In anno 1291, 20 Edward I. this church was valued at (Tax. Benef.) £6. 8s. 4d. having never been appropriated.
THE EDITOR.
The church is neat but small, and very inadequate to the increased number of inhabitants in the parish: the tower, like most others in this part of Cornwall, is of granite. Phillack stands near the eastern branch of Hayle River, and towards the sea, from whence comminuted shell sand is continually brought inland by the wind, threatening to overwhelm the whole village. Notice has been taken under Lelant of this ordinary incroachment of the sand, and of the inundations which have occurred at different periods remote from each other. Very considerable parts of Phillack, and of Gwithian the adjoining parish, are covered with sand formed into hillocks of twenty or thirty feet high,
representing in miniature one of the most uneven districts that can any where be found. Under these are frequently discovered fences, inclosures, and the walls of houses; and the high valuation of the living in Wolsey’s Survey seems to prove that much land must have been covered with sand since that time, and converted into what is named Towan.
Notwithstanding this loss, however great it may have been, the parish has flourished in recent times, far beyond all former example or expectation, by the extension of trade, and by the consequent improvement of the harbour. The progress in both has been greatly accelerated by the successful working of various mines in the immediate neighbourhood; but the first step was taken when a copper smelting establishment was made there, soon after the middle of the last century.
An opinion, or rather a feeling, had prevailed in Cornwall that the copper ores should be smelted at home, and not sent to the opposite coast of Wales. Nothing could be more erroneous. About three times the quantity of coal is required to smelt any given weight of the copper ore; and the importation of coal from Swansea being very large, the conveyance of copper ore there produced alternate cargos. The whole scheme seems to have originated in mistaken analogies drawn from ordinary operations.
A plan so injudicious and adopted without estimate or consideration must have failed, and would have done so at once, but for the counteracting power of individual ability, in the person of Mr. John Edwards; a young man of Ludyan, who had been recommended at a very early age, to some situation requiring talent, by our celebrated historian Doctor William Borlase. Mr. Edwards speedily acquired the entire management and direction of the whole concern, which soon extended itself to the importation of coal, timber, limestone, iron, &c. for the supply of the neighbourhood; and by the unwearied exertion of his superior genius, the business continued with success up to the period of his decease in Jan. 1807.
Mr. Edwards may be reckoned among the distinguished persons whom Cornwall has produced, equal in number at the least, as we flatter ourselves, with those of any similar district. He acquired extensive general knowledge, and obtained an ascendancy over most persons on all occasions. Mr. Edwards had a numerous family, but only two have married: his eldest daughter to Mr. John Tippett; and their son has succeeded to the large property of Mr. Vivian of Pencalenick, and taken the name.
His youngest son, Mr. Joseph Edwards, married Miss Devonshire of Truro, where he practised the Law with great credit and success.
The company directed by Mr. Edwards experienced the rivalship in trade of a very able and enterprising individual Mr. John Harvey, and after his decease, still more powerfully of his son. Each party in this legitimate and beneficial contest endeavoured to improve their respective portions of the harbour, and by so doing acted favourably on the whole. Mr. Edwards led the way by extending a mound across the eastern arm, and keeping back the high water at flood tide, which being suffered to escape through gates some hours afterwards, swept the sand before it, and deepened the channel. Mr. Harvey on his part constructed quays and wharfs, and recently a sluice, so that the interior of the harbour may be considered as improved to the utmost extent; but works are still wanting to confine the current of water beyond the entrance, and thus to force a channel through the bar, produced here as in all other debouches of rivers, by the deposit of silt, of sand, or of mud, where the currents meet and occasion comparatively still water.