Catalogue description CORYTON OF PENTILLIE, PELLATON

This record is held by Kresen Kernow (formerly Cornwall Record Office)

Details of CY
Reference: CY
Title: CORYTON OF PENTILLIE, PELLATON
Description:

Muniments of Title:-

 

WHOLE ESTATE;

 

St. Dominic, St. Mellion;

 

Fowey;

 

Gerrans

 

Gorran, manor of Tregarthen;

 

St. Ive;

 

Kea and Feock, manor of Landegay;

 

Landulph;

 

Lanteglos by Fowey;

 

Linkinhorne;

 

Grant of Treovis (Linkinhorne or Stoke Climsland); Cuttivet in Landrake; Upton in Linkinhorne;

 

Liskeard;

 

Maker;

 

St. Mellion;

 

St. Mewan;

 

St. Neot;

 

Pillaton;

 

Cornelly, Probus and Veryan;

 

Quethiock;

 

Menheniot;

 

South Petherwin;

 

St. Veep;

 

Veryan;

 

Warleggan;

 

Bedfordshire;

 

Devonshire;

 

County Durham;

 

Essex;

 

Gloucestershire;

 

Middlesex;

 

Somerset;

 

Wiltshire;

 

Dorset, and Gloucestershire

 

Sales

 

SALE CATALOGUES

 

VARIOUS LISTS OF DEEDS and LEASES (and receipts for them)

 

Cornwall and Devon

 

BONDS AND MORTGAGES

 

Bonds (Classified by type)

 

Mortgages.

 

MARRIAGE SETTLEMENTS etc. (a few are ordinary settlements)

 

Coryton Settlements

 

Non-Coryton Settlements

 

PROBATE: WILLS and BONDS and allied papers

 

ESTATE ADMINISTRATION:

 

LEASES etc:-

 

Callington, Southill;

 

Manor of Frogwell and Durnaford in Callington and St. Ive and Southill;

 

Bailiwick of the hundred of East Wivelshire;

 

Manor of Landegay in Kea and Feock;

 

Manor of Tregarton, Gorran;

 

Manor of Colebrooke, parish of Colebrooke, Devon;

 

Manor of West Newton Ferrers in St. Mellion;

 

Manor of West Draynes, St. Neot and St. Cleer;

 

Pillaton (including manor of Pillaton);

 

Manor of Hammett, alias Hammett, Dannett and Trecorne;

 

Manor of Penpoll in Quethiock and St. Ive and St. Germans;

 

Manor of Trehunsey in Quethiock and St. Ive;

 

Leases (and allied estate papers); underleases of Carrybullock Park, Stoke Climsland.

 

(Carrybullock Park part of Ancient Duchy Manor of Stoke Climsland held on lease by the Coryton family)

 

Leases, manor of Manely Colshill, St. Veep

 

Leases described as 'Outlands' Some of Leases in Callington are 'outlands' leases. And other remaining leases

 

Outlands. Altarnun and St. Breward

 

Bodmin

 

St. Cleer

 

St. Dominic

 

St. Dominic, Pillaton and St. Mellion

 

Fowey

 

St. Germans

 

Landulph

 

Linkinhorne

 

Liskeard

 

Lostwithiel

 

St. Mellion

 

Merthen

 

Menheniot

 

St. Pinnock

 

Quethiock

 

St. Stephens by Launceston (Outlands)

 

Saltash

 

South Petherwin

 

Devon-Dartmouth

 

Dawlish

 

Harberton

 

Nymet Tracy

 

Plymouth

 

Sourton

 

Stockleigh English

 

Yate, Gloucestershire

 

Middlesex

 

Whitchurch, Dorset

 

Winfield, Wilts

 

MINE SETTS, LICENCES etc.

 

LEASE AND LIFE BOOKS

 

ESTATE ACCOUNTS

 

Rentals and Rent Accounts

 

Estate General:

 

Agreements;

 

Estate Correspondence

 

Duchy of Cornwall

 

Business

 

Charities

 

Contracts

 

Estimates

 

Game

 

Insurance

 

Labour

 

Land Tax

 

Papers Relating to Leases

 

Letters and Papers

 

Parish

 

Bills and Acts of Parliament

 

Pedigrees

 

Railways

 

Sales and Sale Posters

 

Storms

 

Surveys and Extents

 

Surveys and Valuations

 

Surveys: Woods

 

Tenders and Specifications

 

Timber and Woods

 

Valuations (inc. Timber)

 

Inquisitions post mortem

 

Manorial Papers

 

Maps and Plans

 

Mining and Stannary (including Quarries)

 

Estate: Tithes

 

FAMILY and PERSONAL

 

Administration Accounts and Other Accounts

 

Baronetcy

 

Charities

 

Correspondence

 

Bond and Probate papers

 

Declarations of Trusts

 

(Dartmoor) Foxhounds

 

Parliamentary Elections

 

Recusancy

 

Murder of Peter Coryton's father

 

Writ for surety of the peace and General Pardons

 

Family records, pedigrees, arms

 

Saltash Floating Bridge

 

Various

 

HOUSEHOLD

 

LAWSUITS

 

PUBLIC OFFICE and allied papers

 

There are helier's accounts for the new building at West Newton from 1695 to 1701 (CY/5521). There are some early deeds for which MS. slips were found by Mr. Jeayes, an Assistant Keeper at the British Museum, e.g. a description of the bounds of the glebe of the manor of Elerky in Veryan in 1530 (CY/1169): a deed (CY/7365) of Bishop John Grandisson of Exeter 1347 concerning the presentation to the living of South Hill; early deeds of the Ferrers family of 1278 and 1293 relating to West Newton Ferrers (CY/481 and 482). A document signed by King Henry VIII (CY/6397) granted permission for moving the church of Old Kea (Landegay) in 1532 (this necessary move was not properly implemented until 1896!)

 

Depositions of 1583 about the boundary of the manors of Halton and West Newton refer to the Rebellion of 1497 and the Prayer Book Rebellion (CY/7189). A map of Landegay c. 1770 shows the manor and Kea Cross (CY/6673).

Date: 13th cent-20th cent
Held by: Kresen Kernow (formerly Cornwall Record Office), not available at The National Archives
Language: English
Creator:

Coryton family of Pentillie Castle, Cornwall

Physical description: 7477 Files
Immediate source of acquisition:

Accessions 1071, 1093, 1129, 1156, 1193, 2166, 2391, 2584

 

Deposited by Major J. Coryton, M.C., Pentillie Castle, Saltash.

 

(As from May 1980 the collection is held on deposit from the executors of the late Major J. Coryton: Mrs. K. W. Coryton, Pentillie, and Mr. E. R. Wheatley Hubbard, Broadleaze, Warminster, Wilts. as trustees of the estate)

Subjects:
  • Quethiock, Cornwall
  • St Mellion, Cornwall
  • Coleford, Cornwall
Administrative / biographical background:

Until William Wilkin's new house was built at Pentillie (Pentillie Castle) in 1812 in a landscape created by Humphrey Repton (CY/7371), the seat of the Coryton family in Cornwall was the mansion at West Newton Ferrers, rebuilt between 1695-1701 (CY/5221. Building accounts), of which there is a charming picture by Edumund Prideaux in 1716 (Architectural History, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, Vol. 7 (1964) See also Country Life 17 and 24 December 1938). The house was burnt down in 1940.

 

West Newton Ferrers was of great antiquity. In Domesday Book it was held of the Court of Mortain by Reginald de Valletorte (who held the honour of Trematon which he sold to Earl Richard of Cornwall in 1270) and the under tenant or mesne tenant was the De Ferrers family of whose mesne tenancy there is a record from 1211 onwards to the fourteenth century. (Red Book of the Exchequer ii, 621. Book of Fees I, 393; ii, 770, 796. Feudal Aids i, 200, 206, 212, 234). Although in 1212 Roger de Ferrers held seven knights' fees, by 1243 this had become reduced to one knight's fee.

 

Isolda, daughter and heiress of John de Ferrers, carried West Newton Ferrers in 1314 by her marriage to Jeffery Coryton of Coryton (Lifton Hundred) in Devon. Jeffery's great grandson Edward Coryton, married Joan Bodulgate c. 1435 and thereby the family acquired the manor of Bodulgate in Boconnoc and eventually (CY/1058) the manor of Hammett, Dannett and Trecorne in Quethiock and St. Ive parishes. c. 1540 Peter Coryton and his wife Joan Tregassow had the manor of Warleggan with Hopsland and Pollygenna in St. Cleer and property in Bodmin (CY/1555).

 

The murder of Richard Coryton in 1564 (CY/1557, 7042, 7043, 7191) provided Sabine Baring Gould with an exciting chapter in his Cornish Character and Strange Events (1909) pp. 388-398. Suspicion rested on his son Peter who married Joan or Jane Wrey (CY/1059, 1558) but he did not do it (although his father was opposed to the marriage). Nearly a century later (CY/7043) John Coryton of Probus tried to claim the Coryton inheritance, he was the grandson of Peter Coryton's brother, John Coryton of Probus, but he claimed it without success (CY/7043, cf. 7191).

 

Acquisition of estates continued during the seventeenth century. Before 1605 the bailwick of the Hundred of East Wivelshire and the manor of Greyston in Lezant and South Petherwin were acquired from the Chichester family who had married an heiress of the Wyse family, the medieval owners (CY/1929 and 7099). Perhaps the hundred of East and the manor of Greyston (the seat of the Wyse family) came with the marriage of William Coryton with Elizabeth, the third daughter of John Chichester of Raleigh, Devon, esq. (before 1605). The manor of Dinnerdake in St. Ive and Liskeard was acquired in moieties in 1611 from the Corbet family and Francis Tregian (jun.) esq., the recusant (cf. CY/338-9). The brother and heir of Francis Tregian, (jun.), Charles Tregian, sold the manor of Landegay in Kea and Feock to William Coryton, esq. before 1620 (Lysons' Cornwall (1814), 156). The manor of Penpoll in Quethiock, St. Ive and St. Germans (like Dinnerdake) was bought in moieties Corbet-Kekewich-Coryton; Tregian-Sprye-Coryton) (Lysons' Cornwall 274). Two-thirds of the manor of Pillaton between c. 1642 and 1660. (CY/677-736). The manors of Tregian and Golden in Probus, St. Ewe, Creed and Cuby were bought by William Coryton of Charles Tregian.

 

In 1640 some of the old lands of the Coryton family were sold off by William Coryton, including some acquired by his great grandfather, Peter Coryton, who died in 1602). These included (CY/4), Coryton in Devon, lands in Creed, Probus, and St. Erme (probably the manor of Tregassow), also estates in St. Winnow, Veryan and Carhays, to name no other parishes.

 

In 1646 the first marriage of (Sir) John Coryton (created a baronet 27 Feb. 1662) to Elizabeth, the daughter of John Mills of Colebrooke, Devon, brought in the valuable manor of Colebrooke in Devon. The post-nuptial settlement in 1646, (CY/1559-1560) included most of the estates already noted together with the manors of West Draynes in St. Neot, Great Caradon in Linkinhorne and other lands in Lostwithiel, St. Pinnock and Tintagel.

 

The manor of Frogwell and Durnaford in Callington and St. Ive was acquired in 1658 (CY/353). Leasehold title of Carrybullock park and Warham and Grimscomb woods in Stoke Climsland was taken from the Crown from 1661 to 1782. Another marriage: that of John Coryton and Elizabeth Chiverton in 1672 (CY/1564) brought the manor of Trehunsey in Quethiock and St. Ive.

 

The Coryton family faced a series of crises towards the end of the seventeenth century. The second baronet, Sir John Coryton died young in 1690 and Elizabeth, his wife married James Tillie, the family (perhaps one should say the unjust) steward, described in 1673 as 'steward and menial servant' of Sir John Coryton (CY/2908) and by 1689 a legal paper shows that Tillie had taken his master's wife and goods and deeds! (CY/7197) and presumably lands (cf. CY/1076), West Draynes), (manor of Great Caradon, CY/6076 leasehold woods in Stoke Climsland). On January 14th 1687 James Tillie was created a Knight bachelor, though apparently, there was some question of whether he was even entitled to bear arms (See S. Baring-Gould, Cornish Character and Strange Events, 402). Yet his title remained, and this inability to justify his pretentions to bearing arms was referred to by his nephew when he obtained a grant of arms on 21 November 1733. (CY/7048). Unjust, perhaps cruel and unbalanced, Sir James Tillie certainly was witness to the strange arrangements for his burial in his will of 1704 (CY/1676-1678, 1711, 1719.) But as S. Baring-Gould points out the funeral arrangements were not so bizarre as Hals made out, and yet some difficulties surround the few known facts about him.

 

He was admitted to the Middle Temple in 1673 (ex. inf. Librarian and Keeper of the Records of the Middle Temple, Miss E. McNeill) in the same year as he was described as a steward and menial servant of Sir John Coryton. He may have delayed his admission to the Middle Temple, he is found as a witness to many of Sir John Coryton's documents from 1668 to 1676 and then in 1682 and to a lease of Sir William Coryton in 1691. He occurs as of the Middle Temple (though as a witness or party to Coryton deeds) between 1680 and 1687. Baring-Gould made him out to be the son of John Tillie of St. Keverne, labourer. No Tillies could be found in the registers of St. Keverne. He was in fact a gentleman (see Tillie Pedigree note (e) ), the son of John Tillie of Wingfield in Wiltshire, gent. or yeoman (CY/1223 cf. CY/216-17 where John Tillie, sen. decd. is described as grandfather of James Tillie of St. Mellion, gent.) where he purchased an estate (Belle-Cour) in 1695. Yet he was steward to Sir William Coryton 1690-1694 (CY/5189). In CY/671, a lease of 1698, he described himself as of Pentillie Castle. He died 15 November 1713 and his will was proved 8 March 1714. His monument at Pentillie Castle gives his death as 15 November 1713. His brother was a cordwainer of Bristol in 1673 (ex.inf. K. H. Rogers, Wilts.Record Office) though he is later in the Coryton deeds called merchant (CY/1218, 1223, 1230) and there were many Tillies who were engaged in various trades in Bristol (ex.inf. Miss M. E. Williams, City Archivist, Bristol), between 1656 and 1685. Sir James Tillie had a sister married to a William Woollie or Woolley and he inherited his uncle's wealth at the price of assuming the name of Tillie. James Tillie, junior's son, James Tillie, married Mary and the daughter of that marriage, Mary Jemima, married John Coryton.

 

Sir James Tillie's estate was his master's though he seems to have acquired Padreda in Linkinhorne in 1685 (CY/7097) together with the tithes of Linkinhorne on the west side of the river Lynher (see also the Fine, CY/7 of 1687).

 

In 1728 Lysons' (p. 197) says James Tillie, junior, had the barton of Padreda and he suffered a recovery of this in 1744 (CY/14-16). In 1752 James Tillie had the free fishing of the river Lynher as well (see Settlement (CY/17-18 dated 1752). We also find property in Dorset going to James Tillie, the nephew (see CY/14-15 and 1678). His uncle, Sir James Tillie, bought extensive properties in Plymouth (CY/431-2) and elsewhere in Devon (CY/1187), which later reverted to John Tillie Coryton, the son of John Coryton and Mary Jemima Tillie in 1814 (CY/1192)

 

John Coryton was the son of Peter Goodall who took the name of Coryton. The fourth and last baronet, Sir John Coryton, died childless in 1739. To quote from the late Mary French, A Victoria Village: a record of the parish of Quethiock (1977) p. 18: 'In 1739 through lack of a male heir, the barontecy became extinct and the family seat Newton Ferrers, was claimed by the childless widow of Sir John Coryton, the fourth baronet. However, much other property was regained by a suit at law and Peter Goodall, a second cousin now became the head of the family, assumed the name of Coryton (his grandmother's maiden name) and came to live at Crocadon, St. Mellion'. (Note Sir William Coryton, Bt. bought Crocadon of the Trevisa family in 1704 (CY/752).

 

Perhaps Mary French underestimated the disturbance of the crisis of 1739. It is true that the Goodall family brought in property in Fowey (CY/309) and the manor of Tregarthen in Gorran and Lanteglos by Fowey (CY/1696), also part of the manor of Manely Colshill in St. Veep (see CY/326, 309, 1676). Yet the long lawsuit of Coryton v. Helyar fought in Chancery (CY/7099-7167) by the last baronet's widow, Dame Rachel Helyar, (and her successors under her will) from 1740-1772) against Peter Coryton (née Goodall) and John Coryton, his son, left some scars on the Coryton estate. In 1834 Newton Park with the Barton of West Newton Ferrers was sold to Edward Collins, esq., of Truthen, St. Erme (Parochial History iii, 309) by William Helyar of Coker Court, Somerset, esq. with the manors of Dinnerdake and Pillaton (CY/652; see also CY/31, where estates in Quethiock and St. Neot were threatened to be recovered by the Helyar family in 1833). In fact a sale catalogue of 1924 by direction of the executors of the late Thurstan Collins (CY/1464-5) shows property to be sold at Newton Ferrers including the barton of Newton Ferrers, the barton farm of Pillaton and Dinnerdake farm, St. Ive.

 

Later properties acquired by the Coryton family include an estate at Yate in Gloucestershire - an annuity was charged on this in 1771 for Mary Jemima Tillie's marriage settlement (CY/1609-1610, see also Fine of J. T. Coryton in 1810, CY/29-30).

 

Various properties were acquired in Landulph in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (see Contents). Part of the manor of Halton in St. Dominic was acquired by John Coryton in 1786 (CY/158-163) and Augustus Coryton bought Halton Quay in 1869 (CY/165-225). The manor of Trewinnick and Altarnun was acquired in 1806 (CY/34-37 see Contents.) For the details of acquisitions, and sales etc. of other lands in Cornwall and elsewhere, the detailed list of contents should be consulted. No attempt has been made to bring this catalogue up to the changes of the present century. Such a task would concern fruit farming in the Tamar Valley on Coryton lands, sales of land, the cultivation of Viverdon Down (CY/7364), the reduction of the wings at Pentillie Castle in 1968 to the seventeenth-century east wing (CY/7371) etc. This and the people who lived on the Quethiock estate and the later squires has been admirably described by the late Mary French, (Mrs. Wenmoth) in her Victorian Village: A Record of the Parish of Quethiock in Cornwall, 1977, with superb photographs which no written documents can emulate.

 

A member of the family of great interest was William Coryton (1579-1651). He was a collector of subsidies for both the hundreds of West and East Wivelshire (CY/7283), hence the subsidy rolls for the hundred of East for 1604 and 1628. He collected 'Privy Seal money' in 1625 (CY/7287-8). This was a forced loan of King Charles I to which William Coryton objected and for which he was imprisoned in the Fleet in June 1627 for refusing to contribute to a forced loan: his fellow-sufferers were Sir John Eliot and John Hampden. In 1629, William Coryton (then M.P. for Launceston) was one of the members prosecuted in the Court of Star Chamber for detaining Finch, Speaker of the House of Commons, in his Chair CY/7244, a letter of 26th June 1637, is a letter from John Meautes to Sir John Lenthall, Knight, marshal of the King's Bench to set Mr. Coryton (Vice-warden of the Stannaries) at liberty to attend King Charles I at Greenwich the following day 'to be further Informed concerninge the cause of his commitment'. William Coryton is found as Vice-Warden of the Stannaries in 1629, 1630 and 1634 (CY/7241-2), and had the stewardship of Duchy of Cornwall manors in 1645, as also did his son at a later date (CY/7245-6).

 

Nevertheless, when the Civil War came William Coryton realised that the royal cause was that of law. He certainly was a Royalist but was probably too old for military service in 1642, though he was Colonel of a regiment of foot in 1629 (CY/7261). In 1646 in February with other eastern gentry he treated with Fairfax and in the following month he negotiated with other Royalists for the surrender of Mount Edgcumbe. The estate at Newton suffered. On 5 April 1647 he was fined £1244, but by July he had got the fine reduced to £828 pleading the services of his daughter Philippa who had acted as an intermediary with Fairfax. His son - described as John Coryton of Newton, gent. - had to pay a sequestration fine of £197-13s. (See also CY/7237-9).

 

Sir John Coryton, the first baronet was a stannator of the Stannary of Fowey in 1673 and on the general commission of prizes (CY/7247-8). Just before his baronetcy of 1662 John Coryton was appointed in 1660 a gentleman of the Privy Chamber (CY/7373). Then and in 1664 (Sir) John Coryton also was Colonel of a regiment of foot (CY/7262; 7264).

 

Corytons served as sheriffs of Cornwall in 1683 and 1782 (James Tillie, jun. was sheriff in 1734). They also provided Deputy Lieutenants of the County in 1623, 1706, 1761 and 1841, (CY/7260-7261; 7266-7268), and several J.P.'s and commissioned officers in the Militia, (CY/7257-9; 7269-etc.). It is appropriate that in the year this catalogue has been completed in MS., 1980*, Major Jeffery Coryton, M.C. is Sheriff of Cornwall.

 

The possession of the bailiwick of the hundred court of East (see above) has led to the survival of some rare and interesting court rolls for the hundred of East: two for 1487 to 1487, one for 1513 and further rolls and papers for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (CY/7249-7256).

 

Finally, the Coryton muniments contain a very comprehensive set of papers for the Dartmoor Hunt from 1872-1916 (CY/6901-7036). William Coryton was M.O.H. from 1901 to 1915.

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