Mr. Hals has given several etymologies of the word Mewan, but so
little probable as not to merit attention. It may be the name of a
missionary, as is the case in so many other parishes.
The church does not present any thing remarkable, except a pleasing
appearance among trees at a short distance north of the turnpike road
leading from Truro to St. Austell, just where a hill has been lowered,
and a valley raised within these few years, to the very great
improvement of the line of communication westward from Plymouth. A son
of our eminently distinguished countryman Doctor William Borlase, was
presented to this living by Mr. Christopher Hawkins, of Trewinnard.
His grandson is now at the head of that ancient family.
The object of most curiosity in this parish is Polgeoth mine, one of
those wrought through the greatest length of time, and with the
greatest produce of tin, in the whole county.
Pol-gooth is in Cornish the old pit or mine. Mr. Hals mentions, as a
matter of astonishment, its having produced above five hundred
thousand pounds weight of tin in less than forty years, and that it
paid a fifth dish or share to the proprietor of the soil. Nothing can
more clearly evince the enlarged scale of working in modern times;
500,000 pounds weight of tin in forty years would give an average of
12,500 pounds weight for each year, and at the recent price of four
pounds sterling for a hundred weight of tin, about £2,200 a year. In
some of the later workings perhaps thirty or forty thousand pounds
have been expended in an outfit, or what is called bringing the mine
into a course of working, in the purchase of steam engines, and of
various other elaborate machines; and instead of paying a fifth part
of whatever minerals are raised, free of expense to the proprietors of
the soil, an eighteenth or perhaps a twenty-fourth share is all that
can reasonably be demanded or afforded after such an outlay of
capital, which small share, however, usually amounts to a greater
value than did the fifth or sixth part received in former times.
The manor and village of Burngullo belonged to the Robarts’s, of
Lanhidrock, and have descended to Mrs. Agar.
The manor of Trewoon belongs partly to the family of Hawkins, and
partly to Tremayne and Hoblyn.
St. Mewan measures 2,240 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 1633 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 322 18 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 780 | 626 | 1174 | 1306
giving an increase of 67 per cent. in 30 years.
The fluctuations in amount of population in this parish are owing to
the occasional working or discontinuance of Polgooth mine.
Present Rector, the Rev. William Hocker, jun. instituted in 1801.