Place:Boscastle, Cornwall, England

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NameBoscastle
Alt namesKastell Boterelsource: Wikipedia
TypeVillage
Coordinates50.683°N 4.7°W
Located inCornwall, England
See alsoForrabury and Minster, Cornwall, Englandjoint parish in which it is located
Lesnewth Hundred, Cornwall, Englandhundred in which it is situated
Camelford Rural, Cornwall, Englandrural district in which it is located
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog
the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Boscastle is a village and fishing port on the north coast of Cornwall, England, since 1918 in the civil parish of Forrabury and Minster. It is 14 miles (23 km) south of Bude and 5 miles (8 km) northeast of Tintagel.

Boscastle is not a civil parish in itself, but a village sitting on the border of two parishes, Forrabury and Minster, which merged ecclesiastically in 1779, but did not become one civil parish until 1918. As a result finding vital records for people who lived in the area before 1918 may involve searching two or three registers.

The name of the village comes from Botreaux Castle (pronounced "But'ry"), a 12th-century motte-and-bailey fortress, of which few remains survive. The castle was anciently in the possession of the de Botreaux family, which became, under William de Botereaux (1337–91), the Barons Botreaux.

Boscastle harbour is a natural inlet protected by two stone harbour walls built in 1584 by Sir Richard Grenville (of HMS Revenge). It is the only significant harbour for 20 miles (32 km) along the coast. As well as being a fishing harbour it was also a port for importing limestone and coal and exporting slate and other local produce.

The oldest part of Boscastle surrounds the harbour; more modern residential building extends up the valleys of the River Valency and River Jordan.

Boscastle is prone to flash floods due to the steepness of the drop down to the harbour level from the plains above. There have been two floods of note in the 21st century.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Boscastle.


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Research Tips

One of the many maps available on A Vision of Britain through Time is one from the Ordnance Survey Series of 1900 illustrating the parish boundaries of Cornwall at the turn of the 20th century. This map blows up to show all the parishes and many of the small villages and hamlets.

The following websites have pages explaining their provisions in WeRelate's Repository Section. Some provide free online databases.

  • GENUKI makes a great many suggestions as to other websites with worthwhile information about Cornwall as well as providing 19th century descriptions of each of the ecclesiastical parishes.
  • FamilySearch Wiki provides a similar information service to GENUKI which may be more up-to-date.
  • A Vision of Britain through Time has
  1. organization charts of the hierarchies of parishes within hundreds, registration districts and rural and urban districts of the 20th century
  2. excerpts from a gazetteer of circa 1870 outlining individual towns and parishes
  3. reviews of population through the time period 1800-1960
  • More local sources can often be found by referring to "What Links Here" in the column on the left.

https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/CON/Jacobstow

This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Boscastle. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
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