Madron

Near the west end of the north aisle is a large tablet inscribed as follows,—

Grants and Purchases for the benefit of the Poor of Madron.

1677. An Almshouse at Chyandour 73 feet 9 inches in front and extending to the Sea, sold in 1752 for 500 years, the annual reserved Rent is seven Shillings; given by Roger John, Esq. in Trust.

1710. A Free school in Madron Churchtown, with certain Lands bequeathed by George Daniel, Esq. in Trust for supporting a Schoolmaster, to instruct Poor Children from Madron, Penzance, aud Morvah.

1793. Five Pounds annually, given by Richard Oxnam, Esq. of Penzance, out of Rosehill estate to Poor Persons belonging to this parish.

1803. A Poor-house and appurtenances situate in Madron Church-town, purchased of Richard Bosence by the Parishioners.

1833. Eighty Pounds given by Thomas Hosking, gentleman, of Penzance to John Batten, Esq., Mr. James Glasson, Capt. Giddy, R.N., and the Churchwarden and Overseers for the time being, in Trust for the purpose of giving a Dinner (the expense of which shall not exceed four Pounds) annually to the Inmates of the Poor-house in this parish, on the tenth of February, it being the birth-day of the said Mr. Thomas Hosking.

On the slate tablet of a granite tomb in the churchyard is this inscription:—

Here lieth the body of Alexander Daniel, gent., who departed ys life in the year of our Lord 1668.

Belgia me Birth, Britain me Breeding gave,
Cornwall a Wife, ten Children, and a grave.

A grateful posterity unites in laudable remembrance of George Daniel, gent, the son of the above-mentioned Alexander.

The adjoining free-school and its liberal endowment witness his charity and reward. He was buried near this tomb May 4th, 1716.

Repaired.	Uriah Tonkin	Trustees, 1780.	Repaired.	Wm. Tremenheere, vicar	Trustees 1813.
	George Treweeke			John Borlase, M.D.
	Saml. Borlase			Thos. Pascoe
	Thomas Robyns			Richd. Hichens
	Willm. Borlase, vicar			Richd. Oxnam
				John Batten
M. Nowell Peters, vicar; Samuel Borlase, Day Perry Le Grice, John Batten, Edward Bolitho, E. H. Rodd.					Trustees, 1858.

On a tomb of Polyphant stone,—

Domine dilexi decorem domus tuæ, et locum habitationis gloria tuæ. Jesu Mercy.

Here lyeth the body of Edmd. Sedding, Arch. and Musicn., who fell asleep on ye F. of Corp. Christi, A.D. 1868; Age.32. On his soul + Jesu have mercy.

On the north side of the church stands the mausoleum of the Price family, formerly of Trengwainton; it is a tall square building of granite ashlar, the entrance being walled up with solid masonry, probably never to be re-opened.

At the west end of the church near the tower stands an ancient granite cross in its original basement. The eastern disc bears a rude representation of the crucifixion. The height of the cross is 3 feet 3 inches

A piece of alabaster is still preserved in the church, on which are well-sculptured representations of angels armed with spears and shields. The figures are gilded, excepting the inner surface of the wings which are alternately red and blue in pairs. The fragment, which probably belonged to some monument, is about ten inches in height.

The following is from the Monasticon of Dugdale;—“Trebigh Præceptoria. Henricus de Pomeria dedit Hospitallariis Ecclesiam S. Maderni, cum pertinentiis, in com. Cornubiæ, pertinentam eidem præceptoriæ.” The Knights of S. John are said to have had an establishment almost adjoining the churchyard on Landithy; the ancient building has recently been removed, and a farm house erected on its site.

The property given by George Daniel for the endowment of the Charity school in this place comprises a school-room with a residence and a garden for the master, other dwelling houses, and several orchards and gardens, measuring altogether 9A. 3R. 28P., and producing a rental of £106 18s. 0d.

About three quarters of a mile in a straight line in a north-easterly direction from the church is the famous Madron Well or Baptistry. The walls are in good preservation, and measure externally 25 feet by 16, and a little more than two feet in thickness. The entrance is through a splayed doorway two feet wide without. In the south-west corner is a sort of well, with an inlet and outlet for the water. Fragments of stone benches are still against the wall; and a raised row of stones separates the chancel from the nave. The altar, which is five feet ten inches by two feet seven inches, is raised two feet ten inches above the floor; in its centre is a shallow mortice. The structure was enclosed by other walls, fragments of which may still be seen. This was one of the most celebrated holy-wells of the county; and remarkable cures are said to have been effected by its waters; among others is one attested by Dr. Joseph Hall, bishop of Exeter. In the last visitation of this diocese, before he was translated to Norwich in 1641, he made a strict inquiry into all the circumstances of the case, and declared the evidence of the miracle to be incontestable. In his treatise On the Invisible World he speaks thus of the cure attained at this well:—“Of this kind was that cure which at S. Madern’s, was wrought upon a poor cripple, John Trelille, whereof, besides the attestation of many hundreds of neighbours, I took a strict and personal examination in that last visitation which I either did or ever shall hold. This man that for sixteen years together was fain to walk upon his hands, by reason of the close contraction of the sinews of his legs, upon three admonitions in a dream to wash in that well, was suddenly restored of his limbs, that I saw him able to walk and get his own maintenance.”

Another account is more particular:—“A certain boy of twelve years of age, called John Trelille, as they were playing at foot-ball, snatching up the ball ran away with it; whereupon a girl in anger struck him with a thick stick on the back bone, and so bruised or broke it, that for sixteen years after he was forced to go creeping on the ground. In this condition he arrived to the twenty-eighth year of his age, when he dreamed that if he did but bathe in S. Madern’s well, or in the stream running from it, he should recover his former strength and health. On Thursday in May, assisted by one Periman his neighbour, entertaining great hopes from his dream, thither he crept, and laying before the altar, and praying very fervently that he might regain his health and the strength of his limbs, he washed his whole body in the stream that flowed from the well and ran through the chapel. After which having slept about one hour and half in S. Madern’s bed, a grassy hillock near by so called, through the extremity of pain he felt in his nerves and arteries, he began to cry out, and his companions helping and lifting him up, he perceived his limbs and joints somewhat expanded, and himself become stronger, that partly with his feet and partly with his hands, he went more erect than before. Before the following Thursday he got two crutches, resting on which he would make a shift to walk, which before he could not do; and coming to the chapel as before, after having bathed himself he slept on the same bed, and awaking found himself much stronger and more upright; and so leaving one crutch in the chapel he went home with the other. The third Thursday he returned to the chapel and bathed as before, slept, and when he awoke, rose up quite cured; yea grew so strong that he wrought day-labour among other hired servants; and four years after listed himself a soldier in the King’s army, where he behaved himself with great stoutness both of mind and body; at length in 1644 he was slain at Lyme in Dorsetshire.”

The manor of Alverton, Alvarton, or Alwarton, the Alwaretone and Alwartona of the Domesday books, was held by Alward in the Confessor’s days, and from him is supposed to have derived its name. This manor comprises a great portion of the parish, Penzance, and part of Paul including Mousehole. Soon after the Conquest it was vested in the Pomeroys; and temp. Edward I. it belonged to the barons Tyes, from whom it passed in marriage with Alice, sister and heiress of Henry Lord Tyes, who was executed for being concerned in the Earl of Lancashire’s rebellion in 1340, to Warine de Lisle; whose heiress carried it in marriage to Thomas Lord Berkeley. The manor afterwards reverted to the crown, by whom it was granted to Whitmore and others and has been divided and subdivided. The portion still claiming the nominal distinction of the manor of Alverton, Penzance and Mousehole, was purchased of the Keigwins by the late George Veale Esq., of Trevaylor, and afterwards divided between his three daughters,—one married to Mr. Hichens of Poltair; another to Captain Baines R. N. and the third to Mr. Jenkin, an officer in the army. It was afterwards purchased by James Halse, Esq., of S. Ives, from whom it passed to the Tonkin family.

One of the oldest seats in the parish is Trereife, the town of the reeve,, the property and residence of Day Perry Le Grice, Esq. The estate belonged to the family of Nicholls from time immemorial; who also held the great tithes of the parish, which they inherited from the Flemings of Landithy, to whom they had been granted in the reign of Henry VIII. Of this family the most distinguished person vas F. Nichols M.D., physician to George II. who opened the body of that king for the purpose of ascertaining the cause of his death. Dr. Nicholls was born in 1699, became a member of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1714, and took his M.D. degree in 1729, and was chosen a fellow of the College of Physicians the next year, having been previously elected a F.R.S. Several of his communications were printed in the Philosophical Transactions, and he published De Anima Medica, and other works; and his reputation as an anatomist stood very high. He died in January in 1778.

The Doctors elder brother married in London but finally settled in Trereife, with one son and two daughters. The two daughters married, but left no issue. The son, William Nicholls married Miss Ustick, of Penzance, and died leaving one son, William-John-Godolphin Nicholls, Esq., who died a bachelor, in 1815, and bequeathed his estates to his mother, who had re-married in 1798 with the Rev. Charles Valentine Le Grice, who was the eldest son of the Rev. Charles Le Grice, Lecturer of S. James’s Church, Bury S. Edmonds, and rector of Thwaite, in the county of Suffolk.

The family of Le Grice is of great antiquity in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk having settled at Brockclist, near Yarmouth, as far back as 1420. One branch removed to Bury S. Edmonds in the latter part of the fifteenth century, and in the archives of that town it is recorded that the corporation bought the ground on which to build a town hall, of William Le Grice, in 1521.

The Le Grice family are recorded in the Harleian MSS. as bearing arms at the Heralds’ Visitation of Norfolk in 1563; and in the churches of Billingford, Brockclist, and Drayton, are brasses and tombs which commemorate members of this family from 1509 to 1600. In one or two cases the name is spelt Le Grys, but they all bear the same arms, namely, Quarterly, azure and or, on a bend argent three boars passant sable.

Trereife House, the commodious residence of Day Perry Le Grice, Esq., is pleasantly situated in a vale, and nearly surrounded with tall elms, in which there is an ancient rookery. The house, which was built in the seventeenth Century, has a yew tree trained over its front; the luxuriant shrubberies, walks, and woodland scenery of the adjacent grounds are very interesting. At a short distance from the mansion is an ancient granite wayside cross, called Trereife cross.

Trengwainton, (Tre-ngventon) the dwelling near the spring or rivulet, was inhabited for a considerable period by the ancient and respectable family of Cowling. Thomas Cowling, gent., sold this place in 1668 to Francis Arundell, Esq., whose family inherited it for many generations. The last Arundell of Menadarva almost rebuilt the mansion, and made it his place of residence. Soon after his decease Trengwainton was sold to Mr. Praed of Trevethow, and the house was chiefly occupied by a farmer. The mansion and estate was afterwards obtained of Mr. Praed, as a matter of accommodation, by Sir Rose Price Bart., who had a desire to establish himself in the neighbourhood.

It appeared that a gentleman named Price accompanied admirals Venables and Penn in their expedition against Jamaica in 1655, and obtained an extensive grant of land, which his descendants lived on and improved. Early in the last century one of the sons was sent to England partly on account of his health, and partly for his education, and was recommended to Penzance. At that time Mr. Henry Badcock of the parish of Whitstone, held the office of collector at Penzance, where he had married Parthesia daughter of John Keigwin, Esq., of Mousehole. Young Mr. Price was received into their house by Mr. and Mrs. Badcock, who had several daughters. In 1736 Mr. Price married Margery one of their daughters; but having returned to Jamaica he died there three years afterwards, leaving her with an only son, also called John Price.

This gentleman, after finishing his education at Trinity College, Oxford, also went to Jamaica, where he married Elizabeth-Williams Bramer, daughter of John Bramer, M.D. Their only surviving child, Rose, succeeded his father in January 1797. In 1798 Mr. Rose Price married Miss Lambart, an Irish Lady; and in 1814 served the office of sheriff, as his father John Price, Esq., had done in 1774. During his shrievalty he was created a baronet in consequence of a promise from George IV., then regent. Lady Price died in her 45th year, leaving a large family; and Sir Rose died September 29, 1834; in his 66th year. He was succeeded in the baronetcy by his second son, Sir Charles-Dutton Price, Bart., who was born December 7, 1800; he left England in 1830, and has not been heard of for more than twenty years. His nephew, Rose-Lambart, born in 1837, is his heir.

In November, 1866, Trengwainton, which had been previously mortgaged to Henry-Lewis Stephens, Esq., of the Tregenna Castle family, was sold to Thomas-Bedford Bolitho, Esq., of Trewidden, the present proprietor, for £33,000. The mansion and estate, comprising, 852 acres, were valued at £1,300 per annum.

Arms of Price,—Sable, a chevron erminois between three spear heads argent, embrued at the points proper.

e, a chearon

Crest,—A dragon’s head erased gules, holding in the mouth a sinister hand erect, couped at the wrist, dropping blood, all proper.