The parish of

ST MERRYN

is located on the North coast of Cornwall, near Padstow. Originally part of the St. Columb Registration District, it is now in the Bodmin District. Principal places of residence are St Merryn Shop, Constantine, Treyarnon, Porthcothan and Harlyn. There are several hamlets, namely Trevear, Trevorrick, Towan, Porthcothan Mill, Trethias and Carnevas.

The Church has been rebuilt and restored throughout the centuries, but traces of the older churches remain. The earliest recorded Vicar was in 1259. The entrance today is through the North Porch, and the Church is well cared for, as is the attached burial ground. Across the road is "The Cornish Arms", which was the Old Vicarage, and a few cottages in Churchtown.

About one mile to the southwest of St Merryn village are the ruins of St Constantine church. They consist of a portion of the tower, with its doorway, and other fragments; no gravestones or other monuments exist. There was also a Wesleyan Methodist chapel at The Cottages and a Bible Christian chapel at Trehemborne.

This is mainly a farming parish and there are some 17 farms, many of which have been farmed by the same families for generations. These days there is diversification into bed & breakfast, caravan sites and other tourist attractions on many of them. There is also a maritime association in the parish, as it contains Trevose Lighthouse, built in 1847. The lighthouse men were to be found in the censuses in 1851, 61, 71 and 81. There are also World War II military graves in the Church Cemetery.

A 'Mangel Cave' at Porthcothan Root vegetable, similar to turnips, used mainly for animal fodder © the Malcolm McCarthy Collection	Seaweed Pickers at Porthcothan c. 1890 probably collecting for the Andrews family of Trevethan Farm © the Malcolm McCarthy Collection

The Online Parish Clerk (Genealogy) for St Merryn is Susan Old, who is currently unavailable. In the meantime, Philip Green offers help with research.
 
For information about (and contact details for) the current parish council, please see this website.

I have been an OPC since the scheme began and have transcribed parish registers and census returns - see below.

I keep my records in a unique form all stored in Family Treemaker 2005 and thus join all possible relations, as far as they are known to me at this time. This data is not confined to my OPC parishes, which include St Eval, St Ervan, St Mawgan and St Columb Major, but also covers other Parishes which may, or may not, have their own OPCs.

Susan

PARISH INFORMATION

CENSUS:

I have completed the transcriptions of all censuses up to & including 1881, and included the information in my database. Further 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:

Baptismal Register from 1720 to 1881, Marriages 1813 to 1906, and Burials 1796 to 1885, transcribed by me, have all been entered into my database; please see my explanation above.

Earlier information is also available from the IGI coverage of the Parish (1616-1877) at FamilySearch. LDS Church batch numbers to use are: C053471, C002022, E053471, P002021, M053471, M002021. These are searchable by surname. Other alternatives and details can be found on the St Merryn page at GenUKI.

For further Parish Register information and other resources, please see our online searchable database (C-PROP) which is updated frequently, the coverage page is here.

DIRECTORIES:

Please contact me for details, or see the University of Leicester's Historical Directories website.

OTHER:

Voters Lists:

1. 1851/52
2. 1852/53
3. 1856/57
4. 1864/65

Various Documents:

1. 27 Dec 1662, transcription of a pre-nuptial agreement, relating to the marriage of Martin LIVERTON & Jane MAYE
2. An 18th Century Charm/Spell prepared for Thamson LEVERTON.
3. For an account book, apparently kept by William PETER, with dates ranging from the late 1700s to approx. 1849, click here. Many local residents are named.
4. A letter concerning non-payment of tithes, dated 28 Apr 1843 and signed T. H. PETER.
5.  To view a transcription of a bankruptcy indenture, dated 2 Apr 1898, involving James PARKYN of St Merryn, click here.
6. There are also indentures involving people from St Merryn amongst those for multiple parishes linking from here.

I have other publications in my collection which I'll be glad to check. Please contact me at the address shown above.

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 St Merryn 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 Eval, St Ervan and Padstow.

SUGGESTED READING:

With a Pasty in my Pocket by Jack Ingrey and Malcolm McCarthy. ISBN-10: 0954991346. ISBN-13: 978-0954991340.

ONLINE BOOKS:

St Merryn is included in The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume III by Davies Gilbert, William Hals, Thomas Tonkin, Henry Samuel Boase, originally published in 1838. Also downloadable as a pdf from here. The relevant pages can be found under the old spelling of St Merran.