General history: Ancient and modern divisions of the county

Ancient and modern Division of the County.

When the survey of Domesday was taken, the county of Cornwall was divided into seven hundreds; Conarton, Fawiton, Pawton, Rialton, Stratton, Tibesta or Tibesterna, and Winneton or Winnenton. There are now nine hundreds; East, West, Powder, and Kerrier, in the southern part of the county; Stratton, Lesnewth, Trigg, Pyder, and Penwith, in the north and north-west. The alteration of the hundreds took place between the years 1088, when the survey was taken, and 1288, the time of the Lincoln taxation. Dr. Borlase says, that it would not be easy to discover the limits of the ancient divisions, or to reconcile it with the present. "Conarton," he continues, "it may be asserted with great probability, included the present hundred of Penwith; for the lord of the manor of Conarton has been lord also of all the hundred of Penwith from the time of Henry III.; among the rest there is not the like connexion, but what was anciently called Tibesta, included, as I imagine, the hundred of Poudre; Winnenton, Kerrier; Stratton, formerly extensive, makes at present the three small hundreds of Stratton, Lesnewth, and Trigg; Fawiton contained the hundred of East, as I suppose, and the southern part of West hundred; Rialton most part of Pidre; and Pauton the rest of Pidre, and the hundred of West." The hundreds of East and West were formerly called East and West Wivellshire or Wellshire. Norden calls the hundred of Trigg the hundred of Bodannan alias Trigg. All the hundreds of Cornwall, from time immemorial, belonged to the Earls, and still continue to be attached to the duchy, except the hundred of Penwith; and of this, two-thirds continued to belong to the duchy in the reign of James I., the other third, together with the bailiffry of the hundred, as attached to the manor of Conarton, was granted, at an early period, to the family of Pincerna, and descended to the Arundells, who eventually became possessed of the entire lordship of the hundred. The manor of Conarton, and the hundred of Penwith, were lately purchased of Lord Arundell, of Wardour, by Sir Christopher Hawkins, Bart. The bailiffry of the hundred of Stratton was attached to the manor of Norton-Rolle, in Lawncells; that of East to an estate called Tymbrelham, or Temple-park; that of West to Pengelly, in St. Neot; that of Trigg to Bodannan, in Endellion; that of Pyder to Rialton; and that of Kirrier to Penwarne, in Mawnan. Some of them still continue to be so attached; others have been separated. As no mention is made, either in the printed Domesday or in the MS. belonging to the church of Exeter, of the hundreds in which the manors described were severally situated, except certain manors, which appear by the Exeter MS. to have been in the hundred of Winianton, it would be impossible to form thence (except partially with respect to that hundred now Kirrier) any comparative view of the respective limits of the ancient and modern hundreds. The same circumstance renders it very difficult to appropriate the ancient names of manors to more modern names; but it will be attempted, as far as possible, in the tables of Domesday manors, which will be given under the head of Ancient Landholders.