This parish is beautifully situated, mainly consisting of a belt nearly a mile wide, between the sea on one hand, bounded by high and rocky cliffs, and on the other hand by a chain of granite mountains.

The belt of land, including the church town, is very fertile, particularly abounding in milk and honey, which we early learn to consider as proofs of the most abundant soil.

The church and tower are neat and plain, and it is probable that Mr. Hals’s conjecture respecting its ancient dependence on St. Michael’s Mount, may be correct, since one or more of the bells are said to bear an inscription declaring them the gift of the prior of the Mount.

Mr. Tonkin says, that the name is taken from a patron Saint, but no such saint can be found; and the parish feast is kept on the nearest Sunday to the 6th of May, when the festival is observed by the Church of Rome, in commemoration of the virtual martyrdom and miraculous preservation of St. John the Evangelist; when, by the order of Domitian, he was cast into a caldron of boiling oil before the Latin or Lateran Gate of Rome, where the church of St. John Lateran has since been built, the chief sacred edifice in Rome previously to the construction of St. Peter’s, and celebrated for the assemblage of various general councils of the Catholic Church, thence denominated Councils of Lateran. It is probable, therefore, that this parish may be under the protection of the divine and beloved Apostle.

Towards the western extremity of the parish a bold promontory stretches out into the sea, called Trereen Dinas, but in recent times, from some fanciful resemblance, the Gurnet’s Head. This is by much the finest and most romantic point on the north side of the Land’s End, and it would rival the promontory nearly opposite to it on the south, called by the same name, Trereen Dinas, or Castle Trereen, if that were not composed of granite and crowned by the Logging Rock; while in Zennar the sea shore and

the cliffs are every where green stone, surrounding the granite.

For a description of this headland, see the Second Volume of the Transactions of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, p. 200. The Editor was so much struck with the appearance of this bold formation, that he purchased the manor of Treen and Baswedneck chiefly for the purpose of acquiring the property of a mass of rocks so geologically interesting.

The impropriation of the great tithes belongs to George John, esq. of Rosemorron, and of Penzance.

Zennar measures 3,647 statute acres.

£.s.d.
Annual value of the Real Property as returned to Parliament in 18152,13700
Poor Rate in 183118750