Kelly’s Directory of Cornwall 1893

ZENNOR is a parish on the north coast of the county, 5 miles west from St. Ives station on a branch of the Great Western railway and 7 miles north-north-west from Penzance, in the Western division of the county, hundred of Penwith, petty sessional division of Penwith West, Penzance union and county court district, rural deanery of Penwith, archdeaconry of Cornwall and diocese of Truro. The church of St. Senara, probably erected in the 12th century, and enlarged during the 15th, when the tower was added, is a building of granite, in the Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel, nave of six bays, aisles separated from the nave by a arcades of six Perpendicular arches, small transept, south porch and an embattled western tower, with pinnacles, containing 3 bells of which the treble is plain; the remaining two bear invocations to St. John and the Blessed Virgin: there are two good oak bench ends, now forming the sides of the sedilia, one of which is carved with the figure of a mermaid: the font is of the Decorated period: the east window and the window west of the porch are Early English: there are 200 sittings. The register dates from the year 1592–3. The living is a vicarage, average tithe rent-charge £153, net yearly value £172, including 18 acres of glebe, with residence, in the gift of the Bishop of Truro, and held since 1888 by the Rev. Samuel Henry Farwell Roe. There are remains of ancient chapels on the barton of Kerrow, and on the isthmus connecting the Gurnard’s Head with the mainland. There are Wesleyan chapels at Trendrine, Porthmere and Church Town. In the churchyard are two ancient crosses, one of which has a rude carving of the “Crucifixion,” and in this vicarage garden is another cross: there is also in the parish a cromlech called “Zennor Quoit,” formed by seven huge stones leaning towards each other, and inclosing a space about 6 feet long by 4 wide; the capstone, now resting partly on the ground, is 18 feet long, 11 broad and 48 in circumference; at Bosphrennis are the remains of several rudely built chambers or cells, called “beehive huts;” and there is another cromlech of smaller dimensions about a quarter of a mile north-west; in the neighbourhood is the Senor or Zennor Circle, a ruined circle of stones, 75 feet in diameter: five furlongs south of the church is a barrow 100 feet round. The Gurnard’s Head or Treryn Dinas, is a bold rocky headland, standing out into the sea northwards for about three furlongs, with a bredth of one furlong. The Eagle’s Nest is in this parish, and in a field near the church and between it and the sea is a logan stone, called “the Giant’s Rock,” 19 feet long and 3 feet thick and which, though weighing 35 tons, can be easily moved; there is another logan rock, called “the Cradle:” on Tregarthen Hill and near the boundary between this parish and Morvah, at an elevation of 623 feet above the sea level, stands Carn Galva, “the two-headed cairn,” on the top of which is a third logan. The Earl of Sandwich, the Duchess of Cleveland, C. Davies Gilbert esq. J. Branwill esq. and J. Hockin esq. are the chief landowners. The soil is killas; the subsoil is killas and granite. Large quantities of stone are taken from hence to Penzance for shipment. The chief crops are barley, oats, wheat and some land in pasture. The acreage is 4,229; rateable value, £3,134, but three-fourths of the land is waste; the population in 1891 was 496.

Parish Clerk, William Berryman.

Post Office, Church Town.—Thomas Thomas, sub-postmaster. Letters through St. Ives R.S.O. which is the nearest money order & telegraph office, arrive at 11.30 a.m.; dispatched at 1.30 p.m. week days only; Postal orders are issued here, but not paid

Wall Letter Box, Gurnard’s Head hotel, cleared 12.25 p.m. week days only

Schools:—

National (mixed), for 104 children; average attendance, 50; Frederick William Pocock, master; Miss Elizabeth Berryman, mistress

Infants, Portmear, for 50 children; average attendance, 11; Miss Annie Newton, mistress