Trewhiddle is a small settlement in south

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a Historic counties of England, historic county and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people ...

, England, United Kingdom. It lies in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

of Pentewan Valley and the

ecclesiastical parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

of St Austell. The nearest town is

St Austell St Austell (; kw, Sans Austel) is a town in Cornwall, England, south of Bodmin and west of the border with Devon. St Austell is one of the largest towns in Cornwall; at the 2011 census it had a population of 19,958. History St Austell ...

, approximately one mile to the north. The Trewhiddle Hoard (see below) has given its name to a

Trewhiddle style Trewhiddle style is a distinctive style in Anglo-Saxon art that takes its name from the Trewhiddle Hoard, discovered in Trewhiddle, Cornwall in 1770. Trewhiddle ornamentation includes the use of silver, niello inlay, and zoomorphic, plant and ge ...

of decoration in Anglo-Saxon art of the 9th century.

Manor of Trewhiddle

Trewhiddle was formerly referred to as a manorRashleigh, J. "An account of Anglo-Saxon coins and gold and silver ornaments found at Trewhiddle, near St Austell, AD 1774", ''Numismatic Chronicle'' 8: 137-157 (1868) which at one time contained two small settlements, Higher and Lower Trewhiddle. These settlements existed till at least 1891, but have since disappeared. The Trewhiddle area still includes two farms and Trewhiddle House.

Archaeology

The Trewhiddle Hoard

The Victoria history of the county of Cornwall BHL22111458

On 8 November 1774, miners streaming for tin uncovered a hoard of 114

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened wit ...

coins together with a silver chalice and other gold and silver objects. The coins, mostly from

Mercia la, Merciorum regnum , conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia , common_name=Mercia , status=Kingdom , status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879)Client state of Wessex () , life_span=527–918 , era=Heptarchy , event_start= , date_start= , y ...

and

Wessex la, Regnum Occidentalium Saxonum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the West Saxons , common_name = Wessex , image_map = Southern British Isles 9th century.svg , map_caption = S ...

, indicate that the hoard was hidden, possibly to protect it from

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

raiders, in around 868. The artefacts were originally collected by Philip Rashleigh who published a subsequent account. Some were later dispersed, but most of the hoard was presented to the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

. Many of the artefacts were decorated with stylized

niello Niello is a black mixture, usually of sulphur, copper, silver, and lead, used as an inlay on engraved or etched metal, especially silver. It is added as a powder or paste, then fired until it melts or at least softens, and flows or is pushed ...

animals, a feature of

Anglo-Saxon art Anglo-Saxon art covers art produced within the Anglo-Saxon period of English history, beginning with the Migration period style that the Anglo-Saxons brought with them from the continent in the 5th century, and ending in 1066 with the Norman ...

which has since become known as Trewhiddle style decoration.

The Trewhiddle Ingot

Another remarkable discovery was made in 2003, when a 150-year-old lump of

tungsten Tungsten, or wolfram, is a chemical element with the symbol W and atomic number 74. Tungsten is a rare metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively as compounds with other elements. It was identified as a new element in 1781 and first isol ...

was found at Trewhiddle Farm. This may predate the earliest known smelting of the metal (which requires extremely high temperatures) and has led to speculation that it may have been produced during a visit by

Rudolf Erich Raspe Rudolf Erich Raspe (March 1736 – 16 November 1794) was a German librarian, writer, and scientist, called by his biographer John Patrick Carswell a "rogue". He is best known for his collection of tall tales '' The Surprising Adventures of Baro ...

to Happy-Union mine (at nearby Pentewan) in the late eighteenth century. Raspe, best known as the author or translator of the

Baron Munchausen Baron Munchausen (; ) is a fictional German nobleman created by the German writer Rudolf Erich Raspe in his 1785 book ''Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia''. The character is loosely based on a real ...

stories, was also a chemist with a particular interest in tungsten.

Trewhiddle House and estate

The legendary Cornish smuggler

Cruel Coppinger Cruel Coppinger ( kw, Coppinger fell) is a semi-legendary figure in Cornish folklore. Coppinger was a real person, but various legends grew up around him, lending him near superhuman powers and a fearsome reputation. He is portrayed as huge and fe ...

may have been based on John Copinger, said to have purchased the Trewhiddle estate in the 1790s. In the 1840s, Trewhiddle House was home to the entomologist and botanist

Francis Polkinghorne Pascoe Francis Polkinghorne Pascoe (1 September 1813 – 20 June 1893) was an English entomologist mainly interested in beetles. Biography He was born in Penzance, Cornwall and trained at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London. Appointed surgeon in the Nav ...

. In the late twentieth century the house became a restaurant (the 'Trewhiddle Inn') and the estate a tourist campsite. Both house and estate have now been sold to developers and a number of 'New England-style' holiday villas have now been built. Little evidence remains of the former house other than a capped-off well and a small portion of the former walls which have been built into the landscaping.

References

{{Cornwall, state=collapsed Manors in Cornwall Hamlets in Cornwall 1774 archaeological discoveries 2003 archaeological discoveries