Tregeare, in this parish, Tre(g)eor (the g euphoniæ gratiâ to avoid an elision), is the mansion of an old family from thence denominated. Arms: Argent, a fess voided Sable, charged with three Torteauxes between three Cornish choughs Proper. Tregeare, interpreted, signifies not only a dwelling in honour, but an honourable dwelling; neither had the Saxon nor Kernawith Britons any other word to express honour or honourable by than the termination ge or gor, as appears not only from that incomparable antiquary Verstegan,[37] but also from the names of divers places among our ancestors. I have further to add respecting the word geor, and as we have many places so called in the County I shall once for all endeavour to give the true meaning of it.
Geare, fruitful, from guer, viridis, green (see Lhuyd’s Archæologia, vol. I. fol. Oxford, 1707, p. 174,) as this estate is at present, and as all others of the same name, I presume, formerly were. The family of Tregeare are said to date from before the Conquest.
Manor of Hellegar and Clowance: For Hellegar was formerly the chief place, and signifies the hall or place on the Downs; and there was lately standing there, and I believe yet remains, a hall of large dimensions. This
was anciently the seat of a family bearing the same name; whose arms were, Gules, a bend Vaire between six cross-crosslets Or. Sibill, one of the daughters and co-heiresses of this house, married Pierce Kemell, or Kymyell, of Kymyell, in St. Buian, whose arms were, Argent, three dolphins in pale Sable. Elizabeth, one of the daughters and coheiresses of Pearce Kemell, married Geoffrey St. Aubyn, the second son of Guy St. Aubyn, Knight, and brought to him, with several other lands, this manor of Hellegar and Clowance.
THE EDITOR.
Mr. Hals commits an apparent mistake in assigning the advowson of this parish to Mr. St. Aubyn at the period of Wolsey’s Valuation, and then stating that it was acquired by purchase at the general dissolution of religious houses.
It is probable that the advowson was acquired when the alien priories, or all such houses as were cells in England subject to monasteries abroad, were given to the King by an Act of Parliament, 2d year of Henry V. A.D. 1415. See the statute in original Norman French, vol. VI. p. 986, of Dugdale’s Monasticon, London, 1830; and in Latin, vol. IX. p. 281, of Rymer’s Fœdera.
Sir John St. Aubyn, mentioned by Mr. Hals as in possession of Clowance at the time of his writing, represented the County in Parliament, and acquired popularity by opposing the administration of Sir Robert Walpole. He married Catherine, daughter, and eventually coheiress of Sir Nicholas Morice, of Werrington, and the Lady Catherine Herbert, and great-granddaughter of Sir William Morice, Secretary of State at the Restoration.
This lady brought a fortune of ten thousand pounds, which, the Editor remembers to have heard from a very aged member of the family, were conveyed in two carts
from Werrington to Clowance, all in half crowns, and that he assisted in taling them.