The parish of

MARAZION

created 1813

The Parish Church of All Saints © Anthea Augustson

Before 1813, the parish of St Hilary included the Town of Marazion and the offshore island St Michael’s Mount. Marazion became a separate parish in that year.
 
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 its 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.
 
There is a church at Marazion, originally 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. According to an entry in the Burials Register, Marazion became a District Chapelry on 9 May 1892.
 
Therefore it is prudent for researchers of the parishes of Perranuthnoe, St Hilary, and Marazion (including St Michael’s Mount) to check the records of all of those parishes.
 
There are two cemeteries at Marazion, the oldest near the town centre at the lower (west) end of the town, the other being newer and located at the upper (east end of the town. At the old cemetery all of the upright stones have been relocated to lean against the stone fence to aid in mowing the grass. The old cemetery was used approximately from 1834 to 1926. Earlier burials were probably in the St Hilary churchyard. The first burials in the new cemetery were in 1900.

PARISH INFORMATION

CENSUS:

Information can be found at COCP (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 more Parish Register information and other resources, please see our online searchable database (C-PROP) which is updated frequently. The parish coverage page is here.

DIRECTORIES:

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

OTHER:

Wills:

An index of Wills from 1660 to 1730 can be found here.

For more information regarding History, Population, and much more, visit 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 Marazion 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:

Ludgvan, St Hilary, Perranuthnoe and St Michael's Mount.

ONLINE BOOKS:

1. Marazion 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 172). Also downloadable as a pdf.
2. The History of Mount's Bay, comprising Saint Michael's Mount, Marazion, Penzance, Newlyn, Mousehole, &c. &c., published in 1820 by J. Thomas