LANTEGLOS, juxta FOWEY.

HALS.

The manuscript relating to this parish is lost.

TONKIN.

Lanteglos, near Fowey, is situate in the hundred of West; and hath to the west Fowey Harbour, to the north St. Veep, to the east Plynt and Lansallas, to the south the English Channel.

It is a vicarage, valued in the King’s books at 14l. 7s. 6d. The patronage in Mr. Thomas Pitt (late Mohun). The incumbent was the Rev. Mr. Henry Sutton, lately deceased.

The first place of note in this parish is the manor of Hall. Hall signifies a moor, as Mr. Carew truly observes; and so by its situation it seemeth formerly to have been. This place was for many generations the seat of the Fitz-Williams, a family of special note in this county. Gervasius filius Willielmi Fitz-William, held five knights’ fees in the reign of Richard the First.

Robertus, filius Willielmi Fitz-William, impotens Miles, Coronator Domini Regis, (Carew, p. 139, Lord Dunstanville’s edition, Edw. II. A.D. 1324), an office much regarded in those days.

Sir John, son of William Fitz-William, and Robert, I believe his brother, were two of those who held 20l. per annum of land as rent or more, 25 Edward I.; and had summons to attend the king in parts beyond the sea.

Sir John Fitz-William, mentioned above, had only one daughter and heir, Elizabeth, married to Reginald de Mohun, fourth son to John Lord Mohun, of Dunster Castle in Somersetshire, whereof some of his ancestors had been Lords, which John Lord Mohun died in the fourth year of Edward the Third, leaving his grandson John de Mohun his heir; so that I take John de Mohun, named among the

knights 17 Edward the Second, to be the same with him married to Elizabeth Fitz-William, and the dates agree.

They say that this Sir Reginald de Mohun, coming into Fowey harbour with a company of soldiers bound for Ireland, landing there, let fly a hawk at some game, which killed it in the garden of Hall, where Sir John Mohun going for his hawk, and being a very handsome personable young gentleman (qualities which his descendants retained to the last) the young lady fell in love with him; and having a great fortune, the match was soon made up between them by the consent of their friends on both sides. I shall add no more of this place, than that it continued to be the chief seat of the Mohuns till the reign of King Charles the First, when they removed to Boconnock; some time after which, Warwick Lord Mohun sold the barton only to Mr. Kekewich, whose seat it has been ever since. Peter Kekewich, Esq. his son, took to wife the daughter of William Williams, of Bodenick; and dying soon after 1720, left a son, now residing at Hall. The arms of Kekewich are, Argent, two lions in bend passant Sable, cotised Gules. The arms of Fitz-William were, Or, three bends Azure.

The manor of Hall continued in the family of Mohun till the general sale to Mr. Pitt; and Mr. Thomas Pitt is the present lord of this manor.

Hall, from its pleasant situation, has been called View Hall; but as this was an addition of latter years, so is it now lost, and the place has returned to its ancient plain name. Mr. Carew hath a long description of the walk here (p. 310), which is still in being, but much neglected; and also of a remarkable fagot, or rather a piece of wood, belonging to the Earls of Devon, and carefully kept here; but this fagot is, I suppose, now lost. There is but little left of the old house, which I believe was destroyed in the Civil Wars, which may have inclined the Lord Mohun to part with it.

Under Hall, and adjoining to it, is Bodenick; that is,

the house on the water, suitable to its situation. It is but an indifferent place, consisting of one long street on a very steep hill, through which is the highway, and at the bottom of it the passage over the river to Fowey. There is but one good house in the place, and in that the late Mr. William Williams lived, and got a good estate by merchandizing.

The manor of Lamellin, that is the Mill Place, from a mill there, lies on the side of a creek between Bodenick and Polruan. “At the head of this little Pill,” says Leland, is a chapel of St. Wilow, and by it is a place called Lamellin, lately belonging to Lamelin, now to Trelawney by heir general. John Trelawney, of Pool, Esq. married Margery, only daughter and heir of Thomas Lamellin, Esq. ever since which this manor hath been in this family, who some time resided here. The present lord of this manor being Sir John Trelawney, Baronet.

The arms of Lamellin were, Argent, a bull’s head passant Sable, the horns and hoofs Or.

THE EDITOR.

The church is situated between hills, and therefore but little seen; it contains monuments to the Mohuns and to others. It was rated in the valuation of Pope Nicholas at 10l. 13s. 4d.

There is a popular tradition, that in the year 1644, just before the surrender of the infantry commanded by Lord Essex, King Charles the First was walking on the terrace at Hall, described by Mr. Carew, when a shot was fired, which missed him, but killed a fisherman almost by his side. The tradition adds, of course, that the ball was aimed at the King by some one who knew him, but that must be uncertain.

Polruan, a place in this parish, having some pretensions still to be called a town, has been wholly omitted by Mr. Tonkin, and probably was so by Mr. Hals, from whose

work the greater part of Mr. Tonkin’s manuscript is copied. This place is without doubt of great antiquity; and seems in former times, when vessels required much less depth of water than they do at present, to have been the principal station in Fowey harbour. Pol means exactly the same as the English word pool, and may possibly be the original theme; Ruan has been ascertained in several instances to signify Roman. Polruan is, therefore, in all probability, the Roman pool or haven. This place, with a small district round it, forming in some respects a hamlet within the parish of Lanteglos, shared in the elective franchise of Fowey, where all residents paying scot and lot were entitled to vote till the act of 1832 swept it all away.

Tales are related of Polruan having been an independent corporate town, and of its having sent Members to Parliament, while Fowey was a mere village; but such traditions are prevalent in all places under similar circumstances, and they have not here any sanction whatever from authentic sources.

In the Taxatio Ecclesiastica Papæ Nicholai, the three adjacent parishes, printed Lansalewys, Lanteglos, and St. Wepy, have this, App’a. Hosp. de Brugg. want.; and Mr. Lysons states, that this church was given by Robert de Boyton, in the reign of Edward the First, to the hospital of St. James at Bridgewater.

The name is inadvertently wrong; for in the Valor Ecclesiasticus, 26 Henry VIII. preserved in the Augmentation Office, is the following entry in the return from the Hospitale Sancti Johannis de Brugwalter.

Lanteglos, rector 20l.

The great tithes and the presentation to the vicarage, came into the possession of the Mohuns, and were sold with their other property to Pitt.

There is also extant the appropriation of this church to the hospital by Peter Quiril, Bishop of Exeter from 1280 to 1292.

“Omnibus, &c. Petrus miseratione divina Exon. Episcopus salutem, &c. Ecclesiam de Lanteglos, juxta Fawy,

cum capella S. Salvatoris, juribus et pertinentiis omnibus; quæ quidem ecclesia cum prædicta capella de advocatione Magistri et Fratrum prædicti Hospitalis existit; præfatis Magistro et Fratribus ac eorum successoribus, ad pauperum et infirmorum sustentationem, capituli nostri prædicti unanimi accedente consensu, appropriamus, &c.

“Dat. Exon, in crastino S. Marcæ Evangelistæ, anno gratiæ MCCLXXXIIII et consecrationis nostræ anno quarto.”

Lanteglos by Fowey measures 2773 statute acres.

£.s.d.
Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815414600
Poor Rate in 1831548130
Population,—
in 1801,
678		in 1811,
859		in 1821,
973		in 1831,
1208

giving an increase of 78 per cent. in 30 years.

Present Vicar, the Rev. W. Hocker, instituted in 1806.

GEOLOGY, BY DOCTOR BOASE.

The geology of this parish is the same as that of the southern part of the parish of Fowey.