There, hermitts, may you dwell.
Is’t true the Springe in Rock hereby
Doth tidewise ebb and flowe;
Or have we fooles with lyars met?
Fame says its, be it soe.
The last tradition of this hermitage chapel is, that when it was kept in repair, a person diseased with a grievous leprosy, was either placed or fixed himself therein, where he lived till the time of his death, to avoid infecting others; who was daily attended with meat, drink, washing, and lodging, by his daughter, named Gunett or Gundred; and the well hereby from whence she fetched water for his use is to this day shown, and called by the name of St. Gunett’s well, for St. Gundred’s well.
Tre-Roach, alias Tregarreck, i. e. the Rock town as aforesaid, before the Norman Conquest was in the possession of an old British family, from thence denominated Treroach, afterwards surnamed De Rupe or De Rupes after the Latin; and again, after the Gaulish French De Roach, i. e. of the rock: of which family Ralph de Rupe held in Cornwall by tenure of knight service three knight’s fees of land, tempore Richard I. 1189.—Mr. Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, p. 49. That is to say, for a man to bear arms in defence of his country was the tenure thereof: viz. at his own proper cost and charges.
Tremoderet en Hell, in this parish, i. e. Aunt’s Hall Town, a place heretofore notable for its hall, was the vokelands of a considerable manor in Roach, taxed in the Domesday Book 1087 (near which is yet to be seen the ruins of Sacra-fons, or Holywell, free chapel or burying place); which formerly was the lands of Bodrigan, who forfeited it by attainder of treason on the part of Richard III. against King Henry VII. who settled it by an entail gift
upon his privy councillor Sir Richard Edgcumb, knight, whose posterity are now in full possession thereof.
Hens, alias Hains Burrow, i. e. old ancient graves or tumuli, situate upon the confines of this parish and St. Austell, being the highest mountain or pyramid or promontory of land in Cornwall, upon the top of which unparalleled great tumulus or burying place was the Cornish Avoh Bicken, becken, or beacon; that is to say, the signal, the bakininge watchhouse, or proclamation house; wherein, in times of war, one person was lodged to discover the approach of enemies’ fleets of ships on the sea coasts of Cornwall, and from this place he overlooked part of the Irish sea, Atlantic ocean, and British channel; who, accordingly on the discovery of enemies, was to set fire to his little hut of combustible materials wherein he slept and resided, to give notice, alarm the people, and to make signal, beconinge, or proclamation, to all other bickens to do the like. For heretofore every other parish in Cornwall, upon the highest lands of their said parish, had one of those bickens, beckeners, or beacons, for the same end and purposes. Now those words bicken, becken, beacon, in British, are synonymous, and signify to becken, cry out, to publish, to make known, or to proclaim any matter or thing. (See also Floyd on the word Proclamation.) Of this Hainsburrow Bicken. Mr. Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, out of the Cornish Wonder-Gatherer, supplies me with those rhymes:—