Kelly’s Directory of Cornwall 1883

ZENNOR is a parish situated on the north coast of the county, 7 miles north-north-west from Penzance and 4 west from St. Ives railway station, in the Western division of the county, hundred of Penwith, Penzance union and county court district, Penwith rural deanery, Cornwall archdeaconry and Truro diocese. The church of St. Sennar was probably erected in the twelfth century, and enlarged during the fifteenth century, when the tower was added: it consists of chancel, nave of six bays, aisles separated from the nave by a arcades of six Perpendicular arches, small transept and an embattled western tower containing 3 bells, of which the treble is plain; the remaining two bear invocations to St. John and the Blessed Virgin: the interior is much in need of repair. The register dates from the year 1592–3. The living is a vicarage, yearly value from tithe rent-charge £201, gross income £200, with residence and 5 acres of glebe, in the gift of the Bishop of Truro, and held since 1851 by the Rev. William Borlase M.A. of ST. Peter’s College, Cambridge. There are remains of ancient chapels on the barton of Kerrow, and on the isthmus connecting the Gurnard’s Head with the mainland. There are three chapels for Wesleyans at Trendrine, Porthmere and Church town, and one for Bible Christians at Tregerthen. In the vicarage garden is the circular head of an ancient cross, with a rude carving of the crucifixion; and there is also in the parish a cromlech, formed by seven huge stones leaning towards each other, and enclosing a space about 6 feet long by 4 wide; the capstone, now resting on the ground, is 18 feet long, 11 broad and 48 in circumference; there is another cromlech of smaller dimensions, about a quarter of a mile north-west of the Bosphrennis, at which place are the remains of several rudely built chambers or cells, called “beehive huts;” in the neighbourhood is the Senor or Zennor Cirque, a ruined circle of stones, 75 feet in diameter: five furlongs south of the church is a barrow 100 feet round. The Gurnard’s Head or Treryn Dinas, is a bold rocky headland, standing out into the sea northwards for about three furlongs, with a breadth of one furlong. The Eagle’s Nest is in this parish, and in a field near the church and between it and the sea is a Logan stone, called “the Giant’s Rock,” weighing 35 tons which can be easily moved; there is another Logan rock, called “the Cradle:” on Tregarthen Hill and near the boundary between this parish and Morvah, stands Carn Galva, “the two-headed cairn,” 623 feet above the sea level, on the top of which is a third logan. The Earl of Sandwich, Caroline Duchess of Cleveland, Walter John Grove esq. J.P. of Ferne House, Salisbury, are the chief landowners. The soil is killas; the subsoil is killas and granite. Large quantities of stone are taken from hence to Penzance for shipment. The chief crops are barley, oats, wheat and pasture. The acreage is 4,229; rateable value, £3,191, but three-fourths of the land is waste; and the population in 1881 was 601.

Parish Clerk, Charles Osborne.

Letters through St. Ives R.S.O. which is the nearest money order & telegraph office

Schools:—

National (mixed), for 104 children; average attendance, 80; supported by voluntary contributions & school fees; James T. Chapple, master; Miss Elizabeth Berriman, mistress

Infants, Porthmere, for 50 children; average attendance, 36; Miss Nanny White, mistress