St Agnes, Cornwall
Historical Description
Agnes, St, formerly called Breanick, a town and a parish in Cornwall. The town is a seaport, on a small bay of Bristol Channel, 4 miles N of Chacewater station on the G.W.R., and 9 NW by W of Truro. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Scorrier (R.S.O.) It is the centre of a rich mining district. A weekly market is held on Thursday, and an annual fair on 1 May. The harbour is small, and can be entered only near high water, and by vessels of not more than 100 tons burden. Most of the inhabitants are connected with neighbouring mines. The parish comprises 8437 acres of land and 112 of water; population of the civil parish, 4249; of the ecclesiastical, 2495. Granite is the prevailing rock, and copper, tin, and iron are worked. The scenery of coast and surface is picturesque. St Agnes Beacon, 621 feet high, immediately NW of the town, shows remarkable deposits of sand and clays at heights of from 300 to 400 feet, and was a beacon station during the French war, and a chief station of the Trigonometrical Survey. Harmony Cot, 2 miles from the town, on the road to Perran Porth, was the birthplace of the painter Opie. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Truro; value, £308. The church was built in 1482, has been restored, and shows interesting features. Chapels for Congregationalists, Wesleyans, and Primitive Methodists are in the parish. There are an Oddfellows' Hall and a Mechanics' Institute. Ruins of ancient chapels are at Mawla and St Agnes' Well.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Cornwall | |
Ecclesiastical parish | Agnes St. | |
Hundred | Pyder | |
Poor Law union | Truro |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for St Agnes from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Agnes (St.))
Maps
Online maps of St Agnes are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Cornwall papers online:
- Royal Cornwall Gazette
- Cornishman
- West Briton and Cornwall Advertiser
- Lake's Falmouth Packet and Cornwall Advertiser
Visitations Heraldic
We have a copy of The Visitations of Cornwall, by Lieut.-Col. J.L. Vivian online.