The feast of the dedication of this church is in November, near Sancta Colomba Virginis et Martyris day; and the fair depends upon it.
As for the south aile of this church before-mentioned, it was called Jesus Chapel, and therein was founded Trinity chantry; towards building or endowment whereof the Lords of Resurrans tied these lands for ever to pay to the same 13s. 4d. per annum, with power of distress. At the dissolution of this chantry 1 Edward VI. John Chaplin was chief chanter, or sole priest thereof, and seised of the said rent, as his predecessors had been long before; and King Edward being so possessed, by virtue of an Act of Parliament, sold the same, with other things, to Sir Hugh Pomeroy, Knight, and Thos. Pomeroy, Esq. his brother; who the 4th Edward VI. sold it to
William Saplyn; and —— Saplyn, in the 1st and 2nd of Philip and Mary, sold it to John Glyn, Esq., John Ganergan, William Prye, John Manifield, Richard Carter, Henry Rouse, John Vivian, and Richard Hancanon, who were trustees for the parish of Sancta Colomba. After which conveyances the Lord of Resurrans refused to pay the said rent. Whereupon the parish distrained those lands, and the owner thereof replevined the goods so taken, which occasioned the parish bringing an action in replevin against the replevers thereof; and for plea, by way of avowry, did allege that those goods they ought to take, for that one John chaplain of Trinity chantry was seised of the said rent in fee, as his predecessors time out of mind had been before, in right of the said chantry, from which it passed to King Edward the Sixth, and the purchasers under him as aforesaid. Whereupon the issue passed for the plaintiff, or parish, against the Lord of Resurrans. (See St. Michael Penkivell, St. Mary Wike; also for Chantry, see St. Cuthbert for prayer for the dead.)
In the year 1676, the greatest part of this church of St. Colomb was casually blown up with gunpowder by three youths of the town, scholars therein, who, in the absence of their master and the rest of their companions, ignorantly set fire to a barrel of gunpowder, the parish stores, laid up in the stone stairs and walls of the rood-loft, which occasioned the destruction of it and themselves together; for the glass-window, roofs, timber, stones, and pillars, thereby made a direful concussion together, especially those shot from the walls of the moorstone stairs aforesaid, to the total defacing the church and many pews thereof.
In this tragical concussion several accidents were strange and unaccountable. As, first, that one Nicholas Jane, a hellyar, was on a ladder mending the healing, or stones on the roof of the church, when it happened, whereby he himself and the ladder under him
were blown up also; but both fell to the ground without hurt. Secondly, the church bible and common-prayer book, with their leaves open, in the rector’s pew, scarce two feet from the rood-loft stairs, where the powder took fire and broke out, were neither singed, moved, nor so much as any dust about them, though many thousand stones were cast about the church. Thirdly, there was at least a ton weight of lime and stone cast upon the communion table, which was old and slight, having but one foot or pedestal to stand upon, and yet the same was not broken nor hurt. Fourthly, the pulpit was in like manner preserved from the fury and rage of the fire and stones, when the very walls and pillars near it were shattered to pieces. Let divines and philosophers give a reason for these things, if there was not a supernatural cause or Providence for it!
By this sad accident this church of St. Colomb received damage to the value of about 350l.; yet was, by the liberal contributions of its inhabitants, in nine months time built and repaired as it now stands, and what was wanting in subscriptions to make up that sum, was raised by a small parish rate on the lands thereof. The chief subscribers, Sir John Saint Aubyn, of Trekininge, Baronet, 20l.; his grandmother-in-law, the widow of Peter Jenkin, Esq. 20l.; John Vivian, Esq. of Truan, 20l.; his three sons, Thomas, John, and Francis Vivian, 15l.; Robert Hoblyn, Esq. 10l.; Edward, his son, 5l.; Captain Ralph Keate, 5l.; the writer of this volume 5l.; John Day, Gent. 5l.; Peter Day, Gent. 5l.; Honour Carter, widow, 10l.; John Bligh, Gent. 5l.; Peter Pollard, senior, 10l.; John Beauford, rector, 20l., with several others.
And, as if the fiery element had a particular power over this church, it is further memorable that several times before a stone pinnacle of the tower thereof was cast down with thunder and lightning, and had as often been built up again to no purpose, till at length the
workmen were advised, upon their last operation, to inscribe in the stone thereof, “God bless and preserve this work;” since which time it hath stood invincible for about sixty years. But, alas! notwithstanding this pinnacle hath been thus exempted from the raging of the fiery element, yet its next neighbour, the lofty spire or steeple on the said tower, a strong and well-built structure, bound or cramped together with iron and cast lead through the moor-stones thereof, (so that, comparatively, according to man’s judgment, it might last till the final consummation of all things,) yet so it happened on a Thursday in July 1690, that about one of the clock in the afternoon, when the people were at their traffic in the market place contiguous with the churchyard, the said spire or steeple was torn and shattered to pieces with a flash of lightning, and totally thrown to the ground, and the iron bars therein wreathed and wrested asunder as threads, to the great terror and astonishment of the beholders. It was further observable when this concussion happened, only divers flashes of lightning appeared, but no sound or crack of thunder was heard; from whence I infer that when the voice of thunder is heard, the fiery matter in the middle region, perhaps not three miles above our heads, hath spent its force and strength. This spire also was soon after re-edified by the inhabitants of this parish, though much short of its former height and bigness, as it now stands.
Again, contiguous with this church-yard was formerly extant a college of Black Monks or Canons Augustine, consisting of three fellows, for instructing youth in the liberal arts and sciences; which college, when or by whom erected and endowed I know not. However, I take it to be one of those three colleges in this province named in Speed and Dugdale’s Monasticon, whose revenues they do not express, (nor the places where they were extant,) but tell us that they were dedicated to the