There is but little to add respecting this parish, which is one of the
very few livings held by the University of Oxford, only five in all,
with one lectureship.
The church is spacious, and contains several monuments. It stands with
a lofty tower on an elevated station; and, being quite surrounded by
trees, the whole is conspicuous and beautiful.
There are some annual fairs kept in the church town; and the parish
has three other villages, Trecroogo, Tregallen, and Trethevy.
Several of the farms were in former times the property and the
residences of small gentlemen.
The principal places are,
Trebersey, where resided the family of Gedy, of whom Richard Gedy was
Sheriff of Cornwall in the year 1623, the 21st of King James the
First. His daughter and heiress became the wife of Sir John Eliot the
celebrated patriot, and in their descendants the property remained
till the decease of Mr. John Eliot, about thirty years ago. This
gentleman, who was Sheriff in 1776, devised his property to Mr.
William Eliot, of Port Eliot, his distant relation. Mr. Eliot took
down the old house, and built a large and handsome mansion at some
little distance from the former; but, succeeding to Port Eliot and the
family property, on the death of his elder brother, he disposed of
Trebersey to David Howell, Esq. who has made it his residence.
The Editor has grounds for believing that his father, the Rev. Edward
Giddy, was a descendant in the fourth degree, from a nephew of Mr.
Richard Gedy of Trebersey, who settled in the West of Cornwall.
Tresmarrow, a seat of the Pipers, previously to their occupying
Madford, adjoining to Launceston, came with the heiress of that
family, to a younger son of Sir Richard Vyvyan of Trelowarren; their
son, Mr. Philip Vyvyan, having married Mary, the daughter of Sheldon
Walter, Esq. acquired Tremeal in the same parish, where he resided.
Mr. Vyvyan left two sons and a daughter: Vvol, the eldest, succeeded
to the family property, on the decease of his father’s first cousin,
the Rev. Sir Carew Vyvyan. The second son married, but died without a
family. The daughter, Harriot, married Stephen Luke, Esq. M.D.; and on
the sale and division of Mr. Philip Vyvyan’s landed property, Dr. Luke
acquired Tresmarrow, which is now become a farm house.
Tremeal has been noticed above. Mr. Philip Vyvyan either rebuilt or
greatly improved the house. After his decease, it was sold to Mr.
Archer, brother to Mr. Archer of Trelaske, who resided here for some
time: but, experiencing one of the most severe afflictions to which
human nature is exposed, by losing the dearest of all friends, he
reduced the house to a fit dwelling for one who should occupy the
farm, and abandoned a place deprived of all its attractions and of all
its charms.
A very different picture is presented to the mind by a monumental
inscription in the churchyard, which has been frequently copied on
account of its strange absurdity.
Beneath this stone Humphry and Jone
Together rest in peace:
Living, indeed――they disagreed,
Now here all quarrels cease.
South Petherwin measures 4710 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 5005 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 626 15 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 699 | 733 | 914 | 988
giving an increase of 41 per cent. in 30 years.
Present Vicar, the Rev. R. S. Stevens, presented by the University
of Oxford in 1824.