St. Roach, in the hundred of Powder, hath to the west St. Dennis and St. Stephen, to the north Great St. Columb, St. Wen, and Withiell, to the east Lanivet and Luxilian, to the south St. Austell. This parish takes its name from, and is dedicated to St. Roche, born at Montpelier in France, of which city his father was lord. After his father and mother were dead, though but then twenty years of age, he took a resolution to dispose of part of his estate, which he distributed amongst the poor, left the administration of the remainder to his uncle, and from a prince became a pilgrim. He took the way to Rome, and both in his journey thither, and in that city, cured several people of the plague, by making only the sign of the cross. Being at last attacked by it himself, he withdrew into a wood, where a neighbouring gentleman’s dog brought him every day a loaf of bread; at last, being cured, he returned to his own country, but it being in troublesome times, he was taken up for a spy, and by his uncle (who did not know him) shut up in prison, where he suffered incredible evils; and dying there in 1327, he was at last discovered by a writing found about him. The church celebrates his memory the 16th of August. [But this parish was called Roch before this saint was born, without the addition of saint; for it is named De Rupe in Taxat. Ben. 1291, from its remarkable rock, and was then dedicated to St. Conant, whose memory is still preserved by his well on Trefrank, his park and meadow corruptly called St. Gonnet’s. W.] It is a rectory, valued in the King’s Book, £20. 0_s._ 0_d._; the patronage in the heirs of Sir John Arundell; the incumbent Mr. Treweek, dead in 1733, now Mr. John Tregenna, Rector of Mawgan in Pider, who holds them both together by [dispensation,] having bought the perpetual patronage of three times out of four from Lord Arundell, [which was sold again by his daughters and heirs to a Society in London, self-combined for the laudable purpose of purchasing the advowsons of livings, to confer them on religious clergymen. And on the death of Mr. Tregenna in 1754, the representatives for the Society nominated Samuel Furley, M.A. the present rector, the sale of the patronage having been so far completed as to belong to the Society, and yet not so far as to enable it legally to present. W.] This parish was valued (Tax. Ben.) in anno 1291, 20 Edw. I. at £6. 6_s._ 8_d._ having never been appropriated.