THE GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.
St. Earth is situated on felspar and hornblende rocks belonging to the porphyritic series. In many parts these rocks are so silicious as to give rise to very unproductive soils; but in other places, where the felspar predominates, the land is very fertile. These rocks are traversed by metalliferous veins, which are richer in copper than in tin ores.
EGLES-HALE, or EGLES-HAYLE.
HALS.
Is situate in the hundred of Trig-minorshire, and has upon the north St. Minvor, east St. Mabyn and Bodman, south and west the river Allan. For the modern name, it is taken from the church and the place of its situation, and signifies the river church, or the church upon the river. In the Domesday Book, 20th William I. this parish was taxed under the jurisdiction of Treworder, or Trevorder, viz. the further town, upon the confines thereof. In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, 1294, Ecclesia de Egles-haile was valued to first fruits cs.; Vicar ejusdem nihil, propter paupertatem, the patronage in the Bishop of Exeter, who endowed it. The incumbent Maye; the rectory in possession of Walker. This church, in Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, was rated 16l.; and valued to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, 200l. Walter Brounscomb, Bishop of Exeter 1270, endowed this church, and Stoke-Gabriel church in Devon, and gave the sheaf thereof towards celebrating the festival of the Angel Gabriel, which he had instituted.
Park, that is, a field of any sort, otherwise in this parish it signifies a deer-park, was one of the ancient seats of the Peverells, lineally descended from William the Conqueror, by Jane his concubine, the wife of Randolph Peverell, of Hatfield-Peverell parish, in Witham Decanatus, in the county of Essex, who abdicated the said Jane, and left her wholly on the Conqueror’s hands, who had issue by her a son, named William Peverell, (who, because born during the joint marriage and lives of the said Randolph and Jane, was surnamed Peverell,) upon whom the Conqueror settled the honor, manor, and borough of Nottingham, and town of Lyndeby, on him, and his heirs male. [Here Mr. Hals goes into a long history of the Peverells, wholly unconnected with Cornwall.]
Thomas Peverell, of Park, a supposed descendant of the Conqueror’s son, who was also of Ermington and Sandford, in Devon, was Sheriff of Cornwall 13 Richard II. He was also Sheriff of Devon 20 Richard II. Richard Peverell, his son, was Sheriff of Devon 14 Henry IV. who dying without issue male, his lands went in marriage with his daughter, married to Basset of Umberleigh, Botreaux, and others.
On this lordship of Park those gentlemen had their deer-park, some of the walls and fences being yet standing; their tower-house, and other buildings answerable, their gardens, walk, and fish-ponds beneath the same, the ruins whereof are yet extant. How those lands descended down from Peverell’s heirs to the last age I know not; about which time it was in the possession of Opie and Hickes; from whom it passed by sale to the Hon. John Molesworth, temp. Queen Anne, as I take it.