Is situate in the hundred of Pider, and has upon the north St.
George’s Channel, or the Irish Sea; west, Mawgan; south and east, St.
Ervyn and St. Colomb Major. In the Domesday Tax it was rated by the
name of Avalde. In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and
Winchester (1294,) Ecclesia de Avello, in Decanatu de Polton, was
valued to first fruits vi_l._ xiii_s._ iiii_d._ Vicar ejusdem xx_s._
In Wolsey’s Inquisition, (1521,) rated at the same value; the
patronage in the Bishop of Exon, who endowed it; the incumbent
Bagwell: the rectory, or sheaf, in Hawkins; the parish rated to the
4_s._ per pound Land Tax, (1696,) 82_l._ 15_s._ 6_d._ The sheaf, or
rectory, pays an annuity of 20_l._ per annum as an augmentation yearly
to the vicar incumbent for ever, by virtue of an act of parliament.
Probably the tutelar guardian and patron of this church is St. Ewalld
or St. Evalld, from whence it obtained the appellation of St. Evall,
or Avalld; who, as Malmesbury, in his Chronicle, and Herbert, in his
Festivity of the Saints, tell us, was the son of Ethelbert the Second,
martyred by the Danes, anno Dom. 749, brother to St. Edmund, king of
the Saxon East Angles, who also was martyred by those people, and had
his country wasted by them, till reduced by the West Saxon king,
Edward the Elder; and though, after the death of St. Edmund, his
brother Ewalld had right and title to the crown, and was requested by
the people to take it upon him, yet he told them in answer that he
preferred a religious and solitary life before all the kingdoms in the
world, and therefore retired to Dorchester, in Oxfordshire, to a
monastery called Cornehouse, where in great piety and holiness he
lived, and died anno Dom. 850, and was interred, and held in great
veneration for many _supernatural facts_ done there after his death,
whereby he obtained the reputation of a saint.
Trethewoll, Trethvall, in this parish, was the seat of John Nanfan,
Sheriff of Cornwall 7th Henry VI. who at first, as tradition saith,
was a servant to one of the Eriseys, temp. Henry V. and in that
prince’s wars with the French was by them promoted to a captain’s post
in that expedition, wherein he behaved himself with such valour and
conduct, always attended with success, that he was highly rewarded by
that prince, with much lands in England and France; upon which
foundation, and by his thrift and good conduct, he laid up a very
great estate in lands, and particularly was the purchaser of this
manor and barton of Trethvall, and Tregenyn in Padstow, where he
seated himself. He was again, because of his great advancement by his
prince’s bounty, made Sheriff of Cornwall 15th Hen. VI. Again, his son
John, 29th Hen. VI. Again 35th Hen. VI. by the name of John Nanfan,
Esq. who is the first gentleman, on the Records of the Pipe Office for
Cornish Sheriffs, distinguished by the name of an Esquire, which
appellation or terminative distinction in Cornwall, was not given
generally to those officers till about the middle of Henry the
Eighth’s reign. He was also made Sheriff of Wiltshire 30th Henry VI.
He had issue Richard Nanfan, Esq. Sheriff of Cornwall 20th Edward IV.
also 4th Henry VII. who dying without issue male, in grateful
remembrance of Mr. Erisey’s kindness and favour to his grandfather, he
gave this barton and manor, and Tregerryn also, to James Erisey, Esq.
Sheriff of Cornwall 4th Henry VIII. by some of whose posterity it was
sold to Grenvill; and by the Grenvills to Smith of Exeter; and by the
Smiths to Leach, father of Sir Simon Leach, Knt. of the Bath, temp.
Charles II. who married Vivian of Truan; his father Gully; and giveth
for his arms, Party per fess engrailed Gules and Ermine, in chief
three ducal crowns Or. The arms of Nanfan were, Sable, three martlets,
3, 2, 1, and Argent.