It is with much diffidence that I venture to approach the subject of
etymologies, but it seems at least to be clear that Mr. Tonkin is
mistaken. Val or Vale is not Cornish for a valley, but an inclosure.
More, in its original signification is great, large, vast, whence
figuratively it has acquired the substantive meaning of a widely
extended tract of land; as the Sea is in English, called the Deep. I
conjecture, therefore, that Morval may be The Enclosed Sea, in
reference to the Loch, which gives names to the towns of East and West
Looe; or, if the substantive and adjective are inverted, and More
resumes its primitive sense, it may be The Large Inclosure.
Mr. Bond states, in his History of Looe, and of the neighbourhood,
that the principal seat in this parish, and a place of the same name
in Cumberland, belonged to Sir Hugh de Morville, “a foul disgrace to
knighthood’s fair degree,” one of those villains who murdered Becket
at the altar in Canterbury Cathedral; but the honour of Cornwall is
not stained by the assassin’s birth. The manor of Morval passed in
early times to the family of Glynn.
Mr. Bond has also preserved a very curious memorial of the lawless and
unsettled state of Cornwall, and probably of all England, during the
contests for plunder, glossed over by the fiction of adverse rights
between two branches of the Plantagenets.
In the year 1471, John Glynn, esq. was barbarously murdered at Higher
Wringworthy, in this parish, by several ruffians, employed by Thomas
Clements, whom he had superseded in the office of Under-steward of the
Duchy. In the preceding year he had been assaulted and grievously
wounded in the face by the retainers of Clements as he was holding the
King’s Court at Leskeard, and thrown into Leskeard prison, where he
signed a compulsory obligation not to prosecute. Some months preceding
the murder, the retainers of Clements went to Morval, and plundered
the house and premises of goods and chattels to the value of two
hundred pounds and upwards, as then estimated. All this appears from
the petition of Jane Glynn, the widow, to Parliament, which sets
forth, that she could have no redress for these terrible outrages in
the county of Cornwall, by reason of the general dread of the malice
of Clements and his lawless gang; she prayed, therefore, that her
appeal might be tried in London by a Cornish jury; and that, in
default of Clements appearing to take his trial, he might be dealt
with as convicted and attainted. Her petition was granted.
The words of Jane Glynn’s petition to Parliament are:
“The said Thomas Flete &c. then and there, at four of the
clock in the morning, him feloniously and horribly slew and
murdered, and clove his head in four parts, and gave him ten
deadly wounds in his body; and when he was dead they cut off
one of his legs and one of his arms, and his head from his
body, to make him sure; and over that, then and there his
purse and twenty-two pounds of money numbered, and a signet
of gold, a great signet of silver in the same purse
contained, a double cloke of muster-de-viles, a sword, and a
dagger, to the value of six marks, of the goods and chattels
of the said John Glynn, feloniously from him they robbed,
took, and bore away.”
The following enumeration of the particulars, as contained in the
schedule annexed to Jane Glynn’s petition, may perhaps be thought
interesting, as giving some idea of the furniture and stock of a
gentleman’s mansion in the reign of Edward the Fourth.
“Fourteen oxen, ten kien, a bull, eight hors, sixty bolokis,
four hundred shepe, ten swine, six flikkes of bacon, three
hundred weight of woll, three brasynpannes, everych
containing sixty gallon, ten pair of blankets, twelve pair
of sheets, four matres, three fether beddes, ten coverletys,
twelve pillowes of feders, four long gounes, six short
gounes, four women gounes, two drought beddes, a hanging for
a chamber, three bankenders, twelve quyssions of
tapsterwork, four cuppes of silver, three dozen of peauter
vessell, two basons counterfet of latyn, two other basons of
latyn, two dozen of sylver spoons, a saltsaler of sylver,
two basons of peauter, two saltsalers of peauter, three
pipes of Gascoyn wine, a hoggeshede of swete wyne, two pipes
of sider, four hoggeshedes of bere, four hundred galons of
ale, three folding tabules, two feyre long London tabules,
four peyre of trestell, a pipefull of salt beef, a hundred
of milwell and lyng drye, a quartern of mersau’te lynge, a
hundred weight of talowe, forty pounds of candell, two
hundred hopes, ten barrell, fyve large pypes, eight keves,
ten pots of brasse, fourteen pannes of brasse, four pettys
of yron, four andyeris, two knedyng fates, a hundred galons
of oyle, six galons of grese, three hundred pounds of
hoppes, two hundred bushell of malt, forty bushell of barly,
sixty bushell of oyts, four harwyis, ten oxen tices, two
plowes, ten yokk, ten London stolys, four pruse coffers, and
three London coffers within the same conteyned, four
standing cuppes covered, whereof one gilt, dyvers evidences
and muniments concernyng the possession of the said John
Glynn.” See also Mr. Lysons.
In the very early part of the sixteenth century, Richard Coade, esq.
married Thomasine, daughter and heiress of John Glynn, with whom he
acquired Morval, and in this family the manor continued till Anne, the
daughter and heir of John Coade, carried it by her marriage to John
Buller, second son of Francis Buller, of Shillingham. Their grandson,
John-Francis Buller, married Rebecca, daughter and coheir of Bishop
Trelawny; and on the death of his relation James Buller, of
Shillingham, he succeeded to the family estate, very greatly increased
by a marriage with the heiress of Grosse, a family from Norfolk, which
settled first at Leskeard and afterwards resided in the parish of
Camborne and Trescobays in Budock.
James Buller, son of John-Francis Buller and Rebecca Trelawny,
represented the county in Parliament, and died in 1765.
Mr. Buller married twice, and left Morval, with a considerable portion
of his estate, to John, the eldest son of his second marriage with
Jane Bathurst, daughter of Allen Bathurst, esq. created one of the
twelve Peers by Queen Anne in 1711, and an Earl sixty-one years
afterwards by King George the Third, in 1772. Their second son,
Francis, became one of the Judges of the King’s Bench; and a third
son, Edward, having married a Miss Hoskin, of Looe, lived and died at
Port Looe, in the parish of Tallend. Their eldest daughter, Jane,
married Sir William Lemon, during fifty years member for the county of
Cornwall.
The eldest son of his first marriage settled at Downs, near Crediton
in Devonshire, a property that he acquired by his marriage with
Elizabeth, daughter of William Gould, of that place, which is now the
residence of his grandson James-Wentworth Buller.
Mr. John Buller resided at Morval, represented Exeter, Launceston, and
West Looe in Parliament; and married Ann Lemon, only sister of Sir
William Lemon. He has left a numerous family, and is succeeded by his
eldest son, John Buller, this year (1835) Sheriff of the county.
Arms of Buller: Sable, on a cross Argent, pierced of the Field, four
eagles displayed of the First.
Coode: Argent, a chevron Gules, between three moorcocks Sable.
Glynn: Argent, three salmon-spears Sable.
Grosse: Quarterly Argent and Azure, on a bend Sable three martlets Or.
The manor house at Morval is situated in a beautiful valley surrounded
with trees; and it exhibits a good specimen of a gentleman’s residence
of about two centuries old. The whole place has been very much
improved within the last thirty years.
The seat next of importance in this parish is Bray. And Mr. Bond says
of it, “Bray, Bre, Brea, in Cornish signify a hill; and this place is
situated on the side of Bindown Hill. Bray commands very beautiful
prospects.”
The manor of Bray, then held under the Vyvyans, as of their manor of
Treviderow, was in the reign of Charles the Second in the family of
Heles, who were succeeded by the Mayows, of which family was Dr. John
Mayow, an eminent physician in the reign of Charles the Second, who
contributed some papers on Respiration, and other subjects, to the
Philosophical Transactions. Bray is now the property and occasional
residence of Philip-Wynill Mayow, esq.
Another account which I have met with states, that Philip Mayow, of
Looe, purchased in the sixth of Elizabeth (anno 1504) the manor of
Bree or Bray, in the parish of Morval, of Christopher Copplestone, of
Warleigh, esq. These accounts, therefore, vary; and which is right I
cannot ascertain.
This Philip Mayow, of Looe, is buried in St. Martin’s church, and has
the following epitaph:
Here lyeth the body of Philippe Mayowe, of
East Looe, Gentleman, who deceased this lyfe the
27th day of August in the year 1590, being then
of the age of 72 years.
Here under this great carved stone
Is Phillippe Maiow entombde,
Who in his life for merchandice
Was through this land renown’d;
His trade was great, his dealins just,
The poor did feel his bountie,
Great cost he put for sea and land,
In buildyng verye plentie.
Dr. John Mayow, mentioned by Mr. Bond, and who has been noticed under
St. Martin’s, must have been a very extraordinary man, worthy of being
ranked with the first chemists or philosophers of any age.
In the forty-first number of the publications made by the Royal
Society previous to the regular series of the Philosophical
Transactions, anno 1668, p. 833, will be found an account of two works
by John Mayow, LL.D. and M.D. Tractatus duo. Prior de Respiratione,
Alter de Rachitide (the rickets); see also the Abridgment, vol. i. p.
295, where the authors say in a note, “As an account of the life and
opinions of Dr. Mayow was published only a few years ago by a
physician now living, we deem it unnecessary to insert in this place a
biographical notice of this distinguished chemist and physiologist. We
shall only remark, that in his writings are to be found the primordia
of some of the most important theories and experiments of modern
chemical philosophers.”
The physician alluded to was Thomas Beddoes, of Pembroke College,
Oxford, and afterwards of Clifton, near Bristol, whose life has been
given to the public by Dr. John Edmonds Stock, in one vol. 4to,
printed for Murray in 1811; and his pamphlet is entitled, “Chemical
Experiments and Opinions extracted from a Work published in the Last
Century. Printed at the Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1790.”
Doctor Beddoes here bestows on Mayow the praise he most justly merits,
and to be praised by Doctor Beddoes is laudari a laudato viro. Few
persons ever displayed more genius or power of invention; and to him
we mainly owe the preparation of Humphry Davy for his splendid
philosophical career, after a most fortunate introduction by the
Editor of this Work.
Anthony Wood gives the following particulars of Mayow:
“John Mayow descended from a genteel family of his name,
living at Bree in Cornwall; was born in the parish of St.
Dunstan in the West in Fleet-street, London, admitted
scholar of Wadham College the 27th of September 1661, aged
sixteen years; chosen Probationary Fellow of All Souls
College soon after, and upon the recommendations of Henry
Coventry, esq. one of the Secretaries of State; where,
though he had a legist’s place, and took the degrees in the
civil law, yet he studied physic, and became noted for his
practice therein, especially in the summer time in the city
of Bath; but better known by these books, which show the
pregnancy of his parts.
De Respiratione, Tractatus Unus. Oxon. 1668-69, 8vo.
De Rachitide, Tractatus Unus.――Ibid.
De Sale Nitro et Spiritu Nitro Acerbo.――Oxon. 1674, in a
large octavo.
De Respiratione Fœtus in Utero et Ovo.――Ibid.
De Motu Musculari et Spiritibus Animalibus.――Ibid.
And all the five were printed again at the Hague in 1681.
“He paid his last debt of nature in an apothecary’s house in
York-street, near Covent-garden (having been married a
little before, not altogether to his content) in the month
of September 1679, and was buried in the Church of St. Paul,
Covent-garden.”
Mr. Bond adds, with respect to this parish, that Polgover, sometime a
seat of the Mayows, still belonging to that family; and Lydcott (about
a mile from thence) a seat of the family of Hill, now the property of
Mr. Braddon, are both farm houses.
A manor, or reputed manor, called Wringworthy, belongs to the Copleys
of Bake.
The only place of trade in this parish is a small village, situated at
the spot where the Looe River ceases to be navigable for barges at
high water. There are several kilns for burning lime, which is used to
a great extent throughout all the neighbourhood as a manure; but the
modern name of Sand Place indicates a recent origin. Here the canal to
Leskeard terminates.
The church is in the same beautiful vale as the manor house. It
contains several monuments in memory of individuals belonging to the
families of Mayow, Kendall, Coode, &c.
The great tithes belonged to the priory of St. German’s; and in the
Valor Ecclesiasticus in the time of King Henry the Eighth, preserved
in the First Fruits Office, they are rated,
Morvall, decimæ garbæ - £10.
The great tithes now belong to Mr. Buller.
The presentation to the vicarage is in the Crown; and the present
Vicar is the Rev. Stephen Puddicombe, presented by Lord Chancellor
Eldon in 1803.
Bindon is the prominent feature in all this country. It commands a
most extensive prospect over Plymouth, and to the range of the
Dartmoor hills; in the other direction the view extends to the high
lands near St. Austell, southward it is bounded by the horizon of the
sea, and it almost reaches St. George’s Channel to the north. The
elevation cannot be less than eight or nine hundred feet; yet strange
to say, the road from Looe to Leskeard still continues to pass very
nearly over the summit of this hill.
Morval measures 2925 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 3910 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 415 10 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 533 | 574 | 615 | 644
giving an increase of 21 per cent. in 30 years.