WHITSTONE.
HALS.
Whitstone is situate in the hundred of Stratton, and hath upon the north part of Bridgerule and Marhamchurch, west Wike St. Mary and Tamerton, south Werrington and St. Stephen’s.
In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester 1294, Ecclesia de Witeston, in decanatu de Trigmajorshire, was valued at £4. 6s. 8d. In Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521, £14. 11s. 0½d. The patronage in the Bishop of Exeter, who endowed it; the incumbent Tregena or Hosken; and the parish rated to the four shillings per pound Land Tax, 1696, for one year £124. 12s. 6d. tempore William III.
The barton of Benett, in this parish, was formerly the seat of George Heale, esq. Sheriff of Cornwall, 4 and 5 of Charles I. that married ——; as also of Edmund Hele, esq. his son, Sheriff of Cornwall, 22 Charles I. whose son dying without issue, those lands and much other descended to his daughter Lucy, the wife of John Basset, of Tehidy, esq. now in possession thereof. The name Hele, Heale, is Saxon English, and signifies the same as hell in British, viz. a hall, either of a dwelling house or refectory, or a place of judicature or prætorium, a tabernacle or a tent.
The arms of Heale are Gules, a bend lozengy Ermine.
TONKIN.
Whitston is in the hundred of Stratton, and hath to the west St. Mary Week, to the north Marhamchurch and Bridgerule, to the east the river Tamar, between it and Devon, to the south Tamerton.