Crockaddon in this parish is the mansion house of James Trevisa, Esq.
descended from John Trevisa, born in this place, as I am informed, and
bred at Oxford. He became a secular priest and chaplain to James Lord
Berkeley, by whom he was made vicar of Berkeley in Gloucestershire,
and at his request he translated the Bible into English, although the
same had been done by John Wickliff fifty years before, but not with
that perfection of language that Trevisa did it, although Trevisa’s
translation fell as far short of Tindall’s in Henry the Eighth’s days;
by reason the English language was still improving to a higher pitch,
for they all agreed in the original sense and meaning of the text.
Trevisa also translated Bartholomew de Proprietatibus Rerum, the
Polychronicon of Ralph Higden, and divers other Treatises. He died a
very aged man, about 1410, since which time the descendants of his
family have flourished in good fame in those parts.
Their arms are, Gules, a garb Or.
Pentilly is the mansion of Sir James Tilly, Knt. formerly steward to
Sir John Corington, who married first, a daughter of Sir Henry Vane,
and was afterwards knighted by King James the Second. After this,
having assumed the arms of Count Tilly, of Germany, together with his
supporters, he had them taken from him, and was fined by the kings at
arms several hundreds for his presumption. This occurrence gave rise
to an unfounded story of his having been degraded from his knighthood,
for that he was not a gentleman either of blood, arms, or descent; but
it is clear that a knight need not be a gentleman of blood, witness
the number at present that are not so. To his second wife he married
the widow of Sir John Corington, his former master; she was one of the
daughters of Sir Richard Chiverton, of London; but he did not leave
any remaining issue by either of his wives. This Pentilly is a new
name given by himself to this his seat, from its situation on the side
of a steep hill, having a pleasant prospect of the river Tamar, and of
the country round about. He has adorned it with fine new buildings,
composed of several towers with gilded balls, and several walks of
lime-trees on the side of the hill. All which together at a distance
made a pretty show, Sir James Tilly dying without issue, left his
estate and his house to his sister’s son, James Tilly Woolley, who, by
the name of James Tilly, Esq. is now, 1734, sheriff of Cornwall.
The manor of Halton, the town in the moor. In Domesday Book it is
called Haltone; and it was one of the manors given by William the
Conqueror to his brother Robert Earl of Morton, when he created him
Earl of Cornwall.
I believe this parish does not derive its name from St. Dominic de
Gusman, the first author of that barbarous tribunal the Inquisition,
the name being anterior to him; but that it has a female patroness,
Sancta Dominica, for in the Taxatio Beneficiarum, A.D. 1291, it is
called Ecclesia Sanctæ Dominicæ, and valued at 3_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._