JACOBSTOW.

HALS.

Is situate in the hundred of Stratton, and hath upon the north Poundstock, east St. Mary Wick, west St. Gennis, south Otterham.

In the Domesday Tax, 1087, this parish passed under the jurisdiction of Pen-fon, or Pen-foun. In the inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, 1294, Ecclesia de Jacobstow in decanatu de Trigmajorshire was valued vil.; in Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, and Valor Beneficiorum 19l.; the patronage in Elliot; the incumbent Holden; and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, 113l. 14s.

Pen-fon, now Penfowne aforesaid, i. e. head well, spring of water or fountain, gave name and original to an old family of gentlemen surnamed de Penfowne, who have lived here in good fame and reputation for many generations.

TONKIN.

I take St. Jacob to be the patron Saint of this parish, and not the patriarch Jacob, as some have imagined.

The termination Stowe comes from the Saxon, and means a home or a dwelling.

THE EDITOR.

Mr. Lysons mentions some few particulars respecting this parish. He says that Sawacott, or Southcot, is the

sole village in the parish; and that a manor called Penhallam, having belonged to a Sir John Stowell in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, has passed through various hands, and that it had been finally purchased about the year 1802 by the Rev. Charles Dayman.

The barton of Berry Court has its mansion surrounded by a moat, indicative of ancient importance, but nothing seems to be known of its history.

In Wood’s Athenæ Oxonienses may be found the following account of a native of this parish:

Degorie Wheare was born at Jacobstow in Cornwall; retired to the habitation of the Muses called Broadgate Hall (Pembroke College) in the beginning of the year 1592, aged 19; took the degrees in Arts, that of Master being completed in 1600; elected probationer fellow of Exeter College; and six years afterwards leaving that house, travelled into several countries beyond the seas, by which he obtained as well learning as experience.

At his return he was entertained by the Lord Chandois, and by him respected and exhibited to. After his death our author with his wife retired to Gloucester Hall, where Doctor Hawley, the Principal, demised to him lodgings; and there he became so well acquainted with Mr. Thomas Allen, that by his endeavours the learned Cambden made him his First Reader of his History Lecture which he founded in the University.

Soon after he was made Principal of the Hall, the which with his Lecture he kept to his dying day; and was esteemed by some a learned and genteel man, and by others a Calvinist.

Having entered at Oxford in the year 1592, aged, as his friend states, nineteen years, the date of his birth must be 1573; and it appears from the Fasti of Gloucester Hall, now Worcester College, that he died in 1647, aged therefore 74. His chief works are,

Prælectiones Hiemales de Ratione et Methodo Legendi Historias Civiles et Ecclesiasticas; this work has gone through several editions, and been translated into English.

Oratio Auspicalis ubi Cathedram Historicam primum ascendit.

Parentatio Historica—Commemoratio Vitæ et Martis Gulielmi Camdeni, cum Imaginis Camdenianæ Dedicatione.

Lord St. German’s (Eliot) is patron of the living, and the present rector is the Rev. John Glanville, instituted in 1822.

Jacobstow measures 4,206 statute acres.

£.s.d.
Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815209800
Poor Rate in 183127060
Population,—
in 1801,
432		in 1811,
489		in 1821,
571		in 1831,
638

giving an increase of 47⅔ per cent. in 30 years.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

This parish is entirely situated on the Dunstone rocks, mentioned under the heads of Boyton and St. Gennys. To the cursory observer few opportunities offer themselves here for studying the nature of the rocks; but perhaps many quarries or similar excavations may be known to those who are resident.