Cury () is a civil parish and village in southwest Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated approximately four miles (6 km) south of Helston on The Lizard. The parish is named for St Corentin and is recorded in the Domesday Book as Chori.
Demographics and geography
Cury is a rural parish with a population of 388 at the 2001
census.
It is bounded to the north by Mawgan-in-Meneage parish, to the west by
Gunwalloe parish, and to the south by Mullion parish. Settlements include the church town, Cury; Cross Lanes; White Cross; and
Nantithet.
[Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 203 Land's End ] Cury lies within the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).
Church history
The parish church is dedicated to St Corentin.
[ GENUKI Cury; official website; retrieved May 2010] The building is
cruciform and of the Norman period, but a north aisle was added in the 15th century. It was probably originally a manorial church of
The Lizard, but became a chapelry of Breage in the 13th century.
[ Cornish Church Guide (1925) Truro: Blackford; p. 83 (Earl Richard of Cornwall bestowed it in 1246)][Pevsner, N. (1970) Cornwall, 2nd ed., revised by Enid Radcliffe. Penguin Books; pp. 61-62]
There is a Cornish cross in the churchyard; it is probably the old churchyard cross but was found in a ditch nearby in 1849 and set up in its present position.[Langdon, A. G. (1896) Old Cornish Crosses. Truro: Joseph Pollard; p. 267-68]
Sandys Wason
From 1905 to 1920 the parishes of Cury and Gunwalloe were served by Father Sandys Wason as
perpetual curate.
[Note: Leighton Sandys Wason (1867–1950); ordained a priest in 1898; served as a curate at Plaistow and Shoreditch. Among his publications is The Anathema Alphabet, or, Syllabus of Errors Condemned by the English Bishops Since 1840; foreword by Tractarian; pub. c. 1919; by Society of SS. Peter and Paul] Father Wason was an Anglo-Catholic and unpopular with some parishioners; he wrote poems such as "Town" ("I met a clergymanly man, Prostrated in the Strand, He sucked a brace of oranges, One orange in each hand" is the first verse).
[Cohen, J. M., ed. (1952) The Penguin Book of Comic and Curious Verse. Harmondsworth: Penguin; pp. 199–202] He is notable for the controversy aroused by his ministry due to his practice of liturgical borrowing from the Roman Catholic Church and other aspects of it.
[Butler-Gallie, F . A Field Guide to the English Clergy; p. 11. London: Oneworld Publications, 2018 ] He held open air services by the sea at Gunwalloe Church Cove on All Souls' Day and All Saints' Day.
[Tricker, Roy (1994) "Mr Wason ... I Think". Leominster: Gracewing; illus. between pp. 78 & 79] Though disciplined by successive bishops of Truro (
Charles Stubbs and
Winfrid Burrows) he persisted in his ways until a group of his opponents ejected him from the parish by force.
[Brown, H. M.; 1976; A Century for Cornwall; Truro: Blackford; pp. 66–67, 79–81] Thereafter he moved to London and for a while owned a small publishing firm called Cope & Fenwick. His friend, the
Bernard Walke, wrote of him: "I regard him as not only the most original but one of the most rare personalities I have ever known ... with a nature too shy and at the same time too intolerant of the commonplace to meet with the world's approval."
[Walke, Bernard (2002) Twenty Years at St Hilary. Mount Hawke: Truran, p. 229]
United Free Methodist chapel
A newly erected chapel was opened in May 1884 by the Rev. E. Boaden of
Harrogate, ex-president of the denomination and a native of Cury.
Bochym
In the early 18th century the ownership of Bochym passed to the Robinsons, following outbreaks of
smallpox which killed the Bellott family; in 1711 Loveday Bellott, in 1717 her four sisters, and in 1719 the last survivor of the family, Bridget.
Stephen and Richard Davey were "adventurers" in the development of Cornish mines, during the boom period. They acquired an ancient manor house and estate at Bochym in Cury.[ Country Life; June 2008: "Gentleman's Manor House in Cornwall for Sale"; Text: "Bochym Manor (rebuilt 1699) has a wealth of architectural details with a stunning drawing room in French Empire style with ornate wall panels and ceiling cornices and stained glass windows, a library with exposed beams and hand-carved Italian walnut linenfold panelling and Jacobean drawing room with very early plaster relief ceiling and English walnut panelling. In all, the Grade II* listed house has 10 bedrooms, seven reception rooms, a staff flat, Gothic farmhouse, 13 cottages, outbuildings, historic landscaped walled and water gardens, bluebell wood and trout river."] Richard Davey's nephew, Joshua Sydney Davey (1842–1909), son of Stephen, inherited his estate at Bochym.[ Bochym Manor House and Clock Tower; illustrated at this site][Note: Cornwall Record Office holds archives and papers of the Davey Family for the period 1795 to 1908: Cornwall (Bochym in Cury, etc.) estate and mining business accounts and papers and miscellaneous Davey family diaries.]
Further reading
-
Tricker, Roy (1994) Mr Wason, I think; with poems by the Reverend Sandys Wason. Leominster: Gracewing
External links
