LANLIVERY.
HALS.
The manuscript relating to this parish is lost.
TONKIN.
Lanlivery is situate in the hundred of Powder, and hath to the west Luxilian, to the north Lanivet and Lanhidrock; to the east Lestwithiel and the river Fowey; between it and St. Winnow, to the south, Tywardreth and Golant.
The name Lanlivery signifies the church of bucks; for livrou in Cornish is the plural of levar, or livar, a buck; but for what reason I cannot so much as guess. This parish is sometimes called Lanvorch, the church of St. Vorch, to whom it is dedicated.
It is a vicarage, valued in the King’s books at 13l. 6s. 8d. The patron, Walter Kendall, of Pelyn, Esq.; the incumbent, his father, Mr. Archdeacon Nicholas Kendall.
In 1291, the 20th of Edw. I. this church was valued at 9l. 11s. 8d. for the rectory, and the vicarage at 15s. being the appropriate to the priory of Trewardreath.
Since the writing of the above I have thought upon another etymology, which I believe to be the true one; that this name is no other than a softening of Lan-le-Vorch, St. Vorch’s church-place, which is a very easy and natural alteration.
THE EDITOR.
The church and town of Llanlivery are very conspicuous objects for miles round, and especially from the Plymouth or great southern road.
The church contains various monuments to the family of Kendall. This family were originally of Treworgy, in the parish of Dulo, but have long resided at Pelyn, in this parish. The house is beautifully situated in a small wooded valley, joining in a transverse course the river Fowey, about a mile below Lestwithiel. There appears to be a vague tradition of some religious establishment having existed here, dedicated to St. Chad, or Ceada, the patron of Lichfield, Worcester, and Shrewsbury. No trace, however, can be found of any such establishment; and it is probable that these tales frequently rest on no more solid foundation that the casual residence of some monk or anchorite, or perhaps on the dedication of a domestic chapel. There still exists at Pelin a small summer house, considered as under the protection of this saint; and an inscription records the festivities and friendly meetings of four gentlemen
annually on the 2d. of March, to commemorate the day, when, according to the legend, this Saint expired amid a company of angels, singing hymns for the solace of his dying moments, and for joy of such an accession to the heavenly mansions.
The inscription is as follows, under a portrait of the Saint:
Friend, within these walls St. Chad you see,
A place made sacred to his memory;
For here four friends did meet upon this day,
And heads, and hands, and hearts together lay;
And never dying friendship’s knot to tye,
And call this place St. Chad’s Society.
March 2, 1694.
The glory of this parish, however, is Restormel Castle, but these buildings have been so amply described by almost every writer on Cornish antiquities, that it would be idle to repeat what has been so often done. It presents one of the finest objects in the whole country.
Richard, King of the Romans, is believed to have kept court here, and in his more commodious habitation at Lestwithiel, and he was the last who exercised even the semblance of independent authority. The earldom and dukedom of Cornwall have, since his time, done no more than afford a revenue and bestow a name, like the shadows of a shade, with which the private gentlemen, holding hereditary seats in Parliament at the present time, continue to decorate themselves, by assuming the verbal denominations of offices extinct above three centuries, and which habit alone enables us to pronounce, as applicable to them, without a smile; but which offices, like the ancient earldom of Cornwall, while they had any existence, conferred real feudal sovereignty, proportionate to their different degrees.
The palace at Lestwithiel has degenerated into a prison for the stannary courts; and that town no longer witnessing the county election, nor holding any of its own, may still boast of its being in some degree at the head of a duchy jurisdiction.
There is a handsome seat almost at the foot of Restormel
Hill now called, Restormel, but formerly Trinity. It seems to have been built after leases of the park were granted by the Crown. It has passed through various hands, and finally into those of the Edgecumbe family, who have been supposed desirous, up to very recent times, of acquiring all species of property, and, most of all, gentlemen’s residences, situated near Lestwithiel.
The late Mr. Francis Gregor lived here in 1790, when he was first elected member for the county, and it is at present held under Lord Mount Edgecumbe by Mr. Francis Hext, a gentleman of ancient family and ample fortune, and universally esteemed.
This parish measures 5,951 statute acres.
| £. | s. | d. | ||||
| Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 | 5,232 | 0 | 0 | |||
| Poor Rates in 1831 | 622 | 17 | 0 | |||
| Population,— | |||
| in 1801, 778 | in 1811, 965 | in 1821, 1,318 | in 1831, 1,687 |
giving an increase of 117 per cent. in 30 years.
Present Vicar, the Rev. Nicholas Kendall, instituted in 1815.
GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.
A gently undulating line, drawn north and south through this parish, a little to the eastward of the church, would divide it into two parts; of which, the western is the larger, and rests entirely on granite; the eastern division on schistose rock. Both of which exactly resemble those of St. Blazey, already described.