Paul, Cornwall

Paul (Cornish: Breweni)[1] is a village in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is in the civil parish of Penzance. The village is two miles (3 km) south of Penzance and one mile (1.6 km) south of Newlyn.[2]

Paul
Paul is located in Cornwall
Paul
Paul
Location within Cornwall
OS grid referenceSW462269
Civil parish
Unitary authority
Ceremonial county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townPENZANCE
Postcode districtTR19
Dialling code01736
PoliceDevon and Cornwall
FireCornwall
AmbulanceSouth Western
UK Parliament

The village of Paul should not be confused with the former civil parish of Paul, which lay to the west of the village and, since 1934 with the reorganisation of local government, does not include the village of Paul.

Like many Cornish communities Paul has its own community celebration. Paul Feast is held on the Sunday nearest to 10 October every year when the village is decorated and a civic service takes place on the Sunday of the feast itself led by the Mayor of Penzance.

History

The traditional Cornish name of Paul is Brewinney.[3] Much of the history of Paul is connected with its parish church, St Pol de Léon’s Church which is said to have been founded in 490, a very uncertain date and not documented by Paul (or Paol) Aurelian, a Welsh saint. There is no historical evidence to support that he ever came to West Penwith. He was the founder of the cathedral at Saint-Pol-de-Léon, a commune. However this church may also have been dedicated to Paul the Apostle, or Paulinus of York, there is no evidence to prove any of these three Saint Pauls was the original dedicatee of the church. It was only named 'St. Pol-de-Leon' in 1907 and is probably connected with Henry Jenner who (with W. C. Borlase) opposed alleged 'Englishness' and consistent spelling of Cornish place names on OS maps.

The first documented name for Paul Church comes from the registers of Bishop Bronescombe, when on 2 May 1259 the first recorded priest was installed, as Rector in his own right, in the 'Ecclesie Sancti Paulini'--Church of Saint Paulinus (but either Paulinus of York or Paulinus of Wales could have been intended). However it seems less likely that either of these two saints were intended as Henry III granted a charter in 1266 for a Fair to be held in Paul on 12 March, being the feast of Paul Aurelian.[4]

Paul and its church have an association with Mousehole as the church has served as Mousehole’s parish church since its inception. Paul was one of the communities along with Mousehole, Newlyn, and Penzance to be destroyed in the Spanish raid of 1595 carried out by Carlos de Amésquita.[5]

Captain Stephen Hutchens (died 1709, Port Royal, Jamaica) bequeathed £500 to the building of almshouses and the maintenance of six poor men and six poor women born in the parish. At the beginning of the 19th century it was found that the almshouses, instead of being administered as bequeathed, were being used as a workhouse for all the poor of the parish. Consequently, a new poor house was built on Trungle Moor.[6]

Cornish language (memorials)
The monument to Dolly Pentreath

Within the village churchyard there is a memorial to Dolly Pentreath, believed to be the last native speaker of Cornish, although this claim may be disputed. Louis Lucien Bonaparte and the Vicar of Paul opened this memorial in 1860.[7][8]

The Cornish language writers Nicholas Boson, Thomas Boson and John Boson are all buried in Paul Churchyard, and a monument in the church by John Boson (to Arthur Hutchens, d. 1709) is the only surviving lapidary inscription in traditional Cornish.[9]

Parish

The ancient parish of Paul (Cornish: Pluw Bowl)[1] included Newlyn and Mousehole as well as the village of Paul. In 1851 Newlyn was separated to form the new ecclesiastical parish of Newlyn St Peter.[10] The ancient parish became a civil parish in 1866, and in 1894 became the Paul Urban District. The urban district was abolished in 1934. Newlyn and the villages of Paul and Mousehole were transferred from the civil parish and urban district of Paul to the municipal borough of Penzance,[11] now the civil parish of Penzance. The western part of the civil parish of Paul remained a separate, smaller parish (which did not include the village of Paul), from 1934 to 1974 in West Penwith Rural District.[12]

In 2020 Cornwall Council announced that the neighbouring parishes of St Buryan and Paul would be abolished on 1 April 2021 with the land amalgamated to form a new parish known as St Buryan, Lamorna and Paul.[13] The new parish has 12 councillors elected for a period of 4 years.

At its abolition, the civil parish of Paul consisted of a number of scattered settlements west of the village at 50.09°N 5.58°W / 50.09; -5.58, including Chyenhal, Castallack, Kemyel Crease, Kemyel Drea, Bossava and Kerris. The population of the civil parish (i.e. excluding the village) was 269 in 2011.[14]

Arthur Langdon (1896) recorded the existence of five stone crosses in the parish. One is at Carlankan, one at Halwyn and one at St Paul Down. There are also crosses in the vicarage hedge and on the churchyard wall (the latter has a crude crucifixus figure on one side).[15]

In the north of the former civil parish is Chyenhal Moor, a Site of Special Scientific Interest noted for its biological interest.[16]

Mining

In 1788, Wheal Mary mined an east–west lode (near Drift) which was in both Paul and Sancreed parishes. It later became known as Garth (or Gath) mine. Following a period of idleness operations resumed under the name of East Wheal Cock and work continued to 1843 when the mine was known as Wheal Darby. Over forty years after the mine closed, a capped shaft at Bologas was reported to have collapsed and the mine was referred to as ″Gath mine″ in The Cornishman newspaper. All signs of the mine on the ground had disappeared by 1925, although quantities of ″wood tin″, continued to find their way into Cornish mineral collections.[17] [18]

Governance

The village of Paul is represented on Penzance Town Council. For elections to Cornwall Council (the unitary authority) Paul is within the three-member Penzance Electoral division.

Sport

Paul Cricket Club home is at Hutchens Park Playing Field, Trungle Moor and they play in Division Two West; the third tier of the Cornwall Cricket League. In 2007 the club came second in the Cornwall Cricket League and won the competition in 2010, to become Cornish champions for the only time.[19] Adjacent to the cricket club is Mousehole AFC (established 1923). The first team have played in Division One West of the South West Peninsula League since its inauguration in 2007. Their best season was 2013–14 when they came second.

Cornish wrestling

Cornish wrestling tournaments, for prizes, were held in Paul for centuries. Venues for tournaments included field just in the rear of the national schools[20] and in the Ring and Thimble field at Chywoone Grove.[21]

References
  1. Place-names in the Standard Written Form (SWF) Archived 15 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine : List of place-names agreed by the MAGA Signage Panel Archived 15 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine. Cornish Language Partnership.
  2. Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 203 Land's End ISBN 978-0-319-23148-7
  3. Bond, Chris (2007). An Index to the Historical Place Names of Cornwall: Vol 1 - A to K. Cornwall: The Cornovia Press. pp. 147, 148. ISBN 9780952206422.
  4. "CORNWALL". GAZETTEER OF MARKETS AND FAIRS IN ENGLAND AND WALES TO 1516. Centre for Metropolitan History. 17 November 2006. Retrieved 5 December 2021.
  5. West Penwith Resources – The Spanish Attack – 1595
  6. "Paul". The Cornishman. No. 36. 20 March 1879. p. 4.
  7. "A memorial obelisk commemorating Dorothy "Dolly" Pentreath set in a wall of the churchyard of St Pol de Lion's Church, viewed from the north-west (BAR03/01/203) Archive Item - Norman Barnard Slide Collection | Historic England". historicengland.org.uk. Retrieved 29 August 2022.
  8. "Dolly Pentreath - The last native speaker of the Cornish Language". Cornwall Guide. 2 March 2016. Retrieved 29 August 2022.
  9. Spriggs, Matthew, 'Boson family (per. c.1675–1730)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 12 Oct 2007
  10. Genuki website: Paul
  11. Vision of Britain website
  12. Vision of Britain website: Paul UD
  13. "Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007" (PDF). 8 December 2020.
  14. Census 2011: Neighbourhood statistics
  15. Langdon, A. G. (1896) Old Cornish Crosses. Truro: Joseph Pollard; pp. 202-04, 103 & 192-93
  16. "Chyenhal Moor" (PDF). Natural England. 1985. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  17. "Garth Mine (Wheal Darby; East Wheal Cock; Gath Mine; Wheal Mary), Sancreed, Cornwall, England, UK". mindat.org. Retrieved 18 August 2020.
  18. "The Dangers Of A Badly-Filled Shaft". The Cornishman. No. 338. 8 January 1884. p. 4.
  19. Cricket in Cornwall 2014. Cornwall Cricket Board. 2014. p. 221.
  20. Cornishman, 16 July 1885.
  21. Cornishman, 18 August 1949.
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