In this parish lies the extensive manor of Blanchland, latinized into Albalonda. This manor gave name to a considerable family, in which it continued for many descents. The last of them, Otho de Albalonda, had only one daughter and heir, Johanna, married in his lifetime to John Boscawen, of Tregothnon, in the 31st year of Edward III. and carried this rich inheritance into that family; in which it hath ever since continued, to their very great advantage, having within these fifty years brought them more money for copper than almost all the other mines in the county together, if the last twenty years are excepted, during which time great discoveries have been made in various other places. Neither are the wastrels of this manor destitute of good mines of tin; one of which, called the White Works, occasioned a law-suit between Mr. John Mayo, of Truro, owner of the tin bounds thereon, and Mr. Hugh Boscawen, lord of the soil, towards the latter end of the reign of Charles the Second. Mr. Mayo claimed the farm or toll of the copper-ore, as well as of the tin, in right of his bounds; but the suit was very justly determined in favour of Mr. Boscawen, as Lord of the Soil, for that the right of the tin as bounder was only by the custom of the Stannaries, and that no such custom could be pleaded for copper ore. This one suit put an end to all disputes between the lords of the soil and the bounders, which otherwise would have been endless, and very much to the discouragement of copper mines; and there have not been wanting some designing people of late, who made application to King George II. then Prince of Wales, falsely representing that much tin ore was carried into Wales with the copper ore, and there separated from the copper, to his great loss of duties. Guddern. This place hath been for several generations the seat, on lease from the family of Boscawen, of the Bowdens; perhaps ever since the Albalonda’s time, although they were possessed of fair estates in fee elsewhere. Reginald Bowden, Esq. is the present possessor. Nansavallan. Avallan is an apple-tree, and the name signifies the valley of apple-trees. This I take to have been the chief seat of the Albalondas, as it hath been since of some of the Boscawens; and particularly of late years that of Charles Boscawen, Esq. a younger son to Hugh Boscawen, Esq. and sometime Member of Parliament for Tregony, and a Justice of the Peace. The arms of Albalonda were, Gules, three bends Argent; Mr. Bowden’s, Azure, a chevron between seven griffins’ heads couped Or, each head transfixed by a dagger, the pommel Or, the blade Proper.