Gwennap, Cornwall

Historical Description

Gwennap, a village and a parish in Cornwall. The village stands 3 miles ESE of Redruth town and station on the G.W.R., and has a post office under Redruth; money order and telegraph office, St Day. The parish is inhabited chiefly by persons connected with mines. Acreage, 6630; population of the civil parish, 6269; of the ecclesiastical, 1922. Trevince is a chief residence. The rocks abound in ores, principally copper ones, and the parish has been called " the great cupriferous parish of½ Cornwall." De la Beche says that in part of the Gwennap district ' the country can be considered as little else than a mass of huge fragments, cemented together by various mineral substances, the great dislocations having been produced at two different times at least, the last cutting off the continuity of numerous fissures previously filled in part by the ores of the useful metals- in this case chiefly by those of copper." Some of the mines are worked to a depth of more than 200 fathoms under the sea, and short lines of railway go from them to the ports of Portreath and Devran. An interesting feature is noticed in our article CAEN MAETH; a small ancient earthwork is on Trebowling Hill, and an ancient entrenchment, occupying about an acre, is on a hill opposite Carn Marth. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Trnro; net value, £349 with residence. Patrons, the Dean and Chapter of Truro. The church is ancient, was restored in 1882, has a separate tower, and contains monuments of the Williamses and the Beau-champs. The vicarages of St Day and Lannarth are separate benefices. There are Baptist, Wesleyan, and Plymouth Brethren chapels.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Gwennap from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Gwennap (St. Wenap))

Maps

Online maps of Gwennap 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.