On the south-west part of this parish towards Gwendron, near the highway, are still to be seen nine stones perpendicularly erected in the earth, in a direct manner, called the Nine Maids or Sisters, probably set up there in memory of nine religious sisters or nuns in that place, before the fifth century (See St. Colomb Major and Buryan); not women turned into stones as the English name implies, and as the country people thereabout will tell you. See also Gwendron.
This parish is enriched with streams and lodes of tin in abundance.
TONKIN.
Stithians is in the hundred of Kerrier, and hath to the west Gwendron, to the north Gwenap, to the east St. Piran Arwothall, and to the south Constanton and Mabe.
This parish takes its name from its guardian saint St. Stithians [rather Stithian. But who was he? W.]
It is a vicarage, valued together with St. Piran Arwothall in the King’s Book [see Piran Arwothall before],
and hath the same patron, impropriator, and incumbent with that. I shall begin with the chief estate in it,
THE MANOR OF TRETHEAGE,
—the fair town or dwelling. [The fair house. W.] And so it may be well called, considering the country it lies in, as being for that pleasantly situated on the river which runs under Ponsannowth or New Bridge, and emptieth itself under Piran Arwothall church. This was formerly a manor of large extent, but now strangely curtailed.
Of late years it hath been the seat of the family of Morton; the last of which who lived here, John Morton, gent. who married —— the daughter of John Wilton of Dunveth, gent. was oddly outed of it (169..) by Nicholas Pearce; who having gotten a great deal of money in Magdalen Ball in Gluvias, settled it on his son Nicholas Pearce, lately dead, leaving by —— his wife, the daughter of —— Trewren, esq. of Trewardreva, one son Nicholas Pearce, a minor, who is the present lord of this manor. Morton’s arms were, Argent, a chevron between three moorcocks Sable.