The parish of

ST HILARY

The parish of St Hilary includes the Town of Marazion and the offshore island St Michael’s Mount. Many of the older records refer to residents as being ‘of the town’ or ‘of the parish’. The term ‘of the town’ refers to the Town of Marazion, while ‘of the parish’ refers to the balance of the parish. St Michael’s Mount is usually referred to by it’s own name. The parish, excluding Marazion and St Michael’s Mount, has no business center and is made up of a number of small clusters of residences; Plain-an-Gwarry, Tregurtha, Churchtown, Trewhella, Relubbus, Hallamaning, Colenso, Millpool, Greenberry, Woodstock, Carter’s Downs, Rosudgeon, Trevean, and Prussia Cove are some of these communities. The parish was made up mostly of families of miners and farmers.
 
The Town of Marazion and St Michael’s Mount were inhabited by tradespeople, fishermen and the men of the sea, the mariners, who were a part of the coastal trading.
 
The parish church was located at Churchtown and with its unique tower was a landmark used by the mariners from far out at sea. There was also a church at Marazion, it being a chapelry of St Hilary, controlled by the ‘mother church’ at Churchtown. The church rites of the entire parish, (baptisms, marriages and burials) were all performed at the ‘mother church’ until 1813 when the Marazion church was awarded the ability to conduct baptisms and burials. It was not until about 1850 that the Marazion church was allowed to conduct marriages. In 1892 Marazion became a fully independent parish.
 
St Hilary parish completely encircles the landward sides of the parish of Perranuthnoe. Since the principal community of Perranuthnoe, known as Goldsithney, is so near St Hilary Churchtown, a lot of those residents attended or had their rites performed at the St Hilary Church.
Therefore it is prudent for researchers of the parishes of Perranuthnoe, St Hilary, and Marazion (including St Michael’s Mount) to also check the records of those other parishes.
 
There are two cemeteries in St Hilary; the churchyard containing the older burials, and across the road from it is the newer cemetery.

The Online Parish Clerk for St Hilary is Al Kline who can be contacted by email.

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, FreeCen 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:

For Parish Register information and other resources, please see our searchable database (C-PROP) which is updated regularly, and GenUKI.  The C-PROP parish coverage page is here. June Nicholls & other volunteers have transcribed many Birth, Marriage, and Burial records, which are on this website.

DIRECTORIES:

For information, see GenUKI or visit the University of Leicester's Directories website, which has many directories online to view for free.

OTHER:

Wills:

1. dated 2 Jul 1723, a copy of a Clause in the Will of the Revd. John PENNECK
2. dated 24 Jan 1816, John SIMONS

For more information regarding History, Population, and much more, visit GenUKI.

MAPS:

For a Parish Locator map, please click here. St Hilary can be located at coordinates C - 2.

For further map information, please visit GenUKI (Genealogy - United Kingdom & Ireland).

To see a current, zoomable Ordnance Survey map, please visit MultiMap, or for maps and satellite images use Google Maps.

ADJACENT PARISHES:

Perranuthnoe, Ludgvan, Marazion (post-1813), St Erth, Godolphin (post-1848), Germoe and Breage.

ONLINE BOOKS:

St Hilary is included in The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume II by Davies Gilbert, William Hals, Thomas Tonkin, Henry Samuel Boase, originally published in 1838 (page 166). Also downloadable as a pdf.