The parish of St Germans was dominated by Port Eliot, the stately home the Eliots had built on the remains of buildings attached to the medieval priory they had bought when it was closed in the 1500s. The impressive church next door had served as Cornwall’s first cathedral in the tenth and eleventh centuries and … Continue reading St Germans: London links by servants and main lines
St Gennys: scattered to the four winds
St Gennys is a farming parish on the north coast of Cornwall. It’s best known for its spectacular cliff scenery and is where we can find Cornwall’s highest cliff - the unimaginatively named if eponymous 735 foot (223m) High Cliff a mile or so south of Crackington Haven. Here in 1836 plans were mooted to … Continue reading St Gennys: scattered to the four winds
St Ewe man murdered! Two arrested
In September 1906 the peace of the small town of Auburn, Nebraska was shattered by news of the murder of a ‘prominent farmer’ a few miles east near the even smaller settlement of Brownville. The farmer, Isaac Cock Williams, had been born in the Cornish parish of St Ewe, west of St Austell, in 1850. … Continue reading St Ewe man murdered! Two arrested
St Eval: a Scottish sojourn and some sad deaths
In 1938 St Eval's churchtown was demolished to make way for an airfield as part of the re-armament programme. The church was left intact and used as a navigational aid. The airfield closed in 1959 but the church remains. Of the 12 children in our database who were living in the parishes of St Ervan … Continue reading St Eval: a Scottish sojourn and some sad deaths
St Ervan: farriers, farming and traffic
The two neighbouring farming parishes of St Ervan and St Eval north of St Columb managed to avoid the trouble and turmoil that periodically scorched through Cornish rural parishes dependent on mining. Nonetheless, their populations slowly drifted downwards in the 1800s, the exodus gaining force in the final decades of the century as farmers reduced … Continue reading St Ervan: farriers, farming and traffic
St Erth: two emigrants to Australia
St Erth was a parish that in the 1800s included part of the industrial town of Hayle. Near the northern limits of the parish could be found Hayle Foundry, Cornwall’s biggest engineering foundry in the 1800s. By the middle of the nineteenth century around one in seven of St Erth’s men were foundry workers or … Continue reading St Erth: two emigrants to Australia
St Erme: two-stage migration
Now hosting one of Truro’s commuter villages, St Erme was a rural parish in the 1800s. Although a mainly farming parish it provides us with a classic example of two-stage migration. This involved moving first to an industrial region of northern England or Wales before then departing overseas. The process of two-stage, or indirect, emigration … Continue reading St Erme: two-stage migration
St Enoder: engines and hospitals
St Enoder can justly claim to be at the centre of Cornish life, situated as it is midway between north and south coasts on the one hand and Lands End and the Tamar on the other. In 1861 its occupational structure was also fairly typical of rural Cornwall. Around half of the households in the … Continue reading St Enoder: engines and hospitals
St Dominick: two Georges, farmer and coal miner
Over the previous century or so four Georges had occupied the British throne. In St Dominick, a parish on the banks of the River Tamar in south-east Cornwall, two Georges were born around 1850. Although born within a couple miles of each other, they had very different life histories. A lane in the parish. St … Continue reading St Dominick: two Georges, farmer and coal miner
St Dennis: occupational change and a family mystery
St Dennis in mid-Cornwall was a parish undergoing major economic change in the Victorian era. In the early 1800s it was an upland parish where the locals survived from farming its unproductive soils, supplemented by tin streaming. However, the search for china clay transformed the fortunes of the parish and the occupations of its people. … Continue reading St Dennis: occupational change and a family mystery
Cornish studies resources 