ST. TEATH.

HALS.

St. Teath is situate in the hundred of Trigg, and hath upon the north Dundagell, south-east Michaelstow and Lantegles, west the Irish Sea, or Trevelga, south-west St. Kewe and St. Udye.

As for the name, if St. Eata, alias St. Eatah, be the tutelar guardian of this church, note that he was a Briton of Wales by birth, and Bishop of Lindisfarne, predecessor of St. Cuthbert 678, who was translated from thence to the diocese of Hexham, by the Latins called Axelodunum; by Bede, Hagulstadiensis, and by us Hexhamshire, in Yorkshire or Northumberland. He was succeeded by ten other Bishops, who enjoyed his chair, till by reason of the Danish depredations it was annexed to York, and made the see of the Archbishopric, and had the reputation of a county palatine; but discontinued by the statute of 37th Henry VIII.

chap. 16, and annexed to the county of Northumberland. In this see St. Etha sat six years after his translation to Hexhamshire, as Bede saith, but two as others; and was buried in his Cathedral Church there.

In the Domesday Book 1087, this district was taxed under the jurisdiction of Dundagell. At the time of the inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester into the value of Cornish Benefices 1294, this Church was not endowed, if extant. The parish is rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, £156. 8s.

Bodanan, in this parish, was the lands of that old British family of gentlemen surnamed de Cheiney, so called from Cheynoy in St. Endellyan; of which place, name, and family was John de Cheyney, Sheriff of Cornwall, the 5th and 6th of Edward I. 1280. Ralph de Cheyney, his son or grandson, had £20 lands and upwards in Cornwall, held by the tenure of knight’s service 24th of Edward III. Survey of Cornwall, p. 51. Robert de Cheyney, probably his son, held also by the tenure of knight’s service in this place, the fourth part of a knight’s fee of land 3 Henry IV. idem liber, p. 42; whose son William Cheyney, Esq. married the daughter and heir of [Stretch] in Devon, lord of Pinhoe, and made it the place of his residence, and accordingly was made Sheriff of Devon 11 Henry IV. 1410; John Cheyney, his son, was Sheriff of Devon 22 Henry VI. 1444; John Cheyney, his son, was Sheriff of Devon 1 Edward IV. 1480; John Cheyney, his son, was Sheriff of Devon 12 Edward IV. 1472.

In this Church are to be seen the gravestones of some of those gentlemen interred here, and in the same, and the glass window of this Church, the arms of those gentlemen, viz. in a field Gules, on a fess of four lozenges Argent, as many escallops Sable; in memory, as tradition saith, that one of their ancestors, going into the Holy Land and War with King Richard or King Edward I. carried such shells with him for taking water to drink in the hotter clime of Asia.

Sir John Cheyney of this family was chosen Speaker of the Parliament 6 Henry IV. called indoctum Parliamentum, or Parliamentum indoctorum; so called, for that in the writ of summons there was a clause no lawyer should be chosen therein. Sir John Cheyney was also Speaker of the House of Commons 1 Henry IV. and styled not only Parlour, but Procurator, de les Commons. Hakewell’s Catalogue of the Speakers, p. 202.

TONKIN.

St. Teath is in the hundred of Trig, is bounded to the west by Endellian and St. Kew, to the north by the sea and Tintagell, to the east by Lanteglos and Michaelstow, to the south by St. Tudy.

I take St. Tathius to be the tutelar saint of this parish, of whom Mr. Camden saith, (Brit. in Monmouthshire,) that he was a British saint, who governed an academy at Caer Went, and also founded a church there in the reign of King Kradock ap Ynir, circa an. Dom. ——.

This is a vicarage, valued in the King’s Book £12.; the patronage in the Bishop of Exeter; the impropriation of the sheaf in the heirs of the late Matthew Beale, Esq.; the incumbent ——.

In the Taxatio Benef. an. 1291, 19 or 20 Edward I. is this note, Thechd, which, if meant for St. Teath, then it is valued, “Prebend’ Mag’ri Osberti iiijl. xs.; Prebend’ Mag’ri W. de Wymondesham iiijl. xs.; Vicar’ ejusdem xxs.”

THE EDITOR.

Mr. Lysons gives in this parish, as in every other, the descents and sales of lands.

The manor of Tregordock, formerly in the Mohuns, passed in the general purchase to Mr. Pitt.

Mr. Agar, the Molesworth family, and Mr. Sandys of St. Minver, have lands in this parish; and Mr. Trevanion,

of Carhayes, possesses in this parish either the whole or a part of Drillavale or Dinnavale quarry, producing the finest and most durable roofing slate of all that district; and said by Bishop Watson, in his Chemistry, to be the very best in England.

Treveares was for a long time the residence of a family which began to rise about a century ago into considerable opulence. Mr. Phillipps, of this place, settled as an attorney in Camelford; and availing himself of the valuable privileges possessed by that place, acquired a fortune. He had three sons. The eldest son, Charles Phillipps, married one of the coheiresses of the Longs of Penhele, and, not having any family, transmitted her ample fortune to his brother; he represented Camelford in Parliament, and was Lieutenant-Colonel of the Cornwall Militia. The second son, Jonathan Phillipps, originally a surgeon in the navy, married the coheiress of the Amys of Botreaux Castle, and through them of the Cottons, and also of the Gilberts of Tacbear; this gentleman had several children, but survived them all. He was knighted on the celebrated occasion of Margaret Nicholson.

The third brother, William Phillipps, a clergyman, never married.

They had one sister, who married Mr. Carpenter, of Tavistock; and her descendants are possessed of nearly the whole of the Phillipps property.

This farm, however, was demised by Mr. William Phillipps to his relation Mr. William Dinham.

It would be improper not to mention, that Captain William Bligh was a native of this parish, who commanded the Bounty in the unfortunate expedition to procure plants of the Bread-fruit tree (Artocarpus) from the South Sea Islands in the years 1789 and 1790; but which object he effected in a second voyage, and afterwards received the appointment of Governor of New Holland.

There does not appear to be any remains of the College or habitation appropriated to the Canons, who from receiving

certain shares of the tithe for their maintenance, were sometimes called Portionists. The Church is conjectured to have been built in the reign of Henry the Seventh, from the circumstances of his arms appearing there in a manner to denote them coeval with the fabric.

There are several monuments, and among them one to Mr. William Phillipps, probably father of the gentleman who removed to Camelford as an attorney, and grandfather to the three brothers mentioned above. He is stated to have been of Treveans, and to have died on the 12th of April 1712, in the 62d year of his age. The turnpike road leading from St. Columb by Wade Bridge and Camelford to Launceston, nearly surrounds this Church. It was for some years the great line of communication to the west of Cornwall, till in 1767 a commencement was made on a more direct line over Tregoss Moors on one side of Bodmin, and Temple Moors on the other. This road so entirely superseded the former as to cause an entire loss of capital to those who contributed towards making it; and the road itself fell back into a state of repair inferior to that of most parish roads. It has, however, recently been taken up as a new concern, and in 1835 a stage coach has been established on it.

The Editor has heard from the Rev. William Phillipps, who died in 1794, that the making of this road was taken up as a matter of patriotism; and that to assist the undertaking, he cut with his own hands the figures on the granite mile stones, which still remain.

The entry of this parish, in the Taxation of Pope Nicholas, mm is thus:

“Sech (and in a note, Eccƚia S[~c]e Thete) taxat’ ut sequitur.

£.s.d.
Prebend’ Mag’ri Osbti4100
Prebend’ Mag’ri W. de Wymondeston4100
Vicar’ ejusdem100”

St. Teath measures 4,721 statute acres.

£.s.d.
Annual value of the Real Property as returned to Parliament in 18155,40100
Poor Rate in 183180020
Population,—
in 1801,
911		in 1811,
857		in 1821,
990		in 1831,
1280

giving an increase of 40½ per cent. in 30 years.

It is not improbable but that the 8 printed in the place of hundred, under the return of 1811, should have been a 9.

Present Vicar, the Rev. Joseph Fayrer, collated by the Bishop of Exeter in 1830.

GEOLOGY, BY DOCTOR BOASE.

This parish is situated on rocks belonging to the calcareous series. On the eastern boundary, however, near the church, the slate is nearly connected with the porphyritic series; here at Treburget is a lead mine in a blue pyrituous slate; the lodes run north-east and south-west, varying from two feet to five feet in thickness. The matrix of the ores consists of angular pieces of slate like fragments cemented by quartz, in which galena, blend, iron pyrites, and spathous iron occur.

Proceeding northward, this lamillar blue slate is succeeded by a shining talcose slate; and at Rediver Mills on the road to Port Isaac, a hard compact rock is quarried for the roads, which contains veins of magnesian minerals; this rock occurs on the side of a steep round-backed hill; and those circumstances, combined with the talcose slate, render it probable that magnesian rocks may exist in the neighbourhood. These rocks are succeeded by slate traversed by veins of antimony, similar to what occurs in Endellion.