In war and peace I bore command,
Both gun and sword I wore.
The arms borne by the family are: Sable, a bend lozengy, arg.—arms that in their beautiful simplicity proclaim their antiquity.
The old mansion of the Braddons in S. Gennys has been pulled down and a modern farm-house erected on the site.
THOMASINE BONAVENTURA
Week S. Mary stands in a treeless wind-swept situation, 530 feet above the sea, near the source of two small streams rising in the desolate downs to the south, which unite their waters at Langford, and have sawn for themselves deep clefts that are well wooded. At a remote period this district must have been the scene of contests, for it is studded with earthworks. There was a castle at Week, but camps also crowning a height in Westwood and in Swannacott Wood; and Week S. Mary with its castle stood aloft, defended by one of these on each side. Formerly there was not so much enclosed land as there is at present; but it was precisely the moorland that extended over so large a portion of the parish that constituted its wealth, for on this waste pastured vast flocks of sheep, whose fleeces were in request at a time when wool was the staple industry in the West of England.
The ridge of bare, uplifted, carboniferous rock and clay, cold and bleak, was formerly scantily provided with roads, and with homesteads few and far between; and to guide the traveller through the waste, certain churches with lofty towers were erected on high ground—Pancrasweek, Holsworthy, Bridgerule, Week S. Mary—to enable him to make his way across country from one to the other. A farm or a manor-house nestled in a combe, sheltered from the wind, from the sea, and the driving rain; but farmer and squire drew their wealth from the sheep on the uplands, which were moreover strewn, as they still are, with barrows, under which lie the dead of the Bronze and Stone ages.
Davies Gilbert absurdly derives the name of the place from the Cornish, and makes it signify "sweet." No more unsuitable epithet could have been applied. It signifies vicus, a village or hamlet, and is found also at Pancrasweek, Germansweek, and elsewhere.
In the village are still to be seen the remains of the old school and chantry founded by Thomasine Bonaventura, a shepherd girl, native of the place, whose story is told by Carew and by Hall; and from them we take it.