Trevear in this parish, i. e. the great or greater town, is the dwelling of John Ellis, gent. Attorney at Law, who married —— Davies, and giveth for his arms in a field Argent, three eels Proper, after the English, out of a supposed allusion to the name Ellis; whereas, ellis, elles, in British, is a son-in-law by the wife; and els, ells, a son-in-law by the husband. And as gealvy is an eel fish in Scotch and Irish, so malsay is an eel in Welsh British. See Floyd, page 218; and sleane is a conger fish in Cornish; and lilly, silli, is an ele or eele, in that language. See Floyd on Anguilla.
This parish affords very little wheat corn, by reason it is a naked country exposed to the wind and sharp air of the sea in winter season, which washes or frets the same out of the ground at that time, unless it stands in the valleys or close places between the hills against the south or east; nevertheless it is abundantly supplied with barley corn, the soil producing, generally, with little husbandry or cultivation, twenty Cornish bushels in most acres; that is to say, about sixty Winchesters.
In this parish is situate the most remote north-west promontory or head-land of the Island of Great Britain, where it is not above an arrow’s flight breadth (at the end thereof), the lands naturally or gradually declining from St. Just, and Chapel Carne Braye, four miles distant, to this place, and the sea at least eighty fathom under those places; where, as it were in a low valley, it meets the waves of the Atlantic Sea, or West Ocean, and parts some of the Irish Sea and British Channel asunder by its horned promontory of land; which shows that opinion and tradition of the lands extending further west of old towards Scilly, to be a vulgar error and a fable; for if it had stretched more
westerly than it doth in this lower valley, and no higher pitch or degree, the flux and reflux of the sea or tides would inevitably overflow it. Or had there been any considerable parcel of ground there broke off from the insular continent of Britain, (as tradition saith the country of Lioness was,) by some inundation, earthquake, or accidental concussion, it must have been much higher land than the contiguous country of the Land’s End is. Otherwise it could not exist there as aforesaid; but it is not likely there was ever any such land, since no fracture or disjointing of the earth appears on the confines or summit thereof.
Though at low water there is to be seen far off towards Scilly, (probably so called from the abundance of eel or conger fishes taken there, called sillys or lillis,) for a mile or more a dangerous strag of ragged rocks, amongst which the Atlantic Sea, and the waves of St. George’s and the British Channel meeting, make a dreadful bellowing and rumbling noise at half ebb and half flood: which let seamen take notice of, to avoid them.
Of old there was one of those rocks more notable than the rest, which, tradition saith, was ninety feet above the flux and reflux of the sea, with an iron spire at the top thereof, which was overturned or thrown down by a violent storm 1647, and the rock broken in three pieces. This iron spire, as the additions to Camden’s Britannia inform us, was thought to have been erected there by the Romans, or set up as a trophy there by King Athelstan when he first conquered the Scilly Islands (and was in those parts); but it is not very probable such a piece of iron in this salt sea and air, without being consumed by rust, could endure so long a time. However it is or was, certain I am it commonly was called in Cornish, An Marogeth Arvowed, i. e. the armed knight; for what reason I know not, except erected by or in memory of some armed knight; as also carne-an peul, id est, the spile, spire, pole, or javelin rock. Again, remember silly, lilly, is in Cornish and Armoric language
a conger fish or fishes, from whence Silly Islands is probably denominated, as elsewhere noted.
This place is called by the Welsh Bards Pen-ryn-Pen-wid, that is to say, Penwith Hill Head Tree, or the hill of the Head Tree, or Penwith Cantred. By the Cornish Britains, Pedn-an-lase, i. e. the Green Head or Promontory, and by others, Antyer Deweth, the Land’s End.
TONKIN.
This parish takes its name from its tutelar saint St. Sennan, or Sinninus, an Irish Abbat, who (saith Leland) was at Rome with St. Patrick, and came over from Ireland to Cornwall with St. Breage. The church hath dedicated the 30th of June to his memory. It is a daughter church to St. Burien, and is valued, together with that and St. Levan, in the King’s Book, at £48. 12s.