PAUL.
HALS.
The manuscript relating to this parish is lost.
TONKIN.
Paul is in the hundred of Penwith, and is bounded to the west by St. Burian and Sancreed, to the north by Maddern, to the east and south by the Channel and Mount’s Bay.
This parish is dedicated to the famous St. Paulinus (and not the apostle Paul, as it is commonly thought), who was sent by Pope Gregory the First in 601 from Rome, with St. Justus, to accompany St. Austin the Monk for the conversion of the Saxons. In 625 he accompanied the Princess Ethelburgha, daughter to Ethelbert King of Kent, when she married Edwyn King of the Northumbrians, where he laboured so effectually that he converted that king and the greatest part of his people,[7] so that he was consecrated the first Archbishop of York, and Pope Honorius sent him the pall about the year 630; but, Edwyn being killed in battle in 633 by Cadwallo King of the Britons, and Penda King of Mercia, he was forced to fly back into Kent with Queen Ethelburga and her children, where her brother Eadbald, King thereof, receiving them with all kindness, made Paulinus Bishop of Rochester, where he ended his days on the 10th of October 644.
This church is a vicarage, valued in the King’s Book at £13. 11s. 6d.; the Patronage in the Crown; the Impropriation of the sheaf and tithes of fish in William Guavis, esq.; the Incumbent Mr. Henry Pendarves.
In anno 1291, 20 Edw. I. this church was valued at £9. 6s. 8d. being then appropriated to the Abbey of Hailes, in Gloucestershire. To this abbey the tithes of corn and fish were appropriated, and so became lay-fees at the dissolution of the abbey.
THE EDITOR.
It is universally understood that this parish is not dedicated to the great apostle of Tarsus; and it is rather a curious circumstance that the word saint, so generally used as a prefix to the names of parishes in Cornwall, should invariably be omitted in this instance.
The honour of protecting the parish of Paul has been
given by conjecture to St. Paul de Leon, a native of Cornwall, celebrated as a founder of monasteries, as a zealous and successful champion of the faith in converting the Pagans of Britany, where he was made the first bishop of the town, since called from him St. Pol de Leon; but, not satisfied with the services that he might render to God and man, in this important station, amidst newly converted Christians, he endeavoured to make himself more useful by retiring into a solitude, where he died on the 12th of March, about the year 573, and nearly in the hundredth year of his age.
The parish feast is celebrated on the nearest Sunday to October the 10th; and although this saint is generally commemorated on the 12th of March, the day of his decease, yet in his own city of Leon the very 10th of October is consecrated to his memory: which, together with his being a Cornish man, seems to fix St. Paul de Leon as the Patron Saint, in opposition to St. Paulinus the first Archbishop of York, who was sent by Pope Gregory the Great into England shortly after the mission of St. Austin; his festival is held on October the 12th.
This church and that of Breage were attached to the mitred abbey of Hailes in Gloucestershire, as founded by one of the greatest promoters of monastic establishments on record, Richard King of the Romans and Earl of Cornwall. He began the building in 1246; and in 1251, when he had expended ten thousand marks in finishing the monastery, he had the church dedicated to St. Mary on the 9th of November, in the presenee of the King and Queen, thirteen Bishops, most of the Barons, and above three hundred Knights, all of whom he entertained with incredible state and plenty, letting fall this generous and devout expression: “I wish it had pleased God that all my great expenses in my Castle of Wallingford had been as wisely and soberly employed.”
Edmund Earl of Cornwall, son and heir of Richard the founder, having, in his travels through Germany with his
father, obtained a relic considered to be blood of our Saviour, gave a third part to this monastery in 1272, thereby causing a great increase in the number of people resorting to it.
In the return made to King Henry the Eighth, preserved in the Augmentation Office, of the property belonging to this monastery, are these entries:
| £. | s. | d. | ||
| Com. Cornub. | Paulyn firma rectorie | 41 | 0 | 0 |
| S. Breac firma rectorie | 47 | 0 | 0 | |
This reign, more unsettled, and more disturbed by domestic wars throughout its whole extent than any other, was nevertheless most fertile in the production of monasteries; and the honour and castle of Wallingford, accidentally united with the Duchy of Cornwall in the person of Richard Plantagenet, King of the Romans, remained so till it was taken in exchange by Henry the Eighth for certain manors and lands in Cornwall, known as the new Duchy holdings.
A great part of the lands surrendered by the Abbey of Hailes are in possession of the Tracy family; but the impropriated tithes of Paul belonged, in the early part of the last century, to the family of Gwavas, since which time they have passed with two coheiresses to Veale and Carlyon.
The church is placed a little beyond the brow of a lofty ridge ascending from the sea, so that it is not much seen, but the tower rising above the ridge is visible from a great distance. The church is large, and contains several monuments to members of different families,—Godolphin, Pendarves, Hitchins, &c.
In this parish are situated Mousehole and Newlyn, two towns of pretty considerable size, although, being very near to Penzance, they have not any regular market.
Mousehole, formerly called Porth Enys, the Island Port, on account of a small island close in upon the shore, had in remote times not the privilege merely, but the actual possession of a market and fairs, but having been destroyed by
a predatory invasion of some Spaniards in July 1595, and Penzance rising fast into importance, the practice of holding them has been discontinued ever since.
Mr. Carew, p. 156 (p. 381 of Lord de Dunstanville’s edition), gives a detailed account of this invasion, which is said to have occasioned the capture of Cadiz by a combined English and Dutch squadron in the ensuing year. In Paul church is the following inscription, recording the savage conduct of these invaders:
“The Spanyer burnt this church in the year 1595.”
And the parish register commences with this notice:
“Register of St. Pawle in the countie of Cornwall, from the 23 daye of Julie, the year of our gracious Lord God 1595, on which daie, soon after the sun was risen, the church, tower, bells, and all other things pertaining to the same, together with the houses and goods, was burned and spoiled by the Spaniards in the said parish, being Wensdaie the daye aforesaid, in the 37th year of the raigne of our Soveraine Ladie Elezabeth, by the grace of God of England, France, and Ireland Queene, Defender of the Faith, &c.
“Per me, Joh’nem Tremearne, Vicarium.”
Entries, 1595:
“Jenken Keigwyn, of Mousehole, being killed by the Spaniards, was buried the 24th of Julie.
Jacobus de Newlyn occisus fuit per inimicos, et sepultus est 26 die Julie.
Similiter Teek Cornall, et sepultus the 26 Julie.”
The cannon ball which caused the death of Mr. Keigwyn, the principal inhabitant of the place, is still preserved; and to within these few years an implacable hatred was entertained against the very name of a Spaniard.
There is said to have been a chapel at Mousehole; and another, on the island dedicated to St. Clement, served probably for St. Michael’s Mount, as the island is understood to remain an appendage to that place.
No satisfactory account has ever been given of the change of name from Porth Enys to the ludicrous one now in use; there is indeed a cavern at some distance beyond, spacious, lofty, and strewed with large rocks, therefore as unlikely to suggest the name as any thing that can well be imagined. It most likely arose from some trifling circumstance now forgotten.
Newlyn is somewhat larger than Mousehole, having annexed to it a collection of houses called by a mixture of English and Cornish, “Street Nowan,” the New street.
Both the towns are provided with a pier capable of sheltering small vessels, and above all of protecting the immense assemblage of boats employed in the seine fishery, and in driving for pilchards, mackarel, and herrings; from which large supplies, especially of mackarel, are sent in the spring to London, and pilchards exported to the amount of several thousand hogsheads.
The principal family of this parish in early times was probably Keigwin. To Mr. John Keigwin, born in 1641, we are indebted for the Translations of Mount Calvary, and of the Creation of the World with Noah’s Flood, both of which have been printed by the Editor of this Work, with the original Cornish on the opposite pages; he died about the year 1710. The affairs of the Keigwins got entangled in family disputes, accompanied by protracted litigation in the Court of Chancery, which occasioned their estates to be sold in parcels, and thus gave rise to the extraordinary number of freeholders in the parish of Paul.
Mr. Lysons gives the history of several manors, but they do not contain any thing curious.
The younger branch of the Godolphins, which settled at Treworveneth, having acquired it by a marriage with the daughter and heiress of John Cowling of that place, became extinct by the death of Col. William Godolphin in 1689.
Trungle was the seat of Mr. Hitchens, and afterwards became the residence of Capt. Clutterbuck, a gentleman
from Kent, who came into Cornwall as commandant of the garrison at Scilly. He married a Cornish lady, and settled there. His son practised the law at Marazion.
The late Mr. John Price commenced the formation of a pretty retreat in a small declivity near the ridge of this parish, at a place called Chi-owne, the house in a croft. Trees were found to flourish there, and the whole promised so much that his son Mr. Rose Price began to lay the foundation of a handsome seat on an adjoining farm; and he went so far as to construct an immense mound to act as a shelter for trees, and also to give them an elevation on its slope, a work which the country people named “The Chinese Wall:” the whole was, however, discontinued for want of sufficient space, which was afterwards afforded in the adjacent parish of Maddern by the purchase of Trengwainton.
It is not easy to imagine a more beautiful view than the one obtained from the summit of the hill above Newlyn; the ascent is, however, extremely steep, and in consequence a new line of road has been projected; but the great value and subdivision of land will probably defeat the execution of a plan having more for its object the decoration of the country than any facility of communication, although that would be found important.
Not far from the top of this hill is erected a small stone monument by the late Mr. John Price, to commemorate a circumstance scarcely deserving of such attention, which was no more than the finding of a gold ring with the motto on it, “In hac spe vivo.” Mr. Price indeed conjectured that it had belonged to some gentleman engaged in the remote Plantagenet Civil Wars, and with much ingenuity contrived a series of adventures to suit the occasion and the sentiment.
Another curiosity, discovered much about the same time, is far more deserving of regard. Of this Mr. Lysons has given an engraved plate with the following description:
“In 1783, one of the ancient British ornaments of gold, in the form of a crescent, with a narrow zigzag pattern slightly engraven on it, and weighing two ounces, four penny weights, and six grains, was discovered near the remains of one of the circular earthworks in the neighbourhood of Penzance. This curious relic is now in the possession of Rose Price, esq.”
Gold ornaments, similar if not identical with this very curious remnant of remote antiquity, have been found in other parts of this island, and also in Ireland. One very like it in bronze, taken from a stream pool in 1802, is in the possession of Mr. William Rashleigh at Menabilly.
Objects so interesting have not failed of exciting investigation and conjecture; and they have been fancied to be a decoration of the chief priest among the Druids, worn round his head, and indicating by the crescent shape the exact age of the moon best adapted for ensuring the greatest possible virtues to the holy misletoe, which was then to be severed from its parent oak.
Paul measures 2,865 statute acres.
| £. | s. | d. | |
| Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 | 7,464 | 0 | 0 |
| Poor Rate in 1831 | 785 | 7 | 0 |
| Population,— | |||
| in 1801, 2937 | in 1811, 3371 | in 1821, 3790 | in 1831, 4191 |
giving an increase of 42½ per cent. in 30 years.
Present Vicar, the Rev. C. G. Ruddock Festing, presented by Lord Chancellor Eldon in 1826.
THE GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.
A narrow belt of slate, belonging to the porphyritic series, bounds this parish on its eastern side, as far south as the village of Mousehole; it consists for the most part of hard massive and schistose varieties of compact felspar, occasionally spotted or intimately blended with actynolite and hornblend, or with some mineral intermediate between them. The rest of this parish is situated on granite, exhibiting the same varieties as that of Burian and St. Levan. At
Mousehole the slate and granite may be seen in contact with each other, the granite occurring as veins in the former rock.
[7] He was consecrated a Bishop by Justus, then Bishop of Rochester, before he went.