Illogan, Cornwall

Historical Description

Illogan or St Illogan, a village and a parish in Cornwall. The village stands 2½ miles NW by W of Redrnth station on the G.W.R., bears the name of Illogan Church Town, and has a post office of that name under Redruth; money order and telegraph office, Portreath. The parish contains' also the villages of Pool and Portreath, and part of that of Brea, includes parts of the chapelriesof Tuckingmill and Mount Hawke, and extends along the coast. Acreage, 8461 of land and 179 of water and foreshore; population of the civil parish, 9312; of the ecclesiastical, 7797. Carnbrea Hill, 740 feet high, noticed in our article CAMBOKNE, is all within the parish. A small castle at the E end of that hill occupies the site of a very ancient fortalice, supposed to have been built by the Britons; is itself an ancient structure; has been enlarged and altered, and is thought to have originated the name Illogan, the last two syllables of which signify, in Cornish, "the white tower" or "the tower on the downs." Remains of a circular fortification, called the Old Castle, are a little to the W, and a column to the memory of the late Lord Dunstanville is on the hill's summit. Druidical remains are numerous. Mines of tin are extensively worked, building stone is quarried, and the West Cornwall railway, with a branch to Portreath, facilitates the traffic. The Redruth Workhouse is here. The plague, in 1591, was so fatal in Illogan as to cut down tenfold the average of other places. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Truro; gross value, £600 with residence. The church is a modern edifice, with the tower of a previous church, and contains brasses and monuments of the Bassets. There are two chapels of the Established Church, eight chapels of Wesleyans and United Free Methodists, and one chapel of Bryanites. A library send. reading-room was opened in 1878. Tetiidy, the seat of the Basset family, is a chief residence. The Tincroft and Cam Brea mines employ about 1500 persons, Wheal Agar and East Pool about 1100. These mines, together with Wheal Basset, West Basset, and South Frances mines, are all situated in this parish.

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 Illogan from the following:

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

Maps

Online maps of Illogan 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.