The farms, hamlets and cottages scattered across the rolling countryside of South Petherwin just south of Launceston hid a growing crisis in the 1870s. Those farmers that had previously thrived on their earnings from growing cereal crops began to see the price of wheat tumble dramatically. Railways and steamships were combining to bring cheap grain … Continue reading South Petherwin: fleeing the farm
Category: social history
South Hill: Jope and Jory
South Hill is a rural parish just to the east of Bodmin Moor, containing the mother church of the small town of Callington, which made a bolt for parochial freedom in the early 1400s. South Hill is now a parish of farmers and commuters but it wasn’t always so. Back in 1861, located on the … Continue reading South Hill: Jope and Jory
Sithney: Cornwall in miniature
The parish of Sithney stretched from the downs on the western side of the Carnmenellis uplands south to the coast at Porthleven. A variety of countryside had helped to produce a diverse occupational structure by Victorian times. A third of the men were miners in 1851, mainly in the northern part of the parish. Almost … Continue reading Sithney: Cornwall in miniature
Sheviock and the shock of the excavators
Sheviock is a small and relatively obscure parish on the coast of south-east Cornwall. Undisturbed by the main currents of history, it relied on farming for centuries before tourists and second homes began to infiltrate its quiet villages and hamlets. However, in 1861 it was probably a lot livelier than nowadays. The largest occupational group … Continue reading Sheviock and the shock of the excavators
Sennen and seven sorts of cousins
Just a few miles to the west of Sancreed, we arrive at our next parish, Sennen, the most westerly in Cornwall. This is Cornwall’s pedn an wollaz, the land’s end, although unfortunately far from the end of this series of blogs. As the nineteenth century proceeded, Sennen, or at least its fishing cove, became increasingly … Continue reading Sennen and seven sorts of cousins
Sancreed: dairy farming and baby farming
The villages and hamlets dotted around the moors and valleys of Sancreed parish in the heart of West Penwith in the mid-1800s housed a population of miners (around half of the labour force), farmers and labourers. In this part of Cornwall, the boundaries between these occupational groups were quite porous. The majority of farmers only … Continue reading Sancreed: dairy farming and baby farming
Saltash: just passing through
Saltash is known mainly for its twin bridges rather than for its architectural splendour or the historical significance of its built environment, which now sprawls voraciously and unstoppably into the nearby countryside. In 1859 Brunel’s Royal Albert Bridge across the River Tamar was opened and trains began to cross to and fro from England into … Continue reading Saltash: just passing through
Running from Ruan?
The small parishes of Ruan Minor and Ruan Major should not be confused with Ruanlanihorne. (Ruan was a saint – in Old Cornish Rumon.) Ruan Major and Minor will be treated together here as they are neighbouring parishes on the Lizard peninsula, now combined with a third parish to make up the modern Grade-Ruan. Around … Continue reading Running from Ruan?
Ruminating at Ruanlanihorne
Ruanlanihorne, on the eastern side of the Fal estuary, is one of those places that might strike the casual visitor as warranting the epithet ‘timeless’, essentially unchanged since the 1800s. In one sense this could be true. Unaffected by the ups and downs of mining and well away from the major communication routes, with no … Continue reading Ruminating at Ruanlanihorne
Clay labouring families at Roche
Roche in mid-Cornwall is on the northern edge of the clay country. At the time the children in our database were born in 1850/51 the extraction of clay was only just beginning to scar the landscape. The creation of the white mountains of the clay country and the sterilisation of many square miles of countryside … Continue reading Clay labouring families at Roche
Cornish studies resources 