# The Parochial History of Cornwall/Volume 1/Crantock

CRANTOCK.
HALS.
Is situate in the hundred of Pedyr, and hath upon the north the Irish sea; on the west, St. Cuthbert; south, Newland; east, St. Columb Minor. As for this compound name, it is plain British; Cran-tock, Cran-dock, id est, a place that heretofore bore or carried beech trees. But others will have the name to be derived from its pretended titular guardian, one St. ​tochus, a British disciple of St. Colomb's, of whom I must plead non sum informatus; otherwise than that Carantodhius in old British, Scots, and Irish, is love, affection, tenderness. Cran-teck is fair beech trees.
More sure I am that this district, at the time of the Domesday Roll, was taxed under the name of Ryalton or Cargoll; and in the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, 1294, into the value of church livings in Cornwall, Ecclesia Sancti Carentini in Decanatu de Pidre is thus rated, the vicar 40s. and the nine prebends, then extant in this collegiate church, were thus taxed, viz. John de Woolrington, 53s. 4d.; John de Cattelyn, 30s.; Nicholas Strange, 30s.; John de Ingham, 40s.; Ralph de Trethinick, 53s. 4d.; David de Monton, 40s.; William de Patefond, 40s.; John Lovell, 30s.; John de Glasney, 6s. 8d.; in all 19l. 3s. 4d. From whence I gather this collegiate church had great revenues then belonging to it, since it is higher rated to the Pope's annats than any other church then in Cornwall. However, before Richard II.'s time it was wholly impropriated or appropriated to its founder and endower, the Prior of St. Pedyr at Bodmin; the vicar subsisting only by a small salary of 61. and oblations and obventions; for which reason it is not mentioned in Wolsey's inquisition, or Valor Beneficiorum.
Which collegiate church being dissolved by the statute 26 Henry VIII. and the revenues vested in the crown, the impropriator Mr. Buller is patron and rector of the vicarage church now extant; the incumbent Warne, who comparatively subsists upon his bounty; and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, 73l. 16s.
By reason of the great quantities of sea-sand blown up from the Gannell creek by the wind (tempore Edward VI. as Holinshed saith), the place where the college stood is now scarce discernible; only a conse​crated arched well of water bears the name of St. Ambrose's Well, contiguous therewith.
Speed and Dugdale, in their Monasticon Anglicanum, tell us that at its dissolution, 26 Henry VIII. it consisted only of four prebends, whose revenues were valued only at 89l. 15s. from whence it appears five prebendary's rents were dismembered from it before that time; and since its suppression the lands of those four prebends have passed from the crown, to Louis, from Louis to Goldingham, from Goldingham to Lutterell, now in possession thereof.
The vicarage church of Crantock is commonly called lan-guna, or lan-gona, that is to say the hay temple or church; and is, suitable to its name, situate in a large hay meadow of very rich land, containing about three acres, where, by ancient custom the vicar's cattle depasture over the dead bodies interred therein.
Tre-ganell, or Tre-gonell, in this parish, that is to say, the canal or channels-town, situate upon a creek of the north sea, gave name and original to an old family of gentlemen surnamed Tregonell or Treganell, whose three daughters and heirs, tempore James I. were married to Bauden, Pallamonter, and Penpoll, who gave for their arms, in a field Argent, three Ogresses between two cottices in fess Sable, as many Cornish daws Proper.
John Tregonell, or Treganell, of his posterity (now transnominated to Tregonwell), was a younger brother of this house, tempore Henry VII. who had his first education in this college of Crantock at a cheap rate, (as any may be had at Aberdeen or Glasgow in Scotland,) from whence he went to Oxford, and proceeded so far in book-erudition as to take his degree of Doctor of the Civil and Canon Law, and acquired such perfection and fame therein, that he was chosen proctor for Henry VIII. in that costly divorce betwixt him and Queen Catherine of Spain; by whom he was also ​knighted, and for his labour and pains therein had a pension of 401. per annum settled upon him during his life; and afterwards, upon the resignation of that annuity, and the payment of a thousand pounds, he had by that king settled upon him and his heirs the site and demesne of Midleton, a mitred abbey in Dorset, of great value, which his posterity enjoy to this day, himself being buried in Midleton church 1540. He had issue John, afterwards knighted, sheriff of Dorset, 1 Philip and Mary; who married———, and had issue John Tregonell, Esq. sheriff of Dorset 2 James I., who also married———, and had issue John Tregonell, Esq. sheriff of that county 15 James I., when Francis Vyvyan, Esq. was sheriff of Cornwall.
Tre-ago, also Tre-agho, synonymous words, in this parish, that is to say, the fishing spear or barbed iron for stabbing fish, used it seems heretofore in the gannell or channell haven contiguous therewith, by the owners of this little barton and manor, and from thence denominated; tri-ago is in Latin-Cornish a threefold action, or acting or making; tre-ago, the town of action. From this place was also denominated its lord, of an ancient family of gentlemen surnamed De Tre-ago, who at his own proper cost and charge built the south aile in the now vicarage church of Crantock, and appropriated the same to his family or heirs and assigns for ever, by charging those lands with the repair and maintenance thereof (for ever) as at this day they do, without being chargeable to the parish of Crantock. The sole daughter and heir of those Treagos, as I am informed, was married to Mynors, tempore Edward IV. who made it the seat of his family; as afterwards, tempore Elizabeth, the issue male of Mynors failing, his only daughter and heir was married to Tregian, and Tregian's posterity, by ill conduct, wasted this barton and manor of Treago, and sold the same for the payment of bills of cost to John Cooke, Gent, attorney-at-law, tempore James I.; and ​in like manner Thomas Cooke, Esq. within fifty years after the death of his father or grandfather, sold this place and most of his other lands to Hugh Boscawen of Tregothnan, Esq. now in possession thereof, viz. temp. Charles II.
This place was heretofore privileged with the jurisdiction of a court leet, and a strong prison for keeping prisoners for debt in durance, though now I take it to be destitute of both. The arms of Mynors were, Sable, an eagle displayed Or, on a chief Azure, bordered Argent, a chevron between two crescents above and a rose beneath Or. This last bearing on the chief, and marshalled within the escutcheon was, as tradition saith, the coat armour of Treago; and such sort of marshalling divers coats Nicholas Upton doth approve of, especially where a man hath large possessions by his mother, and but a small patrimony from his father; as perhaps the case was thus with Mynors.
In this parish is the port, haven, or creek, called the gonell or ganell, that is to say the canal or channel of the Tremporth river, leading into the sea, wherein much fish and fowl is caught; and many times ships frequent this place for trade and safety, the sea here winding up itself between the lands about a mile in the country. It also, at full sea, affordeth entrance and anchorage for ships of the greatest burthen, if conducted by a pilot that understands the course of the ganell or channel; at the head of which, as a ligament fastening the parishes of Lower St. Colomb and Crantock together, is a county bridge, called Trem-porth; that is to say, the tying, fastening, terrifying, or making afraid gate, cove, or entrance, so aptly named perhaps from the rapid confluence of this channel or river in winter season, before the bridge was built, where it meets the salt waters, and the softness of the clay and sea-moore marsh there on which the bridge is situate.
I find William Smith, Esq. of Crantock in Cornwall, ​(which I take to be of this place,) was created a baronet by Charles I., 27 December 1642, patent 418. I suppose the son of that Smith of Exon, that married one of the coheirs of Vyell of Trevorder. He had issue Sir James Smith, Baronet, (but where they lived in this parish I know not,) whose arms were, Sable, a fess and two barrulets, between three martlets, Or.
The manors of Cargoll and Ryalton being given by our earls of Cornwall before the Norman Conquest to the Bishop of Bodmin or Cornwall, or the prior thereof; some of them were founders and endowers of this college of Crantock out of the lands and revenues thereof.
TONKIN.
I take the tutelar saint of this parish to be St. Kerantakers, a disciple of St. Columb in the Hebrides; and the parish no doubt had its name from him.
This parish is wholly impropriated to John Butler, Esq. of Morval, who allows out of it a small stipend to the incumbent (at present Mr. Warn), by which, together with the parishioners' benevolence, he makes a hard shift to live.
The collegiate church here was, as tradition saith, endowed by the prior of Bodmin; but by which prior is unknown to me.
THE EDITOR.
Bishop Tanner, in his Notitia Monastica, says,
Karentoc or Crantoc, near Padstow, in the deanery of Pider. Here were secular canons in the time of St. Edward the Confessor, who continued till the general dissolution, when its yearly revenues were valued at 89l. 15s. 8d. which were divided amongst the dean, nine prebendaries, and four vicars choral. The collegiate church was dedicated to St. Carantocus, said to be a disciple of St. Patrick, and was in the patronage of the Bishop of Exeter.
​Doctor Tanner quotes the following extract from Prynne, vol. ii. p. 736, (probably from his Records:) Many grants of the deanery and prebends here by the king appear upon the rolls, but seem to be made during the vacancy of the see of Exeter.
Anno Dom. 1315, Feb. 22, Walterus episcopus Exon. contulit Joanni de Sandale, cancellario regis, Prǣbendam in ecclesia St. Karentoci. See Wharton's Historia de Episcopis et Decanis Londinensibus, necnon de Episcopis et Decanis Assavensibus a prima sedis utriusque fundatione, ad annum MDXL.
This parish measures 2490 statute acres.
| The annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 | £. 3244 | s. 0 | d. 0 |
| Poor Rate in 1831 | 265 | 3 | 0 |
| Population, $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | in 1801, 299 | in 1811, 358 | in 1821, 389 | in 1831, 458; |
giving an increase of 53 per cent in 30 years.
Parish Feast, the nearest Sunday to the 16th of May.
Vicar, the Rev. C. H. Paynter, instituted 1809.
GEOLOGY, BY DOCTOR BOASE.
This parish is composed of the same kind of rock, and is in every respect similar to St. Columb Minor, which occupies the opposite or northern side of the gannel.