KELLINGTON, or CALLINGTON.
HALS.
Is situate in the hundred of Eastwellshire, and hath upon the north Stoke Clemsland and South Hill, east St. Dominick, south St. Mellin, west St. Eve.
At the time of the first inquisition into the value of Cornish benefices by the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, anno Dom. 1294, this church had no endowment, neither was it then consolidated into South Hill; but before Wolsey’s inquisition 1521, they were both united, and were then valued for revenues at 38l. per annum; the patronage in the Duke of Cornwall, who endowed it; the incumbent Trelawnye; the town and parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax 1696, 120l. 16s.
This church or chapel town bailiwick is now known by the name of the town, manor, and borough of Killiton, i. e. chapel town, privileged with the jurisdiction of a Court Leet, and sending two Members to sit in the Commons’ House of Parliament, which are chosen by the tenants of the said manor that are freeholders; as also by a
jury chosen out of them, is elected the Mayor or Portreeve that governs the said borough yearly; the arms of which are in a field, a wreathed flourish. This borough is also privileged with a weekly market on Wednesdays; and fairs yearly on April 23, September 8, and November 1.
The writ to remove an action at law depending in this town Court Leet, as also the precept for electing Members of Parliament, must be thus directed: Preposito et Burgensibus Burgi nostri de Killiton in com. Cornubiæ salutem; and for the same purpose, to remove an action at law depending in the Hundred Court Baron of this Bailiwick, the writ must be thus directed: Senescallo et Ballivo Hundredi et Libertatis nostri de Eastwellshire in comitatu Cornubiæ salutem.
Near this place is situate Hengiston Downs, the place mentioned by Roger Hoveden in his Latin Chronicle, which says, that in the year of our Lord 806 a great fleet of Danes arrived in West Wales, which some conjecture to be Cornwall, not North or South Wales (in all thirteen shires); especially for that he says, the Welsh joined in insurrection with them against Egbright thirteenth King of England or the West Saxons, by whom they were all overthrown at a place called, Hengis-ton·dun, i. e. Hengis-ton-dun; that is to say, Hengist’s fenced, fortified or camp town, which some take to be Hengiston Downs aforesaid, which place in former ages so abounded with tin that it gave occasion to those rhimes, (neither is it at present altogether destitute thereof)
Hengiston Downe well ywrought,
Is worth London towne dear ybought.—Carew.
In this town or borough of Killington, for retirement and delight, lived Sir Edward Bray, Knight, originally descended, as tradition says, from the Brays of Bray, in St. Just in Cornwall, that came into England with William the Conqueror, otherwise from Ralph de Bray, Sheriff of Hampshire, third of King John.
The Bray’s arms were, in a field Argent, a chevron between three eagles’ legs erased at the knees Sable. He gave also in a field Varry Purple and Argent, three bendlets Gules.
Sir Reginald Bray, Knight Banneret and of the Garter, Privy Councillor to King Henry VII. and Speaker of the House of Commons in his eleventh year, is noted to have made the usual protestation for himself to that King, without any petition for the liberty of the Commons, as is to be seen in modus tenendi Parliamentum: he was a brother of the Lord Bray, or descended from the same family. (See Camden in Hampshire.) Others will not allow those Brays to be of British, but of French descent, from the province of Bray in that country, and that they came into England with the Conqueror, and that the many places in Cornwall distinguished by the name of Bray were denominated from them after their coming into England: but of this query.
A Knight Banneret was made in the field or camp of war, under the King’s standard, who was personally present, by cutting off the point of his standard, and making it a banner; after which they might display their particular arms in a banner in the King’s army, and take place of Knights Bachelors.
TONKIN.
As for the name of this parish, which is a daughter church to South Hill, and has for its patron saint St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra in Lycia, I take it to be Killy-Ton, the town in a grove of trees.
Then follows a long conjectural account of the lords of this manor, which is wholly uninteresting, and therefore omitted.
THE EDITOR.
Mr. Tonkin does not state on what authority he has assigned the town and parish to the care of St. Nicholas. The popularity of this saint is now, and always has been, so great as to render the fact of his being the patron very probable. He is held in the highest veneration throughout Russia.
St. Nicholas ran through the ordinary course of those days. He became a monk, succeeded to the abbacy of his convent; and when the clergy of Myra assembled to elect a Bishop, and almost agreed in their choice, they were divinely instructed to wait till the next day, and then to choose the person who first offered himself to their notice, on their opening the church-door. They obeyed; and in the morning St. Nicholas was led to the spot by an irresistible impulse. He assisted in overthrowing the Arians, under the direction of Constantine, at the Council of Nice. All these, however, were matters of frequent occurrence. The fame of St. Nicholas rests on something more unusual; and if the tale is of a date sufficiently early, it may have been the cause of his subsequent advancement, and of his having obtained an influence so great as to effect the change of his simple bishoprick into a metropolitan see, with thirty-six suffragans.
So very early was the præcox ingenium of this saint directed towards observances, then deemed most acceptable to the Divinity, that when an infant in arms he rigidly abstained, every Wednesday and Friday, and on all other days kept as fasts by the church, from touching his nurse’s breast; for this truly wonderful ascetic achievement he has been deservedly accounted the peculiar patron of children, and more especially the preserver of their health.
He died in 342, and was buried in the Cathedral at Myra; but in the year 1087 his relics were forcibly taken from a country no longer Christian, and were enshrined
in the Cathedral of St. Stephen at Bavi in Italy, where pilgrims have ever since resorted in great numbers to witness or to experience miraculous cures effected by his intercession with Almighty God.
His festival is kept on the 6th of December, and on this day the ludicrous or profane ceremony of the Boy Bishop used to be exhibited in most Cathedrals. At Salisbury a boy is represented on a monument, dressed in the habit of a bishop including the mitre; and this is said to have been occasioned by the lad dying in his mock pontificate.
Mr. Lysons states, that the manor of Callington has passed through various families, Ferrers, Champernowne, Willoughby, Dennis, and Rolle.
The heiress of Samuel Rolle brought it to Robert Walpole, Earl of Orford, son of Sir Robert Walpole; and on the death of his son George Walpole in 1791, sine prole, this property passed to Mr. Robert George William Trefusis, of Trefusis in Cornwall, together with the barony of Clinton, created by writ of summons to Parliament in the reign of Edward the First.
George Walpole, Earl of Orford, executed a deed by which, after reserving a life interest to himself, and a power of revocation never acted on, he settled the remainder in fee of all such property as came to him from his maternal relations, on the right heir of Samuel Rolle, son of Robert Rolle and Arabella Clinton, his ancestor, from whom the Barony had descended; but his legal adviser forgot a most important distinction between deeds and wills; a will not coming into action till after the testator’s death, when Mr. Trefusis would have been the undoubted heir of Samuel Rolle; but the deed, being effective from the instant of its execution, vested the remainder in Mr. George Walpole himself, the then heir of Samuel Rolle; and on his decease carried the property which had vested in him by act of law, although in direct opposition to his wishes and intention, from the
maternal line to that of his father. Fortunately, however, in this instance, the whole was under mortgage, which brought the cognizance of the affair into Chancery. Mr. Trefusis took possession unopposed; and proceedings to obtain the property in consequence of the mistake, were not commenced till after twenty years, when a solemn decision of the House of Lords declared that the interference came too late for disturbing matters in equity.
It is obvious that Mr. George Walpole should have settled the remainder in fee on such person as would be the heir of Samuel Rolle after his own decease, or perhaps in trustees for such person. Mr. Trefusis (Lord Clinton) has since disposed of the Callington property to Mr. Alexander Baring.
This town or village received a Tudor charter in the 27th year of Queen Elizabeth, and continued to fulfil the duties, for which the corporation was instituted, till 1832, when the privilege of sending Members to Parliament ceased to exist.
Callington parish measures 2387 statute acres.
| £. | s. | d. | ||||
| Value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 | 4142 | 0 | 0 | |||
| Poor Rate in 1831 | 950 | 17 | 0 | |||
| Population,— | |||
| in 1801, 819 | in 1811, 938 | in 1821, 1321 | in 1831, 1388 |
giving an increase of 69 per cent. in 30 years.
GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.
The north-eastern part of this parish extends to the foot of Kitt Hill, the most elevated point in Hingston Down, which is composed of granite. The slate adjoining thereto resembles that which occurs in similar situations in the parishes of St. Austell and St. Blazey; and it has also been the scene of mining speculations. As the town of Callington is approached, the slate becomes of a darker
blue, and passes into hornblende rock, which prevails in the other parts of this parish; but where quartz predominates, the land is barren. This rock, however, does not possess here a very marked character, nor is it frequently exposed to view; near St. Eve it appears to graduate into the calcareous series.