PARISHES OF CORNWALL.
STITHIANS.
HALS.
Stithians is situate in the hundred of Kerrier, and hath upon the north Gwenap, west Gwendron, east Gluvias and Peran-well, south Mabe.
I take it to be the same place taxed in the Domesday Book 1087, by the corrupt name of Stachenue.[1] At the time of the first inquisition into the value of Cornish Benefices this church was not endowed if extant, nor its daughter church Peranwell; but in Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521, it was rated by the name of Stedians, £14. 0s. 8d. The patronage formerly, as I am informed, either in the rector and fellows of the College of Regular Priests at Glasnith, or the Governor of St. John’s Hospital at Sithney, now in Boscawen; the incumbent —— Hillman, and the parish rated to the four shillings per pound Land Tax, for one year 1696, £104. 4s. 0d.; the rectory in —— Boscawen.
This church is dedicated to St. Thomas à Beckett, and accordingly their parish festival is kept on St. Thomas’s
Day, July 7th, as was its superior collegiate church of Glasnith, founded by Walter Branscomb, Bishop of Exeter, A. D. 1256.
The barton and manor of Penalmicke, id est, the head or chief coat of mail armour, so called for that such armour was made or lodged in this place in former ages by the possessors or proprietors thereof; which place gave name and original to an old family of gentlemen from thence surnamed de Penalmick; from whose heirs it passed to Skewish, tempore Queen Mary, of whose posterity Collan Skewish, gent. tempore 3d of James I. sold the same to Sir Nicholas Hals of Fentongollan, knight, whose son John Hals, esq. sold the same to Pendarves, now in possession thereof as I am informed.
Tretheage, alias Tredeage, in this parish, is the dwelling of John Morton, gent. that married —— Wilton.