This parish, with two others, are dedicated to St. Perran, the most
distinguished among the missionaries from Ireland, who converted the
Pagan inhabitants of Cornwall to the Christian faith; but his history
properly falls under the head of Perran Zabuloe, where he fixed his
residence and breathed his last.
The church of Perran Arworthall is very small but neat, and it is
decorated with a tower in due proportion to the whole fabric. The only
ancient village of any consequence in the whole parish, is called
Perran Well, probably from the chalybeate spring flowing near it; and
this village has imparted its name in common parlance to the whole
parish.
Perran Well is situated in a deep valley, having a hill and a
corresponding vale on either side, terminating in the Carnon branch of
Falmouth harbour: over all these the high road leading from Truro to
Falmouth used to pass; but by a most judicious improvement a causeway
has been laid over Carnon, and these transverse hills and valleys
entirely avoided.
Not far below the village stood one of the tin-smelting houses
constructed after the Germans introduced reverberatory furnaces; it
has been used for the last thirty years for refining arsenic. This
metal and its oxide, most destructive to animal or to vegetable life,
is extensively useful in metallurgic operations and in the arts. Few
substances are more generally diffused throughout mining districts: it
unites with most other metals, sometimes alone, but more frequently in
union with sulphur, and converts them into minerals. Metals are
therefore said to be mineralized by arrenic, by sulphur, &c. The first
operation used in extracting metals from their ores, is one for
driving off by heat such substances as are volatile. Arsenic is
eminently so: it therefore sublimes, and is deposited in long flues or
chambers made to prevent the destructive consequences of its being
diffused through the atmosphere, and scattered over the country. From
these chambers or flues the refiners of arsenic obtain their supplies,
and are thereby enabled to afford it in a state of purity, at such
prices as would be wholly inadequate for defraying the expense
necessarily to be incurred, if the operation had commenced on the ores
containing this metal in the mines.
Partly in this parish, but principally in Milor, on the next creek
towards Falmouth, are situated the great iron works, conducted by
Messrs. Fox, a family distinguished for ability, exertion, and
liberality, from generation to generation. These works were the first
constructed of any magnitude in Cornwall. Previously, all the
cast-iron materials for steam engines were brought from Glamorganshire,
and the working of an important mine very frequently depended on the
uncertain direction of the wind; now every thing that can be required,
even cylinders of the largest dimensions, seven feet and a half (90
in.) in diameter, and ten or twelve feet long, are cast and bored with
the utmost accuracy here and at Hoyle, where similar works have
arisen, to the incalculable benefit of the mining concerns.
The valley above and below these works is perhaps the most beautiful
in the west of Cornwall, and it has recently been adorned, just
opposite the fine woods of Carclew, by the elegant and tasteful
residence of Benjamin Sampson, esq. who conducts an extensive
manufactory for supplying the mines with gunpowder made in their
immediate neighbourhood.
This parish, and the adjacent one of Stithyans, to which it is
annexed, are believed to have been appropriated to the religious
establishment at Penrey. The impropriation of the great tithes, and
the advowson of the vicarage, have for a considerable time belonged to
the Boscawens of Tregothnan.
Perran Arworthall measures 1,229 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 2165 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 451 15 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 884 | 1104 | 1362 | 1504
giving an increase of 70 per cent. in 30 years.