Mr. Tonkin seems to have fallen into an error respecting the valuation
of this living in the taxation of Pope Nicholas; which he says was £6.
8_s._ 4_d._ But no name in the least degree resembling Milor, can be
found under Kerrier hundred in the parliamentary publication of that
record, nor is any parish rated at that sum.
The church contains several monuments. The most interesting is one of
marble, placed there to the memory of her father, mother, and husband,
by Jane, the heiress of the Bonithon family, and widow of Samuel
Kempe, who built the house at Carclew, and died on the 20th of October
1728, in the 59th year of his age.
There is also a monument to Francis Trefusis, who died in 1680,
decorated by handsome sculpture. And one to the memory of Edward
Baynton Yescombe, esq. who fell while he was bravely defending the
King George, Lisbon packet, against the enemy, in August 1803. And
another executed by the celebrated artist Mr. Westmacott, to the
memory of Reginald Cocks, youngest son of Charles Cocks, Lord Somers,
and Anne his wife, sister of the late Mr. Reginald Pole Carew.
Carclew was devised by Jane Kempe to her relation Mr. James Bonithon,
of Grampound, from whom it was purchased by Mr. Lemon in 1749, who
immediately began to finish the house, and to complete the whole as a
family residence on the scale appropriate to every thing that he
undertook. Here Mrs. Lemon resided after she became a widow, and here
the family have resided ever since. Mr. and Mrs. Lemon had an only son
William Lemon, who married Anne, daughter of Mr. John Willyams, of
Carnanton. Both died in early life, leaving three children.
William, born Oct. 6, 1748, who succeeded his grandfather in 1760,
married Jane, daughter of James Buller, of Morvall, esq. was elected
member of Penryn, on the decease of Mr. Francis Basset in 1769, and at
the general election of 1774 succeeded in a contest to represent the
county, which, universally esteemed and respected, he continued to do
by ten subsequent unanimous elections, during a period of fifty years,
up to his decease on the 11th of December 1824. This gentleman was
created a Baronet, and commanded for several years the county militia.
John, the second son, became a colonel in the army, commanded the
militia of Cornish Miners, served in parliament for the borough of
Saltash, and four times for Truro. He died unmarried in 1814, at
Polvellan, a place that he had created with great taste on the
southern side of the lake, loch, or loo, formed by the two rivers
above East and West Looe, and close on the margin of a large salt
water pond, made to retain the sea water at high tide, afterwards to
give motion to the machinery of grist mills, from whence Mr. Lemon
named his new place Pol-Vellan, in Cornish the mill-pool.
Colonel Lemon was such a proficient in music as to perform
extemporaneous voluntaries; and several psalm tunes and chants of his
composition have been printed.
Anna Lemon, the sister, married Mr. John Buller, of Morval.
Sir William Lemon greatly improved Carclew, and added most materially
to the extent of the property round his seat, by purchasing from Mr.
Trefusis the manor of Restronget, which had been acquired some years
before from Mr. Trevanion.
He is most worthily succeeded by his son Sir Charles Lemon, now member
for the county, to whom the house at Carclew is indebted for still
further improvements made in the best taste; the grounds and gardens
have also been enlarged and beautified, and further arrangements and
other decorations are still in progress. It is a very curious
circumstance that several acres of ground at Carclew have been
recently found covered with the _eria ciliaris_, not known before as
an English plant.
Of his eight sisters three have married Cornish gentlemen. Harriet,
married to the late Lord de Dunstanville. Caroline, to John Heale
Tremayne, esq. late member for the county. Jane, to her double
cousin-german Mr. Anthony Buller, Barrister-at-law, and knighted on
his going to India as a judge.
The family of Trefusis can now scarcely be considered as connected
with Cornwall, Robert George William Trefusis having succeeded, on the
death of George Walpole, Earl of Orford, to the barony in fee of
Clinton, created by writ of summons in the year 1299, the 28th of
Edward the First, and under a deed of settlement, made by the same
Lord Orford, having succeeded also to a very large estate, chiefly in
Devonshire; and finally, in consequence of their having alienated by
far the greater part of their possessions in this county.
This gentleman having married Marianne Gaulis, a lady of Switzerland,
and died in 1797, has been succeeded by his son Robert Cotton St. John
Trefusis. He married one of the daughters of William Stephen Poyntz,
Esq. and niece of Mark Anthony Browne, last Lord Montague, of Cowdray
Castle, in Sussex; but having died without issue, he is succeeded by
his brother Charles Trefusis. The widow is recently married again to
Colonel Horace Seymour.
The situation of Trefusis is very beautiful, the whole jutting into
Falmouth harbour, with Penryn river on the south and Milor river to
the north.
Mr. Tonkin has given a picture of Flushing, very far from
corresponding with its present features: instead of falling into decay
it has grown up to be an elegant town, although the packet station has
not been fixed there, nor is it in all probability suited to that
purpose.
If the word Gas, or Guys, which Mr. Tonkin says means deep in Cornish,
should also, as in some other languages, bear the correlative sense of
lofty, his explanation of Restronget would be more complete.
Present Vicar, the Rev. Edward Hoblyn, collated in 1823 by the Bishop
of Exeter.
This parish measures 3,463 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 6724 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 951 12 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 1665 | 1897 | 2193 | 2647
giving an increase of 59 per cent. in 30 years.