St. Bradock is situate in the Hundred of West, and has upon the south Boconock, the west St. Wennow, east St. Pynnock, north Cardinham, and by this name Bradock or Brodock it was taxed in the Domesday Roll. If its etymology is Saxon the name means broad oak.
In the Pope’s Inquisition into the value of benefices before mentioned, anno 1294, Capella de Bradock in decanatu de Westwells, appropriata domui de Lanceston, was valued at xiiis. ivd.; from whence it appears that this church was endowed by the college of St. Stephen, near Launceston. In Wolsey’s Inquisition and Valor Beneficiorum, at viiil. xiiis. ivd. The patronage in the Bishop of Exeter; and this parish was rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax for one year in 1696 at 57l.
TONKIN.
This church is a vicarage; the patronage in Samuel Wetton, Esq.; the incumbent, Mr. James Pearce, who has also the sheaf.
The manor of Bradoke is one of the two hundred and eighty given by the Conqueror to Robert Earl of Morton.
THE EDITOR.
This living, which is stated in the Liber Valorum to be a rectory, was consolidated with Boconnoc in the year 1742, and the clergyman’s residence has recently been removed to Bradock. The united parishes are now in the presentation of Lord Grenville.
Bradock down was the scene of two important events in the civil war.
First, a victory obtained by the King’s forces early in 1623 under the command of Sir Bevill Granville, Sir Nicholas Glenning, Sir Ralph Hopton, Arundell, Trevanion, and other gentlemen of the county, over a much larger force commanded by Ruthven, Governor of Plymouth. The victory was so complete that Ruthven with difficulty reached Saltash, accompanied by a few only of his troops, from whence they were speedily driven across the Tamar; and this advantage mainly contributed to the more splendid victory at Stratton, obtained on the 16th of May of the same year; a victory which, rolling on its tide of success through Devonshire and Somersetshire, over Lansdowne and Bristol, might have swept the whole of England but for the recoil of its waves from the walls of Gloucester.
The second event was on a more extensive scale.