St Mabyn

St Mabyn
Aerial view of St Mabyn
St Mabyn  St Mabyn shown within Cornwall
Population	560 (2001)
OS grid reference	SX041732
Civil parish	St Mabyn
Unitary authority	Cornwall
Ceremonial county	Cornwall
Region	South West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	BODMIN
Postcode district	PL30
Dialling code	01208
Police	Devon and Cornwall
Fire	Cornwall
Ambulance	South Western
EU Parliament	South West England
UK Parliament	North Cornwall
List of places UK England Cornwall

View of St Mabyn with fields of flowering rape in foreground.

St Mabyn (Cornish: Sen Mabon) is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village is situated three miles (5 km) east of Wadebridge.^[1] The parish includes a hamlet called Longstone to the east and many small manor houses, including Tregarden, Tredethy, Helligan Barton and Colquite, all built in the 16th and 17th centuries. The area of the parish is 4,101 acres (16.60 km²).

Etymology

The parish is named after Saint Mabyn or Mabena, traditionally said to have been one of the 24 children of Brychan, a Welsh saint and King of Brycheiniog in the 5th century.^[2]Sabine Baring-Gould however suggests that the true founder of St Mabyn's Church was actually the male Welsh saint Mabon, and the attribution to a female Mabyn came about after the true history had been lost.^[3] Davies Gilbert asserts that the name derives from the Cornish compound word Mab-in.^[4]

Demography

The population in 2001 was 560 persons, exactly the same as in 1811, having declined from 595 in 1991.^[5] Population in 2011 was 646.^[6]

In 2013 the proportion of dwellings that were second homes or holiday accommodation was 10.1%^[7]

Geography

The village is centred on the Grade I listed^[8] 15th century St Mabyn Parish Church. Village amenities include a well stocked independent village store housing an ATM cashpoint and post office, a public house, a village hall, a primary school, St Mabyn Church of England Primary School, a pre-school, a scout group, a garden club, and a Young Farmers' group. There is a King George's Field in memorial to King George V and a village green.

The village is surrounded by high quality, undulating farmland. The Allen valley to the north west contains a number of Cornish Nature Conservation Sites. Land to the south-east is designated as an open area of local significance. Four trees in the village are subject to preservation orders.^[9] The village has no connection to main sewerage and relies on septic tank drainage.

There was post-war development of local authority housing along Chapel Lane and Wadebridge Road. In the 1980s private housing schemes at Mabena Close and Meadow Court were completed and there was further ribbon development growth along Station Road. A residential development Greenwix Parc, comprising thirty five dwellings including 12 affordable units was completed by Midas Homes in 2011.

Economy

The major economic activity in the parish is agriculture and the parish has several large farms. Most agriculture centres around dairying, with arable crops such as potato and rape and some raising of sheep.

James Mutton of Burlerrow Farm was the first farmer in Cornwall to receive a grant from the England Rural Development Programme this enabled him to process Miscanthus giganteus which is grown in and around the village, the crop is converted into livestock bedding.^[10]

Tom Bray produces traditional farmhouse cider at Haywood Farm, where he has propagated 5,000 apple trees.^[11]

Parish Church

The church comprises a chancel and nave with north and south aisles. The arcades each comprise seven four-centred arches of granite, supported on monolith granite pillars with sculptured capitals of St Stephens porcelain stone. There is a south porch, a north door, and priest's door. The tower is 75 feet (23 m) high and has three stages. It has a parapet with pinnacles. The earliest recorded Priest-in-charge was Roger de Warlegan in 1267.^[12] Canon David John Elkington is the current Reverend^[13]

History

The earliest signs of habitation are at the Iron Age hill fort of Kelly Rounds or Castle Killibury. Radiocarbon dating gives a date of occupation between 400 and 100 BC.^[14]

The parish was part of the ancient hundred of Triggshire. In the Domesday book of 1087 this district was taxed under the jurisdiction of Treu-es-coit (translated as "town of the wood", now called Trevisquite). Trethevey in St Mabyn parish was a manor recorded in the Domesday Book as Tewardevi. Both manors were held by Richard from Robert, Count of Mortain. Trevisquite had land for 12 ploughs, 25 households, a mill, 20 acres of woodland and 50 of pasture; its value was 25 shillings a year. Trethevey had land only for one plough, 3 households and 30 acres of pasture; its value was only 2 shillings though it had formerly been 5 shillings.^[15] The St Mabyn Trethevey has the meaning "manorial centre on the river Dewey" (Ty war Duwy) unlike other Cornish places called Trethev(e)y.^[16]

The inquisition of the bishops of Lincoln and Winchester in 1294 gave the Cornish benefice "Ecclesia de Maben in decanatu de Trig Minorshire" a rateable value of £8. In Cardinal Thomas Wolsey's inquisition of 1521 it is rated at £36.^[17]

Sir Richard Serjeaux of Colquite in St Mabyn became High Sheriff of Cornwall in 1389.^[18] Below Colquite House is the ruin of a manor house possibly of the late 15th century which may have been a first-floor hall house.^[19][20]

Modern period

A United Methodist Free Church chapel was built with funding from Richard Hambly Andrew of Tredinnick in 1820 during the incumbency of Leveson-Gower^[21] but is now a private house.

St Mabyn's standing stone was broken up for gateposts in 1850 and the stump re-located to the crossroads at Longstone.^[22]

The main land owners in 1875, apart from the church, were The Viscount Falmouth, the Trustees of William Molesworth, John Tremayne from Heligan, the heirs of the late John Peter-Hoblyn, Francis John Hext and Mrs. Hooper and Richard Hambly Andrew.^[21] There was an annual fair held on 14 February.^[23]

In 2012 a parish councillor became the first in Cornwall to be disqualified from holding public office,and was banned for two years for bullying and showing disrespect to members.^[24][25]

Notable residents

• Samuel Penhallow an early American colonist emigrated in 1686 and settled in Portsmouth, New Hampshire USA^[26][27]
• Samuel Lawry Methodist minister and administrator.^[28]
• Nicholas Kendall a Member of Parliament and High Sheriff of Cornwall in 1847.^[29]
• Jill Murphy children's author.^[30]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to St Mabyn.

• 'st%20mabyn') "Online Catalogue for St Mabyn". Cornwall Record Office. 

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