In this parish of Kea on the open downs, by the highway or street, are situate the four burrows, i. e. the four sepulchres, tumuli, or graves, after the British-Roman manner, to put those travellers that passed by in mind of mortality and death; one of them is called Burrow Bel-les, i. e. the far off, remote, broad or large burrow or sepulchre, (viz. on the confines of this parish) and suitable to its other names it is one of the broadest or largest burrows in those parts; into which some tinners, temp. William III. in hopes of finding money, pierced a hole or adit into the centre thereof, where, though they missed their expectations they found in the same two of the broadest and flat moor-stones as a cover, supported by three perpendicular stones of suitable strength or bigness, that they had seen in the adjacent country. In the vacant space, vault, or arch under those stones, they found decayed or broken pieces of the urn or ossilegium, and about a gallon of black matter and ashes, which doubtless was the gleanings or remains of that once famous human creature, before the fifth century interred here, with many thousands others, doubtless of less degree in the contiguous lands thereof, who had not money to raise such troublesome, laborious, and costly funeral monuments as those four burrows were, and still are.
Cur-Lyghon in this parish is now transnominated to Carlyon; and here for many descents lived the family from thence denominated Curlyghon, who were gentlemen of considerable fame, lands, and revenues in those parts, as appeared to me from several old Latin deeds, some bearing
date 6 Henry V. (see Truro); from whence it came by marriage, descent, or purchase to Burleigh, and from him to Hawes, as I was informed.
TONKIN.
I take the name to be a corruption of Caius; and that St. Caius, Pope and kinsman to the Emperor Dioclesian, who suffered martyrdom under the said Emperor in 296, is the tutelar patron of this church, which is a daughter to Kenwyn, and passes in the same presentation, being valued with it in the King’s Books at 16l. The patronage in the Bishop of Exeter. The incumbent Mr. Mitchell, the oldest clergyman now living in this county; who though aged, and his churches three miles apart from each other, regularly serves them both every Sunday; he is since dead, in 1731, and has been succeeded by the Reverend Walter Borlase, LL.D. and vicar of Maddern.
In this parish lies the extensive manor of Blanchland, latinized into Albalonda. This manor gave name to a considerable family, in which it continued for many descents. The last of them, Otho de Albalonda, had only one daughter and heir, Johanna, married in his lifetime to John Boscawen, of Tregothnon, in the 31st year of Edward III. and carried this rich inheritance into that family; in which it hath ever since continued, to their very great advantage, having within these fifty years brought them more money for copper than almost all the other mines in the county together, if the last twenty years are excepted, during which time great discoveries have been made in various other places. Neither are the wastrels of this manor destitute of good mines of tin; one of which, called the White Works, occasioned a law-suit between Mr. John Mayo, of Truro, owner of the tin bounds thereon, and Mr. Hugh Boscawen, lord of the soil, towards the latter end of the reign of Charles the Second.
Mr. Mayo claimed the farm or toll of the copper-ore,
as well as of the tin, in right of his bounds; but the suit was very justly determined in favour of Mr. Boscawen, as Lord of the Soil, for that the right of the tin as bounder was only by the custom of the Stannaries, and that no such custom could be pleaded for copper ore.
This one suit put an end to all disputes between the lords of the soil and the bounders, which otherwise would have been endless, and very much to the discouragement of copper mines; and there have not been wanting some designing people of late, who made application to King George II. then Prince of Wales, falsely representing that much tin ore was carried into Wales with the copper ore, and there separated from the copper, to his great loss of duties.
Guddern. This place hath been for several generations the seat, on lease from the family of Boscawen, of the Bowdens; perhaps ever since the Albalonda’s time, although they were possessed of fair estates in fee elsewhere.