The Parochial History of Cornwall/Volume 1/Advent
HISTORY
OF THE
PARISHES OF CORNWALL.
ADVENT, ALIAS ST. ANNE.
HALS.
Advent is situate in the hundred of Les-newith, i.e. new breadth, extent, or division.[1] It hath upon the north Lantegles; east, Altar Nun and St. Cloather; south, Brewer; west, Michaelstow. In the Domesday (Roll or) Tax, 2d of Will. I. 1068, this district was rated either under the names of Tegleston or Helleston, manors contiguous therewith.
For the modern appellations of this parish, they were taken from the church after its erection and consecration (which goes in presentation and consolidation with Lanteglos), and is called Advent, from Advent Sunday, (on which probably it was consecrated and dedicated to God, in the name of St. Anne, by the Bishop of Exon,) viz. the nearest to the feast of St. Andrew, and refers to the coming of Christ,—Advent pro adveniant, coming.
This church is consolidated in Lanteglos, and goes in presentation with it; the patronage in the Duke of Cornwall, who endowed it.[2]
This parish of Advent alias St. Anne was rated at the 4s. per pound land tax,[3] ann. Dom. 1696; at which time the author of this work, with other commissioners at Bodmin, settled the respective charges or sums upon all the parishes or towns in Cornwall for all future ages.
TONKIN.
The right name of this parish is St. Alhawyn, by abbreviation Advent.
The place of chief note in this parish is Trethym. In the time of the Usurpation, Sir Henry Rolle, of Honiton, retired here, as being a pleasant seat (especially in summer) for hunting; and soon after it was the seat, by lease from him, of Matthew Vivian, Gent. a younger brother of John Vivian, Esq. of Truan, and as noted a cavalier as his brother was a partisan on the other side. Mr. Matthew Vivian had several daughters, one of whom being the first wife of Beale, of St. Teath, brought him this barton, which he gave to her eldest son, Matthew Beale, Gent. whose widow now enjoys it (1715): of whom see more in St. Teath. [From them it passed to the Gwatkins, by which family it was held until the year 1814, when it was sold by Robert Lovell Gwatkin, Esq. to Mr. Allen Searell. Hitchins.]
WHITAKER.
Ridiculing the etymology of Advent suggested by Hals, Mr. Whitaker says, "The appellation is merely personal, and that of the church's saint," Adwen. This was one of a numerous family of saints, whose history, as they have left their names to several parishes and churches in Cornwall, it may be desirable to detail in this place, as it is quoted by Leland from the Life of St. Nectan, who was the eldest brother. "Brechan, a petty king of Wales, from whom the district of Brocchanoc (Brecknock) derived its name, had by his wife Gladwise twenty-four sons and daughters, whose names were: Nectan, John (or Ivan), Endelient, Menfre, Dilic, Tedda, Maben, Wencu, Wensent. Merewenna, Wenna, Juliana, Yse, Morwenna, Wymp, Wenheder, Cleder, Keri, Jona, Kananc (or Lalant), Kerhender, Adwen, Helie, Tamalanc. All these sons and daughters were afterwards saints, martyrs, or confessors, leading the life of hermits in Devon and Cornwall." The same story is related by Giraldus Cambrensis and William of Worcester. Whitaker's Cathedral, vol. ii. pp.91, 98.
LYSONS.
Advent contains the small villages of Treclogoe or Trelogoe, Pencarow, and Tresinny. Most of the estates in this parish are parcel of the duchy of Cornwall, being held as free and customary lands of the manor of Helston in Trigg. The manor of Trelagoe, Treclegoe, or Trenelgoe, after having been for some descents in the family of Phillipps, was bequeathed by the late Rev. William Phillipps, Rector of Lanteglos and Advent, to his nephew John Phillipps Carpenter, of Tavistock, Esq. whose son is the present proprietor.
THE EDITOR.
Advent contains 2,844 statute acres.
| Annual value of the real property as returned to Parliament in 1815 | £. 1,396 |
s. 0 |
d. 0 |
| The Poor Rate in 1815 | 115 | 1 | 0 |
| Population, | in 1801, 170 |
in 1811, 219 |
in 1821, 229 |
in 1831, 244. |
or 43½ per cent. increase in thirty years.
GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.
The eastern part of this parish consists of granite, forming a portion of an extensive group of this rock, in which are situated Roughtor and Brown Willy, the highest hills in Cornwall. This granite is of the ordinary kind, large grained, and often porphyritic. It contains beds of fine-grained rocks, in some of which crystalline felspar, quartz, and mica, constitute the entire mass; but in others these minerals are embedded in a basis of compact, or rather of granular felspar, which is itself apparently a compound of felspar and quartz. The junction of the granite with slate is concealed by a large track of marsh and bog; adjoining to which is a dreary waste of common, resting on an irregular bed of quartzose gravel, derived from the granite hills, and evidently of diluvial origin. This eastern part is sterile, merely affording a scanty subsistence to cattle during the summer. The remainder of the parish is composed of felspar and hornblend rocks, traversed here and there by courses of granitic elvan, a rock in every respect similar to that occurring in the granite. One of these courses may be seen by the road side near the rivulet of Pencarrow. Here the country is wooded and cultivated, exhibiting some picturesque scenes of hill and dale; so characteristic of the hornblend rock near granite.