The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 2 (of 4)
History
The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 2 (of 4)
Cornwall (England : County) -- History; Geology -- England -- Cornwall (County)
About the 8th or 9th Charles I. this manor was given or sold for a
small sum by the King to William Coryton, of Newton, Esq. in whose
family it hath remained ever since. On the commons belonging to
Guddern is a large barrow called Guddern Barrow, near which are
several large moorstones; and also at no great distance is another
barrow, called Craig Vrause, or the large barrow, remarkable for
giving name to some good mines of tin and copper near it.
THE EDITOR.
All the legends of this parish concur in claiming for their patron
Saint Kea, one of the great company of missionaries, and as the
ludicrous, almost from a species of fatality, appears to have blended
itself with these ancient tales, a large block of granite, hollow on
one side, which happened to lie near the bank of the river, was for
centuries pointed out as the boat used by St. Kea to waft himself from
Ireland to the Cornish shore; and so currently was this story
repeated, that, if persons went to sea in a vessel not adequate to the
service, it was observed they might as well have made a voyage with
St. Kea in his moorstone trough.
Mr. Hals having used a strange orthography for Nansavallan, and given
as fanciful a derivation of the word; both are omitted, since Nans or
Nance is known to be a vale; and Avallan may be proved to be the
Celtic name of an apple, by referring to the History of Glastonbury.
This seat of the Albalandas presented within fifty years one of the
most venerable specimens in all that neighbourhood of the dwellings
used by gentlemen of consideration in former times.
It was entirely surrounded and sheltered by large trees, and at some
little distance stood a wood more extensive than any one west of it;
and both were conspicuous and pleasing objects from the whole district
round Truro; but the _auri sacri fames_ has swept away the whole, and
the place is now become very little preferable to an open down. The
Editor expresses himself with some feeling on this subject, having
passed at Nanceavallan many happy weeks of his childhood; and fancied
the wood an exact counterpart of that in which the favourite objects
of infantine compassion perished from want of food, and were painfully
covered over with leaves by the little bird, doubly consecrated by
this effort of his kindness.
In the hands of the proprietor, the farm of Nanceavallan is however
now improving, by extensive drainages, and by a system of husbandry,
that cannot fail of extending the benefit derived from example to all
the neighbourhood.
Killiow is now the seat of Mr. Robert Lovell Gwatkin, where he has
built an almost entirely new house with extensive gardens and
plantations, improved the land, and made the whole into a handsome
modern residence.
To this gentleman the parish is also mainly indebted for a removal of
the church.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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