St. Anthony in Powder is situate in the hundred of Powder; and hath
upon the east Gerance and St. Just; north, Carike road, or part of
Falmouth harbour; upon the south and west the British Channel. In
Domesday Roll there is no such parish or district charged as St.
Anthony, neither therein had any church in Cornwall the appellation of
Saint given to it, except St. Wene or St. Wena. But this district was
then taxed under the jurisdiction of Treligan or Tregeare, and
obtained not the name of St. Anthony till the year of our Lord 1124,
at which time William Warlewast, Bishop of Exon, founded here a
church, and dedicated it to St. Anthony, having before dissolved the
dean and four prebendaries in the collegiate church founded at
Plympton in Devon by the Saxon kings, and in the room thereof erected
a priory of Black Canons (and dedicated the same to the Virgin Mary):
who also in this church of St. Anthony erected a priory or cell of two
Black Canons, canons regular or Augustines, under the same tutelar
guardian as its superior, so called from St. Augustine, Bishop of
Hippo in Africa, who died in the 4th century, and was institutor of
their rule; viz. 1. to live in common as the Apostles did, on the
stock revenues or endowment of their church. 2. That all such as
received baptism should for several days wear a white garment in token
of their new birth. 3. That all priests should wear a black cassock
over their white garment, as himself did; such afterwards became the
habit of his order, whether collegiate or hermits. 5. Over their
sculls he appointed a hood or scapular of the same black cloth as
their cloaks, and the hair of their heads to be worn at full length,
whereas the monks were always shaved. 6. He gave a liturgy or rule to
be observed by those of his order in time of divine service (whereas
before every one in a monastery served God, prayed, and fasted, as
they best liked). 7. To live single persons, without marriage. This
Priory was called St. Mary de Vall or de Valle, to distinguish it from
St. Mary de Plym in Devon, so named from the rivers on which they are
situate. This priory, together with its superior’s revenues, when it
was dissolved, was valued at 912_l._ 12_s._ 8_d._ per ann. 26 Henry
VIII. See Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum.
Ecclesia de Sancto Antoni, in Rosland, 20 Edward I. was valued to the
Pope’s first fruits xl_s._ though its value be not mentioned in Valor
Beneficiorum, or Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521. The patronage formerly in
the Prior of Plympton, afterwards in Hals of Fentongolan, now
Boscawen, its revenues being wholly impropriated. The parish rated to
the 4_s._ per pound land tax 1696, 45_l._ 4_s._
St. Anthony’s name is derived from ανθος (anthos) flos, a flower; and
for his person, he was a native of Egypt, about the yeare of our Lord
253: a most strict and severe Christian, that lived a retired and
hermetical and begging life in the deserts thereof.
Plase, Place, id est, in Cornish a palace, was heretofore the mansion
and dwelling of the prior and his two black canons, erected here as
aforesaid. This house and barton is now in possession of Arthur George
Sprye, Esq. that married Bullock; his father Martyn; his grandfather
Heale, his great-grandfather, of Blisland, attorney-at-law, married
――――. He gives for his arms, in a field Azure, two bars and in chief a
chevron Or. The name Spry, Sprey, Spray, is Cornish, and signifies a
sprout, branch, sprig, twig, split, or slip of any matter or thing.
The name Spye I take it is local, from some place called Spye in
Devon.
This promontory of land, commonly called St. Anthony point, which on
the east side boundeth Falmouth harbour from the British Ocean, not
only from the name of the priory here St. Mary de Vall aforesaid, but
from the natural circumstances of the place, I take to be the Valuba
or Valubia of Ptolemy, which consisteth of a compound of two British
words Val and Ubia, which signifies the Vale point or promontory, or
the point or promontory of land that bounds or terminates the river
Val as aforesaid. Note also, that in British Cornish, B, V, and F, are
letters indifferently used one for the other; so that Falubia and
Valubia are synonymous words. Otherwise, Val-eba is the ebbing or
reflux of the river Val.