TYWARDRETH.
HALS.
Tywardreth is situate in the hundred of Powder, and hath upon the north Lanlivery and Luxillian, south the British Channel, east Giant and Fowey Town, west St. Blazey. The name signifieth the house upon the sand; and by the same name of Tywardrai, it was taxed in the Domesday Book 1087. In the inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester into the value of Cornish Benefices 1294, Ecclesia de Tywardreth, in decanatu de Powdre, was valued at cvis. viiid.; in Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521, £9. 6s. 8d.; the patronage formerly in the abbat of Tywardreth, now Rashleigh; the incumbent —— Woolridge; the rectory in Rashleigh; and the parish rated to the four shillings per pound Land Tax 1696, for one year £205. This church is wholly appropriated or impropriated to the prior or abbat of Tywardreth, before the statute of Richard II.; and the vicar was paid only with £11 modus or stipend per annum, out of the Duchy Exchequer of Lestwithiel. It was the chief alien priory in those parts, which name of alien priors or abbats arose soon after the Norman Conquest, when certain Englishmen, Normans, and French, gave lands in England to Monasteries beyond the seas; upon which the monks built convenient houses
for increasing the number of those under their own rule, and to inspect their revenues and tithes, in which houses they planted a suitable number of monks, under a superior or steward. This priory or abbey was therefore accordingly made subject to the Abbey of St. Sergius and Bacchus of Angiers in France, soon after the Norman Conquest (to whom also is dedicated their church of Luxillian).
The history of whom is as followeth: These saints were Christians and Noblemen of the City of Constantinople; the one Primicerius, and the other Secondicerius; that is to say, Sergius the First, and Bacchus the Second, Secretaries of State to the Emperor Maximian; who for that they would not join with him in sacrificing to the Roman gods or idols, were cruelly tormented by the common hangman, and lastly had their heads chopped off, 7th October 310. There is pious mention of those saints in the Second Nicene Council, Martyrologers, and otherwise; and many churches are dedicated to them in Constantinople, and other parts of Christendom; and the place in Asia where St. Sergius suffered, is called Sergiopolis to this day.
This abbey was first founded by William Earl of Morton and Cornwall, according to the rule of Augustine and Benedict. It was afterwards re-edified and greatly augmented in its revenues by Robert de Cardinham, tempore Richard I. 1190, (see the Monasticon Anglicanum of Dugdale); for which reason he is by some persons taken to be the founder thereof.
This Robert de Cardinham I take to be the same person mentioned by the name of Robert de Cardinam, (Survey Cornwall, page 44), who held by the tenure of knight service seventy-one knight’s fees of Morton in Cornwall, tempore Richard I.
This abbey or priory house and church of Tywardreth, was dedicated to St. Andrew the Apostle and Martyr of Christ, whose history followeth. He was born at Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, elder brother of St. Peter,
and disciple of St. John Baptist, and was present when he pointed at Jesus, saying, “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world;” whereupon he left St. John Baptist and followed Christ. Who, for that, after our Saviour’s Crucifixion, he would not sacrifice to the Roman Gods or Idols, at the command of Egeus Proconsul of Rome, sent governor into the province of Achaia, was crucified as his Lord and Master was, 30 November, Anno Dom. 60, in the reign of the Emperor Nero.
His body was afterwards translated to Constantinople, from thence to Italy, and lastly to Amalphy in Naples, where it still remains.
Now, by reason these alien priories transmitted to their superiors beyond the seas the news and state of affairs in this land, whereby the designs and undertakings of our princes were divulged to their enemies in their French wars; therefore all those sort of religious houses of this kind were suppressed by Act of Parliament, tempore Edward III. Richard II. Henry V. and Henry VI.; and amongst them in Cornwall, Minster, alias Tolcarne, in Trigmajor, and Minster in Kerryer; St. Neot and St. Bennett’s in Lanyvet in Pider were put down, and their lands confiscated to the Crown; but this priory of Tywardreth, for its loyalty or integrity, or for some other reason of security, stood firm till the general dissolution of all those religious houses, 26 Henry VIII. when the revenues of this abbey, according to Dugdale, was £123. 9s. 3d. Speed £151. 6s. 8d. as is set down in their Monasticon Anglicanum.
Mena-belly, alias Mena-billy, in this parish, is the dwelling of Jonathan Rashleigh, esq. Commissioner for the Peace and Taxes, and some time Member of Parliament for Fowey, that married Carew of Anthony, his father Sawle, his grandfather Bonython, his great-grandfather Lanyon. Originally descended and denominated from the
local place of Rashleigh house, in or about Raneleigh parish in Chulmleigh Hundred in Devon.
In this parish, towards the sea coast, is that famous camp or treble intrenchment, called Castle Dore, consisting of a threefold trench cast up of earth, in which heretofore our ancestors the Britons fortified themselves against their enemies; out of which, as common report saith, tempore Charles II. some dreamers of money hid in this camp or place, upon search made, accordingly found such treasure as they much enriched themselves thereby.
TONKIN.
Trewardreth is in the hundred of Powder; for the name, it signifies the village or the house upon the sand. It is a vicarage, not valued in the King’s Book, as having been but lately endowed; the late incumbent was Mr. May, likewise Rector of St. Mewan, who died this year (1732).
In the year 1291, 20th Edward I. the rectory of this church was valued at £5. 6s. 8d. being appropriated to the priory here; and the vicarage at 13s. 4d.
In 3 Henry IV. William de Campo Arnulphi [or Champernoun] held here one fee, from whom the prior held three acres and a half in the same. There are what are still called the priory lands. But to go further back, as Robert de Cardinam was the founder of this priory in the time of Richard the First, according to Bishop Tanner in his Notitia Monastica, this must be one of the seventy knight’s fees, which the said Robert held in this county, 6th Richard I. who by consequence must then have been lord of this manor. In Domesday Book it is, by the name of Tiwardrai, numbered among the manors which William the Conqueror gave to Robert Earl of Morton, when he made him Earl of Cornwall.
Leland says of this place, Tywardreth, “A praty town, but no market, lieth a quarter of a mile from the east side of the bay; there is a parish church, and there was a priory
of black monks, a cell sometime to a house in Normandy. Some say Campernulphus was founder of this priory; some say that Cardinham was founder. Arundell of Lanherne was of late taken for the founder.
“I saw a tomb in the west part of the church of this priory, with this inscription:
Hæc est Tumba
Roberti filii Wilhelmi.
“This Robert Fitz William was a man of fair lands, tempore Edwardi tertii Regis Angliæ.”
THE EDITOR.
The parish church and tower bear on the exterior an appearance of antiquity. Internally, much decoration was displayed, and especially by a rood-loft which has been recently taken down. These alterations of our ancient churches are justly lamented by all persons capable of admiring the beauty and imposing splendour of Gothic architecture, but they seem to have almost inevitably grown out of the change of purpose to which churches are applied. Originally, the chancel, protected by the rood loft and by a veiled entrance, was destined for the astounding miracle of repeatedly transforming bread and wine into the actual body and blood of Christ, while the outward or less sacred part of the edifice, was used for processions and scenic exhibitions; accompanied by dirges or by triumphant choruses, adapted either to the death or to the resurrection of our Saviour. In modern times, on the contrary, a room is required so constructed as to admit of whole congregations joining with an individual in prayers, or of listening to his instruction.
The monastery has so completely disappeared, that its precise locality was not remembered; but a gentleman of the neighbourhood having taken considerable pains to
ascertain whatever could yet be discovered about it, made the following communication to the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1822.
“The ancient priory of Tywardreth has long been so entirely levelled with the ground, that it is not very easy even to ascertain its site. Some time ago the present vicar obtained leave to dig the ground on its supposed site in search of stones for erecting a vicarage house. The place where he made an excavation for this purpose appears to have been the east end of the priory chapel; and as some measurements were taken at the time, and I have, with the permission of the landlord, opened the ground in several places, partly with the hope of ascertaining the form of the chapel, and partly of throwing some light on its architecture, the following particulars may not be unacceptable.
“The chapel appears, so far as could be ascertained by measurement, to have been eighty feet long, by fifty-seven wide, with a semicircular end towards the east, strengthened by four buttresses of wrought Pentewan stone, two feet wide, and ornamented by four pilasters; within the shafts are a single half-column, fourteen inches in diameter. At each angle was a handsome piece of architecture, as it was described to me, of which pilasters, resembling those already described, formed a part, but with the base five inches wide, and the mouldings in proportion.
“In the vicarage garden, adjoining the west end of the chapel, a fragment of a stone arch was found, with a fleur-de-lis elegantly carved in deep relief; the same devise appears on the church stile, and in a coat of arms in one of the windows of the church, and appears from Tanner to have been part of the arms of the priory. The wall of the chapel is the south wall of the churchyard.
“The chapel was paved with beach pebbles, and was built partly of common clay slate raised on the spot; the wrought stones were of compact hard porphyry, from Pentewan Quarry in the parish of St. Austell, and hornblende from the cliff between Duporth and Charlestown in the same
parish. All the carved work is executed with much skill and taste.”
Several charters granted to this monastery are preserved in Dugdale’s Monasticon. The earliest is in the 19th year of Henry the Third, A. D. 1234, as follows:
“Henricus Dei gratia Rex Angliæ, Dominus Hiberniæ Dux Normandiæ et Aquitaniæ, et Comes Andegaviæ, omnibus Archiepiscopis, &c. salutem. Inspeximus cartam Roberti de Cardinam, in hæc verba:—
“Robertus de Cardinam omnibus Sanctæ Matris Ecclesiæ filiis salutem. Sciatis me, pro Dei amore et animæ meæ salute, concessisse et præsenti carta mea confirmasse ecclesiæ sanctorum martyrum, Sergii et Bachi Andegavi, et ecclesiæ Sancti Andreæ de Tywordrait et Monachis ibidem Deo servientibus et servituris, omnes donationes et concessiones quas antecessores mei, seu quicunque fideles de feodo meo ipsis fecerint,” &c.
The seal of the convent is understood to have been a saltire, or St. Andrew’s cross Or, between four fleurs-de-lis, which accounts for the sculptures noticed above.
St. Andrew became the patron saint of Scotland, and popular throughout the whole island, after an Abbat, said to have borne the name of Regulus, had brought some of his relics to a place then called Abernethy, but where a Monastery, a University, and a city, have since arisen to commemorate the Apostle.
The priory of Tywardreth appears to have been suppressed with the other alien houses, but afterwards to have been re-established as an independent society, or made denizen according to the legal phrase, having at the time of the general dissolution the Priory of Minster attached to it as a cell, which had been originally dependent with itself on the Abbey of St. Sergius and St. Bacchus at Angiers, the former capital of Anjou, and now of the department of the Maine and Loire.
A very curious correspondence between Thomas Cromwell, Vicar-General and Vicegerent of the King’s Supremacy on the one part, and Thomas Collyns the last Prior
on the other, is said to exist among the papers and documents preserved by the Arundells of Lanhearn, and of Wardour Castle in Wiltshire.[14]
In one of the letters Cromwell is understood to have complimented the Prior on the possession of every active virtue, especially as displayed in the good government of his convent; he assures him that the King is fully sensible of his merits; and in consideration of his great age and faithful services, the King out of special grace and favour would allow him not only to resign the painful office of governing such a society, but would admit of his recommending a successor.
Collyns’s answer is full of thanks to the Lord Vicegerent, and of gratitude to the King, whose approbation he esteemed above all worldly matters, and next to the conscious satisfaction of having discharged faithfully his duties towards the Almighty in the station to which it pleased God that, without any merits of his own, he should be advanced. He offered his most humble and grateful thanks to the King for the great favours profferred to him; but that, feeling his health and strength sufficient for enabling him to continue the discharge of duties which the King had approved, he owed it to his conscience not to withdraw from them.
This brought a letter from Cromwell, declaring that the horrible savour of his sins, his crimes, and his iniquities had ascended before the Lord; and that, unless he immediately relinquished an office which he had most grossly abused, an ecclesiastical commission would proceed to inquire into his misdeeds, and to punish him accordingly. This latter is understood to have produced either an immediate surrender of the priory, or Collyns’s resignation preparatory to it. He was elected in 1506, and died in 1539, as appears from his tombstone in the chancel.
The site of this priory was granted in 1542 to Edward Seymour, then Earl of Hertford, afterwards Duke of Somerset, and Protector. It subsequently became the joint property of the St. Aubyns and the Pendarveses of Roscrow. The late Lord Dunstanville inherited the latter portion, and acquired the former by purchase.
It seems that a manor of Tywardreth, which in early times must have been paramount over the others, passed from Ricardus Dapifer to the Cardinhams. Mr. Lysons says it was sold towards the latter part of the 13th century, by Isolda de Cardinham to the Champernownes, for a hundred pounds. From this family it passed to the Herles and Bonvilles, and fell to the Crown on the attainder of the Duke of Suffolk in 1554. It belonged to the family of Rashleigh, in the early part of the subsequent century; with whom it still remains, including the entire impropriation of the great and small tithes.
Menabilly has been the seat of that distinguished family for a period of at least two hundred years. At the last visitation of the Heralds in 1620, Jonathan Rashleigh of Fowey, who married Alice, daughter of —— Bonithan of Kertleowe, is said to be alive, having two sons. The eldest John Rashleigh, aged 34, and Jonathan Rashleigh the second. John Rashleigh, ancestor of these two brothers, in the fifth degree, is stated to have been of Barnstaple.
Individuals of this family have represented Fowey during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Charles the First, Charles the Second, and King William; and since the accession of King George the Second, up to very recent times, scarcely a Parliament has been assembled that could not count a Rashleigh among its members.
Mr. Jonathan Rashleigh was elected Member for Fowey in 1728, and continued to represent that town in eight successive Parliaments, and in the last with his eldest son.
This gentleman married Mary, daughter of Sir William Clayton of Surrey, and died in 1764, leaving a very numerous family, all of whom have been distinguished as persons
of ability, of integrity, and of honour, followers of the best advice said ever to have been given by a parent.
Αιεν αριστευειν, και ὑπειροχον εμμεναι αλλων,
Μηδε γενος πατερων αισχυνεμεν.
Mr. Philip Rashleigh, the eldest brother, represented Fowey during a length of time almost equal to that of his father. He greatly improved the family seat, but especially distinguished Menabilly by placing there the most extensive and magnificent collection of Cornish minerals, enriched by others from every part of the known world, that could any where be seen. And Mr. Rashleigh has given to the public, in two thin quarto volumes, fifty-three coloured plates, with descriptions of the most choice or rare specimens. The work is entitled, “Specimens of British Minerals, selected from the Cabinet of Philip Rashleigh, with general descriptions of each article,” printed by Bulmer and Co. the first volume in 1797, and the second in 1802. At the end of the second volume is added a Geological Plate, being a section of the stream work at Porth in the parish of St. Blazey, about a quarter of a mile from high water-mark, containing the position and measurement of ten distinctly marked deposits, with subdivisions, accompanied by descriptions of each; the whole extending to a depth of 44 feet: and what adds to the value of this section, the stream work was destroyed by a very high tide about the period when the volume was published.
In addition to this scientific collection, Mr. Rashleigh constructed a grotto at some distance from the house, encrusted on the inside by some common but splendid minerals, exhibiting also the position of lodes, their heaves, their slides, &c. and this was liberally thrown open to all persons applying for admission.
Mr. Rashleigh married very late in life, and dying without children, left his ample estate to William, the eldest son of his next brother, the Reverend Jonathan Rashleigh, Rector of Silverton in Devonshire.
Mr. William Rashleigh succeeded his uncle in the representation of Fowey, but voluntarily retired from public life to enjoy domestic happiness, with the esteem and regard of every one who has good fortune to be numbered among his acquaintances.
Polkerris, a small harbour near Menabilly, as indeed is indicated by the first syllable of the name, has been improved, perhaps as a matter of fancy, by the Rashleigh family. Mr. Jonathan Rashleigh built a pier capable of giving shelter to coasting vessels and boats; and his son the late Mr. Philip Rashleigh continued a sean fishery for the benefit of the neighbourhood.
Kilmarth, which formerly belonged to a family called Baker, is also the property of Mr. Rashleigh; the house is placed on a very elevated piece of ground near the road leading from St. Austell to Fowey.
Treveryan once belonged to a branch of the Courtenays: it passed by a purchase to John Thomas, esq. by whom the house was built. Mr. Thomas devised it to the Reverend John Thomas Thomson, who died at Penzance in 1811; and the estate now belongs to his son Henry Thomson, esq. resident at Lostwithiel, a magistrate, and late a captain in the Cornwall militia.
Tywardreth measures 2967 statute acres.
| £. | s. | d. | |
| Annual value of the Real Property as returned to Parliament in 1815 | 4539 | 0 | 0 |
| Poor Rate in 1831 | 735 | 15 | 0 |
| Population,— | |||
| in 1801, 727 | in 1811, 741 | in 1821, 1238 | in 1831, 2288 |
giving an increase of nearly 215 per cent. in 30 years.
This great increase in the number of inhabitants is occasioned by that parish and the neighbourhood becoming a mining district.
Present Vicar, the Rev. Thomas Pearce, presented by W. Rashleigh, esq. in 1820. The net value of the living, as returned in 1831, was 135l.
The extreme northern part of this parish, in an angular form, extends upon the granite, surrounded on all sides by the granite of Lanlivery. The remaining parts of the parish are composed of schistose rocks, which next the granite are of the porphyritic series, but become of a doubtful nature in the southern extremity; these latter belong perhaps to the calcareous series, as do also some of the rocks in the adjoining parish of Fowey. The felspathic rocks next the granite, like those of St. Austell, are metalliferous, as is proved by the important mines of Lanescot and Fowey Consols.
[14] A list of the Priors of Tywardreth, and extracts from a Calendar of the Priory, now in the possession of Lord Arundell, have been recently published in vol. III. of “Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica,” 1835.