An almshouse is defined as “a unit of residential accommodation (usually a house or flat) which belongs to a charity, is provided exclusively to meet the charity’s purposes (for example, the relief of financial need or infirmity) and is occupied or is available for occupation under a licence by a qualified beneficiary”1. The Henry Williams…Continue Reading “The Pydar Street Almshouses”
Although we are unable to establish a firm date in which the following event took place, we can be sure that it was at a time when most people lived religious lives and almost everything they did between birth and death involved the local church or chapel. If however, there was one thing which…Continue Reading “Paddy the Smuggler”
A compilation of Truro public houses, past and present, up to the year 2000, researched and compiled by Tony Mansell, Bard of Gorsedh Kernow and a member of St Agnes Old Cornwall Society, and Bob Teague, a member of Truro Old Cornwall Society. Introduction Following this introduction and the overview, you will find information…Continue Reading “A Compilation of Taverns, Inns and Public Houses of Truro”
Locations derived from the 1840s Tithe map and thought to be the same in 1851. There seems to be more than one possibilities for Butt Lane. I was initially drawn to this case because Silverwell was my home for many years, it was where I was raised and where I spent so many years…Continue Reading “The Silverwell Murder”
The Dairy School at Blackwater in 1916 – local girl Olive James on the left. Dairy Schools were once an important part of rural life: they fulfilled a need and were gone by the 1930s. Considering that, perhaps it is not surprising that few have even heard of their existence. The Technical Instruction Act…Continue Reading “Dairy Schools”
Little did I think as I watched the television drama Banished, that I would one day write about one of my relatives who experienced the same sentence as those featured in that series. The compelling serial, a fact-based, fictional account of life in an Australian penal colony, was based in Botany Bay whereas Charles Mansell…Continue Reading “Notoriously Bad Was He”