Part of the
Acorn Archive
Penzance, Cornwall
Architecture
and Heritage
The Charter
Boundary
Of the earliest “structures” of Penzance to be seen are
the Boundary Stones.
Two of the original four bound-stones remain.
In, what is now named The Greenmarket, stood the cross,
of unknown antiquity.
The Cross is known as The Market Cross.
When the boundaries of the town were first set,
the encompassment was defined as a circle of a half mile
radius from the cross.
In fact it was the Charter itself, a Charter of
Incorporation given by King James I,
on the 9th May 1614, that defined this unusual
boundary limit.
In 1687, the town had made and set the four bound-stones,
costing £3:9s:6d.
The bound-stones were set at Wherrytown, Chyandour,
Alverton and Chapel St Clare.
They are marked “P” / “16” / “87”
Three views of
the bound-stone at Chyandour
Three views of
the bound-stone at Chapel St Clare
The
bound-stone at Alverton was replaced with a new stone,
(when Estate walls were built anew)
in 1865, and set by Mayor John Richards Branwell.
The stone is inscribed “B S” / 13 FT 6 IN / S / “1865”.
The stone at Wherrytown has “disappeared”.
Quite how the positions of the bound-stones were
positioned,
before the advent of Ordnance Maps and Global Positioning
Satellites,
is a matter for some consideration, as a line of sight
view was clearly out of the question.
The stone at Alverton is not quite in the “correct”
position,
but that must have been a compromise with the access
drive position for the Estate.
The two original stones are, as we say here, “spot on”;
they also have bench mark stations inscribed in their
heads.
Bench Mark on
the stone at St Clare
From the
painting "Beating the Borough Bounds"
by John Thomas
Blight 1835-1911
Showing Mayor Samuel Higgs at Alverton Bound-Stone,
Penzance in 1853.
Raymond
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