Hugh Town, Cornwall
Historical Description
Hugh Town, the capital of the Scilly Isles, on a sandy isthmus of St Mary's Island, between St Mary's Pool and Port Cressa. The peninsula running out from the isthmus rises to an elevation of 110 feet, has the kind of character designated by the Celtic word " heugh," and probably gave rise to the name Hugh Town. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Penzance; population, 1911. The town has a crooked main street of stone houses, an excellent harbour in the Pool, a pier, two good inns, and a church built in 1835 in the Pointed style with a tower. A previous church stood half a mile distant, is now partly a ruin, but is used for the burial service. It was restored in 1891. The living is a chaplaincy in the diocese of Truro; value, £160 with residence. There are Wesleyan and Bible Christian chapels. The Star Castle, a fortress erected in the time of Elizabeth, and probably taking its name from a star-like saliency of its 'eight angles, crowns the neighbouring peninsula, and the garrison, with batteries, park, and promenade, is in the vicinity of the castle. Some good public buildings were erected in 1889, consisting of a market-house with a large public room on the ground floor, with court-house, magistrates' room, and other offices above. On the eastern shore of the Pool is a tower over 40 feet high, used by the coastguard as a watch-tower; it is known as "the Telegraph." The rock scenery around this town is very interesting.
Maps
Online maps of Hugh Town 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.