Cury

Cury (Cornish: Egloskuri) 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 peninsula. The parish is named for St Corentin and is recorded in the Domesday Book as Chori.

Not to be confused with Curry, Curie, or Forme of cury.

Cury Cornish: Egloskuri
The cross in the churchyard
Cury Location within Cornwall
Population	388 (Civil Parish, 2001) 431 (2011 Census)[1]
OS grid reference	SW678213
Civil parish	Cury
Unitary authority	Cornwall
Ceremonial county	Cornwall
Region	South West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Helston
Postcode district	TR12
Dialling code	01326
Police	Devon and Cornwall
Fire	Cornwall
Ambulance	South Western
UK Parliament	St Ives

Demographics and geography

Cury is a rural parish with a population of 388 at the 2001 census.[2] 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.[3] Cury lies within the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

Church history

The Church of St Corentin, Cury

The parish church is dedicated to St Corentin.[2] 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 Winnianton, but became a chapelry of Breage in the 13th century.[4][5]

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.[6]

Sandys Wason

From 1905 to 1920 the parishes of Cury and Gunwalloe were served by Father Sandys Wason as perpetual curate.[7] 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).[8] 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.[9] He held open air services by the sea at Gunwalloe Church Cove on All Souls' Day and All Saints' Day.[10] 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.[11] Thereafter he moved to London and for a while owned a small publishing firm called Cope and Fenwick. His friend, the Rev. 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."[12]

Cury in relation to neighbouring parishes

United Free Methodist chapel

A newly erected chapel was opened in May 1884 by the Rev. E. Boaden of Harrogate, ex-president of the denominaton and a native of Cury.[13]

Bochym

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.[14][15] Richard Davey's nephew, Joshua Sydney Davey (1842–1909), son of Stephen inherited his estate at Bochym.[16][17]

References

1. "Civil Parish population 2011". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 6 March 2017.
2. GENUKI Cury; official website; retrieved May 2010
3. Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 203 Land's End ISBN 978-0-319-23148-7
4. Cornish Church Guide (1925) Truro: Blackford; p. 83 (Earl Richard of Cornwall bestowed it in 1246)
5. Pevsner, N. (1970) Cornwall, 2nd ed., revised by Enid Radcliffe. Penguin Books; pp. 61-62
6. Langdon, A. G. (1896) Old Cornish Crosses. Truro: Joseph Pollard; p. 267-68
7. 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
8. Cohen, J. M., ed. (1952) The Penguin Book of Comic and Curious Verse. Harmondsworth: Penguin; pp. 199–202
9. Butler-Gallie, F . A Field Guide to the English Clergy; p. 11. London: Oneworld Publications, 2018 ISBN 9781786074416
10. Tricker, Roy (1994) "Mr Wason ... I Think". Leominster: Gracewing; illus. between pp. 78 & 79
11. Brown, H. M.; 1976; A Century for Cornwall; Truro: Blackford; pp. 66–67, 79–81
12. Walke, Bernard (2002) Twenty Years at St Hilary. Mount Hawke: Truran, p. 229
13. "A Newly-Erected Chapel ...". The Cornishman (304). 15 May 1884. p. 6.
14. Deacon, Bernard (2001). "Chapter 5, Institutionalising Cornwall: The Role of a Social Elite". The reformulation of territorial identity: Cornwall in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (PhD). Open University.
15. 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."
16. Bochym Manor House and Clock Tower; illustrated at this site
17. 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