RUAN MINOR.
HALS.
Ruan Minor is also situate in the hundred of Kerryer, and hath upon the north Ruan Major, east St. Kevorne, west Grade, south the British Ocean or Channel. In the Domesday Book it was taxed under the jurisdiction of Lizard; and at the time of the first inquisition into the value of Cornish Benefices 1294, it was not endowed if extant. In Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521, it was valued at £4. 4s. 5d.; the patronage formerly in the master of St. John’s Hospital at Sythney, or Carmenow of Carmenow, who endowed it, now Robinson; the incumbent ——; and the parish rated to the four shillings per pound Land Tax 1696, temp. William III. at £17. 11s. 2d.
In this parish at Cadgwith, i. e. war-tree, so called in memory of some war or battle heretofore fought near some tree then extant in this place, is the dwelling of George Robinson, esq. that married three wives, Trevillian’s widow, Tregose, and Penhallow; his father Thomas Robinson, esq. a Commissioner for the Peace in the interregnum of Cromwell, that lived at Helston, was there, as he was walking in the fields where his cows depastured, casually assaulted with his bull, who, though at other times was a creature very gentle and quiet by nature, at that time put on an unusual ferocity, without any provocation or distaste given him from his master, that he instantly left his fellow creatures, and ran towards Mr. Robinson, and gave him many dangerous wounds in his body by pushing at him with his horns, and at length cast him up into the air, from thence whereby he fell to the ground several times to his greater hurt, till at length by those violent tossings of his body, his hat flew from his head on the ground, and
was driven thence by the force of the wind to the surface of the earth, to some distance, which the enraged bull observing, pursued after it, and tossed the same into the air with his horns several times after, which gave Mr. Robinson, then comparatively dead on the ground, opportunity to get to the stile of the field, and to crawl over it into another close, by which means, and the help of others, he got alive to his house, in order to cure his wounds, but maugre all endeavours of physicians and chirurgeons, his wounds and bruises were so deep and mortal, that in three or four days after he died.
Various were the sentiments of the neighbours upon this sad accident. But I shall shut up this history in the words of our Saviour, on other such sad accidents amongst the Jews: saying, “Think ye that those sixteen on whom the tower of Siloham fell, or those whose blood Pilate mixed with their sacrifices, were sinners above all men? I tell you nay, but except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish, for secret things belong only to God.”
The arms of Robinson are, in a field Vert three bucks in full course, armed and attired Or.
Note further, that all those twelve parishes commonly called Meneage, the outmost south-west part or point of Cornwall, in the Domesday Book of William the Conqueror, are all comprehended or taxed under the name of Liz-ard, which signifies in British the lofty or dangerous gulf or flux of waters, as the same is, and over a strag or promontory of ragged rocks running for about half a mile out into the sea from the land, visible at low water, but not at full sea or half flood, which hath occasioned the destruction or wrecking of many ships, and loss of many men’s lives and goods, who either in the night storms, or through ignorance, have chanced to sail over it, and are wrecked between the strait of those rocks, and the furious meeting or flashing of the waves of the sea.
Hence also from the word liz, which signifies a hazardous gulph of water between two lands, rivers, or arms of
the sea, we have Tre-liz-ike, St. Earth, and Padstow harbour, Lelizike, mills in Probus, on the Tresilian river. Liz or Lisburne, a town in Portugal, and many more.
TONKIN.
Ruan Minor joins with Ruan Major, which lies to the north of it, to the west and south with Grade, to the east with the Channel. This parish has the same patron and incumbent as the former, and is valued in the King’s Book, £4. 4s. 5d. [It was originally, no doubt, a mere chapel to Ruan Major.]
THE EDITOR.
The only place in this small parish requiring the least notice is Cadgwith or Cagewith, a moderately sized fishing cove, and heretofore celebrated for its lucrative trade, while the rights of the duchy were practically maintained against the admission of all coercive laws, relative either to the Customs or to the Excise.
The principal part of this parish anciently belonged to the distinguished family of Carminow.
Mr. Lysons says, that on the partition of their property between heiresses, the lands in Ruan Minor were allotted to Trevarthian, whose heiress brought them to the Reskymers, who had them in 1620; they were afterwards in the Bellots, of whom the property was purchased by Robinson of Nanceloe, and alienated from them to an adventurer called Fonnereau, who having obtained a seat in Parliament, procured a lucrative bargain for constructing lighthouses on the Lizard Point. Having ultimately become a bankrupt, or died insolvent, every thing that he had purchased was again sold, and the lands in this parish were bought by the late Sir Christopher Hawkins, about the year 1780, and they now belong, under a special devise, to his brother’s second son.
The advowson of the rectory was reserved in the sale by Robinson.
Mr. Lysons records one of those singular customs in ecclesiastical matters which arose in former times out of the capricious fancies of individuals making gifts for the salvation of their souls. It seems that the rector of this parish sends a horse into a certain field in the adjoining parish of Landewednack, whenever a harvest of corn is taken in it, for the purpose of bearing home as many sheaves as the horse can carry on his back.
Ruan Minor measures 628 statute acres.
| £. | s. | d. | |
| Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 | 538 | 0 | 0 |
| Poor Rate in 1831 | 93 | 7 | 0 |
| Population,— | |||
| in 1801, 317 | in 1811, 274 | in 1821, 293 | in 1831, 269 |
giving a decrease of 15 per cent. in 30 years.
Present Rector, the Rev. R. T. St. Aubyn, presented by P. V. Robinson, esq. in 1814.
THE GEOLOGY BY DOCTOR BOASE.
This parish is composed of serpentine, and of a peculiar kind of hornblende rock, already noticed under the head of Mullion. The cliffs between Cadgwith and Poltesca afford many illustrations of the manner in which these rocks are associated together.
A very excellent “Sketch of the Geology of the Lizard District,” accompanied by a map, may be found in the first volume of the Transactions of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, by Ashhurst Majendie, esq. F.R.S. &c. now of Hedingham Castle in Essex.—Ed.
ST. SAMPSON’S.
For the history of this parish the reader is referred to the second volume, where it has already appeared under the name of Glant.