This parish is beautifully situated, mainly consisting of a belt
nearly a mile wide, between the sea on one hand, bounded by high and
rocky cliffs, and on the other hand by a chain of granite mountains.
The belt of land, including the church town, is very fertile,
particularly abounding in milk and honey, which we early learn to
consider as proofs of the most abundant soil.
The church and tower are neat and plain, and it is probable that Mr.
Hals’s conjecture respecting its ancient dependence on St. Michael’s
Mount, may be correct, since one or more of the bells are said to bear
an inscription declaring them the gift of the prior of the Mount.
Mr. Tonkin says, that the name is taken from a patron Saint, but no
such saint can be found; and the parish feast is kept on the nearest
Sunday to the 6th of May, when the festival is observed by the Church
of Rome, in commemoration of the virtual martyrdom and miraculous
preservation of St. John the Evangelist; when, by the order of
Domitian, he was cast into a caldron of boiling oil before the Latin
or Lateran Gate of Rome, where the church of St. John Lateran has
since been built, the chief sacred edifice in Rome previously to the
construction of St. Peter’s, and celebrated for the assemblage of
various general councils of the Catholic Church, thence denominated
Councils of Lateran. It is probable, therefore, that this parish may
be under the protection of the divine and beloved Apostle.
Towards the western extremity of the parish a bold promontory
stretches out into the sea, called Trereen Dinas, but in recent times,
from some fanciful resemblance, the Gurnet’s Head. This is by much the
finest and most romantic point on the north side of the Land’s End,
and it would rival the promontory nearly opposite to it on the south,
called by the same name, Trereen Dinas, or Castle Trereen, if that
were not composed of granite and crowned by the Logging Rock; while in
Zennar the sea shore and the cliffs are every where green stone,
surrounding the granite.
For a description of this headland, see the Second Volume of the
Transactions of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, p. 200. The
Editor was so much struck with the appearance of this bold formation,
that he purchased the manor of Treen and Baswedneck chiefly for the
purpose of acquiring the property of a mass of rocks so geologically
interesting.
The impropriation of the great tithes belongs to George John, esq. of
Rosemorron, and of Penzance.
Zennar measures 3,647 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 2,137 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 187 5 0
Population,――{ in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 544 | 671 | 715 | 811
giving an increase of 49 per cent. in 30 years.
Present Vicar, the Rev. W. Veale, collated in 1824 by Dr. Carey, the
Bishop of Exeter. The net income of the living, as returned in 1831,
was £179.