STITHIANS.

HALS.

Stithians is situate in the hundred of Kerrier, and hath upon the north Gwenap, west Gwendron, east Gluvias and Peran-well, south Mabe.

I take it to be the same place taxed in the Domesday Book 1087, by the corrupt name of Stachenue.[1] At the time of the first inquisition into the value of Cornish Benefices this church was not endowed if extant, nor its daughter church Peranwell; but in Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521, it was rated by the name of Stedians, £14. 0s. 8d. The patronage formerly, as I am informed, either in the rector and fellows of the College of Regular Priests at Glasnith, or the Governor of St. John’s Hospital at Sithney, now in Boscawen; the incumbent —— Hillman, and the parish rated to the four shillings per pound Land Tax, for one year 1696, £104. 4s. 0d.; the rectory in —— Boscawen.

This church is dedicated to St. Thomas à Beckett, and accordingly their parish festival is kept on St. Thomas’s

Day, July 7th, as was its superior collegiate church of Glasnith, founded by Walter Branscomb, Bishop of Exeter, A. D. 1256.

The barton and manor of Penalmicke, id est, the head or chief coat of mail armour, so called for that such armour was made or lodged in this place in former ages by the possessors or proprietors thereof; which place gave name and original to an old family of gentlemen from thence surnamed de Penalmick; from whose heirs it passed to Skewish, tempore Queen Mary, of whose posterity Collan Skewish, gent. tempore 3d of James I. sold the same to Sir Nicholas Hals of Fentongollan, knight, whose son John Hals, esq. sold the same to Pendarves, now in possession thereof as I am informed.

Tretheage, alias Tredeage, in this parish, is the dwelling of John Morton, gent. that married —— Wilton.

On the south-west part of this parish towards Gwendron, near the highway, are still to be seen nine stones perpendicularly erected in the earth, in a direct manner, called the Nine Maids or Sisters, probably set up there in memory of nine religious sisters or nuns in that place, before the fifth century (See St. Colomb Major and Buryan); not women turned into stones as the English name implies, and as the country people thereabout will tell you. See also Gwendron.

This parish is enriched with streams and lodes of tin in abundance.

TONKIN.

Stithians is in the hundred of Kerrier, and hath to the west Gwendron, to the north Gwenap, to the east St. Piran Arwothall, and to the south Constanton and Mabe.

This parish takes its name from its guardian saint St. Stithians [rather Stithian. But who was he? W.]

It is a vicarage, valued together with St. Piran Arwothall in the King’s Book [see Piran Arwothall before],

and hath the same patron, impropriator, and incumbent with that. I shall begin with the chief estate in it,

THE MANOR OF TRETHEAGE,

—the fair town or dwelling. [The fair house. W.] And so it may be well called, considering the country it lies in, as being for that pleasantly situated on the river which runs under Ponsannowth or New Bridge, and emptieth itself under Piran Arwothall church. This was formerly a manor of large extent, but now strangely curtailed.

Of late years it hath been the seat of the family of Morton; the last of which who lived here, John Morton, gent. who married —— the daughter of John Wilton of Dunveth, gent. was oddly outed of it (169..) by Nicholas Pearce; who having gotten a great deal of money in Magdalen Ball in Gluvias, settled it on his son Nicholas Pearce, lately dead, leaving by —— his wife, the daughter of —— Trewren, esq. of Trewardreva, one son Nicholas Pearce, a minor, who is the present lord of this manor. Morton’s arms were, Argent, a chevron between three moorcocks Sable.

THE EDITOR.

The church and tower of this parish are handsome objects built of granite, which abounds throughout all that district.

Mr. Lysons gives, as usual, on account of the ancient manors. The manor of Kennal, he says, belonged in the reign of Edward the Second to Matthew Penfern, afterwards to the Carminows, one of whose coheiresses brought it to the Arundells of Lanherne; by whom, in the year 1800, it was sold to three brothers of the name of Bath, who are the present proprietors. The manor of Roseeth is the property of Thomas Hocker, esq. the devisee of Thomas Reed, esq. The barton of Tretheage is the residence of

Mrs. Curgenven, widow of the late proprietor, Captain Curgenven, of the Royal Navy. The barton of Penalurick belongs to Mr. Hocker, and Stephen Ustick, esq. The bartons of Treweek and Tresavren belonged to the family of Hawes, but now to Mr. James Brown.

Tretheage, situated near the turnpike road leading from Truro to Helston, has a very pleasing appearance in the midst of a country almost bare of trees. About fifty or sixty years ago this place was the residence of a gentleman called Tincombe, who had been a practitioner of medicine, but retired to Tretheage, where either he or his father had built the present house. He married a Miss Kniverton of Tredreath in Lelant, but died without children.

Trevales has been for many years the residence of the late Mr. Thomas Reed, and of his ancestors; who having been long what is termed good livers in the parish, advanced themselves by successful adventures in mines, and by conducting a tin smelting house in the parish of Perran Arworthall. Mr. Thomas Reed never married, and devised the greater part of his property to Mr. Hocker his near relation.

Mr. Lysons says, the church of Stithians was given by Edward the Black Prince, to the abbey of Rewley near Oxford, in exchange for the manor of Nettlebed. It appears from the printed documents relative to that abbey, that Edmund Earl of Cornwall, in pursuance of his father’s direction, Richard King of the Romans, founded Rewley Abbey in the year 1280.

His charter, inter alia, has these words:

Sciant præsentes et futuri quod nos Edmundus, claræ memoriæ domini Ricardi regis Alemanniæ filius, et Comes Cornubiæ, dedimus, concessimus, et hac præsenti carta nostra confirmavimus Deo et Ecclesiæ beatæ Mariæ de Regali-loco juxta Oxon. et Abbati inibi commoranti, et quindecim Monachis capellanis ordinis Cisterciensis sibi professis, pro anima Ricardi quondam Regis Alemanniæ patris nostri divina celebrantibus, et eorum successoribus

ibidem commorantibus, Deo servientibus et imperpetuum servituris, omnes terras et tenementa quæ habuimus in North Oseneye juxta Oxon —— cum Advocatione Ecclesiæ de Sancta Wendrona et aliis pertinentiis suis in hundredo de Kerier in Cornubia. Preterea dedimus —— totum nemus quod habuimus apud Netlebedde ——.

And in the Valor Ecclesiasticus, taken after the dissolution by Henry the Eighth, is this entry:

Com. Cornub.

Wendrono et Stadyon, Firma Rector’ £22. 0s. 0d.

But nothing appears relative to the exchange of Nettlebed for Stithians.

The late vicar, the Rev. Edward Nankivell from St. Agnes, had been for several years Chaplain to the Factory at Smyrna.

Stithians measures 3987 statute acres.

£.s.d.
Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815411000
Poor Rate in 1831910120
Population,—
in 1801,
1269		in 1811,
1394		in 1821,
1688		in 1831,
1874.

giving an increase of 47½ per cent. in 30 years.

Present Vicar, the Rev. C. W. Woodley, presented by the Earl of Falmouth in 1829.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

With the exception of a small patch on its eastern extremity, this parish is situated entirely on granite, affording varieties similar to those of Gwennap, Redruth, Camborne, and Crowan, all of which are intersected by beds of porphyry, called by the miners elvan courses. The slate which occurs on the eastern side of this parish is felspathic, resembling that of the adjoining parish of Gwennap.

[1] There is no such name in Domesday Books; Mr. Hals must have misread Stratone or some similar name.