Cornwall was originally divided into sections known as "Hundreds", though it is not quite certain how and why they came into being. Charles Henderson, perhaps Cornwall's finest scholar, did not believe they grew casually from the separation of Celtic tribes, but thought that they were created at a particular time, with the intention of dividing Cornwall into districts in accordance with its geographical features.
The lists go back to the eleventh century, but the Hundreds must have been in existence long before. Their names have a fascinating ring, like all things Cornish: Penwith, Kirrier, Pyder, Powder, Trigg, East Wivel, West Wivel, Lesnewth, Stratton.
The old maps show the nine divisions very clearly, and with the aid of a Cornish glossary it is even possible to hazard a guess at the derivation of these names. It seems as if Stratton, meaning highway, was the first Hundred, for near Stratton town itself was the original highway from the Tamar. The Stratton Hundred starts by the Devon border at Marsland Mouth on the north coast, merging into the second hundred, Lesnowth, a few miles north of Dizzard Head. Lesnewth, meaning "the new width," and Stratton Hundreds possess some of the finest coast-line in all Cornwall, especially Stratton, where the high coombes or valleys plunge steeply to the sea and buildings, mercifully, are few. Tintagel is in Lesnowth, and Boscastle, and the wildest moors east of Camelford. The Hundred of Lesnowth turns to Trigg, which derives from third and thus means the Third Hundred. It follows the north coast down as far as the Camel estuary, stretching inland beyond Bodmin and the old highway south to Lostwithiel. From the Camel estuary to St. Agnes Head the Hundred of Pyder takes over (Pyder meaning fourth), its eastern border still the great ridge or backbone of Cornwall dividing the north coast from the south.
Beyond St. Agnes Head the stretch of land comprising the towans, the Hayle estuary, and whole of the Land's End penninsula, including Mount's Bay on the south coast, forms the Hundred of Penwith. There are three renderings of Penwith - "the last promentory," "promontory on the left" and, more intriguing still, "the headland of slaughter." High on these moors of West Penwith are the many quoits and tombs that were the burial places of those first settlers in prehistoric times. Whether they died in fighting sea-borne invaders, or in the tribal battle amongst themselves, nobody can tell, but "the headland of slaughter" points to an ancient tradition that in those days of long ago Penwith was a place of strife.
Kirrier, meaning "high coast or border," runs from Port Levan on Mount's Bay to Lizard Point, and thence to the west bank of the Fal. East of the Fal Powder, the seventh Hundred and the "place of oaks," runs from St. Mawes to Fowey-haven. It is well named. This is the most wooded part of the whole Cornish peninsula, and, with its rivers Fal and Fowey, the most fertile. Powder gives way to West and East Wivel, the first running from the Fowey estuary to Looe river, the second to where the Tamar estuary enters Plymouth Sound. Wivel, or Wyvell's, means the "shire of Welshmen or strangers," and this most eastern district of Cornwall could have well been, in early days, given over to intruders, who crossed from the Welsh borders into Devon, and so to Stratton highway in the north.
The nine Hundreds, following the entire coast-line of Cornwall, now make sense: the Highway, the New Width, the Third and Fourth Hundreds, the Left Promontory or Headland of Slaughter, the High Coast, the Place of Oaks, the West and East Hundreds of Strangers, or Welshmen.
These Hundreds, through succeeding centuries, made convenient units for the administration of the law, for tithing and parochial systems, and for the manorial rights of the feudal lords.
borrowed from "Vanishing Cornwall: the Spirit and history of Cornwall," Daphne du Maurier, 1967
