The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 4 (of 4)
History
The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 4 (of 4)
Cornwall (England : County) -- History; Geology -- England -- Cornwall (County)
In the Domesday Book this district was taxed under the jurisdiction of
Amall, now Amall Veor or Trenwith. In the inquisition of the Bishops
of Lincoln and Winchester 1294, into the value of Cornish Benefices,
Ecclesia de Tywidnick, in decanatu de Penwith, is rated at
cxiii_s._ iiii_d._ vicar’ ibidem, xxvi_s._ viii_d._ In Wolsey’s
Inquisition 1521, it goes in value, consolidation, and presentation,
with Lelant and St. Ive’s, £22. 11_s._ 10½_d._ The patronage in the
Bishops of Exeter, who endowed it; the incumbent ―――― Hawkins; the
rectory in Pitz; and the parish rated to the four shillings per pound
Land Tax, for one year, 1696, £51. 3_s._ 2_d._
In this parish are two notable camps, castles, or intrenchments of our
ancestors the Britons, wherein they fortified themselves against their
enemies in former ages, the ruins and downfalls of which are yet to be
seen, the one called Castle-an-Dunes,[3] or Denis (See St. Colomb.);
the other Tre-crag-an, the ragged rock town, situate upon Tre-crag-an
hill or mountain, as I take it.
TONKIN.
Towednack lies in the hundred of Penwith, and has to the west Zennor,
to the north the sea, to the east St. Ive’s and Lelant, to the south
Ludgvan.
I take the name of the parish to signify no other than St. Wednock or
Wynnock; for Ta and Da are synonymous terms for good. [It is perhaps
only Ti Widnak (C.) the Whitish House. W.] It is a daughter church or
chapel of ease to Lelant, and goes in the same presentation.
THE EDITOR.
There can scarcely be a doubt of this parish, Landewednack, and some
chapels, being dedicated to one of the Missionaries from Ireland.
Towednack, like most of the districts situated on granite, exhibits a
strange and almost unaccountable mixture of cultivated and of
unreclaimed soils. On one side of a fence may be seen land producing
abundance of grass and excellent for daisies, or bearing ample crops
of barley, and of clover hay and on the other side, an inclosed waste,
named throughout Cornwall a croft, producing nothing better than
the species or variety of furze, Ulex Nanus, and some of the most
coarse grasses.
This parish has been productive of much tin near the surface; but a
wide stripe of granite nearly resembling that of St. Stephen’s in
Brannel, extends from the parish of Zennor through Towednack, and
thence into Ludgvan, including Castle-an-Dinas, which Mr. Hals by
mistake places in this parish. Its course is distinctly marked by the
absence of all bolder rocks from the surface, and in some places it
has been wrought for china clay, found quite equal in quality to that
near St. Austell, but occurring in layers of but little breadth, and
therefore expensive to pursue. This soft granite, called by the miners
whetstone, permits the lodes to continue their courses through it from
the hard and crystallized granite, but the tin in a great measure
disappears at a trifling depth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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