Place:Illogan, Cornwall, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Illogan (Cornish: Egloshal) is a village and civil parish in Cornwall, England, two miles (3 km) northwest of Redruth. The population of Illogan was 5,404 at the 2011 census. In the same year the population of the Camborne-Redruth urban area (formerly Camborne-Redruth Urban District), which also includes Carn Brea, Illogan and several satellite villages, stood at 55,400 making it the largest conurbation in Cornwall.

Originally a rural area supporting itself by farming and agriculture, Illogan shared in the general leap into prosperity brought about by the mining boom, which was experienced by the whole Camborne-Redruth area.

The parish church was dedicated to St Illogan (Ylloganus or Euluganus) and St Edmund; the earliest reliable reference, dated 1235, refers to the Ecclesia of Eglossalau. By 1844, the church had become too small to serve a vastly increasing mining population, so a new church was built to the designs of J. P. St Aubyn at a cost of £2,875 and came into use on 4 November 1846. The Bell Tower is all that remains of the old church; Trinity House refused to allow its removal as it provided a useful landmark for shipping. The church reopened in 2012 after extensive repairs to the roof.

The ecclesiastical parish extends beyond Carn Brea and includes long stretches of the North Cliffs - from Reskajeage Downs on the North Cliffs to Cambrose, with a population of 12,500 people. It was split into three civil parishes - Illogan; Carn Brea, which includes the village of Pool; and Portreath.

The civil parish has a population of 5,404 and stretches from Bridge and Harris Mill in the east; Tolvaddon and Bell Lake in the west; and from the A30 to Reskajeage.

end of Wikipedia contribution

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the information that

Illogan was part of the Penwith Hundred, a sub-registration district of the Redruth Registration District between 1837 and circa 1900, part of the Redruth Rural Sanitary District until 1894, and part of the Redruth Rural District from 1894 until 1934. In 1934 the rural district was abolished to create Camborne-Redruth Urban District, of which Illogan was a part.

19th Century Description

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Illogan from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"ILLOGAN, a village, a parish, and a sub-district in Redruth district, Cornwall. The village stands 2½ miles NW by W of Redruth [railway] station; bears the name of Illogan-Church-Town; and has a post office, of that name, under Redruth. The parish contains also the villages of Pool and Portreath, and part of that of {Carn] Brea; includes parts of the chapelries of Tuckingmill and Mount-Hawke; and extends along the coast. Acres: 8,317; of which 45 are water. Real property: £108,993; of which £102,570 are in mines and £539 in railways. Population: in 1851: 9,256; in 1861: 9,683. Houses, 1,819. The property is subdivided.

"The manor belongs to John F. Basset, Esq. Carnbrea hill, 740 feet high, noticed in our article CAMBORNE, is all within the parish. A small castle, at the E end of that hill, occupies the site of a very ancient fortalice, supposed to have been built by the Britons; is itself an ancient structure, recently enlarged and altered; and is thought to have originated the name Illogan, the last two syllables of which signify, in Cornish, "the white tower" or "the tower on the downs." Remains of a circular fortification, called the Old Castle, are a little to the W; and a column, to the memory of the late Lord Dunstanville, is on the hill's summit. Druidical remains are numerous. Mines of tin and copper are extensively worked; building stone is quarried; and the West Cornwall railway, with a branch to Portreath, facilitates the traffic. The Redruth workhouse is here; and, at the census of 1861, had 254 inmates. The plague, in 1591, was so fatal in Illogan as to cut down tenfold the average of other places. The living is a rectory, united with the chapelries of Portreath and Trevenson, in the diocese of Exeter. Value: £587. Patron, J. F. Basset, Esq. The church is a modern edifice, with the tower of a previous church; and contains brasses and monuments of the Bassets. There are two chapels of the Established church, eight chapels of Wesleyans and United Free Methodists, one chapel of Bryanites, and five national schools. The sub-district is conterminate with the parish."

This description is placed here to indicate the villages which were originally within Illogan parish.

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.

• Repository:Cornwall Record Office
• Repository:Cornish Studies Library
• Repository:Cornwall Family History Society
• Repository:Cornwall Online Parish Clerks
• Repository:Cornwall Online Census Project
• Repository:West Briton Transcripts Database (Transcriptions from a Cornish newspaper of 1836-1887)

• 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

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