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. 0_s._ 8_d._ 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. 4_s._ 0_d._; 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.
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.