Pendeen exhibits an excellent specimen of the large but comfortless houses, inhabited by gentlemen two centuries ago.
Near the house may be seen one of those very ancient excavations called vaus or faus. See Borlase’s Antiquities, p. 293, 2d. edit. 1769. They are conjectured to have been made for places of refuge in times when predatory descents on the coast were of frequent occurrence, and always causes of alarm. Yet the entrance could not be concealed, and the five kings of the Amorites had left an example, confirmed at no remote period by the cruel fate of a northern clan, proving the utter insecurity of such a retreat.
On the sea-shore below the house is a small cove, where boats and nets are kept for fishing; but so small is the shelter on this iron-bound coast, that the boats are drawn up by ropes or chains, and kept suspended during the winter, on the sloping surface of a steep cliff.
Some miles westward of Pendeen, and near the sea, is Botallock, the seat of the Usticks; one among the many families that resided for centuries in this remote peninsula, moderately endowed with gifts of fortune, but possessed of the honour and feelings of gentlemen.
This parish has been productive of tin from the most early periods; and Botallock would have elevated its proprietors in the scale of wealth, but times and manners had changed, so that the last Mr. Ustick of that place having spent his estate, and then got it redeemed by a productive mine, sold it at last to Admiral Boscawen, to whose grandson the property now belongs. The veins or lodes of tin
having been wrought within the last fifty years to depths unattainable before the introduction of improved steam-engines, copper has, in very many instances, been found under the tin; and this has occurred at Botallock, where situated on the edge of a cliff, the workings with the steam-engines, whims, &c. present a spectacle more unique and more imposing than any other in Cornwall.
Further from the shore is Busvargus, the seat of an ancient family of the same name, the heiress of which was the mother of the Rev. Jonathan Toup, whose eminence as a scholar has been noticed under St. Ives. He died without issue in 1785; and the estate of Busvargus, having been settled on the children of his half-sister, is now the property of his niece, Mrs. Nicholas of Looe, the present representative of the Busvargus family.
The families of most distinction in latter times, inhabitants of St. Just, were Allan and Moddern, but both names are now extinct.
The great tithes appertained to the monastery of Glaseney, in Penryn. They now belong to Borlase.
The vicarage is in the presentation of the crown, and was held for many years by Doctor William Borlase, the historian.