Trewinnard has been, without all comparison, the principal place in this parish.
I have not any means of affirming or of contradicting the relation of Mr. Hals, as to the tragical event imputed to the last Trewinnard: some indistinct tradition of a murder was handed down to within my remembrance. The transactions of this gentleman's grandfather with the House of Commons are given by Mr. Hatsell, as derived from authentic sources, in his Parliamentary Precedents, vol.i. p.59, of the edition of 1796, and p.60 in the last edition. I apprehend that he was then Member for Helston. One of the family resided till very lately in the Strand, London; for, struck by the name "Trewinnard," the Editor was induced to call at the house. Mr. Trewinnard said that his family came, as he had heard, from a town so called in Cornwall, and that he had some old deeds in his possession. These were exhibited, and proved to be leases of various farms in St. Earth parish. The Mohuns appear to have made this place a principal ressdence, for the cross engrailed exhibits itself not only on fragments of painted glass preserved in the church, but also on the seat or pew, quartered or impaled with various arms, and in one instance with the fleur-de-lis and the lions, of England and France.
Mr. Hals states that the estate was divided between the three daughters of Sir Reginald Mohun; that one of these daughters married Sir Thomas Arundel, of Talvorne, and that his part was purchased by Sir Nicholas Hals, of Fentongallon, who had the other two-thirds on leases for lives; but that John Hals sold the whole. It is probable that the purchaser must have been Mr. Bellot, of Bochym, whose daughter brought the one-third freehold, and the two-thirds lease for lives, to Mr. Thomas Hawkins; yet Reginald Mohun is said by Mr. Lysons, under Cury, to have given one of his daughters, with Bochym, to Francis Bellot; through whom Mr. Hawkins, the present possessor, connects himself with the ancient and baronial family of Mohun.
