St. Allen is situate in the hundred of Pow-dre-ham, id est, the
hundred of the old ancient county or province town (viz. Lestwithell),
for so it is called in the first Duke of Cornwall’s charter 1336――now
contracted and corrupted to Powder Cantred.
At the time of the Norman Conquest this district of St. Allen was
taxed under the jurisdiction of Laner or Lanher, i. e. templer; so
called, for that long before that time was extant upon that place a
chapel or temple dedicated to God in the name of St. Martin of Tours,
the memory of which is still preserved in the names of St. Martin’s
fields and woods, heretofore perhaps the indowments of that chapel or
temple; this Laner is still the voke lands or capital messuage of the
Bishop of Exeter’s manor of Cargoll, whereunto it was annexed; in
which place of Lanher (formerly a wood or forest of trees) the Bishops
of Cornwall, and afterwards the Bishops of Exon, had one of their
mansion or dwelling-houses for many ages,[8] till Bishop Voysey,
tempore Henry VIII. leased those manors to Clement Throckmorton, Esq.
cup-bearer to Queen Katherine Parr, from whom it passed by sale to
Williams, and so from Williams to Borlase, by whom this mansion or
barton of Laner was left to run to utter ruin and dilapidation, having
now nothing extant of houses but old walls, stones, and rubbish. Out
of this manor of Lanher the Bishop of Exon endowed the church of St.
Allen with the glebe lands thereof now in being, and the sheaf of two
tenements, viz. Laner and Tretheris,[9] so that the said church is a
vicarage endowed, and was valued by Oliver Sutton, Bishop of Lincoln,
and John de Pontefexia, Bishop of Winchester, to the Pope’s taxation
of benefices, in order to take his first-fruits, 20 Edward I. 1294,
Ecclesiam de Sancto Alune, in Decanatu de Powdre;――vi _s._ & viii _d._
The patronage of this church is still in the Bishop of Exon for the
time being, the incumbent Richards. The rectory or sheaf formerly in
Cook, now Boscawen [Viscount Falmouth]; and the parish as aforesaid
rated to 4_s._ per pound Land Tax, in 1696, 157_l._ 14_s._ 10_d._
Gwarn-ike, _i. e._ lake, river, or leate, summons, notice, or warning,
so called from Gwarnike Castle, a treble intrenchment or fortification
lately extant on the woody lands thereof, is the voke lands of the
manor and barton of Gwarnike, the old inheritance and dwellinge of the
once rich and famous family of the Bevills for many generations; whose
ancestor came out of Normandy into England with William the Conqueror,
and was posted an officer at Truro under William Earl of Morton and
Cornwall (or Robert his father). Of his posterity, tempore Edward III.
Sir Richard Bevill held by the tenure of knight service 20_l._ per
ann. in lands and rents, and therefore was commanded by that king to
attend him, with a horse-trooper furnished cap-a-pee, on his
expedition into France, in the 25th year of his reign. (Carew’s Survey
of Cornwall.) John Bevill of this place was sheriff of Cornwall 5
Richard II. Finally, the name, blood, and estate of those Bevills
terminated in two daughters and heirs of John Bevill, Esq. sheriff of
Cornwall 16 Eliz. 1573, married to Grenville of Stowe, and Arundell of
Trerice, to whose younger son by Bevill’s heir this barton and manor
of Gwarnike was given, but the said Mr. Arundell, commonly called the
Black Arundell by reason of his complexion, dying without issue, gave
those lands to his kinsman Mr. Prideaux, of Fewburrow in Devon, whose
heir sold the same to Mr. Kempe, of Penryn, now in possession thereof.
Over the entry door of this house, in a stone or piece of brass, is
cut the arms of Bevill, viz. Ermine a bull passant Sable, surmounted
with an oak-tree Proper or Vert; near which is this inscription
likewise in stone in Saxon-English letters:
Man, aboue all thinge
Feare god and the kinge.
[In 1704 it was sold by the Prideaux family to Jamss Kempe, of Penryn,
and in 1731 purchased by Edward Prideaux, Esq. of Place House,
Padstow, ancestor to the Rev. Charles Prideaux Brune, of the same
place, who is the present proprietor. There were formerly two chapels
at Gwarnike; one at a small distance from the house, which was
demolished before the year 1736, and another attached to it, which,
together with “the old hall, curiously timbered with Irish oak,” was
then remaining. These old buildings were not long ago pulled down, and
a farm-house built on the site with the materials. Talgrogan, in this
manor, was some time the seat of a younger branch of the Prideaux
family. _Lysons._]
For the name of this parish (Allen), Alfred the Saxon grammarian and
Verstegan tell us that it is plain Saxon, and is the common
contraction of Alwyn, all-beloved, or beloved of all, and for St.
Allen church must be construed as the holy or consecrated church,
beloved of all Christians, which perhaps was the old name of that
little ancient chapel, now the minister’s chancel, to which in after
ages the present church of St. Allen was annexed; however, let it be
remembered also, that in Armoric-Cornish, St. Alan or Allen is holy
breath or respiration, or gift of speech.
Treon-ike, Saxon-Cornish, trees on the lake, or spring leate, or bosom
of waters, in this parish, is the dwelling of James Borlase, Gent. who
married Hobbs, and his father Cooke’s heir, by whom he had this place;
and giveth for his arms in a field Ermine, on a bend Sable two hands
issuing out of two clouds, or nebules, tearing of a horseshoe in
sunder Argent (see St. Wenn). Otherwise, Tre-on-ike is the town or
tenement situate on the lake or river of water.
[Mr. Hals here relates a story of some child being missed by his
parents and afterwards found; imputing the temporary loss to
supernatural agency, perhaps of fairies, usually denominated in
Cornwall “The Small People, or Piskies.”]
From the inferior officers of this church, the sexton and clerk, or
sub-deacon tempore James I. have sprung two notable rich and eminent
families in those parts, of justice of the peace and senators or
parliamentary degree; viz. Tregeagle and Vincent; viz. Vincent from
the clerk of Resheafe, and Tregeagle from the sexton of Bosvallack, of
whom more in their proper places; the one burgess or member of
Parliament for Truro, the other for Mitchell, whose sons by ill
conduct have wasted and sold all their lands, tempore George II.
In this parish, at Tretheris, is yet extant the walls and ruins of an
ancient free chapel and cemetery, wherein heretofore God was duly
worshipped, built perhaps by the Bishops of Cornwall and Exon, when
they resided at Lanher aforesaid contiguous therewith.