“The paroch chirch standith at the est end of the town, and is a fair
large thyng,” says Leland, an author with whom Mr. Hals had no
acquaintance (though the Itinerary of that author was published in
1710, and in some years immediately following; and the Collectanea in
1715); “there is a cantuarie chapel at th’est ende of it.” This is the
present school, situated a few yards east of the eastern end, raised
upon vaults, ascended by steps, entered by an arched door of stone
peaked, having a large arched window peaked; at the east two windows
in the arch, two on the south, arched and peaked; with three stalls of
stone on the south, near the eastern end. The space below, lately a
bone-house to the church, now atttached to the school, must formerly
have been a walk under the vault.
“Bodmyn hath a market on every Saturday, lyke a fair for the
confluence of people.” (Itin. ii. 114.) Bodmin was then at the height
of its glory: it began soon afterwards to sink. The many decayed
houses, says Carew, 120 years afterwards, prove the town to have been
once very populous. What occasioned this decay was the Reformation,
probably, throwing the revenues of the priory, and of the house of
friars, into the hands of men laical and distant.
“There was a good place of Gray Freres in the south syde of Bodmin
town. One John of London, a merchaunt, was the beginner of this house.
Edmund Erle of Cornewaul augmentid it. There lay buried in the Gray
Freres Sir Hugh and Sir Thomas Peverel, Knightes, and benefactors to
the house.”――(Leland.) The remains of this form the south side of an
open space, which must have been the quadrangle or court of the
Friars, and have been surrounded by its buildings, on the east, the
north, and the west. On the west end, near the grand door in these
remains, was the church-yard, or burying-place, which Mr. Hals says
was made a fair for cattle; and here were very lately found, by
sinking a saw-pit, bones in a considerable quantity.
The remains themselves are, a long and lofty room, once a church, but
since used as Mr. Hals describes. It has a fine window at the east
end, peaked in the arch; the only part of it that is not blocked up
being very pleasingly broken into small parts by mullions of stone.
It has another arch for a window to the west, but not so fine; and
four arches on the north and south sides, all peaked, but those most
easterly more sharply than the others. What Mr. Hals calls a font is
still there; and a font it assuredly is, the Friars having just as
much right to a font as to a burying-place; but the inscription upon
it is on two or three squares of the hexagon in which the font is
shaped, and is too modern to mean any thing.
“There is a chapel of St. ―――― at the west ende of the toune. There
is another chapel in Bodmyn beside that at the west ende of the toune,
and an almose house, but not endowid with landes.” (Leland, Itin. ii.
114, 115.) Query, says Tanner, respecting the latter, Whether this
alms-house was St. Anthony’s or St. George’s? for the will of John
Killigrew, proved A.D. 1500, gives legacies Pauperibus Sancti Antonii
de Bodmyn, et Pauperibus Sancti Georgii de Bodmyn. Both these chapels
had an almshouse. The latter is that chapel which stood on the summit
of a hill north of Bodmin, called Berry, from some castle or fort upon
it, I suppose, and giving name to the valley below it, Berrycoomb, or
Bereum. The remains of this chapel are merely a tower, neat but
slight, making a considerable object to the road from its elevation,
yet small in its rise, or its pitch, and carrying a face of no great
antiquity, being merely three hundred years old. The town, says
tradition, stood formerly here, was burnt down, and then removed to
its present site. That this is false as history we know for certain,
as we know the town to have been where it now stands, but that the
town in the days of its high prosperity had shot out hither.
“The showe and the principale of the toun of Bodmyn,” says Leland, “is
from west to est along in one streate.” (Itin. ii. 114.) There were
(says Mr. Hals upon the credit of information) within these sixty
years past no less than thirteen churches, or free chapels, remaining
either whole or ruined in the town and parish, and this was one.
The church of the priory, notes Mr. Hals, after the dissolution of
religious houses, was converted to a parochial church. It was, indeed,
such from the beginning: so Leland tells us concerning it in his time,
“that the parish church standeth at the east end of the town,” &c. It
was even converted as such from a rectorial to a vicarial church
before 1290.
This prioral rectory church, Mr. Hals himself informs us, (long before
the dissolution, and therefore not after the dissolution of the
priory, as said before,) was converted by the Prior into a vicarage
church; for in the Inquisitions of the Bishops of Lincoln and
Winchester, Ecclesia de Bodman was rated to the Pope’s annats at 6_l._
13_s._ 4_d._ Vicar. ejusdem nihil propter paupertatem. So directly
does Mr. Hals confute himself; but the words of the record are not
cited fairly, and are in reality these:
Ecclesia de Bodmynia vi_l._ xiii_s._ 4_d._
Vicar. ejusdem xi_s._
Nor could any one of the thirteen be a free chapel, as no such chapels
existed in the first or in the second valuation, and therefore none
are mentioned therein.
Vivian’s “tomb is adorned round with crosses.” In truth, it has only
one, and that is upon the northern side. “The arms of his Bishopric of
Megara,” the arms of this Priory, and lastly, “those of his own or of
his ancestors.” But there are three fishes repeated as arms twice; and
Mr. Hals affirms himself that the jurisdiction and royalty over the
river Alan, from Camelford to Padstow Rock, was given to this Priory
by Algar Earl of Cornwall; and in further testimony of Algar’s
donation of the royalty of this river, he gave for the perpetual arms
of him and his priory, In a field Azure, three salmon-fishes in fess
barwise Argent; which arms were lately extant in all the church
windows of the churches under the priory.
Castle Kynock, as called by some to this day, but called simply the
Castle by the generality, lies more than half a mile to the
south-west, has two ditches and two ramparts; the outer are very deep
and very massy, the inner are much shallower and slighter. It takes in
the whole crest of the hill, the ground within rising from the sides
to the summit; is circular in form, because the hill is so; and has
its only entrance on the east, denoted as an original entrance by the
bridge of earth, as it were, which leads across the hollow of the
ditches into it. The whole is double, I believe, to the extent that
Mr. Hals gives it; and, from the position of the entrance on the east,
appears to be Roman in its origin.