It is so called from the barton of Little Colon or Golon, contiguous with the church, on part of which ground perhaps the same was founded, and endowed with part of the lands thereof. At the time of the Norman Conquest this district passed in tax under the names of Carneton, or Ryalton; and the church being built and endowed by Walter Brounscomb, Bishop of Exeter, 1250, it was by him appropriated to the canons Augustine of his college of Glasnith, by him founded. For that we read in the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester into the value of benefices for the Pope’s Annats in Cornwall, 1294, Ecclesia Sancti Colani, appropriata Canonicis de Penryn, 4_l._; Vicar ejusdem 6_s._ 8_d._ In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, and Valor Beneficiorum, 6_l._ 14_s._ 8_d._; the patronage in the Bishop of Exeter for the time being; the sheaf or rectory in possession of Vyvyan; the incumbent, Bagwell; and the parish rated to the 4_s._ per pound Land Tax 1696, 63_l._ 16_s._ From this barton of Colon was denominated an old family of gentlemen, from thence surnamed De Colon; of which family Roger de Colon was seised of a knight’s fee of land 25th Edward III., which he held by the tenure of knight-service. Carew’s Survey Corn. p. 52. Roger Colon, grandson of the said Roger, having issue only two daughters, Jane and Margaret, the which Jane was married to John Blewet, a younger branch of the Blewets of Holcomb Rogus in Devon, who afterwards was made sheriff of Cornwall the 26th Henry VI. (when Richard Yeard, Esq. was sheriff of Devon); which Jane’s estate was no small advance of the wealth of his house, from whom all the Blewets of Cornwall are since descended, some of whom have erected a monument in this church in memory of those De Colons; and several of them have made Colon a font name in their family to this day, of which I may not in justice forget my late kind friend Major Colon Blewet, a valiant commander under King Charles I. against the Parliament army, who married Elizabeth daughter of Sir William Wrey, Knight, but died without issue; whose brother Robert, that married Arundell, a base son, succeeded to this his estate, who had issue another Robert that married Wood, as I remember, and sold the moiety of this barton of Colon to Robert Hoblyn, of Nanswiddon, clerk, rector of Ludgnan, now in possession thereof; the arms of Blewet were, Or, a chevron between three eagles Vert. The Hampshire Blewets, as Camden saith, gave Or, an eagle displayed with two necks and heads Gules.