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.
The Online Parish Clerk for St. Merryn is Susan Old, who can be reached via Email.
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
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 almost 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.
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 pages at GenUKI. (link below)
Please contact me for details.
1. 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.
1.
A letter
concerning non-payment of tithes, dated 28 Apr 1843 and signed T. H. PETER.
2. To view a transcription of a bankruptcy indenture,
dated 2 Apr 1898, involving James PARKYN of St Merryn,
click here.
I have other publications in my collection which I'll be glad to check. Please contact me at the address shown above.
For a Parish Locator map, please click here. St Merryn can be located at coordinates F - 6.
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.
