It has been conjectured that Il-luggan may have some reference to St. Luke, as the parish feast takes place on the nearest Sunday to St. Luke’s day, October the 18th. But Luggan, indicating an uncultivated or uninclosed tract of ground, would seem to bear a near relation to the state of this district at no remote period.
Mr. Whitaker adheres to Saint Illuggan on account of the parish being designated as Ecclesia Sancti Illogani by the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester in 1294; and by Cardinal Wolsey. It has been already remarked that many of the missionaries from the learned and zealous Convents of Ireland, have left no other trace of their existence than the names of parishes where they are usually honoured as Saints; in the sense probably of Holy, and without implying the technical deification of the Church of Rome, borrowed from ancient Mythology. Saint Illuggan may have been one of those who converted the Celts of Cornwall; but in the total absence even of tradition, this must be a mere conjecture, and the name does not seem to bear any analogy to others established by unquestionable authority.
Every attempt to decipher Tehidy has utterly failed. Mr. Angowe, who has been brought forward by Mr. Hals in a manner not likely to acquire for him much respect
from posterity, resided at Trevenson, and left a son, Mr. Abel Angowe. This gentleman was for some time a student at Oxford, but ultimately preferred the law as an attorney. He married Jane, daughter of Mr. Henry Phillips, of Carnequidden in Gulval, who lived but a very short time; and Mr. Angowe died in consequence of a fall from his horse about the year 1767. His large property became divided among a great many distant relations, and has almost entirely disappeared. The Angowes held Trevenson on lease for lives; the freehold being in the families of Basset and Praed. Mr. Thomas Kivell, steward to Lord Dunstanville, built a very excellent house there about the year 1800, which has been still further improved by his successor in the stewardship, Mr. Reynolds.
Menwinnion existed for centuries as a second house and appendage to Tehidy; but it is now reduced in size, and converted to a farm.
Few parishes in Cornwall have flourished in an equal degree with Illogan. It has abounded in the most productive mines of copper; the dense population consequent to these great sources of employment has covered the tracts formerly waste, with houses, with gardens, and with cultivated fields; and a safe harbour has been constructed at Portreath, for the reception of vessels engaged in the reciprocal trade of exporting annually more than a hundred thousand tons of copper ore to Swansea, and of bringing to Cornwall a still larger quantity of coal.
And lastly, on the 25th of October 1809, when a jubilee was held all over England, on the epoch of King George the Third commencing the fiftieth year of his reign, Lord Dunstanville laid the first bar of an iron tram road, for extending far into the country the facilities afforded by this harbour and port, which has since been done; notwithstanding a most illiberal attempt by persons interested in the trade on the opposite coast, to convert a local Act of Parliament for improving turnpike roads, the sole object of which must be to render the conveyance of individuals and
of property less expensive and more commodious, into the means of obstructing this great improvement. See the Journals of the House of Commons for the year 1817, and particularly on the 16th of May.
But these, and all other improvements in Illogan, and its general prosperity, are mainly owing to the continued residence, during six centuries, of one of the most distinguished among those families, which, having entered England in hostile array, assimilated themselves to its laws, its customs, and its institutions; and have been found, in all succeeding ages, the foremost defenders of its liberties and of its independence.
The family of Basset appears to have taken root in various parts of its adopted country. Some branches were probably Barons from the earliest times, some attained that dignity in subsequent periods; others were distinguished in the law, and all in arms; and what must not be omitted, the signature of Basset is found in the great charters of our liberties, at the ratification of Magna Charta more than six hundred years ago.