book 10

, extract 7, chapter 2. It was, however, reserved for the French, in their Revolutionary War, to practise this art, and for the first time in the spring of 1794, more than nineteen hundred years after the suggestion by Polybius, and notwithstanding repeated recurrences to nearly the same effect by various writers in modern times.

Mr. Hals states, that in the valuation of Pope Nicholas this parish was assessed, the Rectory at 100_s._ the Vicarage at 53_s._ 4_d._

In the folio edition of the Taxatio Ecclesiastica Angliæ et Walliæ, auctoritate Papæ Nicholai IV. printed by command of King George III. 1802, the entries stand thus:

£. _s._ _d._ £. _s._ _d._ Taxatio. Decima. Eccl’a de Sacre 5 0 0 0 10 0 Non ex’ { Vicar ejusdem 2 13 4 ―――――― { Eccl’ia de Rame 2 6 8 ――――――

The bracket may perhaps be wrongly placed, and Maker may be a corruption of the name here used.

Inceworth appears to have been the principal manor in this parish, and belongs to the family of Trefusis; it includes Milbrook, formerly a town of some consequence. Here were till very lately the brewhouses attached to the great naval establishment of this port; they are now removed to The Point on the Devonshire side, where one of the most extensive and most useful works ever constructed for such purposes has been recently completed. Walls have been laid in deep water, by the use of diving bells, so as to allow of the largest ships coming quite in contact with the wharfs, and there receiving, in the course of a few hours, all the supplies of meat, bread, beer, water, &c. that are requisite for their going to sea.

The object however which attracts the attention of strangers from all others in this parish, is the place formerly called Vaultershome, and afterwards West Stonehouse, but which Mr. Edgcumbe, who acquired it by a marriage with the heiress of the family of Durneford, its former possessors, chose to name Mount Edgcumbe, a proceeding now sanctioned by time, as are those of the change from Port Prior to Port Eliot, and some others. It would be useless to describe this most beautiful and superb place, considered by many as altogether the finest gentleman’s seat in the West of England. Nor can it be the least necessary to say any thing here of the distinguished family after whom it is called; who have possessed an hereditary seat in Parliament since the year 1741, and for two descents have been Lord Lieutenants of Cornwall.

By a strange absurdity this south-eastern extremity has been, notwithstanding that the whole river is attached to Cornwall, artificially considered as a part of Devonshire; but this and other similar anomalies are in some degree corrected by modern acts of the legislature, the authority of magistrates for any county having been extended over these insulated portions of another, and the right of voting for Members of Parliament is brought back to its natural state by the enactments of 1832.

A small town or village, partly in Maker, but extending into Rame, is distinguished by the double appellation of Kingston and Cawsand; the latter name is applied to the bay formed by a recess of the land at this place, a bay capable of containing the largest ships, and esteemed the least dangerous part of Plymouth Sound.

The Harbour of Plymouth consists of three distinct parts, the Sound, entirely exposed to the violence of south and south-western winds, and two inner harbours, Catwater and Hamoaze; the former adapted only for small vessels; and Hamoaze rendered utterly inaccessible in bad weather by a ridge of rocks extending from Drake’s Island to the western shore, thus restricting the only passage to a narrow and winding channel round that Island under the Hoe, and between Mount Edgcumbe and the Point.

To remedy this most essential defect, by making a safe anchorage in the outer harbour, an immense work was commenced in August 1812, which should be called the Artificial Reef, from its close resemblance to a natural reef, and from its having been avowedly planned in imitation of the coral reefs, abounding near all the Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

The Plymouth reef consists of a middle part a thousand yards long, and lying directly across the entrance of the Sound, and of two wings bending inwards at a small angle, each 350 yards long, making in all 1700 yards, or very nearly a mile. Advantage having been taken of a shoal, the depth under low water averages about 36 feet, and the height above low water is just 20 feet. The slope towards the sea forms an angle of 22° with the horizon, giving an increase of breadth of nearly two feet and a half for each foot of descent; the slope towards the land forms an angle of 33° with the horizon, and increases one foot and a half for each foot of descent: consequently the increase of breadth on the whole is four feet for one of descent. The whole mass is composed of stones blown by the force of gunpowder from limestone rocks on the river side, from whence they are rolled at once on board barges, which sail to the spot and drop them into sea.

The whole weight of the reef is estimated at 2,500,000 tons. It may be curious to compare it with the largest building in the world. The Great Pyramid of Egypt measures 687 feet on each of its four sides, and the perpendicular height is 480 feet; these dimensions, supposing the Pyramid to be solid, give a content of 76,500,000 cubic feet, and a weight exceeding 5,500,000 tons, more than double the weight of the reef, and the materials are large blocks hewn into regular forms, transported from a considerable distance by land carriage, then raised into the air, and finally laid with cement in their exact places.

The artificial reef has cost a million of money; the Pyramid must have required an amount of labour represented at present by perhaps twenty times that sum, a building without use or beauty, while the reef has made Plymouth one of the best harbours in the whole world.

Maker measures 1867 statute acres. If the artificial arrangement were attended to, 967 acres must be deducted. Annual value of the Real Property as £. _s._ _d._ returned to Parliament in 1815, including the part returned as in Devonshire under the name of Vaultershome 3465 0 0 Poor Rate in 1831 821 16 0 Population, in 1801, in 1811, in 1821, in 1831, Cornwall 1691 3678 1796 1545 Devon 1614 1569 1222 1092 ―――― ―――― ―――― ―――― 3305 5247 3018 2637 The fluctuations in the number of people are evidently caused by the difference of war and peace, in a parish so much blended with the great naval and military establishments of Plymouth. Present Vicar, the Rev. Daniel Stephens, presented by the Lord Chancellor in 1796.

GEOLOGY.

The geology of Maker is not noticed by Doctor Boase; but it is obviously the same as that of the adjacent parish, Rame, which Doctor Boase says is composed in great measure of red and greenish grey slate, enclosing two and three beds of compact quartzse rock. They are all similar to the formations in St. Anthony, and in the cliffs under Mount Edgcumbe and at Saltash; but whether they belong to the calcareous series or to a more recent one, associated with the fossiliferous limestone of Plymouth, remains to be ascertained.

MANACCAN.

HALS.

Manack-an, Manuc-an Rectory, is situate in the hundred of Kerryer, and hath upon the north St. Martin’s, east Haylford harbour, south St. Anthony, west Mawgan, and Cury. For the modern name it signifies Monk the, or the Monk, so called in memory perhaps of some religious monk or monks that had a convent or abbey in this place.

In the Domesday Book, 1087, this district is not named, neither can I tell under what jurisdiction it was then taxed, unless Lizart, or Leschell, which latter may be a corruption of Kestell; neither is the name Manackan Church of any great antiquity, for in the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, into the value of Cornish Benefices, 1294, Ecclesia de Minster, in decanatu de Kerryer, (which is now called Manackan) is rated £4, but in Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, it is called Manackan, and valued £4. 16_s._ 0½_d._ The patronage in the Bishop of Exon; the incumbent Archer; the rectory in possession of ―――― and the parish rated to the 4_s._ per pound Land Tax for the year 1696, £98. 13_s._

However to the 15th of the Clergy, 24 Henry 6, it was rated, then by the name of Minster Church, £1. 4_s._ 6_d._ afterwards abated by the name of Minster 6_s._ (Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, page 95.) And lastly Manacan, as aforesaid; by both which names it is evident that heretofore there was some abbey or religious house of monks in this place or parish, wherein God was served with a minister; viz. vocal or instrumental music in time of divine service, as that appellation in British implies. And of this place we further read, (Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, page 46,) the 12th Edward I. its revenues was rated for twelve Cornish acres of land, that is to say, seven hundred and twenty statute acres; in that book, page 44, that the Bishop of Exeter held by tenure of knight service, in Minster in Kerrier, half a knight’s fee of land, 3 Henry IV.; probably this Minster was some alien monastery or priory, subjected to some abbey beyond the seas, as many others were in this land, all dissolved by Act of Parliament, temp. Richard II. and Henry V. for transmitting the secrets of the State to their superior house aforesaid, in the French Wars; for which reason perhaps it is not mentioned in the Monasticon Anglicanum, 26 Henry VIII. when other religious houses were dissolved; neither for the like reasons are St. Neot’s, Lancells, or St. Benet’s in Lanyvet, which I take to be those three abbeys or priories mentioned by Dugdale and Speed to have been dissolved in Cornwall, the value of whose revenues they do not set down, but saith they were Black Monks of the Angells, for Black Monks of the Augustines.

Moreover, let it be remembered that Manack is also a glove in British, and Manackan signifies the glove.

Kes-tell, id est, a castle, probably the Reschell in the Domesday Book aforesaid, in this parish, so called from some British camp, intrenchment, or fortification, formerly upon the lands thereof, or contiguous therewith, on the sea-coast, gave name and original to an old family of gentlemen now in possession thereof, surnamed de Kestell; and in particular John Kestell, Esq. sometime Commissioner of the Peace and Taxes, that married Gregor of Tredenick; and giveth for his arms in a field Or three castles Gules. Since the writing hereof the male line of this tribe is quite extinct; and those lands, much incumbered with debt, fallen between the two daughters of the said Mr. Kestell, married to Penrose and Trevinard, as I am informed.

TONKIN.

The ancient name of this parish was Minster, which every one knows doth signify in Saxon a monastery, and from thence most commonly a church, and so it is called in the Taxatio Beneficiorum 20 Edward I.

THE EDITOR.

The ancient name of this parish, Minster, and the more recent one Manac-an, conspire to point it out as the locality of some religious establishment, since Manack is the Cornish word identical with Monk, and evidently from the same root, while an is the article, but although adjectives in all the Celtic dialects are placed after the substantive, yet the article regularly precedes it, and this inversion throws some doubt on the meaning of the compound word, more especially as not the slightest trace exists of any monastic institution within this parish in any authentic record, nor does tradition point out a spot where the foundation of a building can be perceived.

There is not any thing worth remarking about the church; it is pleasantly situated, and surrounded by a neat church town. The vicarage house is good; it was honoured by the residence, during some years, of our distinguished poet, historian, and divine, the Rev. Richard Polwhele, till he resigned it for Newlyn, a better living, most properly bestowed on him by Dr. Carey, then Bishop of Exeter.

The only other village of consequence in this parish is Helford, where is a passage across the river, of greater breadth than any other in Cornwall, and various branches of trade are conducted at this place.

Kestell was formerly the seat of a family giving or deriving their name from this place; their arms, Or, three castles Gules, may still be seen over the entrance to the house. The property now belongs to Lemon of Carclew.

Halvose was for many years the summer residence of Mr. Thomas Hawkins, of Helston; it belongs at present to the family of Grylls.

This parish measures 1371 statute acres. Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._ returned to Parliament in 1815 2711 0 0 Poor Rate in 1831 213 7 0 Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831, { 498 | 506 | 591 | 654 giving an increase of 31 per cent. in 30 years. The parish feast is kept on the nearest Sunday to the 14th of October. The Rev. Richard Polwhele was collated to the rectory of Manaccan by Bishop Buller in 1794.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The rocks of this parish are similar to those of the adjacent parish of St. Anthony, both being contained within the calcareous series. This little parish is however mineralogically celebrated for its streams containing a dark ferruginous sand, in which the metal titanium was discovered by the Rev. William Gregor, and, under the supposition of its being a new substance, received from him the name of Manaccanite.

MARHAMCHURCH.

HALS.

Marham Church rectory, called Marwyn Church, Marwon Church, in some old books and manuscripts, is situate in the hundred of Stratton, and hath upon the north Stratton parish, east Bridgerule and the Tamer river, south St. Mary Wick, west Poundstock. For the name, it signifies without doubt the house, home, habitation, or church-dwelling (for so the words Mar and Ham do signify in the British, Armorican, and Scottish tongues); and by the name of Mar-om-cerch it was taxed in the Domesday