This part of Cornwall abounds in military antiquities, but it has been
far less carefully examined than other districts of the county;
judging from the present aspect of the country, one is induced to
wonder that camps or fortresses should ever have been established
there, or that stationary armies could by possibility have received
support.
The Editor recollects having seen the entrenchment many years ago;
that it struck him as much resembling the Roman works in Dorsetshire;
and as being of dimensions far more extensive than those of the usual
earthworks in Cornwall.
St. Walburge, the patroness of this parish, was the daughter of St.
Richard, a King of the West Saxons, who is said to have died at Lucca
in the year 722, on his way as a pilgrim to Rome.
His daughter having become a nun in the monastery at Wimbourn Minster,
was permitted by the Abbess Testa to depart with several other females
who had taken the vows, for the purpose of assisting her relation St.
Boniface in his conversion of the Germans, and in establishing the
angelic life among the women of this country.
Crediton in Devonshire had the honor of St. Boniface’s birth about the
year 680, and Exeter has to boast of his education under the pious
Abbat Wolphard. At about twenty-six years of age he undertook the
conversion of Germany, but was driven back by the war of Charles
Martel. He was, soon after his return, elected Abbat of Nutcell, a
place subsequently destroyed by the Danes, and never restored; he left
this high situation, however, and, fortified by the Pope’s blessing
and encouragement, he went a second time into Germany, where he
succeeded to so great a degree as to found the Archbishopric of Mentz;
to receive a plenitude of power with the gift of a pall from Rome, so
as to establish Bishoprics at his discretion; and with an alteration
of his name, which from an unfortunate association in the English
language, seems to us very contrary to what was intended. The original
name of the primate, the apostle of Germany, was Winfrid, but that
sounding neither sufficiently soft nor harmonious in Teutonic ears,
Boniface was substituted in its place.
The saint is distinguished by an invention perfectly singular within
the period of authentic history; he enriched the alphabet with an
additional letter, the (w) double u.
Having ascended to the pinnacle of terrestrial glory, he at last
obtained the crown of martyrdom through the medium of an ignorant mob
excited by the priests, whose craft he had destroyed.
Little is recorded of St. Walburga except the general piety of her
life and the miracles performed by various minute subdivisions of her
relics, which sufficiently attested her beatitude. There is a church
dedicated to St. Walburga at Bristol.
The great tithes of this parish are in the Eliot family. The vicarage
is in the gift of the Crown, being annexed to Treneglos.
Mr. Lysons says, that the chief manor in this parish, called Fentrigan
or Ventrigan, belonged to the Priory of Tywardreth, and that it was
one of those given to the Duchy of Cornwall in exchange for the honour
of Wallingford. Another manor called Donneny or Downniney belonged to
Oto Colyn, who died possessed of it in 1466, and has since passed
through the families of Champernownes and Arscotts to that of
Molesworth.
Warbstow measures 3557 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 1727 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 241 16 0
Population,――{ in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 330 | 323 | 439 | 481
giving an increase of 45½ per cent in 30 years.