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Trelavour Downs

Trelavour Downs maps

Historic maps of Trelavour Downs and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis.   View all Trelavour Downs maps

Trelavour Downs photos

We have no photos of Trelavour Downs, although we do have photos of these nearby places:

St Dennis| St Stephen| Roche| Carthew| Quoit| St Columb| Polgooth| St Austell| Colan| Luxulyan| Charlestown| Porthpean| Mitchell| Lanivet| Carlyon Bay| St Mawgan| Trenarren| Probus| Nanstallon

Trelavour Downs area books

Displaying 1 of 16 books about Trelavour Downs and the local area.   View all books for this area

Memories of Trelavour Downs

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Cornwall memories

My Life as Boy And Man in St.Dennis

Robartes Road c1960
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I moved into the first house on the right in the photo with the bay window in February of 1960 with my parents and 3 brothers. We were only the second tenants of that house. I stayed there with my parents until I got married in 1974.  My father still lives there 47 years after we moved in. I have very fond memories of that house and surrounding neighbours. Mr Cory our next door neighbour at the time used to breed pigeons and a great aunt of mine gave me a couple of Bantams and I used to breed them and father would have his chickens. As children we would spend hours playing football in the road and down the bottom of the road on the village green. I was born in St. Dennis in 1953 and I still live there even though I have moved around the village a bit.  When we first got married Jackie and I lived next door to the Blacksmiths Shop were we stayed for... Read more

Happy Days

Hendra Road c1960
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Wonderful memories of a very happy childhood. I am St. Dennis born and bred, and for me there's no place like it. My father Stanley Grigg and his partner had a cycle shop and repair business and I remember well the American G.I's bringing my mother tins of fruit and meat during wartime.  I would get the odd packet of chewing gum too. The summers seemed much longer then and I can remember how I would wait for my father to come home from the quarry, we would take a jug and walk hand in hand down Prazy Hill to fetch cool sparkling water from the spring.
I first went to the infant school where Miss Curtis was in charge, and then onto the top school with Mr. Pellymounter and Miss. Kent. Miss. Williams my sewing teacher always shouted at me. I could'nt sew to save my life, still can't.  She always called my stitches cat's teeth. I think she was maybe the reason why I hate it so... Read more

Music And Memories

Is there anyone else who sang in Mrs Solomon's choir and went to Mr Pellymounter's school in St Dennis. I remember all the grownup ladies wearing their wedding dresses as we had to wear white. I was about four when I started to sing in the choir. My mother found some white silk and made me a dress that had enormous seams and hem, so that I was able to wear it for about four years. On one occasion I remember we sang in the main Methodist Hall in Plymouth. I also sang for Children's Hour from the BBC studios in Bristol. I think I was seven at the time. Mr Pellymounter had lots of friends in the theatre, among them Ann Todd and Eric Portman. He used to tell us stories of operas and he made English literature come to life. My father, not a St Dennis man, was a founder member of the St Dennis Male Voice Choir, which used to rehearse around the baby grand piano my... Read more

My Childhood

I was born in 1944 in my grandmother's house named 'Bloemfontein' at Higher Fraddon.
She named the house after the capital of the Orange Free State of South Africa where she was born.
Her father, my great-grandfather Parkyn, was a miner and made his wealth? and each of his children were able to have a start in life. 'Bloemfontein' was my grandmother's start and my birth in that house was mine.
Within a short distance from that house lived my Gran Parkyn in a bungulow called Karee.
My grandfather's aunt, Bessie Goodman, lived a short distance away and there were other relatives such as the Cann family and Aunt Helen and Leda White, all lived on the same road, the only road that came off the main A30 and then through this hamlet, if you could call it that? and on for quite a few miles through the hamlet of Retew and on to Treviscoe. Retew was yet one more place I lived for a short time as a child,... Read more

My Ancestry

I traced my family ancestry to St Stephen in Cornwall as far back as the 1500s. My husband and I visited England in 2005, and spent some time in Cornwall. As an Australian of several generations, I am fascinated to know where the various branches of my family have come from. Everyone in Australia originally came from another part of the world. I have some surnames in my family history which are from St Stephen and St Dennis. I searched both cemeteries for headstones bearing my family names; Trethewey and Kent. It was a great thrill for me to find many headstones, including one with the same name as my father, Fred Kent.
From family records, most of my forebears were tinners. I was interested that the mining area seemed to be china clay. My ancestor who originally made the journey to Australia in the early 1800s, Nicholas Kent, and his wife, Loveday (Trethewey), was listed as a master shoemaker.  
It was an amazing and heartwarming experience to... Read more

First Visit

I first discovered Roche while on a motoring holiday with my parents when I was 12 years old.  Being young and nimble, I was up those ladders like a monkey, much to the horror of my parents.  
My latest visit was last week, Monday 11th September 2006, and although I was ready to try the ladders again, my fiance would not allow me, because, unfortunately, I am not a teenager any more. I was not really aware of any changes due to the long period in between my visits, and my memory of it has obviously faded.

Mrs Abbot's Minah Bird

My sister Linda worked in Carthew shop back in the late 60s and early 70s. Her boss was a women called Mrs Abbot. She had a Minah Bird that she kept in the kitchen but it could always be heard from the shop. It was a very good talker and was very prone to swearing. Mark Scott.

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