Kea, Cornwall

Historical Description

Kea or St Kea, a parish in Cornwall. The parish lies 3 miles from Truro station on the G.W.R., is bounded on the E by the river Fal, on the N by Kenwyn, on the W by Gwennap, and contains parts of the chapelries of Baldhu, Chacewater, and Mithian. Post town, Truro. Acreage, — 747 of land and 174 of water and foreshore; population of the civil parish, 2103; of the ecclesiastical, 705. The manor belongs to Viscount Falmouth. Killiow is a chief residence. Carlyon was the birthplace of the knight Sir Tristram. There are some barrows. The manor or parish was known at Domesday as Landegey, and it is alleged to have taken the name of Kea from a saint who is fabled to have come from Ireland in a granite boat, but it may have taken the name from Kea the Virgin or from Pope Caius or St Kew. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Trnro; value, £160 with residence. Patron, the Bishop of Truro. The church contains paintings of Mrs Gwatkin of Killiow, niece of Reynolds, and also contains a copy of a letter from "King Charles I. written from his camp at Sudeley Castle, 10 September, 1643, thanking the people of Cornwall for their services to the Crown. A new church was erected in 1894-95. The tower of the old church still stands, and a chapelry church, erected in 1858, is beside it. There are Wesleyan and Bible Christian chapels, and almshouses with £44 a year, also one of the oldest Friends' meeting-houses in the country at Come-to-Good. In the district are several mines, but none of them have been worked for some years.

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 Kea from the following:

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

Maps

Online maps of Kea 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.