Near this church is yet extant St. Constantine’s Well, strong built of stone and arched over; on the inner part hereof are places or seats for people to sit and wash themselves in the streams thereof; the consequence of which facts, if the inhabitants may be credited, is not only very refreshing and salubrious, but, if it be dry weather, immediately showers of rain will follow.
The barton of Trevose is now, by lease, in possession of Gregory Peter, Esq. and Lawrence Growden, that well-known Quaker, the reversionary fee pertaining to Sir Nicholas Morice, Baronet, as parcel of his manor of Pawton; and is a large lofty promontory of land, shooting out far
into the Irish sea, beyond all other lands there, yet notable for its production of sheep, barley, and rabbits, and not altogether unprofitable for bullocks in winter season; and as fatal and unfortunate for wrecking ships, that happen by night or stormy weather to fall on the rocks thereof, at that or any other time.
Arel-yn, alias Har-lyn, in this parish. This barton is the dwelling of my very kind friend and brother-in-law, Gregory Peter, Esq. Sheriff of Cornwall part of the last year of William III. and first of Queen Anne, 1701; he married Elizabeth, daughter of Gove of Devon, the relict of William Wadland, merchant, by whom he had issue two sons, William and John; William died without issue, and John that married Anne, the daughter of Sir John Coryton, of Newton, Baronet, by whom he hath a numerous issue of children of both sexes. After the death of the said Elizabeth, he married the daughter of Anthony Carveth, of Peransand, Gent. his cousin-german removed, and hath issue by her Francis Peter.
Gregory Peter aforesaid was the son of Thomas Peter, of Treater, in Padstow, Gent. who married the daughter and heir of Mitchell, lord of Harlyn; the which Thomas Peter was the son of John Peter, of Trenaran, in Padstow, Gent. that married Toms, as John Peter was the son of John Peter of Trenaran, that married Kestell.
Whether this surname of Peter be derived from the Christian or font name of some of their ancestors, or from their being ancient inhabitants of Pedyrstowe, id est, Peter’s dwelling, now Padstow, I cannot resolve. Their arms are in a field Gules, on a bend between two escallops Argent, two Cornish dawes Proper; much resembling the arms of the Lord Petre of Exeter, now of Essex.
If this church of Merin, or Meran, were extant, it was not endowed with any revenues at the time of the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, into the value of Cornish Benefices, 1294, since it is not named therein. And the five churches of Peran-sand, St. Agnes,
St. Colomb Minor, St. Breock, Lanhidrock, were then under the same circumstances.
The tutelar guardian of this new church of Merin is St. Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, whose festival is duly celebrated by the inhabitants of this parish of Meran on July the 7th, being commonly called his day, a hundred and twenty-two years after his death made a calendered Saint, who was slain at the altar in his cathedral church of Canterbury, the 30th of December 1172.
In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, this vicarage of Merin was valued for its revenues £15. 16s. 8d. The patronage in the Bishop of Exeter, or the Dean and Chapter, who endowed it; the incumbent Gurney; the rectory or sheaf in possession of Francis Peter aforesaid; and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax for one year, 1696, £241.