Book 1087,) was taxed under the jurisdiction of Lan-san, or Lan-sen,

i. e. signifying a holy church or temple, though at that time this superior church had in this place a famous collegiate church dedicated to St. Stephen, consisting of secular priests, who might marry wives, founded and endowed by the Bishops of Bodman, and Earls of Cornwall, long before William the Conqueror’s days. Reginald Fitz-Harry, base son of King Henry I. by Anne Corbet, created Earl of Cornwall by King Stephen, in the 5th year of his reign 1140, was a great benefactor to this collegiate church; and besides all that, endeavoured with all his power and interest with King Stephen to bring back the bishopric of Cornwall, transferred or translated to Kirton and Exeter, and fix the bishop’s see and cathedral in this place and church of St. Stephen 1150, which Robert Warlewast, then Bishop of Exeter, opposed; and in his first triennial visitation of the Cornish Diocese from Lanwhitton, came and visited this collegiate church, and suppressed the order of secular priests conversing at large in the world, not tied to monastic life, and in the room of them brought in black monks or canons Augustine (see St. Anthony,) and converted this church and college into an abbey or priory of monks, by the name of the abbey or priory of St. Stephen’s, whose governor was indifferently called the abbat and prior of St. Stephen’s and Launceston.

And to this purpose we read in the first inquisition into the value of Cornish Benefices before-mentioned 1294, these words: Prior de Lanceston precipit de Vicar’ de Lankinhorne, xxvi_s._ viii_d._ Those monks before that inquisition, out of a covetous desire after wealth and riches, which they had obtained by gift or purchase, had wholly impropriated and turned into small vicarages the revenues of all such churches as to their abbey were annexed, and of which they were patrons.

None of which churches’ revenues, because wholly impropriated before the first inquisition, are rated or named in the Pope’s or King’s Books of First Fruits to this day. This parish of St. Stephen’s was rated to the four shillings per pound Land Tax 1696, £174. 18_s._

In this parish are kept annually three fairs or public marts, viz. the 1st May, the 20th of July, and the 14th of September.

In this parish or Launceston was also a Friary.

TONKIN.

St. Stephen’s, near Launceston, lies in the hundred of East, and is bounded to the west by Egloskerry and Trewenn, to the north the River Artrie and part of Devonshire, to the east by the Tamar, to the south by Launceston, St. Thomas, and St. Pedyrwyn.

This church is not at all valued in the King’s Book; but in the Taxatio Benefic. in anno 1291, 20 Edward I. being totally appropriated to the Priory of Launceston, it is valued at £10.

THE EDITOR.

The history relating to the more ancient ecclesiastical establishments in this parish does not seem to be very clear or distinct, although the general facts are well ascertained, and accord with the prevailing spirit of the times in which they occurred.

William Warlewast, who held the see of Exeter about twenty years in the beginning of the twelfth century, suppressed a college of secular priests attached to St. Stephen’s Church, and founded a monastery of regular monks near the place where St. Thomas’s Church now stands. This house he endowed with the lands of the former college, and dedicated it to the same saint. It was constituted a priory of the order of St. Austin, and remained till the general dissolution.

Mr. Lysons treats of the three parishes together, as Launceston and St. Thomas were originally portions of St. Stephen’s; and there is scarcely a doubt but that the Cornish having by some accident adopted the Greek name of the Protomartyr, called the church of Dunheved, Lan-Stephanon, or Stephen’s Church, which easily glided into Lanston, written Launceston; but in this, as in a thousand other instances, the common pronunciation approaches nearer to the true origin of a name, than the established orthography, as Excester much more corresponds with a camp on the Ex than Exeter.

In St. Stephen’s and in St. Thomas’s, the parishioners nominate the perpetual curates; and the latter parish is tithe free.

The church of St. Stephen, although it cannot reach back nearly to the time of the college suppressed by Bishop Warlewast, is yet on a scale superior to most others; and seated on an eminence with a lofty tower, it presents an object worthy of associating with the superb keep of Launceston Castle.

There is an inscription within the Church, recording the munificence of Charles Cheney, Lord Viscount Newhaven, then Member for Newport, in re-building a part of the fabric, and probably in repairing the remainder according to the ill taste prevalent about the early part of the eighteenth century, so as to make the interior of the Church quite at variance with its exterior Gothic.

The late Sir Jonathan Phillips inhabited a good house adjoining the street, which, with the attached property, has since been united to the great political influence of the place.

The barton of Carnedon, an ancient possession of the Blighes, and afterwards of the Cloberrys, is now the property of Thomas Bewes, Esq.; and the barton of Tredidon, formerly a seat of a family bearing the same name, is now the residence of George-Francis-Collins Browne, Esq. who assumed the latter name on succeeding to the property of his maternal grandfather, Mr. George Brown, of Bodmin.

The modern history of this parish chiefly relates to the borough of Newport, and to its connection with the adjacent parish and seat of Werrington.

Newport is little more than a street of Launceston, extending, with some interruption, to the northward. Its political importance must have grown out of the religious establishments.

Various accounts are given by Browne Willis and others respecting the ancient constitution of this borough; but it had practically arrived at the state of a burgage tenure; and two officers elected by a homage in the Lord’s Court presided over the elections. They were denominated vianders; but no such word occurs in any usual books of reference.

Werrington appears to have belonged entirely to the Abbey of Tavistock. At the time of the dissolution the manor paid £141. 17_s._ 11_d._ And under another head is this entry: Worrington――Pensio de Ecclesia Sancti Martini £2. 10_s._

The barton is known to have been one of the country residences appropriated to the Lord Abbat, to whom the mitre was granted by a papal bull in the reign of Henry the Sixth, and on whom King Henry the Eighth, in consideration of the especial devotion which he bore towards the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of Christ, and to St. Rumon, bestowed the privileges of a spiritual lord of Parliament in the fifth year of his reign.

At Werrington the Lord Abbat had a deer park, which still remains in existence, his piscatories, and all the appendages suited to a feudal baron.

This property, together with all the other possessions of the monastery, passed by a grant from King Henry the Eighth, in the 31st year of his reign, to the family of Russel, with whom a considerable part of this immense largess still remains; but Werrington was sold to a successor of the renowned circumnavigator Sir Francis Drake, who parted with it to Sir William Morris. This gentleman was the son of a clergyman from Wales, who had obtained a Canonry of Exeter; and he rose in station and in fortune by an early and close intimacy with General Monk, when that military adventurer sacrificed not only his political associates, but the liberties of his country, even to the Petition of Rights, for the purpose of assuring his own aggrandisement, a misconduct which entailed on the nation all the doubtful and vacillating struggles in the reign of Charles the Second, and demanded for its final remedy the glorious Revolution of 1688. Werrington continued in Sir William Morris’s family till the year 1775, when it was sold to Sir Hugh Smithson, created Duke of Northumberland in consequence of his marriage with Elizabeth only daughter of Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and of Elizabeth, sole daughter and heir of Josceline Percy, Earl of Northumberland. The Duke of Northumberland wishing to pursue the path of ambition which then lay open to any man of wealth, acquired with Werrington the commanding property at Newport and the influence at Launceston, and having made a similar acquisition lower down on the banks of the Tamar, he had the satisfaction of attaining the objects kept steadily in his view.

Although the parish of Werrington is completely in Devonshire, and is believed to have formed a part of the original endowment of Tavistock Abbey by Ordgar Earl of Devonshire about the year 960; yet in spiritual matters it forms a part of the Archdeaconry of Cornwall. At the last census this parish contained sixty-six inhabitants; and the annual value of the Real Property was returned in 1815 at £2809.

St. Stephen’s, with its little town of Newport, are obviously too near Launceston to allow of their possessing any separate market. Three fairs are, however, holden, as is not unusual in the suburbs of most towns.

As so few persons attain the age of a hundred years, it may be worth remarking, that the Editor remembers, about fifty years ago, an aged person called Sarah Coat, in the service of Sir Jonathan Phillips’s family. She lived to 1814, and completed her hundred and fourth year.

This parish measures 3401 statute acres. Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._ returned to Parliament in 1815 3,467 0 0 Poor Rate in 1831 430 18 0 Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831, { 738 | 896 | 977 | 1084 giving an increase of 47 per cent. in 30 years. Present Perpetual Curate, the Rev. C. H. Lethbridge, presented by the Trustees in 1818; net income in 1831, £80.

GEOLOGY, BY DOCTOR BOASE.

The eastern part of this parish resembles Launceston in its geological structure; the western part rests on that range of downs which here cross the country, and which have been already noticed under the heads of Laneast and Egloskerry.

ST. STEPHEN’s NEAR SALTASH.

HALS.

St. Stephen’s near Saltash is situate in the hundred of East, and hath upon the east and south the Tamar River or part of Plymouth Harbour, north Bloflemmen, west Landrake, or that part of it called St. Urny. In the Domesday Book 1087, this district was taxed under the jurisdiction of Trematon. In the inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester into the value of Cornish Benefices, Ecclesia de Sancti Stephani, in decanatu de Est, was rated at £9. 6_s._ 8_d._ In Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521, £26. The patronage formerly in ――――, now Buller; the incumbent ――――; the rectory in possession of ――――.

This parish was rated to the four shillings per pound Land

Tax for one year 1696, £457. 19_s._ 0_d._ Saltash Borough 128 6 0 ――――――――――――― 586 5 0 ―――――――――――――

In this parish stands the castle, honour, and manor of Trematon.

This lordship was the King or Earl of Cornwall’s manor of land beyond the records of time, and in particular, after Cornwall was dismembered from Devon by King Athelstan, Anno Dom. 930, of Ailmer, or Athellmaur or Athellmer, i. e. muac, great, or noble, for so the Monasticon Anglicanum, Anno Dom. 980, in tom. 1, page 258, calls him, afterwards of Algar Earl of Cornwall, Anno Dom. 1046. (Monasticon, page 1022) Then of Condura, or Condorus in Latin, who was Earl of Cornwall, when William Duke of Normandy invaded this land 1066, who as some say submitted to his jurisdiction, by paying him homage for his earldom, and swearing fealty to him; which history seems not very concordant with reason or truth; since in the second year of the Conqueror’s reign he was by him deprived of this dignity, who gave the same to Robert Guelam, Earl of Morton in Normandy, brother to King William by his mother Arlotte, who had issue William Earl of Morton and Cornwall, that entered into treasonable practises on behalf of Robert Duke of Normandy, against William Rufus and Henry I. and so lost both those earldoms, and died about the year 1035. After whose death in all probability, Caddock, though some call him Condorus II. son of Condura, was restored to the earldom of Cornwall, and lived and died in this place, whose only daughter and heir Agnes, or Beatrix as others call her, was married to Reginald Fitz Harry, base son of King Henry First, by his concubine Anne, daughter of Robert Corbet of Allencester, in the county of Warwick, who was in her right created Earl of Cornwall by King Stephen, in the 5th year of his reign 1140.

Shillingham, in this parish, after the English, is a dwelling covered with slatestones; after the Saxon, it is a corruption of sylenhan, i. e. the paying, selling, or giving house, home, or dwelling; after the British, Sillan or Cillanham, i. e. the chapel house or dwelling; which gave name and original to an old family of gentlemen, from thence surnamed de Shillingham; whose heir, as I am informed, in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, was married to Francis Buller, esq. a younger branch of the Bullers of [Lillesdon in Somersetshire]; he was Sheriff of Cornwall 42 Elizabeth, who had issue Richard Buller, esq. Sheriff of Cornwall 9 James I. who had issue Richard Buller, esq. afterwards knighted, Sheriff of Cornwall 12 Charles I. 1637, who had issue Francis Buller, esq. that married the sole inheritrix of Ezekiel Gross of Golden, gent. Attorney at Law; by whom he had issue John Buller, esq. who married ―――― and had issue ――――, that died without issue; whereupon, John Buller of Morval, esq. that married Coode, second son of Sir Richard Buller aforesaid, succeeded to this estate, and is now in possession thereof; who had issue as is set forth in Morval parish.

Lastly, let it not be forgotten, that Francis Buller, esq. that married Gross aforesaid, entertained for his chaplain one Mr. D. Eaton, a priest that officiated Divine Service in his house, after the manner of the Church of England, tempore Charles II. and was so kind and respectful towards this doctor, that he made him his companion and amicus, and reposed more confidence in his integrity than he had reason to do; for this fellow, upon some discontent, went from Mr. Buller, and made oath before some justice of the Peace, or preferred an accusation of treasonable words in the Crown Office, spoken by Mr. Buller at his table against King Charles the Second’s Government, at such time as he was his domestic chaplain.

Whereupon, Mr. Buller was taken into custody, and examined before the King and Council, and thereupon committed prisoner to the Tower of London; at length indicted and tried at the King’s Bench Bar at Westminster, upon this information of Eaton’s, and found guilty of misprision of treason by the Grand and Petty Jurors; and accordingly was sentenced by the Judges to pay to the King a fine of thirty thousand pounds, and to remain a prisoner during the King’s pleasure. Now, in order to raise this money, it occasioned the selling of the manor and lordship of Fentongollan, (See St. Michael Penkivell) though much dismembered before, to the value of five thousand pounds, by its former proprietors, John Hals and Carmenow, out of which the manor of Tregothnan was made, to Hugh Boscawen, esq.

The articles of which bargain so distasted John Buller, esq. son of the said Francis, that to obstruct the sale of that lordship, which was his mother’s lands, he forsook this kingdom, and went into France, where he remained for three years’ space, saying, he would rather sell Shillingham and Golden than Fentongallan (for at that time was extant upon it a spacious dwelling house, a tower of three or four stories high, and a consecrated free chapel), which had been the seat of several famous families.

But alas! let man pretend or intend what he will, fate or destiny is unavoidable; for by reason of his father’s circumstances, and to comply with his desire, at length he returned into England, and then was concluded with his father in a deed of sale of the premises by lease and release, for about the consideration of seven thousand pounds, to Hugh Boscawen, esq. and executed the same, in presence of the writer of these lines, at Mowpass Passage, about the year 1676, and soon after levied a fine for cognizance de droit to dock the entail, and bar his heirs for ever. Afterwards, his father Mr. Buller, to raise the remainder of his said fine to the King, sold much other lands to make up the first payment thereof, and was forced to settle all his other estates in the hands of trustees, for raising the remainder, confining himself to an annuity of £180 during his life. Whereupon, having his liberty granted him by King Charles, he removed into Oxfordshire; where, through trouble of mind, arising from this sad accident by a malicious and perfidious priest, he grew delirious, or in a phrenzy, and died about the year 1679.

Earth, in this parish, gave name and original to an old family of gentlemen, from thence surnamed de Earth, in which place Galfridus de Earth held by the tenure of knight service a knight’s fee of land, 3 Henry IV. (Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, page 41.) From the heirs of which Geffrey, by marriage, this barton descended to William Bond, esq. now in possession thereof, that married ―――― ――――; his father Carter, of St. Colomb, his grandfather Fountain, his great-grandfather Fitz, and giveth for his arms, in a field Argent, on a chevron Sable three Bezants.

Wy-ville-comb in this parish, signifies the sacred or consecrated vill or manor comb, which place gave name to an old family of gentlemen, from thence surnamed de Wivell, whose heir in marriage, as I am informed, brought those lands to the genteel family of Wills; the present possessor Francis Wills, esq. Sheriff of Cornwall 6th of William III.

TONKIN.

St. Stephen’s juxta Saltash is in the hundred of East, and joins to the west with St. Erney and Lanrake, to the north with Botus-Fleming, to the south it is washed by the Lyner, as to the east by the Tamar.

This church is a vicarage, valued in the King’s Book at £26. the patronage in the Dean and Chapter of Windsor.

In anno 1291, 20 Edward I. this church was valued (Taxat. Benef.) at £9. 6_s._ 8_d._ and is appropriated to the College of Windsor.

And as most of the lands in this parish, if not all, are held from the Great Duchy Manor in it, I shall begin with

THE MANOR OF TREMATON,

called in Domesday Book Tremetone, “ibi habet comes unum Castrum et Mercatum.”

It is called in the extent of Cornish acres, 20 (12) Edw. I. (Carew, fol. 48 b.) in 80. It is said (id. fol. 41 b.) that “Aqua de Tamar, di. feod. in manu Regis de honore de Trematon;” from whence I guess that this manor was likewise in Henry IV.’s hands, this being in the 3d of his reign; of which see what hath been said in Leskeard; and from its being called in Domesday Book Tremeton, and by Mr. Carew sometimes (ibid. fol. 41.) Tremerton, I guess that the original name was Tremerton, the great dwelling on the hill.

THE EDITOR.

The church and tower of this parish, rival in their position and in their general appearance those of St. Stephen’s near Launceston. Within the church are several monuments to the Bullers and other ancient inhabitants. Among them is one to Jane, the wife of William Bond of Earth, esq. who died in the year 1640. But the great curiosity of this parish is Trematon Castle, one of the fortified residences of the Earls of Cornwall, while they exercised feudal sovereignty within their dominions.

Mr. Hals and Mr. Tonkin have given histories rather of the earls and of their adventures, than of the castle itself and descriptions of its present appearance may be found in all the various writers on Cornwall: these have therefore been omitted.

Mr. Edward King in his celebrated work, Munimenta Antiqua, or Observations on Antient Castles, vol. III. after ascribing the most remote antiquity to Launceston Castle, which, for various reasons, he carries back beyond the Roman Invasion, especially indicates various points of distinction between the general construction of that fortress, and those of the Saxons and Normans. He then says,

“Trematon Castle, in the very same county of Cornwall, which may with good reason be concluded to have been built by Robert Earl of Moreton, is a true Norman structure. And there cannot be a greater contrast than there is between it and Launceston. Like Tunbridge Castle, it is placed, not on a high natural rock, but on an artificial mount, and is no less than sixty feet in diameter on the inside.” See the views of it in Borlase’s Antiquities, Second Edition, p. 354, Plate 31, and in Grose’s Supplement to his Antiquities.

There does not appear to be any real military history connected with this fortress. It proved an insecure place of refuge during the insurrection of 1549, raised by Humphry Arundell and others in favour of the old religion.

The castle was for some time occupied as subfeudatories by the Barons de Valletorta, so called, it is said, from the narrow winding valley, which descends from the castle wall towards the south.

Roger de Valletort, Reginald, Ralph, Reginald, and Roger, appear to have possessed or occupied Trematon from about the year 1180, through nearly the whole of the next century.

This fine ruin has within a few years received a most material injury, at least in the opinion of all antiquaries, by the building of a modern house in its Basse Court.

Although the castle is fallen into decay, the privileges of the honor and manor to which this residence gave its name, still continue in full vigour, possessing as royalties the whole river Tamar, from some point above the castle to Plymouth Sound, with the coast below high-water mark on such parts of the opposite shore as are not held against them by immemorial usage, which makes it the more strange that Voltersholm (new-named Mount Edgecumbe by the first gentleman of that family who acquired it) should be politically considered as in Devonshire.

Not far from Trematon Castle, and evidently an appendage to it, is situated the Town of Saltash.

After the entire change of manners and habits, of political institutions and of property, which have taken place since the feudal times, it is difficult now to conjecture why all the villages adjacent to baronial castles were favoured with municipal bodies and with corporate rights; institutions quite hostile to the gloomy and solitary grandeur of the chiefs by whom these privileges were bestowed. Perhaps they were found indispensable for the protection of persons necessary, in the rudest times, for the supply of articles of commerce, of manufacture, and even of subsistence, against the violence of retainers, who in those days supplied the want of a more regular force, always required in some shape or manner for the support of authority, and for the maintenance of civilized society.

Saltash, under the name of Esse, received its first charter of incorporation, as it appears on the authority of Doctor Robert Brady, from a source which seems in modern times wholly inadequate to bestow the gift, since the offices of Duke, Earl, and Baron have long ceased to exist in England, and these appellations, the shadows of a shade of times past by, are only known as matters of mere compliment given to the private gentlemen who now sit and vote in the Upper House of Parliament, by virtue of Letters Patent from the King. But when this charter was bestowed, the Baron de Valletorta, although the vassal of a vassal of the King of England, was yet a Prince within his small domain.

This charter, confirmed by the Earl of Cornwall, and others substantiated by the supreme chief, raised into a borough town sending members to Parliament, with a mayor, alderman, and common council, a long narrow street, descending to the river at such an inclination as to make it quite inaccessible to a loaded carriage.

Modern improvements have however reached the Ville de Esse; a good road is made round the south side of the town, and a large vessel denominated a floating bridge, propelled by steam acting on wheels connected with two strong chains extended across the bottom of the river, conveys passengers and carriages at all times, and independently of the tide, and even of the strongest winds, to the Devonshire side, where a road is now forming along the banks of the Tamar, with causeways, so as to convert a communication with Plymouth over three or four hills, into nearly a complete level way.

The borough, which, in consequence of recent decisions of the House of Commons, had become one of close nomination, has disappeared in the great change of 1832.

Of the principal seats in the parish, Shillingham continues to be the nominal residence of Mr. James Wentworth Buller of Downs.

Earth, the ancient seat of the Bonds, has passed through the Cornocks of Treworgy, in St. Clear, to the Rev. Lewis Marshall. The family of Bond is represented at present by Mr. Bond of Looe, and by the Bonds of Dorsetshire, who shared the patronage of Corfe Castle with Mr. Bankes, and of whom the late Mr. Nathaniel Bond was a member of the Privy Council.

Ince Castle has-been purchased by Mr. Alexander Baring. The house is situated almost on an island in the river, and in the semblance of a fortress is flanked by a tower at each of the four angles, which have probably given rise to a tale of their having been constructed for a purpose in strict conformity with the Mahometan Law, but most happily at complete variance from our own.

This parish measures 5430 statute acres. Annual value of the Real Property as £. _s._ _d._ returned to Parliament in 1815. The parish 9253 0 0 The town 2473 0 0 Poor Rate in 1831. The parish 1030 11 0 The town 458 0 0 Population, in 1801, in 1811, in 1821, in 1831, The parish, { 1004 | 1121 | 1325 | 1455 The town, { 1150 | 1478 | 1548 | 1637 giving an increase on the parish of 45 per cent. On the town of 42½ per cent. On both of 44 per cent. in 30 years. Present Vicar, the Rev. T. B. Edwards, presented by T. Edwards, esq. in 1833.

GEOLOGY, BY DOCTOR BOASE.

The rocks of this parish belong to the calcareous series, and are similar to those of the neighbouring parishes of Landulph, Landrake, and St. German’s.

ERRATA