This parish is named in the valuation of Pope Nicholas, Pleymut or
Palemyt. It paid at the general suppression of religious houses, £4.
15_s._ a year to the priors of Wilton.
The church is spacious, although it has only two principal aisles,
with two family aisles, standing across the other on the south side.
There are various monuments in the church. A very large monument to
Francis Buller, esq. ornamented with the figures of himself and of his
wife in an upper compartment, and of twelve children below, besides
other figures, and numerous coats of arms. This gentleman died in
1615. There is also a monument to Edward Trelawny, a barrister, much
noted on account of its quaint and singular inscription, said to have
originated from his never having practised his profession, except once
gratuitously, to vindicate an individual suffering under some
oppression:
Edward Trelawny. Ana:
We wander, alter, dy.
O what a bubble, vapour, puff of breath,
A nest of worms, a lump of pallid earth,
Is mud-wall man; before we mount on high,
We cope with change, we wander, alter, dy.
Causidicum claudit tumulus (miraris) honestum.
Gentibus hoc cunctis dixeris esse novum.
Here lyes an honest lawyer, wot you what?
A thing for all the world to wonder at.
June the 7th, 1630.
There are memorials to William Achym, Esq. as far back as 1589; to a
de Bodrigan; and several to the Trelawnys.
William of Worcester states this church to have been the burial place
of St. Juncus, a holy personage not recorded in the Roman calendar.
But Mr. Whitaker, without citing any authority, gives the patronage of
the church and parish to St. Nunn, the mother of St. David, the
Apostle of Wales, the first Archbishop of Menevia, since called after
his name, and according to romance writers the champion, who having
distinguished his levies by a leek as a cognizance, defeated the
Saxons in a night attack, and drove them beyond the confines of his
province.
This church belonged to the Cistercian abbey of Newenham, in
Devonshire, founded by Reginald de Mohun, lord of Dunster, about the
year 1241.
In the return made to King Henry the Eighth, and preserved in the
Augmentation Office, occur these entries:
£. _s._ _d._
Plenynt Redd. lib. ten. 1 15 4
Redd. tam cust’ quam convent’ ten’ 21 5 7
Redd. Firma Rector’ 14 0 0
Redd. Perquis. cur’ 0 11 10
―――――――――――――
£37 12 9
The site of this monastery was granted by Queen Elizabeth to Thomas
Howard, Duke of Norfolk, but sold by one of his sons to Sir John
Petre, in whose family it continued till so recently as the year 1824.
It was then sold to James Alexander Frampton, esq.
The manor of Pelynt, with the privilege of a fair on Midsummer day,
parcel of this abbey, have travelled by some other channel to Colonel
Frederick William Buller; and the manor of Hall, the great tithes, and
the advowson of the living, belong to Mr. John Buller, of Morvall.
On the barton of Hall are some remains of ancient military works.
But the place of greatest note in this parish is Trelawn, for more
than two centuries the principal seat of the Trelawnys; but,
notwithstanding the great similarity of the two names, not having any
connection one with the other, although, by a temptation too strong to
be withstood, the place has recently been known by the name of its
proprietor.