The parish of

BOCONNOC

The Parish Church
© David Coppin

The parish of Boconnoc, which encompasses the largest private park in Cornwall, lies about five miles east of Lostwithiel, south of the road from there to Liskeard. Boconnoc, a compound Cornish name which might mean "Dwelling place of Conoc", was listed in the Domesday Book.
 
Boconnoc House has a long history and was occupied by various families, notably that of Thomas Pitt (great-grandfather of William Pitt the Younger, prime minister of Great Britain in the early 19th Century), who bought the estate, along with much other property and land in Cornwall and elsewhere, with the proceeds of the sale to Prince Philippe II of France in 1717, of an extraordinary diamond, known as the Regent or Pitt diamond, which he had acquired while Governor of Fort St. George, Madras. For a while, this gem adorned the hilt of Napoleon's sword, but it later found its way to the Louvre Museum where it has been on display since 1887, one of the Crown Jewels of France.
 
On the death of the last male heir, Thomas, 2nd Lord Camelford, in 1804, the estate passed to his sister Lady Anne Grenville and thence to her nephew George Fortescue, great great grandfather of the present owner.
 
During the Second World War the estate was used for a vast American ammunition dump; later the house fell into decay resulting in the demolition of the southwest wing in 1972. A programme of restoration was begun in 2001 by the present owners and the house and grounds are currently opened to the public for special events.

The Online Parish Clerk (Genealogy) for Boconnoc is Kay Halley, who can be contacted by Email.

For information about (and contact details for) the current parish council, please see this website.

PARISH INFORMATION

CENSUS:

Information can be found at COCP (the Cornwall Online Census Project) which is complete for 1841 to 1891 and has been verified, FreeCens at Rootsweb, which has a very good search engine and information from COCP, as well as GenUKI, which has more reference information and alternate resources.

REGISTERS:

The Boconnoc Registers have not yet been transcribed but baptisms, marriages and burials between 1709 – 1850 are available for look-ups from the OPC (email above). The monumental inscriptions are available in our searchable database (C-PROP), which is updated frequently. The parish coverage page is here.

DIRECTORIES:

Trade Directories for Cornwall can be searched online here. For other information, see GenUKI (link below).

OTHER:

MIs:

Transcriptions are available here.

Voters Lists:

for 1851/52, 1852/53 and 1856/57.

Wills:

1. 14 Dec 1808, Jane GILBERTT, widow
2. 7 Dec 1829, Elizabeth HARRIS, widow

As always, additional information can be found in the Cornwall section of GenUKI.

MAPS:

For a zoomable and printable map of Cornwall please visit Cornwall Council’s mapping website. To see the Parish boundaries, click on the Layers Tab for Government Boundaries.

For maps and satellite images use Google Maps.

To enjoy a "walk" around this parish, search for Boconnoc at http://maps.google.co.uk/, then drag the person icon from above the zoom commands and place it at a specific location on the map.

ADJACENT PARISHES:

St Winnow, Bradock, Lanreath and St Veep.

ONLINE BOOKS:

Boconnoc is included in The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume I by Davies Gilbert, William Hals, Thomas Tonkin, Henry Samuel Boase, originally published in 1838 (page n102). Also downloadable as a pdf.