LANTEGLOS, juxta CAMELFORD.

HALS.

The manuscript relating to this parish is lost.

TONKIN.

Lanteglos by Camelford is situate in the hundred of Lesnewith; and hath to the west St. Teath; to the north Tintagell; to the east Davidstow; to the south Advent alias St. Anne, and Michaelstow.

This parish is a rectory, valued in the King’s Book, together with Advent, at 34l. 11s. 2d. The patronage in the Duke of Cornwall. The incumbent Dr. Lombard.

This parish is wholly within the manor of Helstone in Trigg, so termed to distinguish it from that in the west

called Helstone in Kerrier, they both having the same lord, that is the Duke of Cornwall. This parish is now said to be in the hundred of Lesnewith; yet formerly, when the three northern hundreds of Trigg, Lesnewith, and Stratton composed but two, Trigg Major and Trigg Minor, it was in the hundred of Trigg Minor, in which deanery it is still reckoned as to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

The manor takes its name from its once chief place, though now but a village, about a mile to the west of Camelford. Here, I suppose, the Duke had a castle; for there were two parks, which, though now disparked, do still retain the name. They are adjoining to this village; the one called the Deer Park, and the other Hellesbury Park, the walls of which are still standing; and the latter of the two is of large extent, formerly well wooded, and watered by the river Alan, being a place exceedingly well fitted for country sports; and no doubt, when the Earls of Cornwall held their Court at Tintagel Castle, this place was in much repute, not being five miles distant from it.

These two parks are now held by a lease of three lives from the Duke of Cornwall, by Mr. Nicholas Dennithorne of St. Agnes.

I next come to the town of Camelford, so called from the ford here over the Alan; “called also,” saith Mr. Camden, “Comb Alan and Camel from its winding channel, for Cam with them implies as much.”

At the head of this river Alan is seated Camelford, otherwise written Galleford,— a little village, formerly called Kambton, in the opinion of Leland, who tells us that Arthur, the British Hector, was slain here. For, as he adds, pieces of armour, rings, and brass furniture for horses, are sometimes digged up here by the countrymen; and, after so many ages, the tradition of a bloody victory in this place is still preserved. There are also extant some verses of a middle age poet, about “Camels” running with blood after the battle of Arthur against Mordred.

In the mean time, not to deny the truth of this story concerning Arthur, I have read in Marianus, mentioned also in the Saxon Chronicle, of a bloody battle here between the Britons and Saxons in the year 820, so that the place may seem to be sacred to Mars. And if it be true that Arthur was killed here, the same shore both gave him his first breath and deprived him of his last. Harrison also saith, that to this day men that do eare (till) the ground there, do oft plough up bones of a large size, and great store of armour; or else it may be (as I rather conjecture) that the Romans had some field or castra there about, for not long since (and in the remembrance of men) a brass pot full of Roman coins was found there, as I have often heard.

To these Mr. Carew adds (p. 288, Lord de Dunstanville’s edition) “Camelford, a market and fair, but not fair town, fetcheth his derivation from the river Camel, which runneth through it, and that from the Cornish word Cam, in English crooked, as Cam from the often winding stream. The same is incorporated with a mayoralty, and nameth burgesses to Parliament; yet steppeth little before the meanest sort of boroughs for store of inhabitants, or the inhabitants’ store. Upon the river of Camel, near to Camelford, was that last dismal battle stricken between the noble King Arthur and his treacherous nephew Mordred, wherein the one took his death, and the other his death-wound. For testimony whereof, the old folk thereabouts will shew you a stone, bearing Arthur’s name, though now depraved to Atry.” Then follows what is before quoted out of Mr. Camden.

Mr. Willis, in his Notitia Parliamentaria, says, Camelford was created a borough by Richard Earl of Cornwall, who, when King of the Romans, by his charter made this place a free borough, and granted the burgesses a Friday market, and a fair on the eve, day, and morrow of St. Swithin, all which liberties were confirmed by his brother King Henry the Third, by his charter, dated at Westminster June the 12th, 1259, and in the 44th year of his reign,

as appears from an inspeximus in Queen Mary’s time, of confirmation of liberties to Camelford, in whose reign this poor borough was encouraged to send burgesses to Parliament, which it had begun to do in the preceding reign of Edward the Sixth. The present charter of incorporation is said to be granted by King Charles the First; and the manor of the borough to be held by the corporation of the duchy of Cornwall to which it belongs. It is governed by a mayor and eight burgesses or aldermen, who with ten freemen, elect the members of Parliament.

The corporation, which is doubtless ancient, enjoys the tolls of the markets and fairs, with an estate also of 15l. per annum, which helps to support the dignity of otherwise a very mean magistracy. All these revenues are reputed worth about 80l. per annum. The seal of arms pretended to by this town, seems to be in imitation of the device of Oxford, for as the arms of that city are an ox passant over a river, so this has a camel.[13]

Here is only one street of ordinary building, of not above fifty or sixty houses, all of which are in the parish of Lanteglos; to the church of which place, distant about a mile, the inhabitants repair to hear divine service. There was formerly a chapel, which is reported to have been converted into a dwelling-house: it is not known to what saint this chapel was dedicated.

Dodridge’s History of the Duchy of Cornwall tells us, that the chief rent payable to the said Duchy by this borough, is 4l. 5s. 4d.

THE EDITOR.

The manor of Helston in Trigg is of very considerable extent. Mr. Lysons says, that the ancient site or barton

of the manor is supposed to have been at Michaelstow Beacon, called St. Syth’s, where vestiges remain of a camp. Besides the town of Camelford, this parish abounds in villages: Fenterwarson, Fooda, Helston, Trefrew, Treegoodwell, Tremagenna, Trevia, and Trewalder.

At Fentonwoon in this parish was born Capt. Wallis, celebrated for his voyage round the world and the discovery of Otaheite.

The right of voting for members of Parliament having been declared by a Committee of the House of Commons, reported on the 10th of November 1796, “to be in the freemen, being inhabitants and paying scot and lot; and that the capital burgessess as such, have not the right;” it became important to acquire as much as possible of the property within the borough to secure political influence; and after various sales and transfers, Lord Darlington at last succeeded in acquiring the whole.

The civil corporation hold the manor, mentioned by Mr. Tonkin to have been given by Charles the First, in the capacity of lord of the manor; but the freemen are persons presented by the homage in the Lord’s Court. It is almost needless to add that, when the whole property came into a single hand, and that residence with the payment of scot and lot were requisite to complete the power of voting in one presented by the homage, the Borough became what is well understood by the term “quite close,” and that it continued so till its extinction in 1832, since which the property has been sold in parcels.

When Mr. Thomas Pitt, of Boconnock, received in 1784 the grant of an hereditary seat in Parliament, and it became necessary, according to the established custom, to create an imaginary office for the purpose of bestowing on him a new appellation, Camelford was feigned to be a barony.

Mr. Macpherson, the author, editor, or paraphraser of Ossian, represented this borough in several Parliaments. This gentleman made a considerable figure in his day, and excited universal attention, chiefly from his publishing

what are called the Poems of Ossian. He is now perhaps best remembered by his correspondence with Doctor Johnson, who argued with the force always exerted by his mighty genius, against the authenticity of this work; and Mr. Macpherson, probably unable to meet the reasoning, attempted to establish his case by recurring to a practice almost as obsolete as the achievements of his supposed heroes, which was by reviving the ordeal or wager of battle, as the best mode of ascertaining truth; and with this view, according to the modern phrase, he wrote a challenge to Doctor Johnson, and obtained the following answer:

“Mr. James Macpherson,

“I have received your foolish and impudent letter. Any violence offered me I shall do my best to repel; and what I cannot do for myself, the law shall do for me. I hope I never shall be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian. What would you have me retract? I thought your book an imposture, and I think so still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the public, which I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities, since your Homer, are not so formidable; and what I hear of your morals, inclines me to pay regard, not to what you shall say, but to what you shall prove.

“You may print this if you will. Sam. Johnson.”

The living was held for many years by the Rev. William Phillipps, whom the Editor recollects residing at Camelford, and universally respected for his placid manners and benevolent disposition. A handsome monument has been placed to his memory in the church, by John Phillipps Carpenter, Esq. of Mount Tavy, his nephew and devisee, which records his decease on the 20th day of April 1794, aged 70.

Mr. Phillipps’s immediate predecessor was Daniel Lombard, Doctor of Divinity, son of a Protestant clergyman

in France, one of those who were constrained to abandon their country by the persecution raised in the name of Lewis the Fourteenth, by a Jesuite Confessor to the King and his mistress, the widow of a buffoon. He received the early part of his education at the Merchant-Taylors’ School in London, and proceeded from thence to St. John’s College, Oxford, where he obtained a fellowship, and took his degree of Doctor in Divinity. But Lombard never assimilated himself to the manners nor the society of England. He spent much time abroad, and especially in Germany, where he became known either to King George the Second, or, what is more probable, as a scholar and a divine to Queen Caroline: from them he obtained this living.

In Germany he most fortunately became acquainted also, with a Cornish gentleman, then serving with distinction in the army, but distinguished still more by his abilities, learning, and taste. This gentleman (Mr. Gregor) frequently received Doctor Lombard at Trewarthenick, and carried on with him a correspondence on literary subjects, which is still preserved, and appears to have been his chief friend and main support in a situation of complete banishment from all other associates of his studies or of his amusements; for it appears, from one of his letters, that in former times, he had been admitted a member of what would now be termed a club, with several branches of the reigning family at a German court.

All accounts agree in representing Doctor Lombard as a man of profound ecclesiastical and school learning; but at the same time wholly unacquainted with the ways of the world in which he was destined to live, or with the discoveries of modern science. Innumerable anecdotes were current about him half a century ago; of these two may serve as specimens.

He proceeded from London to take possession of his parish, mounted on one horse himself and his servant on another, driving a third laden with such articles as appeared to be indispensible in a country where he supposed nothing

could be procured; thus attended, he followed the great road, then passing through Camelford, but inquiring in a foreign accent for Lan-te-glos juxta Camèl-ford, he proceeded nearly to the Land’s End without obtaining the least information as to where his parish lay.

The other evinces that he had not condescended to pay any attention to the general classifications of Natural History, although Aristotle or Pliny might have communicated a sufficient store of knowledge in respect to animals, without his recurring to modern authors. Having observed a hen surrounded by a large brood of chickens, Doctor Lombard expressed his utter astonishment and surprise that so small an animal could possibly afford milk in sufficient quantity for the sustenance of such a numerous offspring.

He died at Camelford Dec. 14, 1746; and left a valuable library for the use of his successors.

This parish measures 3562 statute acres.

£.s.d.
Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 18154,14100
Poor Rate in 1831662140
Population,—
in 1801,
912		in 1811,
1100		in 1821,
1256		in 1831,
1359

giving an increase of 49 per cent. in 30 years.

Present Rector, the Rev. Coryndon Luxmoore, presented in 1794, by the Prince of Wales.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

This parish no where rests on granite, although it approaches very near to it. Its southern part is composed of massive schistose rocks like those of Advent, and is also traversed by beds of elvan, which very nearly resemble granite. Its northern part consists of rocks of the calcareous series, among which are slates of an excellent quality for roofing.

[13] The device used for arms by the City of Oxford, has evidently been derived from a corruption of Ouse Ford into Oxford, which has also given rise to the tale of the Empress Matilda escaping from thence on an Ox’s back.

The Saxons or Normans, unacquainted with the Celtic language, mistook cam or camel for the name of an animal of which they had read in the Gospels.