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Redruth (St. Uny)

REDRUTH (St. Uny), a market-town and parish, and the head of a union, in the hundred of Penwith, W. division of Cornwall, 53 miles (S. W. by W.) from Launceston, and 262¾ (W. S. W.) from London; containing 9305 inhabitants. This ancient town, at one time called Uny, from the saint to whom its church is dedicated, appears to have existed previously to the division of the kingdom into parishes; and to have been a central place for the celebration of the religious rites of the Britons, from which circumstance it received the appellation of Dre Druth, or "the Druids' town," now modified into Redruth. The town is pleasantly situated on the declivity of a hill, on the great road from Truro to Penzance, and in the heart of a rich mining district; it consists principally of one long street indifferently paved, is lighted with gas, and supplied with water from a spring near Trefula. A subscription reading-room is supported. The prosperity of Redruth, and the rapid increase of its population, have arisen from the opening of some extensive tin and copper mines in the neighbourhood, the produce of which is said to realise nearly one million sterling per annum: sales of copper-ore by ticket take place on Thursday. A large brewery is carried on; and a vast quantity of candles is made, chiefly for the use of the miners. A railroad has been constructed under the provisions of an act obtained in 1824, extending from the town to Point Quay in Restrongett creek, St. Feock, a distance of nine miles, for facilitating the conveyance of the ore for exportation, and of timber and coal for the supply of the mines. In 1846 an act was passed for a railway from the Cornwall railway near Truro, by Redruth, to Penzance, with a branch from Redruth to the Cornwall line a little north of Penryn: this line from Truro to Penzance includes a railway formed a few years ago between Redruth and Hayle. The markets are on Tuesday and Friday, the latter being the principal day; and the fairs, chiefly for cattle, are on Easter-Tuesday, May 2nd, August 3rd, and October 12th. The tolls and dues of the markets, and of the May and August fairs, belong to the successor of the late Lord de Dunstanville, by whom a neat market-house, with shambles and other buildings, was erected. At the entrance of the market-place, a handsome stone tower supported on arches, with a clock having four dial-plates, of which the east and west are illuminated, has been built at the expense of the parishioners. The powers of the county debt-court of Redruth, established in 1847, extend over the registration-district of Redruth.

The parish comprises 3930 acres, of which 1700 are common or waste land. The living is a rectory, valued in the king's books at £20, and in the patronage of Lady Basset: the tithes have been commuted for £480. The church, situated near Cairn-Brea Hill, at the distance of half a mile from the town, was rebuilt in the year 1770. A church in the later English style, was erected in 1828, at an expense of £2367, by grant from the Parliamentary Commissioners: the living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the Rector. A church district named Treleigh was endowed in 1846 by the Ecclesiastical Commission: the living is in the gift of the Crown and the Bishop of Exeter, alternately. There are places of worship for Baptists, the Society of Friends, Primitive Methodists, and Wesleyans. The poor-law union of Redruth comprises eight parishes or places, and contains a population of 48,062. Numerous vestiges of its ancient occupation by the Druids are found in the immediate neighbourhood of the town, consisting of circles, erect stones, basins, cromlechs, cairns, and other relics; and on the eastern side of Cairn-Brea Hill are the ruins of a castle, which appears to have been of very great antiquity. The application of gas to domestic purposes was first made here by Mr. Murdoch, by whom it was soon afterwards introduced with success into the Soho manufactory, near Birmingham.


Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.

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