Treludderow

Treludderow
Historic settlement and estate
Driveway to Treludderow, 2006
Treludderow Location within Cornwall
OS grid reference	SW815556
Civil parish	St Newlyn East
Unitary authority	Cornwall
Ceremonial county	Cornwall
Region	South West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Police	Devon and Cornwall
Fire	Cornwall
Ambulance	South Western

Treludderow (also Treluddra) is a historic settlement and landed estate in the civil parish of St Newlyn East, Cornwall, England. The settlement is first recorded in 1284, although its Cornish place-name has been interpreted as indicating an earlier, probably early-medieval, origin. Medieval records include a Henry de Treludrou in 1327 and lands at Treloddrow in 1491.

By the early 16th century Treludderow was a tenement of the Bishop of Exeter's manor of Cargoll. It became the seat of a branch of the Borlase family, traditionally through marriage with an heiress of a family taking its name from Treludderow. In 1541 Walter Borlase obtained the conversion of his copyhold estate at Treludrowe into freehold, under a grant from John Vesey (Voysey), Bishop of Exeter, licensed by Henry VIII.

Treludderow subsequently developed into a substantial Borlase seat, with a mansion and deer park. Most of the mansion has disappeared, but 16th-century fabric survives within Higher Treludderow farmhouse, a Grade II listed building. Although Treludderow's documented Tudor status was that of a free tenement or barton of Cargoll, later records describe it as the manor or lordship of Treludderow.

Name and medieval settlement

The name of Treludderow has been recorded in numerous forms. J. E. B. Gover's collection of Cornish place-name forms gives Treludrou in 1284, Trelodreu and Treludrou Gres in 1327, Treloudrou in 1329, Treludrougres and Treludrou Masek in 1364, Treludrow in 1387, and Treloddrow in 1415. The Cornwall and Scilly Historic Environment Record consequently records the settlement as first documented in 1284.

The mutilated head of a medieval lantern cross was found buried in the St Newlyn churchyard in 1959.William Borlase left a description of a lantern cross he had seen at Treledra farm; it is probable that these two crosses are the same.

The forms containing an additional element appear to represent subdivisions within the settlement rather than simply variant spellings of its name. In particular, a deed of 1327 was executed at Treludrou Gres, while by 1364 the forms Treludrougres and Treludrou Masek occur together. The Historic Environment Record interprets the documentary evidence as showing that Treludderow had become subdivided by 1327.

By the 16th century the name occurs as Treludrowe, the spelling used for Walter Borlase's holding in the record of its enfranchisement in 1541. Later forms include Treluddero and Treludra, both used in the antiquarian account subsequently published by Davies Gilbert, and Treluddra, which was in established use by the early 19th century and remains an alternative form of the name.

The name is Cornish and contains the common place-name element tre, meaning an estate or farmstead. Oliver Padel considers the second element uncertain. The presence of tre is consistent with an early-medieval origin for the settlement, although its earliest presently identified written occurrence is the 1284 form Treludrou.

There is direct documentary evidence for Treludderow well before its acquisition by the Borlases. A deed dated to the Friday after the feast of St Barnabas in the first year of Edward III (1327) records Henry de Treludrou. Henry released to his brother William Penty his right in a messuage and half a ferling of land in Tyndel Mur. The deed was executed at Treludrou Gres. The geographical index to the Public Record Office catalogue identifies Treludrou Gres with Treluddra in Newlyn East. The deed provides evidence for a person using a locative surname derived from Treludderow, but does not itself establish that Henry was lord or owner of the whole settlement.

The Historic Environment Record interprets documentary evidence from 1327 as showing that Treludderow had by then become subdivided. A further deed, dated 8 August 1491, records a grant by Martin Nanspyan, chaplain and brother and heir of Reginald Nanspyan, to John Tretherff, esquire, of lands and tenements including property at Treloddrow, together with lands at Tendeyll and Tregonowe and elsewhere. This evidence predates the Borlase association and indicates that land within Treludderow could form part of wider landed holdings.

Relationship with Cargoll

Treludderow has no separate entry in Domesday Book. The neighbouring estate of Cargoll, however, appears in Great Domesday as Cargau. Domesday Book was principally a survey and valuation of landed property and lordship rather than a comprehensive catalogue of every individual settlement or later place-name.

The later dependence of Treludderow upon Cargoll therefore cannot securely be projected backwards to 1086. The Domesday entry for Cargoll does not name Treludderow, and there is no surviving evidence cited here explicitly stating that Treludderow formed part of the Domesday estate. Its absence as a separate entry is nevertheless compatible with its having been a subordinate settlement or with the place-name having developed after the Domesday survey. The place-name evidence has led the Cornwall and Scilly Historic Environment Record to classify Treludderow as a settlement of probable early-medieval origin.

Before the Norman Conquest, Cargoll belonged to the community of St Petroc at Bodmin. Following the conquest it came into the possession of Robert, Count of Mortain, while continuing to be held in relation to the Bodmin establishment. In 1269 Roger de Valletort granted the manor of Cargoll and the advowson of St Newlyn to Walter Bronescombe, Bishop of Exeter; the transaction was confirmed by Bodmin Priory.

By the 16th century the relationship between the two estates is explicit. Walter Borlase held Treludrowe as copyhold land of the Bishop of Exeter and as part of the bishop's manor of Cargoll. Historic England accordingly describes Treludderow as a free tenement of Cargoll manor following its enfranchisement.

Acquisition by the Borlase family

Treludderow became associated with the Borlase family around the beginning of the 16th century. Historic England states that Treluddrow barton came to the Borlases by marriage about 1500 and that its status was subsequently raised.

The identity of the marriage through which the estate passed is less certain than the later ownership. William Copeland Borlase, writing in The Genealogist in 1886, discussed a tradition derived from the antiquary William Hals. According to the account attributed to Hals, a daughter of Oates Treluddero married a member of the Borlase family towards the end of the reign of Henry VIII. Early Borlase pedigrees assigned the Treludderow heiress to Walter Borlase.

Borlase nevertheless explicitly acknowledged difficulties with this account. The portion of Hals's manuscript dealing with Newlyn had already been lost, Walter Borlase's marriages were imperfectly recorded, and the identification depended partly upon pedigree evidence and Walter's subsequent possession of Treludderow. The marriage to a Treludderow heiress is therefore best regarded as a well-established later tradition, supported by the family's subsequent possession, rather than as a transaction for which a contemporary marriage settlement has been identified.

The surname Treludderow did not immediately disappear from the parish. William Copeland Borlase noted an Edmond Treluddro in the Newlyn subsidy roll of 1543. Consequently, references to an heiress of Treludderow should not be taken to imply that every bearer of the surname had become extinct.

Enfranchisement of 1541

The clearest evidence for Walter Borlase's tenure is the enfranchisement of 1541. William Copeland Borlase published an account derived from an Exchequer Memoranda Roll which records that Walter had previously held Treludrowe from the Bishop of Exeter as part of the manor of Cargoll.

In 1541 John Vesey (Voysey), Bishop of Exeter, agreed to convert Walter's copyhold into freehold. The lands named in the transaction were Treludrowe, Chironneck, Lawen and Seghtnans. The record stated that Walter had substantially improved the property, including land previously described as dry, furzy, barren and unenclosed, and had constructed hedges, ditches and houses.

The grant retained a limited service to the bishop. Walter and his heirs were required to entertain the Bishop of Exeter's surveyor and steward, together with their servants and six horses, for one night in each year. Because the transaction concerned episcopal property, royal licence was obtained. Henry VIII issued letters patent licensing the grant on 16 December 1541.

The 1541 transaction is significant in the history of Treludderow because it changed the legal character of the Borlases' possession: Walter's estate ceased to be a customary copyhold of Cargoll and became a freehold, although its historical connection with the episcopal manor remained part of its title.

Borlase seat

Treludderow developed under the Borlases into a substantial gentry residence. Historic England records that the house stood at the centre of a 16th-century deer park, while the Cornwall and Scilly Historic Environment Record describes Treludderow as having become a place of importance under the family from about 1500.

The earlier Borlase mansion no longer survives substantially intact. The Cornish historian and antiquary Charles Henderson, who examined the site in 1920, considered a surviving building traditionally called a chapel more likely to represent part of the former Borlase mansion. He described surviving 16th-century architectural features including granite masonry, mullioned windows and a moulded doorway.

The present Higher Treludderow (Treluddra) Farmhouse is principally of late-18th-century date but incorporates earlier work. Its rear wing includes reset 16th-century features, including a four-centred moulded granite arch and moulded fragments which Historic England considers likely to have come from the earlier Borlase house. The farmhouse was first listed at Grade II on 28 February 1952.

A local tradition identified part of the surviving building as a chapel. Henderson was sceptical of the identification, but observed that if a chapel had existed there its post-Reformation use would be plausible because the Borlases were Catholics and a recusant Catholic community developed around Treluddra. In 1755 the antiquary William Borlase also recorded at Treludderow the base of a carved cross.

Later ownership

The antiquaries Daniel Lysons and Samuel Lysons described Treludderow in 1814 as the manor and barton of Treluddra or Treluddero. They stated that it had formerly been the property and seat of an old family of the same name before passing by marriage to the Borlases.

According to the Lysons, after the period of Humphrey Borlase the Treludderow estate was sold to Sir William Scawen. It subsequently passed from the Scawen family to Francis Basset, later Lord de Dunstanville, and from Basset to Sir Christopher Hawkins.

The terminology used for Treludderow changed over time. The Tudor evidence describes Walter Borlase's property as a copyhold, subsequently freehold, within the manor of Cargoll, and Historic England calls the estate a free tenement or barton of Cargoll. By the late 18th century, however, Treludderow was being described independently in manorial terminology. A legal document dated 29 September 1799 preserved at Kresen Kernow is catalogued as concerning the "Manor or lordship of Treludderow, Newlyn East".

The historic relationship between Treludderow and Cargoll nevertheless remained relevant. An early-19th-century estate plan in the Kresen Kernow collections is entitled "Cargoal manor and Treluddra" and was reduced from three maps associated with a lease dated 20 June 1807.

See also

• Cargoll
• Borlase family
• St Newlyn East