trevarno snippets
- Our peacocks (peafowl) have been here longer than we have, so we thought that they needed a mention!
Did you know that they originated in Southern Asia and Malaysia and were kept for centuries by people in China and then Europe. The Peacock was brought to Egypt by the Phoenicians more than 3,000 years ago. Solomon had several peacocks and the Romans bred them for the table as well as for ornamental purposes.
Their feathers are several feet long and are discarded after the breeding season. Feathers are often taken home by the visitors but many leave them behind as there are stories that they are unlucky if brought into the house.
- William Bickford, whose descendants owned Trevarno for 4 generations, was born in Ashburton, Devon in January1774. He moved to Truro as a currier, preparing leather and then moved on to Tuckingmill near Camborne, the heart of Cornwall’s mining area.
Being upset by the amount of injuries sustained by the crude methods for setting off explosive charges used to move large amounts of rock, he started thinking of ways to make a safety fuse.
His first idea was to put the main explosive in a cartridge made of parchment and to attach a small parchment tube containing powder as a fuse. Not that reliable as you can imagine!
One day in 1831 he visited his friend James Bray who owned a rope factory in Tolgarrick Road. Watching the rope-makers a gem of an idea started growing, as he thought he may be able to adapt their process to make a fuse.
That year he designed and patented a machine, which wound strands of rope around a central core of gunpowder. Another layer was then wound in the opposite direction and then finally the rope was varnished to make it waterproof. When lit the fuse burnt along at a steady rate and never went out.
In its first year Bickford factory at Tuckingmill made 45 miles of fuse. A hundred years later the same factory made 105,545 miles of fuse. Sadly the year after his great invention he became paralysed and died in 1834.
His first partner was a Thomas Davey but when ill health struck William he turned over the works to his son John, daughter Elizabeth and son-in-law George Smith and the firm was named Bickford, Smith and Davey.
- There is a Trevarno in California.
The firm of Bickford, Smith and Davey expanded to the US in 1832-39 with the firm Bacon, Bickford, Bales and Company. In 1839 Joseph Toy was sent to expand the market further.
Toy’s son-in-law, in 1867, expanded the business further by starting another company, Coast Manufacturing and Supply Company, which much later in 1913-1914 moved its operations to Livermore, California. Here the company built houses for its workforce and named them Trevarno Road after the creator of the safety fuse.
In 1968 the coast company (now manufacturing fibreglass products) merged with the Hexcel Corporation. The fuse business was sold to Apache Powder Company in Benson, Arizona and the houses on Trevarno Road were sold.
- George Wightwick, born in Flintshire in 1802, was the architect who built the house for Christopher Wallis Popham around 1839. At that point Wallis Popham was the High Sheriff for Cornwall.
After being unable to establish as an architect in London Wightwick moved to Plymouth in 1829, where he was invited to enter into a partnership with John Foulston.
He was involved with Athenaeum Terrace (1832/4), the crescent – facing – (1833), Sussex Place (1833-6), the Devon and Cornwall Female Orphanage, Lockyer Street (1841), all in Plymouth. In Cornwall he did the Guildhall and Grammar School in Helston in 1834, did additions to the Lunatic Asylum in Bodmin, (1842,1847/8) and alterations to Pencarrow in 1844-6. In the far west he enlarged Tregenna Castle, St Ives for H L Stevens in 1845.
He retired to Clifton on 1851 and died in Somerset on the 9th July 1872.
- Both the chapel at Chynhal (on route in) and Sunday School were built in 1879. The Sunday School was used as a day school until Sithney School was built in 1912. Both were designed by William Bickford-Smith.
- There were 5 manors in the area, of which Trevarno is the only one that still exists. The others were Antron, Pengwedna, Prospidnick and Truthall.
- Neville Northey-Burnard executed a bust of William Bickford-Smith, when he was MP for Truro and Helston.
- Between 1296 - 1557 the estate was held by the Killigrews, Carminows and Courtney families.
- 1557 – 1740 the estate was held by Sir John Arundell.
- For a short period between 1780 and 1785 the estate was owned by William Oliver, father of Dr Oliver, of Bath Oliver Biscuit fame.
- In 1296 Trevarno appears in the accounts of the Earldom of Cornwall when it was occupied by Randulphus (Ralph) De Trevarno.
- The last person to have the surname Trevarno in this area (Sithney) died in 1727. Her name was Elizabeth (widow) and she was buried in Sithney.
- William Bickford-Smith son of George Smith had the famous Porthleven Institute built in 1884. At the time it was grandly called the Bickford-Smith Scientific and Literary Institute and was built by him to provide further education to many of the young boys in the area. It cost £2,000 to build.
- The Crown Inn on the main road was originally part if
the main estate and was used as the Hunting Lodge.