LANWHITTON, or LAWHITTON.
HALS.
The manuscript relating to this parish is lost.
TONKIN.
Lanwhitton, vulgo Lawhitton, is in the hundred of East; and hath to the west South Pederwin, to the north Launceston, to the east the river Tamar, to the south Lezant.
As for the name, I take Whitton to be the same as Whidden, white or fair; so as to signify the white or fair church, from the beauty of its first building. It is a rectory valued in the King’s books at 19l. 6s. 8d. The Bishop of Exeter is the patron.
All this parish doth in a manner entirely belong to the Bishop of Exeter’s great manor of Lanwhitton.
I shall begin therewith: Mr. Camden tells you that this was one of the three manors given by Edward the elder about the year 905 to the Bishop of Kirton, from whom, on the union of the sees, it came to the Bishop of Exeter, in whose hands it hath ever since continued.
By an extract from the Register of John de Grandison, Bishop of Exeter, from 1327 to 1369, it appears that at
an Assizes held at Launceston, before John de Berwick, Walter de Burveton, Henry Spigurnel, John Ralph, and Henry de Stainton, Justices Itinerant, Thomas Bishop of Exeter was summoned to answer to our Lord the King by what authority he held the different royalties in the manors of Lanwhitton, St. Germans, and Poulton, and certain other privileges in Tregear and Penryn, with a free market, fairs, &c.; and free warren over all lands belonging to the see throughout Cornwall. And the said Bishop, by his attorney, comes into court and saith, That as to the free market and fairs, and free warren, that the Lord Henry, father to our Lord the King that now is, did grant to one William, lately Bishop of Exeter, his predecessor, the said liberties to him and his successors for ever; and produced the said King’s charter for the same. And in respect to the liberties, he saith, that himself and his predecessors have held them from time of which there is no memory, without interruption, and therefore claims their continuance.
The jurors agree that the said Bishop and his predecessors had the said liberties, &c. in his manor of Penryn; but as for the manor of Tregear, that he and his predecessors had the same liberties from his and their villains, and not from their free tenants, a tempore quo non extat memoria, sine intermissione.
The Bishops of Exeter have been accustomed to farm out their manor on lives to several gentlemen. The present farmers are—Francis Manaton, Esq., William Clowberry, Esq., and Edward Bennet, of Hexworthy, Esq.
I now come to treat of the remarkable places of the said manor; and first of the barton Hexworthy.
Hexworthy—the field of reeds, corrupted, by pronunciation, from hesk or hesken, a reed or bulrush, and the Saxon worthing, a field. This place has been for three or four descents the seat of the family of Bennet. The present possessor, Edward Bennet, Esq., has been twice married; first, to a daughter of Sir Walter Moyle, of
Bake; and, secondly, to a daughter of —— Coffin, Esq., of Portledge, in Devonshire. The arms of Bennet are Gu. a Bezant between three demi-lions Arg.
Bullsworthy, id est, the Bull’s-field (qu.? Ed.) This was lately the seat, by copy of court roll under the farmers of this manor, of John Coren, Esq., who in the reign of Queen Anne was in the Commission of the Peace, and Deputy-Surveyor of the Duchy of Cornwall, who dying without issue, left his estate to his widow; and on her decease it fell to the three gentlemen above-named, lessees of the manor. Mr. Coren derived himself from the Corens of St. Stephen’s, in Branwell, and gave for his arms, Arg. a millrind between two martlets in fess Sab. He left a part of his estate to a younger brother, now (November 1735) a captain of foot.
THE EDITOR.
The church of this parish, although gone much into decay, is said to exhibit appearances of venerable antiquity. In it is a monument to the memory of Richard Bennet, counsellor at law, who died in 1619. And another of artificial stone, with the following inscription:—
Underneath lieth the body of Richard Coffin, Esq.
and also some of his nearest and dearest relations,
who resided for many generations at Hexworthy, in this county.
He was the son of Edward Bennet and Honor his wife,
daughter of Richard Coffin, of Portledge in Devon, Esq.
and Honor his wife, who was daughter of Edmund Prideaux, of Padstow, Esq.
in this county.
Dying without issue, in him ended the lineal descent of
the families of Bennet and Coffin.
He was born in the year 1715, and died Sept. 30, 1796.
This gentleman gave Hexworthy to one of his relations, the Prideauxes of Padstow.
The lessees of the great manor having neglected to renew their holding, it reverted to Doctor George Lavington,
Bishop of Exeter fom 1746 to 1762, who made a new lease in favour of his only child, afterwards married to the Rev. Nutcombe Nutcombe, Chancellor of the Cathedral, in whose three daughters or their families it still remains.
The Editor cannot quit this parish without noticing that here resided as rector during many years the Rev. Robert Walker, who once entertained thoughts of really executing, what is now feebly attempted, a parochial history of Cornwall. The Editor well remembers waiting on him in 1787, to make inquiries respecting some of his own ancestors, when Mr. Walker, then far advanced in life, received him with the utmost kindness, insisted on his taking refreshments, and when they were declined on the ground of giving him trouble, Mr. Walker remarked, that such trouble was at once a duty and a pleasure, since our most important business in this world was to accommodate each other, and to make each other happy.
In a letter from him dated November the 9th, of the same year, the parish is written Lewhitton.
Mr. Walker is said to have been born in 1699.
Lawhitton measures 2455 statute acres.
| £. | s. | d. | |
| Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 | 2715 | 0 | 0 |
| Poor Rate in 1831 | 246 | 15 | 0 |
| Population,— | |||
| in 1801, 289 | in 1811, 368 | in 1821, 435 | in 1831, 485 |
giving an increase of nearly 68 per cent. in thirty years.
Present Rector, the Rev. J. D. Coleridge, collated by Bishop Carey in 1826.
GEOLOGY, BY DOCTOR BOASE.
The rocks of this parish are very similar to those of Launceston. Where argillaceous earth, either alone or in conjunction with carbonate of lime, prevails in these rocks, the soil produced from them is very fertile; but sometimes silica is so predominant, that the ground is comparatively barren.