ST. VEEP.
HALS.
St. Veep is situate in the hundred of West, and hath upon the north St. Wenow, east Lanreth, south Lanteglos, west Fowey river or haven. It was the church of the Abbat or Prior of St. Carock’s monastery in this parish, for whom William Earl of Morton built and first endowed it.
In the Domesday Book 1087, this district was taxed under the jurisdiction of Lanreth. In the inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester 1294, Ecclesia de Wepe or Weep, in decanatu de West, was rated cs. In Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521, £5. 0s. 6d. by the name of St. Wepe. The patronage formerly in the prior of St. Carock, now in Wrey; the incumbent —— Tyncomb; the rectory in possession of —— Wrey; and the parish rated
to the four shillings per pound Land Tax 1696, for one year, £229.
In this parish is the priory called Carock St. Pill, in which place William Earl of Morton and Cornwall founded and endowed an house of Cluniac monks, and dedicated the same to St. Sergius.
In this cell of St. Syriac lived that celebrated author Walter de Exeter, a Benedictine Monk 1292, as Isaack in his Memorials of Exeter calls him, with greater probability than that he was a Dominican friar, as Bale saith, or a Franciscan friar as Mr. Carew tells us (Survey of Cornwall, page 59); who, at the request of Baldwin of Exeter, writ the life of Guy Earl of Warwick, who was the son of Syward Baron of Wallingford, and married Felicia, daughter and heir of Rohand Earl of Warwick; which Guy, at the request of King Athelstan, fought a combat with Colbrand the Danish giant, and slew him, since which time his valour and conduct hath been very famous.
And Walter of Exeter for this book, and his skill in other histories, hath by Bale given him this character:—“In historiarum cognitione non fuit ultimus,” that he was none of the meanest historians of his time; though Mr. Carew saith he only deformed the history of Guy of Warwick.
The house and chapel aforesaid, except the windows, is now quite dilapidated, the burying place made a garden, and a new dwelling house erected near it with the stones thereof on its barton lands, now pertaining to the heirs of Carter and Sillye. The fee-farm rent of £5 per annum is paid to the king or prince, and is exempted from payment of tithes.
In this parish at Botowne, i. e. cow town, is the dwelling of —— Hawke, gentleman.
TONKIN.
St. Veep, in the hundred of West, is bounded to the west by the river Fowey, to the north by St. Winnow, to the east by Lanreath, to the south by Lanteglos.
This is a vicarage, valued in the King’s Book, £5; the patronage in Sir Bourchier Wrey, Bart.
In anno 1201, 20 Edw. I. the rectory of this church was valued (Tax. Ben.) at cs. being appropriated to the Priory of Montacute in Somerset; but “vicar ejusdem taxatur nihil propter paupertatem.”
The chief, or at least one of the most noted estates in this parish, is
THE MANOR OF MANELY OR MENELY.
This, in the extent of Cornish acres, 12 Edw. I. is valued in twelve. (Carew, fol. 49.) In 3 Henry IV. Matilda de Hewish held half of a small fee of Mort. [Morton honour] in Manely. (Ibid. fol. 42.)
THE EDITOR.
The church of this parish is situated on an elevated ridge of land, and is therefore conspicuous to a considerable distance. It contains several monuments, and in the churchyard is a memorial of Nicholas Courtenay, one of the family to whom lands in this parish, parcel of Montacute priory, were granted by King Henry the Eighth.
There are two places in St. Veep especially deserving of attention. One the site of an ancient monastery constituted on the smallest scale.
Tanner has given a list of the various names by which this little priory appears to have been called in early times. St. Syriac, St. Ciriac, St. Carricius, St. Kerrocus, St. Cyret, and St. Julette. It was a small cell of two monks only, dependent on Montacute; and being mentioned by Gervase of Canterbury, it is known to have existed at the least so early as the time of King Richard the First.
The church of St. Currie, or Karentocus, was given to the monks of Montacute by their founder.
This cell occurs but once in Pope Nicholas’s Taxation.
Prior de Sancto Karabo (or by a various reading Sto. Karoko) habet de redditu in decanatu de Westweleschire, et Major Tregeschire, £2.
In the valuation returned to King Henry the Eighth, and preserved in the Augmentation Office, this small establishment is said to possess a revenue of £11. 1s.
It appears to have been valued as a separate house from the parent establishment, although the return states, Cella Sancti Kaboci in comitatu prædicto, dicto Prioratui de Monte Acuto appertinens, unde Laurencius Castelton est Prior, est dative et removabile dicti Prioris de Monte Acuto.
The site was granted in the 37th of Henry VIII. as parcel of the possessions of Montacute, to Laurence Courtenay.
St. Cyric’s Creek, by which this house stood, is said to have derived its name from a saint so called, who was buried there, perhaps in the very place where the small monastery stood. The place has long since acquired the appellation of St. Cadix; it belongs to the coheiresses of the family of Wymond.
It is certainly a curious circumstance, that a work which engaged the attention and even the admiration of England for a long period of years, should have emanated in any way from a remote cell, consisting of two monks. Mr. Carew assigns 1292 for the date of this work; but Mr. Warton says, in his History of English Poetry, that a life of Guy Earl of Warwick was written by Giraldus Cambrensis, who died about the year 1220; but the history of our renowned champion has been composed in Norman French, and in old English, both in prose and in verse; moreover, the first part of the romance describing the adventures of a preux chevalier combating à la outrance to recommend himself to the favour of his lady love, is clearly by a different hand, and even of another age from the second part, which represents him deserting the idol of
his affection; journeying to Palastine; and on his arrival back to England, instead of repairing to Warwick Castle, the abode and rich inheritance of his wife the Lady Felicia, retiring to a cell, and taking alms at the castle gate, on the supposition that a powerful and malignant demon, the creation of perverted imagination in those times of ignorance, and blasphemously named after the Divinity, might be propitiated by such disgusting observances, and by human misery. The monk of St. Cyric may therefore have blended, enlarged, abridged, versified, or rendered into prose the achievements of Sir Guy, and his performance may have been peculiarly suited to the taste of his age.
The second place to be noticed is Trevelyan, the original seat of the very ancient and respected family that has resided for the last three hundred years at Nettlecombe in Somersetshire, which they acquired by a marriage with the heiress of Whalesborowe. The names of Whalesborough and of Trevelyan occur among the Sheriffs of Cornwall in the time of the Plantagenets, and also together as representatives of the county; and the name of Trevelyan may be found in the same lists for the county of Somerset. It is extraordinary that of this ancient seat one half only belongs to the family. It would almost suggest the suspicion of the other part being lost from want of attention, when the intercourse between distant places was interrupted by difficulties unknown to modern travellers. Few traces remain of the ancient mansion.
Mr. Lysons notices several manors in this parish, with their descents or sales, but without any thing that can make them interesting, except perhaps the notice that a manor called Manely Coleshill formed a part of the ample estate possessed by Lord Chief Justice Trevilyan.
Mr. Howell and Mr. Rashleigh are proprietors. The advowson of the vicarage is divided, and in private patronage.
The Rev. Nicholas Every the present incumbent.
It is said that the cavalry commanded by King Charles
the First was stationed at St. Veep when the infantry of the opposite army capitulated at Fowey. This station was probably selected for the purpose of preventing a retreat to Plymouth; which however the cavalry effected by passing the river some miles higher up, but not without much blame attaching to many officers on the royalist side, and especially to General Goring.
St. Veep measures 2394 statute acres.
| £. | s. | d. | |
| Annual value of the Real Property as returned to Parliament in 1815 | 4087 | 0 | 0 |
| Poor Rate in 1831 | 477 | 17 | 0 |
| Population,— | |||
| in 1801, 506 | in 1811, 511 | in 1821, 585 | in 1831, 697 |
giving an increase of 38 per cent. in 30 years.
Net Value of the benefice in 1831, £215.
Since the above was written, Mr. Every, Vicar of this parish, and a magistrate in the prime of life, is no more.—1836.
THE GEOLOGY, BY DOCTOR BOASE.
The rocks of this parish belong to the calcareous series, and are similar to those of Lanreath and Lanteglos.