Kelly’s Directory of Cornwall 1893

PENDEEN is an ecclesiastical parish, formed Jan. 9th, 1846, from the parish of St. Just-in-Penwith, on the extreme west coast, 3 miles north from St. Just and 7 north-west of Penzance, in the Western division of the county, hundred of Penwith, petty sessional division of Penwith West, Penzance union and county court district, rural deanery of Penwith, archdeaconry of Cornwall and diocese of Truro. The church of St. John the Baptist, erected in 1852 from the designs and under the superintendence of the Rev. Robert Aitken, at a cost of about £2,000, the greater part of the work being voluntarily executed by the villagers, is a cruciform building of granite in the Early English style, modelled on the plan of the ancient cathedral of Iona, and consists of chancel, nave, transepts, south porch and an embattled western tower containing one bell: there are 20 windows in the church, all of which are stained: on the north side of the chancel is a handsome marble tablet to the children and grandchildren of the late Rev. Robert Aitken, a former vicar: In 1889 the tower was heightened four feet to receive a clock with four dials and a bell, at a cost of £230: a memorial brass has been placed in the floor of the chancel within the communion rails to the Rev.Robert Aitken: the church contains 500 sittings. The register dates from the year 1849. The living is a vicarage, gross yearly value, chiefly derived from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, £300, in the gift of the Rev. W. Hay M. H. Aitken M.A. and other trustees, and held since 1886 by the Rev. Henry Boyden B.A. of Trinity College, Dublin. Here is a Wesleyan chapel, built in 1830, and seating 500 persons; and Bible Christian and Free Methodist chapels. The Laraut [Levant?] tin and copper mines are situated in this parish. The Rev. William Borlase D.C.L., F.R.S. author of the “Natural History and Antiquities of Cornwall,” was born at the old manor house of Pendeen, February 2nd, 1695; he was vicar of Ludgvan from 1732 and died there 31st August, 1772. The principal landowners are Viscount Falmouth, the Misses Borlase of Castle Horneck, Penzance, Mrs. Scobell and Thomas Robyns esq. The population in 1891 was 2,281.

Parish Clerk, James Hosking.

Post & M.O.O., [Money Order Office] S.B. [Savings Bank] & Annuity & Insurance Office.—Edward White, sub-postmaster. Letters through St. Just R.S.O. [Railway Sub Office] arrive at 10.25 a.m. & 6.20 p.m.; dispatched 7.30 a.m. & 2.15 p.m. St. Just is the nearest telegraph office. There is no sunday post

Post Office, Bojewyan.—Richard White, sub-postmaster. Letters through St. Just R.S.O. arrive at 11 a.m. & 6.45 p.m.; dispatched 7.30 a.m. & 2.20 p.m. The nearest money order & telegraph office is at St. Just. Postal orders are issued here, but not paid

Wall Letter Box, Trewellard, cleared at 7.35 a.m. & 2.25 p.m

Coast Guard & Rocket Station:—There are six men & one officer

Schools:—

Board, Carnyorth (mixed), under the St. Just School Board, built in 1893, at a cost of £2,075, for 200 children; Richd. Nicholas, master

Board (mixed & infants), built in 1852 & taken over by St. Just School Board in 1875; it will hold 300 children; average attendance, 87 boys, 88 girls & 120 infants; Thomas Tregurtha Williams, master; Miss Diana Cotton, girls’ mistress; Miss Elizabeth Gasson [Glasson?], infants’ mistress

Omnibuses to Penzance.—Richard Warren & James Henry Williams, daily at 10 a.m.; returning from Penzance at 6 p.m