first possessor thereof of this tribe, as appears from the record in the Office of Arms, was John de Kestell, temp. Edward I. where his posterity have ever since flourished, to the time of writing hereof, in good fame and reputation, between the degrees of a justice of the peace and that of a hundred constable; the present possessor James Kestell, Gent, that married Vaughan of Trewothick and Ottery, in Devon, his father Kestell of Manacow, and giveth for his arms, Argent, three falcons Proper; as also. Or, three castles turreted Gules. (See Kestel, in Manaccan.)
Pen-davy, or Pen-duffy, i.e. David's head, (why so called, qu.?) a head or promontory of land situate between the Alan and the Kestell rivers, was formerly the lands of Kestell (and before that the Prior of Bodmin's, as I am informed); by Kesteli's daughter and heir it passed in marriage to Nathaniel Moyle, Esq. barrister-at-law, of Bakehouse, who for want of issue sold it to Mr. Ustick, now in possession thereof.
Crone, Croan, in this parish, signifies a skin or hide of leather; so called either from the tanner that made or sold leather here, or rather for that this tenement consisteth in quanto of a hide or skin of land, viz. as much arable ground as one plough can cultivate in a year, commonly reckoned about eighty statute acres. This barton was formerly the lands of Roscarrcck, by whom it was sold to Michael Hill, Gent, by whose son, John Hill, Rector of St. Mabyn, it was sold to Edward Hoblyn, Gent, attorney-at-law, a younger branch of the Nanswhiddon family by the Hoblyns of Bodmin, now in possession thereof. He is especially memorable for his saying, when first he began to practice, "that he would get an estate by the law one way or other," viz. right or wrong, and common fame saith he was as good as his word, in the worst[1] sense. Whereupon,
- ↑ But whether in the first or last way who shall tell?
