Bishop Tanner, in the Notitia Monastica, says of Bordeney Abbey,
“Here was a public monastery before the year 697, to which Ethelred King of Mercia was a great benefactor, if not the original founder; who upon the resignation of his crown retired hither, and became first a monk, and afterwards abbat of this house till his death. It is said to have had three hundred monks, but was destroyed by the Danes A.D. 870.”
The branch or stock of the Trevelyans settled at Basil is now extinct. A Sir John Trevelyan, Knight, of that place, is said to have greatly reduced his fortunes by various law-suits. An anecdote is anciently related of him in the neighbourhood, that having failed
in making an appearance to some civil suit, a process issued to the sheriff for attaching his person, who went to Basil accompanied by several horsemen, and riding into the court-yard made proclamation of his authority, and called on the defendant to surrender; but he, on the contrary, threatened the sheriff if he did not depart, with letting loose his spearmen upon him, and then overturned some hives of bees, which effectually routed the whole troop.
Basil now belongs to the family of Mr. Robert Fanshawe, an Out Commissioner of the Navy Board resident at Plymouth, who made the purchase from Mr. Tremayne of Sydenham.
This parish contains 3242 statute acres.
| £. | s. | d. | |
| Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 | 1998 | 0 | 0 |
| Poor Rate in 1831 | 112 | 0 | 0 |
| Population,— | |||
| in 1801, 134 | in 1811, 165 | in 1821, 175 | in 1831, 171; |
giving an increase of 27½ per cent. in 30 years.
Present Vicar, the Rev. J. P. Carpenter, instituted 1823.