WARBSTOW.

HALS.

Warbstow vicarage is in the hundred of Lesnewith, and hath upon the north Jacobstow, east Tremayne, south Trenegles, west Davidstow.

In the Domesday Book this district was taxed under the name and jurisdiction of Treveliad, now Trevelian.

This church was not endowed at the time of the first inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester,

1294, and therefore not named therein. It now goes in consolidation and presentation with Trenegles, and is also taxed together with it. The patronage in the Duke of Cornwall; the incumbent Wood; the rectory in possession of ——.

TONKIN AND WHITAKER.

Warbstow, in the hundred of Lesnewith, hath to the west Otterham, to the north Jacobstow, to the east part of Devonshire and Tremain, to the south Davidstow and Trenegles.

The true name of this parish is St. Warbury-stow, St. Warbury’s Place, from St. Warbury alias Warburg. She was the daughter of Wolpher King of Mercia, son to the famous Penda. The church celebrates her memory the 21st of June, a holy virgin, to whom Leofrick dedicated a church in Chester, which Hugh Lupus, the first earl of Chester of the Norman blood, repaired and granted to the monks, and it is now the cathedral there. [N. B. a Saxon Saint in Cornwall, introduced by the Saxons on their early settlement on this eastern and detached part of Cornwall.] This [church] is now attached to Treneglos, and passes in the same presentation; the present incumbent being Mr. Charles Porter.

In this parish is a noble fortification, which perhaps might give occasion of dedicating it to such a Saint as carried it with it such a warlike sound [or, as the fact assuredly is, the fortification was called Warborough, and the parish from it, Warborough-stow or Warbstow. W.] I measured, and took a more particular view of it than I had formerly done, this present year 1731.

THE EDITOR.

This part of Cornwall abounds in military antiquities, but it has been far less carefully examined than other districts

of the county; judging from the present aspect of the country, one is induced to wonder that camps or fortresses should ever have been established there, or that stationary armies could by possibility have received support.

The Editor recollects having seen the entrenchment many years ago; that it struck him as much resembling the Roman works in Dorsetshire; and as being of dimensions far more extensive than those of the usual earthworks in Cornwall.

St. Walburge, the patroness of this parish, was the daughter of St. Richard, a King of the West Saxons, who is said to have died at Lucca in the year 722, on his way as a pilgrim to Rome.

His daughter having become a nun in the monastery at Wimbourn Minster, was permitted by the Abbess Testa to depart with several other females who had taken the vows, for the purpose of assisting her relation St. Boniface in his conversion of the Germans, and in establishing the angelic life among the women of this country.

Crediton in Devonshire had the honor of St. Boniface’s birth about the year 680, and Exeter has to boast of his education under the pious Abbat Wolphard. At about twenty-six years of age he undertook the conversion of Germany, but was driven back by the war of Charles Martel. He was, soon after his return, elected Abbat of Nutcell, a place subsequently destroyed by the Danes, and never restored; he left this high situation, however, and, fortified by the Pope’s blessing and encouragement, he went a second time into Germany, where he succeeded to so great a degree as to found the Archbishopric of Mentz; to receive a plenitude of power with the gift of a pall from Rome, so as to establish Bishoprics at his discretion; and with an alteration of his name, which from an unfortunate association in the English language, seems to us very contrary to what was intended. The original name of the primate, the apostle of Germany, was Winfrid, but that

sounding neither sufficiently soft nor harmonious in Teutonic ears, Boniface was substituted in its place.

The saint is distinguished by an invention perfectly singular within the period of authentic history; he enriched the alphabet with an additional letter, the (w) double u.

Having ascended to the pinnacle of terrestrial glory, he at last obtained the crown of martyrdom through the medium of an ignorant mob excited by the priests, whose craft he had destroyed.

Little is recorded of St. Walburga except the general piety of her life and the miracles performed by various minute subdivisions of her relics, which sufficiently attested her beatitude. There is a church dedicated to St. Walburga at Bristol.

The great tithes of this parish are in the Eliot family. The vicarage is in the gift of the Crown, being annexed to Treneglos.

Mr. Lysons says, that the chief manor in this parish, called Fentrigan or Ventrigan, belonged to the Priory of Tywardreth, and that it was one of those given to the Duchy of Cornwall in exchange for the honour of Wallingford. Another manor called Donneny or Downniney belonged to Oto Colyn, who died possessed of it in 1466, and has since passed through the families of Champernownes and Arscotts to that of Molesworth.

Warbstow measures 3557 statute acres.

£.s.d.
Annual value of the Real Property as returned to Parliament in 1815172700
Poor Rate in 1831241160
Population,—
in 1801,
330		in 1811,
323		in 1821,
439		in 1831,
481

giving an increase of 45½ per cent in 30 years.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The rocks of this parish are similar to those of the adjacent parishes of Otterham and Tremaine.