St Mewan, Cornwall Genealogy

Parish History
St Mewan (Cornish: Sen Mewen), is situated in the Deanery and Hundred of Powder and is an Ancient Parish in the county of Cornwall. Other places in the parish include: Burganlo and Trewoon. The church is dedicated to Saint Mewan, a sixth-century Celtic saint who was born in Wales, visited Cornwall, and is mostly venerated in Brittany. The current building dates from the 13th century and is mentioned in a bishops' inquisition of 1294 as the 'Ecclesia de St Mewany'. It was, however, substantially rebuilt in 1854 by George Edmund Street and enlarged in 1890. The church tower is of only two stages and is built of granite blocks. Local legend suggests that the original builders were prevented from raising it higher by the devil, who threw down their stones each night.

Within the parish the village of Sticker grew from local mining. In 1785, Sticker was described as "a new place" and it seems that the village began as a settlement for workers in the Great Hewas Mine on its western outskirts. Great Hewas was known to have been worked in the eighteenth century, a 45-inch Boulton &amp; Watt pumping engine being installed in the 1790s. By the nineteenth century, the mine was employing over 250 people, producing not only tin, but copper, lead, and some silver. Two smaller mines to the west, Ventonwyn and Hewas Water, worked alongside Great Hewas. The last of these mines ceased production in 1926, though the chimney of Ventonwyn engine house is still a local landmark

An Anglican church was designed by the architect George Edmund Street in 1848/49, but was presumably never built. The current St Mark's Mission Church was designed by James Piers St Aubyn and opened in 1877. St Mark's is effectively a chapel of ease for the parish church at St Mewan.



Civil Registration
Births, marriages and deaths were kept by the government from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is Free BMD.

Church records
Overview, Include information for parish registers and Bishop's Transcripts, Contact information for the office holding the original records, Links to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection.

Images of parish registers are available online in historic records (formerly Record Search) Images refer to Cornwall County Record Office reference: P 148

At the time of Publication the way points for the burial registers were incorrectly compiled. This matter awaits correction by engineers. The digital images were compiled from two filimings of the burial register and the microfilm conversion has given rise to two loadings of the 1887-1900 burial register, with an error in the volume number on one waypoint.

Cornwall Online Parish Clerks
An extremely useful resource is the Cornwall Online Parish Clerks page for the parish http://www.cornwall-opc.org/Par_new/l_m/mewan_st.php

The history, registers and much more have been contributed by the Online Parish clerk for St Mewan.

Census records
Overview, Include any unique information such as, the census for X year was destroyed, Collection in FHL and link to catalog, Online sites.

http://www.1881pubs.com/ for details of public houses in the 1881 census

Cornwall Online Census Project

Poor Law Unions
St Austell Poor Law Union

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to [county] Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Maps and Gazetteers
There are many maps and gazetteers showing English places. Valuable web sites are:


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
Add here any relevant sites that aren't mentioned above.

http://www.achurchnearyou.com/st-mewan-st-mewan/ for information about the parish

http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-71432-church-of-st-mewan-st-mewan British Listed building