The family and estate archive of the Pendarves family had been held on deposit at Cornwall Record Office in Truro since November 1953.
The Pendarves family rose to prominence in Cornwall during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries as local land and mine owners, with the hub of their estate being focussed on the manor of Treslothan in the west Cornwall parish of Camborne. They also owned other scattered Cornish lands such as the manor of Galowras in Gorran near St Austell, the manor of Polsue in St Erme near Truro and the manor of Nancothan in Redruth, east of Camborne. These land holdings provided them with a considerable income from the rental of property, and, after the rise of deep level mining in eighteenth century Cornwall, from the leasing out of lands for mines of tin and copper, in an area of the County which produced between one fifth and one third of the entire world’s copper production in the early nineteenth century.
Through the generous assistance of FNL the office was able to secure the majority of estate’s manorial and administrative estate management records. This included the rentals of the manor of Treslothan from 1784-1848, with a later series from 1899-1955, and a key 1806 estate atlas of Treslothan manor, with a very fine series of highly detailed and coloured manorial tenement plans for the same manor of c.1850-1870. Other significant items were the Treslothan rent ledger of 1774-1780, a court book of 1781-1814 and an almost complete set of sales records and documentation, including letter books, covering the post-1930 wholesale dispersal of the estate, an essential acquisition for anyone studying the history of these properties.
Manorial documentation for other Pendarves-owned Cornish manors such as Galowras and Polsue, dating from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries was also acquired. The family’s archive also contained manorial records for Cornish lands which were not owned directly by the family and further sale room purchases included a 1702 survey of the manor of Launcells in north Cornwall and a series of court presentments for the manor of Nancekuke in Illogan parish from 1766-1855, both Basset of Tehidy estate archives.
The Cornwall Record Office acknowledges with gratitude the generous financial support of FNLtowards the purchase of these significant Cornish archives.