliot, by a misrepresentation on the part of his political adversaries, of an affair in which sudden passion very probably caused him to act in a manner different from what would have been his conduct under other circumstances, I will add a narrative of the occurrence, taken from Lord Nugent’s Life of Hampden.
“In a letter in the possession of Miss Aikin, written by an ancestor of one of the most respectable families in Devonshire, the cause and course of the quarrel are given, as described by the daughter of Mr. Moyle himself, a witness not likely to be unjustly partial to Sir John Eliot.
“Mr. Moyle having acquainted Sir John Eliot’s father with some extravagancies in his son’s expenses, and this being reported with some aggravating circumstances, young Eliot went hastily to Mr. Moyle’s house, and remonstrated.
“What words passed she knew not; but Eliot drew his sword, and wounded Mr. Moyle in his side. On reflection,” continues Mr. Moyle’s daughter, “he soon
detested the fact, and from thenceforward became as remarkable for his private deportment, in every view of it, as his public conduct. Mr. Moyle was so intirely reconciled to him, that no person in his time held him in higher esteem.”
The editor cannot induce himself to believe that an English gentleman, a patriot, and ultimately a martyr in the cause of national freedom, could have formed and endeavoured to execute a plan for deliberate assassination; he is, moreover, unwilling perhaps to believe it of one who married the heiress of his own paternal family. It would be unfair, however, not to state that Mr. D’Israeli,[3] one of the most intelligent and candid of modern writers, and of the highest authority, has found in the course of his miscellaneous researches, various documents placing this transaction in a point of view much less favourable to Sir John Eliot, than would be inferred from Lord Nugent’s account of it. The editor, however, continues to hope that these documents are coloured, at least, by the party spirit of times immediately preceding civil war, when all occurrences, private as well as public, receive their tincture from contending factions.
St. German’s measures 9,029 statute acres.
| £. | s. | d. | |
| Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 | 15,283 | 0 | 0 |
| Poor Rate in 1831 | 1,822 | 12 | 0 |
| Population,— | |||
| in 1801, 2030 | in 1811, 2139 | in 1821, 2404 | in 1831, 2586 |
giving an increase of about 27½ per cent. in 30 years.
GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.
This extensive parish is entirely situated within the calcareous series. On the northern part it touches the serpentine of Clicker Tor; and from thence to the sea-shore it exhibits many repetitions of clay slate, of calcareous schist, and of black limestone. An extensive quarry of the latter rock, near Trerule Foot, shews the nature of this limestone. It is of a dark-blue colour, compact, and rather hard; and in some parts of the mass it is very glittering, in consequence of the numerous shining facets of calcareous spar disseminated throughout. This rock abounds also in veins of calcareous spar, and the whole may be traced passing gradually into the adjacent calcareous schist.
In this tract beds of compact, and of schistose hornblende rocks, are also found, such as are common in this series of rocks at Saltash, at Padstow, Veryon, and at various other places.
[3] For the extraordinary “Apology of Sir John Eliot” regarding this “hasty and unpremeditated act of violence,” as Lord Eliot has judiciously described it, see Mr. D’Israeli’s “Commentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles the First,” vol. iv. p. 512. It must be also observed, that the fact was published by Echard, in the life-time of Dean Prideaux, who had communicated it to that historian. For other particulars hitherto unknown respecting the interesting character of Sir John Eliot, the reader may be referred to an historical pamphlet, entitled “Eliot, Hampden and Pym,” by the author of the “Commentaries.”
St. GERMOE, alias GARMOW.
HALS.
Is situate in the hundred of Kerryer, and has upon the north St. Erth; south and east St. Breage; west St. Hilary. In the Domesday Tax (20 Will. I. 1087), it was rated under the jurisdiction of Lan-migell, i. e. Michael’s Temple or Church, now St. Michael’s Mount. In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, 1294, Ecclesia de Sancto Gordon in decanatu de Kerryer, is valued viiil. In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, it is valued, together with Breock, Cury, and Gonwallow, in all 33l. The patronage formerly, as I take it, in the Prior of St. Michael’s Mount, who endowed them. The Incumbent Trewinard. The rectory or sheaf in the possession of ——; and the parish, rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1694, 40l.
In this parish stands Godolphin-Ball. This is that inexhaustible mountain, or tin-work, which for some hundreds of years hath afforded its owners or lord, the Lamburns, Stephens, Navas, now Godolphins, and other adventurers, several thousand pounds worth of tin.
TONKIN.
In this parish stands Godolphin, or Godolphin-Ball, from whence the lands thereof were denominated de Godolphin; who for many ages have had a considerable augmentation of their paternal estate by the casualties of tin from thence issuing. The same is a barren mountain, of pretty large extent and great height; and, although wrought for tin at the least during three hundred years, seems still, like the widow’s cruise of oil and barrel of meal, to increase in the using, for, notwithstanding the incredible quantities of tin that have been taken thence in former ages, it still affords employment, and pays the wages, with
some overplus, of at least three hundred men throughout the year.
The name of this parish is derived from its patron St. Germow, or Germach, said to be an Irish king, who came over with St. Breage. St. Germow is there buried, and his tomb or chair is still to be seen in the churchyard.
THE EDITOR.
Mr. Hals has given the history of St. Gordian at very great length, to whom, without the slighest authority, he assumes this church and parish to have been dedicated. I have omitted the whole, as entirely unconnected with Cornwall, and because the very existence of such a saint is at the least doubtful. The writers of legends now content themselves with stating that some one of that name was beheaded at Rome in the year 362, as appears from the ancient Martyrologies; that his body lay many centuries in a cave, together with the remains of St. Epimachus, brought there from Alexandria, and that both relics are preserved in the Benedictine Abbey of Kempton, in the diocese of Ansbury.
The tradition of St. Germoe having been a king in his native country, is cherished by the inhabitants up to the present time, and they point to his tomb or shrine in the churchyard, with an evident feeling of their being elevated by his dignity.
But, on whatever grounds the ancient claims of this parish may rest to a canonized or to a royal patron, the village of Bojil has in modern times bestowed more real honour on the whole district, than could be derived from regal missionaries or from legendary saints.
In the parish register of Breage may be seen the following entry: “William, the son of William Lemon, of Germo, was baptized the 15th day of November, 1696.”
I have endeavoured, but without much success, to collect
information respecting this very extraordinary man. It appears that his father and mother, whose maiden name was Rodda, were in a situation of life raised above the common level, and that they bestowed on their son the best education easily attainable, who on his part became eminently distinguished among his companions. If young Lemon ever, therefore, employed himself in executing the inferior labours usually performed by mining boys, as some have alleged with the view of increasing the wonder of his subsequent progress, and others impelled by less laudable motives, it is clear that they must have been undertaken from a desire of making himself practically acquainted with all the details of perhaps the most delicate operations in metallurgy.
His bodily strength and firmness of mind seem to have been commensurate with those abilities, which displayed themselves most conspicuously in after life. Within my recollection, the people of Breage and Germoe were fond of relating that Squire Lemon in his youth made the foremost link of a living chain, which, connected only by the grasp of their hands, extended itself into a tremendous surf, and rescued various human beings from a watery grave.
At a very early age, Mr. Lemon became one of the managers of a tin-smelting house at Chiandower, near Penzance; and the career which he pursued with so much ability and success, was traced for him at this place.
The ancient mining of Cornwall, like that of Banka in the present day, had been confined for a long succession of ages to merely collecting diluvial deposits of tin ore, which, from its great specific gravity, is always found beneath every other debrit, and immediately incumbent on the solid rock, or unmoved strata, provincially called “the Fast.” As the first operation invariably consists in washing away the lighter ingredients, by agitating the whole in streams, which never fail of gliding through the vallies where alone these deposits are found, the name “stream-work” has
been adopted, to distinguish these sources of tin from mines which descend on the lodes themselves.
Mines invariably grew out of the stream-works, but with a progress so very slow as scarcely to be imagined by persons conversant only with the rapid improvements of modern times. Pits were at first sunk on the backs of lodes, till the presence of water impeded the work. Shallow adits, or drains, were obviously used in favourable situations, and the windlass, with its bucket and rope, must be of great antiquity. To this succeeded the rack and chain pump, identical with those still used in large ships; but the span beam and cage, moving on a perpendicular axis, by which the labour of horses became applicable to what had previously been done by the human arm, are so very modern, that the Editor remembers a carpenter who used to boast that he assisted in making the first whim ever seen westward Hayle.
A new era had, however, now commenced. The steam-engine, which consists essentially in a piston alternately sliding through a cylindrical vessel, invented by Mr. Newcomen, of Dartmouth, had been used at least on one mine, called the Great Work, in Breage, when Mr. Lemon came forward, gifted with the ability and the energy which enabled him to anticipate, by nearly half a century, everything that could add to the wealth and to the prosperity of his native county.
Mr. Lemon first associating himself with Mr. George Blewett, of Marasion, and with Mr. Dewen, commenced working a mine on a farm called Trowel, in the parish of Luddvan, the property of Lord Godolphin, and named Whele Fortune, where the second steam-engine was used. Capital was of course requisite for the undertaking, and that is said to have been supplied to Mr. Lemon by his marriage. It appears, from the register of Gulval, that “William Lemon and Isabel Vibert were married April the 22d, 1724.” The Viberts were among what are termed the good lines in Gulval parish, and Mrs. Lemon had recently
succeeded by will to the property of Mrs. Elizabeth Noles her godmother, and probably relation, who had acquired a fortune by some business at Chiandower.
But fortune, except perhaps for its timely supply of capital, was the least of Mrs. Lemon’s recommendations; uniform report has represented her as entirely worthy of the very extraordinary person to whom she was united.
Mr. Lemon is said to have gained from Whele Fortune ten thousand pounds; and, thus enabled to execute more extensive plans, he removed to Truro, and commenced working the great Gwennap mines, on a scale never witnessed before, and perhaps never contemplated, in Cornwall. Cavnon Adit was either actually commenced, or at the least was effectually prosecuted, by Mr. Lemon; a work unrivalled for extent or for utility in the mines of England, and his exertions increasing as his means enlarged, Mr. Lemon soon became the principal merchant and tin-smelter of Cornwall. But the energies of his mind were not limited to these undertakings, great as they were; he cultivated a taste for literature, and, what is extremely unusual, acquired, amidst business, and at a middle age, the power of reading the Classic authors in their original language. In the year 1742, we find his name in the list of Sheriffs. He became one of the magistrates of Truro, and might have represented the borough in Parliament. He obtained from Government a drawback of the duty on coal used in mines, when Sir Robert Walpole, then at the head of public affairs, complimented him on the clear and able manner in which he had made every statement; and a present of silver plate from Frederick Prince of Wales, as Duke of Cornwall, is preserved in his family.
About the same time he was mainly distinguished as “the great Mr. Lemon;” but, above all, so strongly were the impressions received of his abilities, his exertions, and general merit, that a progress so rapid and unexampled does not appear to have excited envy, or any of those bad passions which usually alloy the enjoyments of prosperity.
Mr. and Mrs. Lemon had but one son, and no daughters. Mr. William Lemon, Jun. married Ann, only daughter of Mr. John Willyams, of Cannerton, near St. Colomb, and sister of the late Mr. John Oliver Willyams, many years Colonel of the Cornwall Militia. He died at an early period of life, and several years before his father, who lived to the 25th of March 1760, and is buried in Truro church, where he had built by far the largest and most decorated house in the town. He had also purchased and improved Carclew, since become the family seat.
The younger Mr. William Lemon left two sons and a daughter. The elder of the sons, Sir William, represented the County of Cornwall in Parliament during fifty years, and commanded the regiment of militia. The second son, John, became a Colonel in the Guards, represented Truro, and commanded the Miners’ Militia. The daughter married Mr. John Buller, of Morval, near Looe.
As instances of the respect paid to the commanding genius of Mr. Lemon, the people of Truro are said to have drawn back from their doors or windows as he passed through the street. And the Rev. Samuel Walker, a respectable although a fanatical clergyman, exhorting the children to be circumspect in the presence of Almighty God, incautiously added, “Only think, my dear children, how careful you would be if Mr. Lemon were looking upon you.”
The parish of Germow measures 1,062 statute acres.
| £. | s. | d. | |
| Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 | 1,373 | 0 | 0 |
| Poor Rate in 1831 | 180 | 11 | 0 |
| Population,— | |||
| in 1801, 629 | in 1811, 735 | in 1821, 830 | in 1831, 1175 |
giving an increase of 87 per cent. in 30 years.
GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.
The geology of this parish is identical with that of Breage, of which in fact it forms a part, occupying only a segment of the Godolphin Hills.
ST. GENNYS.
HALS.
Is situate in the hundred of Lesnewith, and hath upon the north the Irish sea, west St. Juliot, east Jacobstow, south Otterham.
In Domesday Roll, 20 William I. 1087, this district was taxed under the jurisdiction of Otterham. In the taxation of benefices, made by the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, 1294, into the value of benefices in Cornwall, Ecclesia de Sancto Genesy, in Decanatu de Trigmajorshire, is rated c.s.; Vicar ejusdem £iiii. vis. viiid. In Wolsey’s Inquisition and Valor Beneficiorum, St. Genis is taxed £8. The patronage in ——. The incumbent Crew. The rectory or sheaf in possession of —— and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, £160. 6s.
TONKIN
has not added any thing to the little said by Mr. Hals.
THE EDITOR.
It seems to be quite uncertain to whom this parish is dedicated.
There was a St. Genesius, or St. Genes, of Auvergne in France; he exterminated heresies and founded monasteries. His festival is kept on the third of June, and he is said to have died in the year 662. Such were the heroes of those days, and therefore he may possibly have been selected as patron of this church.
Mr. Lysons states that Treveeg, formerly a seat of the Yeos, is now the property of Lord Eliot, and that the
great tithes, with the advowson of the vicarage, have passed to him with the priory of St. German’s.
The Yeos were persons of consequence in the north of Cornwall and of Devonshire; they bore arms, Argent, a chevron Gules, between three birds.
Mr. Lysons further states that the manor of St. Gennis was for some time the property of Treise, from whom it passed by marriage to Morshead. It must since have been sold in the general wreck of that family.
Lord Rolle has also a manor in this parish. And another manor, called Treworgy, (a name common in Cornwall, and meaning a house or village on a stream,) belonged to the Priory of Canons of the Order of St. Augustine, founded at Launceston by William Warlewast, Bishop of Exeter from 1150 to 1159, in the time of King Stephen and of Henry the 2d..
Treworgy appears among the lands of this priory in the roll of 31 Henry VIII. preserved in the Augmentation Office; where it is stated as then paying the following sums, £4. 13s. 7d., £3. 17s., and 6s. 8d.
This is one of the manors given to the Duchy of Cornwall, in exchange for the manor of Wallingford, and it has been held for a long time under the Duchy by the family of Braddon.
One of this family, Captain William Braddon, was an officer of some distinction on the Parliamentary side in the Civil War. He is buried in the chancel of this church, where some verses to his memory begin with these lines:
In war and peace I bore command,
Both gown and sword I wore.
Henry Braddon, his son, or grandson, has the following verses:
In peace I lived, and in peace did die,
And now translated am to peace on high;
Where I in peace perpetual shall remain,
Until the Prince of Peace return again.
This parish is said to afford an excellent specimen of the
romantic scenery distinguishing many portions of the north coast, from Cornwall, through Devonshire, to Somersetshire. The cliffs are bold, and the land is intersected by deep narrow vallies.
The parish of St. Gennys measures 5350 statute acres.
| £. | s. | d. | |
| Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 | 2,562 | 0 | 0 |
| Poor Rate in 1831 | 308 | 2 | 0 |
| Population,— | |||
| in 1801, 597 | in 1811, 658 | in 1821, 680 | in 1831, 761 |
giving an increase of 27½ per cent. in 30 years.
The Rev. John Symmons, Vicar, was presented by Sir W. Molesworth in 1783.
THE GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.
The whole of this parish is situated on the massive and schistose varieties of Dunstone, which are so prevalent in the northern parts of Cornwall and Devon. The Dunstone is in general very silicious, and it thus constitutes high and barren hills. A very curious variety of this rock occurs at Tresparret Down. It is in a state of decomposition, but when it is broken numerous hard rounded nodules fall out, having uniformly small crystals of pyrites in their centres. The same rock, in an unaltered state, forms the cliff on the left side of Crackington Cave, near the church, where it is inclined at an angle of 40°, having the entire surface covered with projecting nodules, which give it a blistered appearance not unlike that of hæmatites.
GLANT, GOLANT, or ST. SAMPSON’S.
HALS.
Is situate in the hundred of Powdre, and hath upon the north Lanlivery, east part of Foye Harbour, south Foye town, west Tywardreth.
At the time of the Norman Conquest this district was taxed under the name of Tywardreth, or Lan-tine. In the taxation of benefices made by the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, 1294, in this province, the church is not named, probably it was not then extant, or not endowed; neither is it mentioned in Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521, or Valor Beneficiorum, so that I take it to be wholly impropriated under Tywardreth. However, 24 Henry VI. St. Sampson’s was rated to the Cornish clergy’s fifteenths 35s. Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, page 91. It was endowed by the prior of Tywardreth. The patronage now in Barret, the curate or vicar Hosken, the sheaf or rectory in Barrett. The parish of St. Sampson’s was rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, temp. William III. £103. 2s.
Pen-coit, alias Pen-coid, alias Pen-quite, all synonymous words, signifying head or chief wood, or head of the wood, is a name given and taken from the once natural circumstances of the place, from whence was denominated an ancient family of gentlemen, surnamed de Pencoit. And here lived John de Pencoit, temp. Henry III. and Edward I. who held one acre of land in Lamellyn of 5s. price, (that is to say a Cornish acre, consisting of 60 statute acres) for making and keeping the king’s grey coat when he came into Cornwall, due out of Cabulion, from Peter, the son of Orger. [Carew’s Sur. Corn. p. 45. See also Pengelly in St. Breock, Pyder, and Warliggan.]
This barton is now the dwelling of John Barret, esq. Sheriff of Cornwall 3 William III. whose ancestor is said to have come out of Normandy with William the Conqueror, 1066, an ensign under Colonel Henry de Ferrers, commonly called Henry Earl Ferrars, son of Wakelyn; to whom the Conqueror gave the castles of Tutbury in Staffordshire, and Oncomb in Rutlandshire. Since which time this gentle family of Barrets have flourished in this county in good fame and reputation for above twenty descents. The present possessor of Pencoit married Kendall of Medroff, and giveth for his arms, Gules, a bend Varry.
In this parish is the dwelling of Reginald Couch, gent. Attorney at Law, that married Vincent of Creed; his father, Hawkey of St. Wenowe.
TONKIN.
How these names of Glant or Golant prevailed over that of St. Sampson I am not able to determine, unless perhaps it was the primitive name thereof before the parish church was erected, consecrated, and endowed to God under the name of St. Sampson. For in Cardinal Wolsey’s Inquisition, and in Carew’s Survey, it is called St. Sampson.
The name Golant is obviously compounded of Gol, holy, and of lan, a church. (Mr. Whitaker remarks that Y-Gol, by the Holy One, is still an oath in Cornwall.)
THE EDITOR.
Mr. Hals has given a very long and uninteresting account of St. Sampson, the patron saint of Golant, involving a dissertation on the antiquity of archbishops.
He is reported to have commenced his ecclesiastical career by the practice of ascetic observances, in due time he became the chief of a monastic institution, from whence he was taken to be Archbishop of York; but the north of England being at that time ravaged by the northern pirates, he was driven from thence, and going over into Brittany he founded a monastery at Dal, and became the first Bishop of that place, where a see was created at his request by Pope Pelegius the First, who honoured him moreover personally with the pallium or pale. He was present at the Second Council of Paris, held in 557, and died about the year 564. His remains were enshrined at Dal, but when the Normans began in the tenth century to invade and pillage Neustria, these barbarians, equally hostile
to the saint alive or dead, obliged his brethren to remove the relics to Paris, where they are supposed to have been preserved up to the period of the great revolution.
Penquite was acquired by purchase about the beginning or towards the middle of last century from the Prestwoods, by Mr. Rashleigh, of Menwhilly, by whom a perpetual lease was soon after granted in favour of a relation, which has since passed through various hands.
Mr. Lysons says that the manor of Lentyon in this parish, belonged to the Montacutes Earls of Salisbury.
It appears from Dugdale’s Baronage that this property was seized by king Henry VIII., on his judicial murder of the last Plantagenet, Margaret Countess of Salisbury. It now belongs to Mr. William Rashleigh, who is impropriator of the great and small tithes, and appoints the perpetual curate, in right of the monastery of Tywardreth.
A castle is said to have belonged to this manor, but no traces of it remain; the appellation seems indeed to have been very loosely applied in the latter part of our feudal times, so as frequently to indicate no more than the residence of a chief.
The village round the church, or, according to the expression used in Cornwall, “the church town,” is always called Golant. The houses are situated in a romantic cross valley, nearly where it terminates in Fowey River.
The inhabitants boast that in this village was established the first boarding-school for young ladies that appeared in Cornwall, and they call the attention of visitors to these peculiarities connected with this church:—“That it has a fire-place within it; that a well of water flows over in the porch; and that a tree in the churchyard o’ertops the tower.”
This parish measures 1340 statute acres.
| £. | s. | d. | |
| Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 | 1874 | 0 | 0 |
| Poor Rate in 1831 | 185 | 5 | 0 |
giving an increase of 86 per cent. in 30 years.
The Rev. Thomas Pearse was presented to St. Sampson’s chapel in 1815, by W. Rashleigh, Esq.
THE GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.
The rocks of this parish are intermediate between those of the porphyritic and calcareous series: on the northern part passing into the former, which are better developed as they pass on towards the granite in Tywardrath; on the southern part the rocks begin to assume the character of the calcareous series, which is complete in Fowey.