STOKE CLIMSLAND.

HALS.

Stoke Climsland is situate in the hundred of East, and hath upon the north Lezant, west Southill, east Calstock and the Tamar River, south Killington.

This parish and church take their name from the manor of Stow Climsland in this parish aforesaid, and by that name it was taxed in the Domesday Book 1087. It was first given by Orgar Duke of Devon, or Elphrida his lady, to Tavistock Abbey in Devon, which he had founded. (Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum, page 360.) Afterwards it became the possession of the Kings of England or Earls of Cornwall, and was by King Edward III. incorporated into the Duchy of Cornwall 1336. (See the charter under Lestwithiel.) And to remove an action at law out of the Court Leet of this Duchy or Stannary Manor, or any other in Devon, as I have elsewhere noted under Helleston, the writ must be thus directed:—

Gardiano Stannarum Devon et Cornubiæ, Capitali Senescallo Ducatus sui Cornubiæ, aut suo Deputat. ibidem. Et precipue sibi aut suo Deputat. Senescallo infra manerium de Stow Climsland parcell. Ducatus Cornub. pred. infra Com. Cornub. &c.

Of Hengiston Downs, King Egbright’s victory, and tin works in this parish, I have spoken under Killington. And of this manor of Climsland, and the park of Cari Bollock in this parish are mention made in the Duke’s Charter aforesaid. Now the modern name Cary-Bollock, I take to be only a corruption of Carow-Bollogk, female deer of a stag, probably kept here in the Duke’s park, when brought out of the forest of Dartmoor.

It appears from the ancient Survey of the Duchy of Cornwall in the Exchequer, tempore Edward III. (and

Blount’s Tenures, from thence also extracted page 107), that the old tenure of this Duchy Manor of Climsland or Clemsland, was villanage.

The manor of Rillaton in this parish, was invested with the jurisdiction of a Court Leet, and is annexed to the Duchy of Stoke Climsland, with all its privileges, as I am imformed. To remove an action at law from which, the writ must be thus directed: Senescallo Decanorum, Præposit. et liberis tenent. Manerii sui de Rillaton, parcell. Ducatus sui Cornub. in Com. Cornub. salutem.

In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester 1294, Ecclesia de Stoke, in decanatu de Est, was rated at cvis. viiid. In Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521, Stoke Climsland Church was valued at £40, the patronage in the Dukes and Earls of Cornwall that endowed it; the incumbent ——; and the parish rated to the four shillings per pound Land Tax, for one year 1696, £424. 14s.

TONKIN AND WHITAKER.

Is situate in the hundred of East, and hath to the west Linkinhorne and Southill, to the north Lezant, to the east the river Tamar, to the south Kellington and Calstock.

Stoke is the same with Stow, a place; and hath the adjunct of Climsland from the great duchy manor here.

[The word is Clema’s land, Clemmow being a personal name still in Cornwall, pronounced there Clemma, and meaning Clement. W.]

This is a rectory, valued in the King’s Book £40; the patronage in the Duke of Cornwall, the incumbent Mr. John Heron.

THE MANOR OF CLIMSLAND.

This, in the extent of Cornish acres, 12 Edw. I. (Carew, fol. 48) is valued in fifty, by the name of Clemysland, in which I suppose is comprehended the park of Carybullock

belonging thereto. This being one of the ancient manors belonging to the Duke of Cornwall, and so settled by Edward the Third on his son Edward the Black Prince in the eleventh year of his reign, I shall say no more of it here, but come to the most remarkable places in it; and first to

CARY BULLOCK PARK.

So Mr. Carew calls it (fol. 115), “Carybullock,” saith he “some time a parke of the Duke’s, but best brooking that name now it hath lost its qualitie, through exchanging deere for bullocks.” Sir John Dodridge (History of Wal. and Corn. p. 84, &c.) calls it Kerry-bollock; but what if I should say the right name was Caer-bollick, and did signify the intrenched inclosure on the river?—the situation would exactly answer this derivation; but, since the writing of this, I find (Salmon’s Survey of England, vol. II. p. 714) that Mr. Baxter, in Bullœum or Buelt (according to Mr. Camden) in Brecknockshire, interprets it to be Caer-Bulack or “Principis Domus,” the Prince’s town or inclosure, which (if true) would suit very well with this. [This is a judicious application of one of Mr. Baxter’s etymons to the present place; Bulœum, as Baxter says the name is written in the superior copies of Ptolemy’s Geography, Baxter thinks with Lhwyd to be the modern Caer Phylli. Bel, he says, is properly a head, and figuratively a king. This makes Caer Bulack, “quod ara est Regia.” “Certe,” he adds, very usefully, “vel ipsi novimus in Montegomerica nostra Regione Domunculam antiqua Rhesi filii Theodori progenie nobilem;” ennobled by the birth of Rhys ap Tudor, “vel hodie nominatam Caer Bulach, tanquam Principis dicatur domus.” In proof of Mr. Baxter’s seemingly unfounded interpretation of Bel, Bol, or Bul, a head and a king, we may observe the name of the sun Beal, in the Beal-tine of Cornwall and the Beil-tine of Ireland for the fires on May-day in

honour of the sun; Beal, Bil (I.) a mouth; Bil (W.) the mouth of the vessel; Bollog (I.) a shell, a scull, the top of the head; Fal (I.) a king or great personage; Folar (I.) to command; Folarthoir (I.) an emperor; Folladh (I.) government; Ffelaig (W.) a general, a captain, a leader; Belee, plural Belein (C.) a priest or priests; Belek (A.) a priest; Pol-kil (C.) the hinder part of the head or the top of the neck; and in Belinus, Cunobelinus, and the promontory Bolerium of the ancient Britons; and Caer-Bulack, as a royal house is called equally in Wales, would in the Cornish mode of pronunciation be Cerry-bullock, as Car-hayes is Carry-hayes at present. W.]

Which since its being disparked by King Henry VIII. has been set out at lease to several gentlemen, and is now held by Sir John Coryton, of Newton, Bart.

THE EDITOR.

Mr. Lysons enumerates the manors; the principal of which are the manor giving its name to the parish, part of the ancient possessions of the duchy of Cornwall, and the manor of Climsland Prior, extending into Linkinhorne, which formerly belonged to the priory of Launceston; and after the general dissolution was given with many other manors forming the modern duchy in exchange for the honour and castle of Wallingford.

Carrybullock, disparked by King Henry the Eighth, was held under a lease from the duchy by Mr. Weston Helyar.

Mr. Lysons mentions other manors and bartons of no general interest, with the exception of Whiteford, on account of its late proprietor.

Mr. John Call was one of those individuals of whom the country adjacent to the Tamar may be proud.

It is understood that he was born on the Devonshire side of the river, and various tales are related of his first advancement in life; these are usually little worthy of attention,

and are most frequently exaggerated from an innate love of the marvellous. Mr. Call having proceeded to India as an engineer, most eminently distinguished himself in that field, more ample than any recorded in history for the successful display of abilities, and active persevering industry; and where, for the first time since distinct nations have been brought into contact by the improvements of navigation and of commerce, the vanquished have become debtors to the more successful party for protection, for the administration of equal laws and of impartial justice, and for the introduction among the inhabitants of the spirit of honour, the glory of modern Europe.

Here Mr. Call having served his country, and justly acquired the legitimate rewards of fame and of ample fortune, retired to his native country, purchased Whiteford, which he converted into a handsome seat, and much other property in the neighbourhood. His active mind could not, however, remain unemployed; he became a banker, a manufacturer of plate-glass, and a copper smelter. He served the office of Sheriff for Cornwall in the year 1771; afterwards represented Callington in Parliament, and was finally created a Baronet.

It may be interesting to insert some miscellaneous information which the gentleman communicated to this Editor in Oct. 1798, while he resided for a few weeks or months at Marazion, and which was imperfectly noted at the time.

He received the whole of his education as an engineer under Mr. Benjamin Robins, F.R.S. Engineer-General to the East India Company, the well-known author of various mathematical tracts, and especially of a treatise on the principles of gunnery, the force of gunpowder, and on the resisting power of the air to bodies in swift and in slow motion. This treatise his pupil Mr. Call transcribed for the press; and no doubt he assisted in making those admirable experiments and mathematical deductions from them, which have given a new character to this important branch

of military science, as well in respect to small arms, and more especially to rifled barrels, as to cannon and mortars, in reference to which Mr. Call made an additional improvement so as to discharge shells from long guns by placing the fusee internally, with its orifice concentric to the surface instead of projecting, and thereby securing it from injury as the shot rolls in passing out of the gun.

He successfully defended Fort St. George at Madras; and in 1761 conducted the siege of Pondicherry, which ended in the capture of that place, the chief seat of the French power in India. Sir John Call also mentions as a curious circumstance, illustrative of the decisive effects produced by the well-directed fire of field artillery, that in a battle where he was present (query, was it Plassey?) a shell from an howitzer caused the explosion of a carriage containing gunpowder, which produced some confusion and disorder in the enemy’s line; the commander instantly ordered a charge, and the victory was decided.

And he related another anecdote on a very different subject. That having with other amateurs of astronomy made preparations for observing the transit of Venus by constructing a temporary observatory on the flat roof of the government house at Madras, they waited with impatience after a long continuance of fine weather, for the important 3d of June 1761, when a most violent storm on the preceding night injured or destroyed their instruments so as to render any observation impossible; and, what added to their mortification and disappointment, a long continuance of fine weather succeeded this tempest.

Whiteford is now the residence of his son Sir William Pratt Call, who was Sheriff of Cornwall in 1807, and has a family.

The manor of Climsland Prior paid to the monastery at Launceston, the free tenants 8s. the conventionary tenants £6. 13s. 9d.

The advowson of the living seems to have been appurtenant to the ancient duchy manor of Stokeclimsland.

This parish measures 7973 statute acres.

£.s.d.
Annual value of the Real Property as returned to Parliament in 1815601000
Poor Rate in 18312084170
Population,—
in 1801,
1153		in 1811,
1237		in 1821,
1524		in 1831,
1608

giving an increase of 39½ per cent. in 30 years.

Present Rector the Rev. C. Lethbridge, presented by the Prince of Wales in 1805.

THE GEOLOGY, BY DOCTOR BOASE.

The southern part of this parish includes the whole of the granite of Kit Hill, which is for the most part of the coarse-grained crystalline variety so common in Cornwall. Proceeding northward, the rest of the parish is found to belong to the schistose rocks; those next to the granite are felspathic, and contain beds of porphyry, but those more remote, which form the greater part, must be referred to the calcareous series.