STRATTON.
HALS.
Stratton is now situate in the hundred from thence denominated Stratton, (formerly Major Trigshire Cantred) and hath upon the north Powghill, east Lancells, south Marhamchurch, west Bude Bay and the Channel. As for the name, after the Saxon, it is compounded of Strat-ton, i. e. street or highway town, a lane or public road, derived perhaps from the Latin strata, a street or Roman highway; and by this name of Stratton, it is taxed in the Domesday Book 1087. In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester aforesaid 1294, Ecclesia de Stratone, in decanatu de Major Trigshire, was rated £7. 13s. 4d. vicar’ ibidem 20s. In Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521, it was valued
£10. 11s. 6½d. The patronage formerly in the prior of Lancells, who endowed it as I am informed; now ——; the incumbent ——; and the rectory in possession of ——; and the parish rated to the four shillings per pound Land Tax 1696, £290. 18s. The town of Stratton is privileged with a weekly market on Tuesdays, and Fairs annually on the 8th of May, 28th of October, and 30th of November.
Thurlebere, Thurle-ber, bir, in this parish, was another district taxed in the Domesday Book 1087, from whence was denominated an ancient family of gentlemen surnamed De Thurlebere, or whurle-ber; i. e. cast, whirle, twine, the spit, short spear, dart, pike, lance or broach, for so the terminative particle ber, bere, bir, indifferently signifies. See Floyd upon Obelus. In this place John de Thurlebere held by the tenure of knight’s service, twenty pounds per annum in lands, tempore Edward III. and John de Cobham had likewise in it by the same tenure the third part of a knight’s fee. (Survey of Cornwall, page 40 and 52.) One of those Thurleberes married the daughter and heir of Thomas de Waunford, Lord of Ebbingford, alias Efford in Bude Bay, and afterwards made it the place of their residence, tempore Henry V. till at length the daughter and heir of those Thurleberes was married to Arundell of Trerice, tempore Edward IV. whose posterity are now in possession thereof.
Near this town of Stratton, in a field called —— there happened on Tuesday the 16th of May 1643, a sore and bloody battle between the army or soldiers of King Charles I. under conduct of his general Sir Ralph Hopton, knight, and Major-General Chudleigh, Commander of the Parliament Forces in those parts; where, after a sharp contest from five of the clock in the morning till three in the afternoon, the fight or success continued doubtful: so that Sir Bevill Grenvill, knight, was unhorsed, and his troop put into disorder by Chudleigh’s men; and
the king’s party had been totally overthrown had not Sir John Berkeley with great courage and conduct led up the musketeers he commanded to their seasonable assistance, maintaining the charge with that stoutness, that the Parliament army, after the loss of about three hundred soldiers, gave ground, and Chudleigh was taken prisoner, with seventeen hundred more of his party. The king’s army having sustained the loss of about two hundred persons, had the plunder of the field, wherein they found seventeen brass pieces of ordinance, seventy barrels of powder, three thousand arms, with ammunition, provision, and biscuit, proportionable.
The country people hereabout will tell you, that the field aforesaid where this battle was fought, being afterwards tilled to barley, produced sixty bushels of corn, Winchester measure, in every acre (See St. Sennan); the fertility whereof is ascribed to the virtue the lands received from the blood of slain men and horses, and the trampling of their feet in this battle.
For this victory, Sir Ralph Hopton, knight of the Bath, was by Letters Patent dated at Oxford, 4th September, 19 Charles I. by him created Baron Hopton of Stratton; but he dying without issue at Bruges in Flanders, King Charles the Second, in the 12th year of his reign, conferred that honorary title of Straton, upon Sir John Berkeley aforesaid (younger son of Sir Maurice Barkley of Bruton in Somerset) who also was one of the four managers of martial affairs in Cornwall for King Charles I. together with the Lord Mohun, Sir Ralph Hopton aforesaid, and Colonel Ashburnham; he also reduced Exeter, and was made governor thereof, and gave for his arms in a field Ruby a chevron Ermine, between ten crosses pattee Pearl, six in chief, and four in base.
The ancestor of this Sir Ralph Hopton, knight, came out of France or Normandy, a soldier or huntsman under William the Conqueror 1066, by the name of the Norman
Hunter, to whom he gave Hopton in the Hole in the county of Salop, (from whence afterwards he was denominated De Hopton,) which he conveyed to him and his heirs, and failing the remainder, to the crown.
Sir William de Mohun, one of the founders of the Abbey of Newham in Devon, 30th Henry III. gave to the same the bailiwick of the hundred of Axminster, and also the manor of Norton, with the hundred and bailiwick of Major Trigshire, now Stratton in Cornwall. (See Prince’s Worthies of Devon.) After the dissolution of Newham Abbey, 26 Henry VIII. it fell to the crown, from whence the present titles of those bailiwicks are derived.
TONKIN.
Stratton is in the hundred of the same name, and is bounded to the west by the north or Severn channel and Poughill, to the north by Kilkhampton, to the east by the river Tamar, to the south by Lancells, Marhamchurch, and Poundstock.
As for the name, it is no other than the street town, from its consisting chiefly of one street, and being a great thoroughfare, but more probably from a Roman Way. [from the Roman stratum or street certainly, on which it lies. W.]
In anno 1291, 20 Edward I. the rectory was valued (Tax. Ben.) at £7. 13s. 4d. being appropriated to the Priory of Lanceston; and the vicar at 20s.
This church is a vicarage, valued in the King’s Book, at £10. 11s. 6d. ob.; the patronage in the crown.
THE MANOR OF STRATTON.
In Domesday Book Stratone was one of the manors given by William the Conqueror to his half-brother Robert Earl of Morton, when he made him Earl of Cornwall.
In the extent of Cornish acres, 12 Edward I. (Carew,
fol. 48), it is valued in 21. In 3 of Henry IV. (Id. fol. 40 b.) Ranulph de Albo Monasterio (Whitchurch) THE EDITOR. Stratton is a neat although a small town. Before the great roads were made through the middle of the county along the central ridge and above the formation of deep valleys, a northern entrance into Cornwall passed through this town. Mr. Lysons says, that the manors of Stratton and Binomy belonged at an early period to an ancient family called in various records De Albo Monasterio, or Blanchminster and Whitminster. The property passed by an heiress to the family of Hiwis; and Emmeline the heiress of Hiwis, married first, Sir Robert Tresilian, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, who lost his life through popular violence in the year 1388; and secondly, Sir John Coleshill. Sir John Coleshill, son of the above, was killed at the battle of Agincourt in 1415, leaving an infant son; after whose death in 1483 the large estates of this family passed by a female heir to a younger branch of the Arundells, and were afterwards divided among its numerous representatives. The manors of Binomy and Stratton having been purchased by the Grenvilles, have descended to Lord Carteret. The manor of Efford or Ebbingford, belonged at an early period to the Waumfords or Waunfords, from whom it passed by a coheiress to the Durants, and from them by an heiress to the Arundells of Trerice, from whom it is derived to Sir Thomas Dyke Acland of Killerton. The church and tower are fine specimens of the style of architecture prevalent throughout the West of England. There are also several monuments; and Mr. Lysons quotes from the register, the baptism and death of Elizabeth Cornish, who lived between these two dates, 113 years 4 months and 13 days. She was baptized in Oct. 1578, and was buried March the 10th, 1691. The great tithes and the manor denominated Sanctuary, or Sentery, as was usual with such professions, belonged to the Priory of Launceston. After the dissolution of monasteries, this manor carrying with it the advowson of the vicarage, was annexed to the Duchy of Cornwall, with various other lands, in exchange for the honour and castle of Wallingford. The great tithes were granted to the family of Wadder, but they have since been sold in parcels. The place of most importance in this parish after the town, is Bude. This place has always given some shelter for boats, and afforded sand for manure. It has within about twenty years received most essential improvement. A pier or jetty has been built out into the sea, and a canal with inclined planes has been made for the conveyance of coal and merchandise into the country, and for bringing down slate and the produce of land; but above all, for supplying sand as a manure. The sand at this place consists entirely of powdered shells, as it does along the whole north coast of Cornwall, and it is found to be so efficacious for imparting fertility to clay lands, that it is frequently conveyed in wheel carriages to so great a distance from the coast, as to require the draft cattle remaining out a night. The boats used on this coast are formed like boxes, having within each side a closed trough containing two wheels, which project a very little beyond the lower surface. These wheels are consequently no impediment to the boats floating on the water, but they enable them to ascend or to descend the inclined planes with the facility of other carriages. See a Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation, by R. Fulton, 1 vol. 4to, London, 1796, p. 32, where this plan is suggested perhaps for the first time. Bude is also become a place of resort for sea bathing; and several houses for the accommodation of strangers have been built by Sir Thomas Acland, so that it has acquired the well-known appellation of a watering place. The Editor having omitted through inadvertence to notice in the adjoining parish of Launcels a gentleman one of the most respectable in the north-eastern part of Cornwall, hopes that he may be excused for inserting his name here. Launcells House, a modern building on the spot where formerly stood the residence of the Chamonds, is the seat of George Boughton Kingdon, esq. respected by every one who has the honour of his acquaintance, for scientific and literary acquirements, and esteemed as a benefactor to his neighbourhood in the characters of a magistrate and of a worthy country gentleman. An instance of longevity has been given in the parish of Stratton, and an occurrence has been stated to the Editor, which proves that Launcells participates in the general healthiness of that district. It seems the identical six men who rang the bells in Launcells tower on the Coronation of King George the Third, rang them also on the day of his jubilee, having continued the parish ringers during all that time. Their names are recorded in the parish, and may therefore be inserted here. John Lyle, Henry Cadd, Richard Venning, John Ham, John Allin, Richard Hayman. And of these, John Lyle rang at the accession of King George the Fourth, and of his present Majesty King William the Fourth, being then in his ninety-sixth year: but all are now gathered to their fathers. And here, as appertaining more to the general character of the country than to any particular parish, in reference to the terrific cliffs which surround this coast, it may be proper to state a fact communicated by Mr. Kingdon; that, from actual measurement taken by himself, Hennacleve cliff on Westcot Down, in the parish of Moorwinstow, is 430 feet above the level of the beach.
| £. | s. | d. | |
| Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 | 3563 | 0 | 0 |
| Poor Rate in 1831 | 710 | 19 | 0 |
| Population,— | |||
| in 1801, 960 | in 1811, 1094 | in 1821, 1580 | in 1831, 1613 |
giving an increase of 68 per cent in 30 years.
Present Vicar, the Rev. Jacob Hawker, presented by the King as Prince of Wales in 1833.
GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.
This parish, like the adjoining one of Kilkhampton, is composed of compact and of schistose varieties of dunstone, occasionally interspersed with beds of calcareous schist and limestone.