The church is neat but small, and very inadequate to the increased
number of inhabitants in the parish: the tower, like most others in
this part of Cornwall, is of granite. Phillack stands near the eastern
branch of Hayle River, and towards the sea, from whence comminuted
shell sand is continually brought inland by the wind, threatening to
overwhelm the whole village. Notice has been taken under Lelant of
this ordinary incroachment of the sand, and of the inundations which
have occurred at different periods remote from each other. Very
considerable parts of Phillack, and of Gwithian the adjoining parish,
are covered with sand formed into hillocks of twenty or thirty feet
high, representing in miniature one of the most uneven districts that
can any where be found. Under these are frequently discovered fences,
inclosures, and the walls of houses; and the high valuation of the
living in Wolsey’s Survey seems to prove that much land must have been
covered with sand since that time, and converted into what is named
_Towan_.
Notwithstanding this loss, however great it may have been, the parish
has flourished in recent times, far beyond all former example or
expectation, by the extension of trade, and by the consequent
improvement of the harbour. The progress in both has been greatly
accelerated by the successful working of various mines in the
immediate neighbourhood; but the first step was taken when a copper
smelting establishment was made there, soon after the middle of the
last century.
An opinion, or rather a feeling, had prevailed in Cornwall that the
copper ores should be smelted at home, and not sent to the opposite
coast of Wales. Nothing could be more erroneous. About three times the
quantity of coal is required to smelt any given weight of the copper
ore; and the importation of coal from Swansea being very large, the
conveyance of copper ore there produced alternate cargos. The whole
scheme seems to have originated in mistaken analogies drawn from
ordinary operations.
A plan so injudicious and adopted without estimate or consideration
must have failed, and would have done so at once, but for the
counteracting power of individual ability, in the person of Mr. John
Edwards; a young man of Ludyan, who had been recommended at a very
early age, to some situation requiring talent, by our celebrated
historian Doctor William Borlase. Mr. Edwards speedily acquired the
entire management and direction of the whole concern, which soon
extended itself to the importation of coal, timber, limestone, iron,
&c. for the supply of the neighbourhood; and by the unwearied exertion
of his superior genius, the business continued with success up to the
period of his decease in Jan. 1807.
Mr. Edwards may be reckoned among the distinguished persons whom
Cornwall has produced, equal in number at the least, as we flatter
ourselves, with those of any similar district. He acquired extensive
general knowledge, and obtained an ascendancy over most persons on all
occasions. Mr. Edwards had a numerous family, but only two have
married: his eldest daughter to Mr. John Tippett; and their son has
succeeded to the large property of Mr. Vivian of Pencalenick, and
taken the name.
His youngest son, Mr. Joseph Edwards, married Miss Devonshire of
Truro, where he practised the Law with great credit and success.
The company directed by Mr. Edwards experienced the rivalship in trade
of a very able and enterprising individual Mr. John Harvey, and after
his decease, still more powerfully of his son. Each party in this
legitimate and beneficial contest endeavoured to improve their
respective portions of the harbour, and by so doing acted favourably
on the whole. Mr. Edwards led the way by extending a mound across the
eastern arm, and keeping back the high water at flood tide, which
being suffered to escape through gates some hours afterwards, swept
the sand before it, and deepened the channel. Mr. Harvey on his part
constructed quays and wharfs, and recently a sluice, so that the
interior of the harbour may be considered as improved to the utmost
extent; but works are still wanting to confine the current of water
beyond the entrance, and thus to force a channel through the bar,
produced here as in all other debouches of rivers, by the deposit of
silt, of sand, or of mud, where the currents meet and occasion
comparatively still water.
A work most beneficial to the whole country was completed at Hayle in
the year 1825, under the authority of an Act of Parliament. The
passage across the main estuary was frequently dangerous and always
interrupted by the tide; several of the branches could not be passed
at high water, and lives were not unfrequently lost. A causeway
provided with arches and parapets, now affords a safe line of
communication from Penzance and the Western Peninsula, to the
eastward; and all the roads are raised above the utmost range of the
tide.
Mr. Lysons notices two castles said to have formerly stood in this
parish, one still called Castle Cayle; but it seems to be very
doubtful whether any castellated house was ever built there, or even a
military work, as the word castle appears to have been frequently
applied in ridicule, and there are not extant any accounts relating to
this place.
The other, situated at the entrance of the river, a much more probable
situation, and called Riviere or Theodore’s Castle. The walls, if any
ever existed, are taken down, and all traces of a foundation are
hidden by the sand.
Mr. Whitaker, who captivates every reader by the brilliancy of his
style, and astonishes by the extent of his multifarious reading,
draws, however, without reserve on his fertile imagination for
whatever facts may be requisite to construct the fabric of a theory.
He has made Riviere the palace and residence of Theodore, a sovereign
Prince of Cornwall, and conducts St. Breca, St. Iva, with several
companions, not only into Hayle and to this palace, after their voyage
from Ireland, but fixes the time of their arrival so exactly as to
make it take place in the night. In recent times the name of Riviere,
which had been lost in the common pronunciation, Rovier, has revived
in a very excellent house built by Mr. Edwards on the farm, which he
completed in 1791.
The place of most importance in Phillack was Trevassack, for many
years the residence of the Yorkes, a considerable family from
Somersetshire.
Richard Yorke, of Wellington, married a daughter of Andrew Luttrell,
of Dunster Castle; and his grandson, Humphry Yorke, settled
at Trevassack; married Barbara, daughter of John Vyvyan, of
Trelowarren; and their granddaughter, Sarah Yorke, was the mother
of Attorney-general Noye. Some traces of its former splendour may
still be discovered. Erasmus Pascoe, who served the office of Sheriff
in 1720, resided at this place; it now belongs to the partnership
carrying on copper-smelting and trade at Hoyle.
In much more modern times a good house has been built on Bodrigy,
which belonged to a branch of the Pendarveses, then to Williams, and
was sold by three sisters, coheiresses of that family, to Mr. John
Curnow, who acquired a large fortune by carrying on the trade of Hoyle
for more than half a century, before modern energies altered and
extended the scale of every mercantile transaction.
Mr. Curnow also purchased Penpoll, and resided there. His property
became ultimately divided between three daughters, one of whom married
Mr. Robert Oke Millett, who succeeded Mr. Curnow at Penpoll, and has
made it a handsome place. It now belongs to his son, the Rev. John
Curnow Millett. Another daughter married the Rev. William Hocken, the
late Rector of the parish: and the third married Mr. Parmenter from
Ilfracombe. Mr. Curnow was of the family mentioned under Lugvan.
Treglisson is a large farm, having on it a good house inhabited for
many years by the family of Nichols, proprietors of the freehold.
Phillack, in addition to the copper works at Hoyle, possesses also a
tin smelting house at a village called indifferently Angarrack or
Vellarvrane. It is said to be the first smelting house established by
Becher and the other Germans for smelting tin ores in reverberatory
furnaces by means of coal. During the life of Mr. William Tremaine the
late managing partner, this place was decorated with the finest garden
in the West of Cornwall.
The advowson of this Rectory was in the Arundell family, but held for
a considerable time on a lease for lives, by the Collinses of
Treworgan in St. Erme: but on the death of Mr. Edward Collins in Jan.
1734, the lease having expired, and the presentation having reverted
to Lord Arundell, a Catholic, the exercise of the right for that turn
lapsed to the University of Oxford; and the living was given by
convocation to the Rev. William Glover from Worcestershire, originally
a member of Balliol College, and afterwards one of the Chaplains of
All Souls. He married a daughter of the preceding Rector, and resided
at Phillack all the remainder of his life.
To guard against a similar lapse, a new lease for lives was granted by
Lord Arundell to Mr. Hockin of Gwithian, whose son succeeded to Mr.
Glover; and on the general sale of the Arundell property, this
gentleman had the opportunity of purchasing the freehold, and his son
the Rev. William Hockin is now the Patron and Rector of Phillack.
The parish feast is kept on the nearest Sunday to the 23d of November,
being the day consecrated to St. Clement, Pope and Martyr.
Phillack measures 2575 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 16,393 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 352 19 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 1475 | 2119 | 2529 | 3053
giving an increase of 107 per cent. in 30 years.