Polruan, Cornwall

Historical Description

Polruan, a township in Lanteglos-by-Fowey parish, Cornwall, at the mouth of the Fowey estuary, a quarter of a mile from Fowey station on the G.W.R. It has a post and money order office under Fowey; telegraph office, Fowey. It was once a borough, sent members to Parliament in the time of Edward III., contains vestiges of Hall House, which was garrisoned in the Civil Wars of Charles I., and contains also a, stone cross and ruins of an ancient chapel, a coastguard station, and a large battery and drill shed for the Royal Naval Reserve. There are also shipbuilding yards, two sail manufactories, and a factory for tinning and preserving pilchards. There are Wesleyan and Methodist chapels and a reading-room with library. A mission church was built in 1894, as the parish church is 1½ mile distant.

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 Polruan from the following:

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

Maps

Online maps of Polruan 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.