THE EDITOR.
The name of Arundell has not, in all probability, any thing to do with swallows. It is on the contrary derived from their Castle in the Arun Dale, Sussex, which like all other British or Saxon names having the slightest resemblance in sound to a French word, has been referred to a Norman origin.
Mr. Lysons says that Sir John Arundell, the last of the Lanhearne branch, or parent stock, who died in 1701, settled his estates on his grandson, Richard Billinge, Esq. with the condition of his taking the name of Arundell. This gentleman had an only daughter and heiress, who carried the property by her marriage to the Lords Arundell of Wardour.
It does not appear that any of the Wardour Arundells have ever resided at Lanhearne; with a sectarian attachment to the ancient faith, they kept up a Catholic establishment at this place, and retained great numbers of the parishioners in communion with the See of Rome, by making it a passport to lucrative employment and to good cheer; but the house having been appropriated to the reception of Nuns from Antwerp, of the order of Carmelites, as reformed by St. Tereza, and the secular establishment broken up, the system of private interpretation has entirely superseded the authority of Popes and Councils, so that not a Catholic can now be found without the walls. The Nuns were received here on their flying from the French Invasion to their native country, for all were English, and their numbers are still maintained by fresh recruits.
Henry Arundell, the 8th Baron Arundell, of Wardour,
having built a magnificent house adjacent to the old castle, and feeling little interest about the property in Cornwall, although it is said to have regularly descended through the Dinhams, from a period anterior to the Norman Conquest, sold the whole in parcels, with the exception of Lanhearne, and has thereby several the very ancient connexion of his family with this county.
The church stands near the river, and adjacent to the house of Lanhearne. It is decorated on the inside with a rood loft, very few of which have been suffered to remain, and by monuments to the Arundells, with inscriptions, most of which may be found in Mr. C. S. Gilbert’s History of Cornwall.
There is also another to Humphrey Noye, which, as his descendant and heir, the Editor hopes he may be excused for transcribing:
Here lyeth the Body of
Collonell Humphry Noye,