Devoran ( kw, Deveryon) is a village in south
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
, England, United Kingdom. It is southwest of
Truro
Truro (; kw, Truru) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Cornwall, England. It is Cornwall's county town, sole city and centre for administration, leisure and retail trading. Its ...
at .
[Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 204 ''Truro & Falmouth'' ] Formerly an
ecclesiastical parish
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish priest ...
, Devoran is now 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 authority ...
of
Feock (where the 2011 census population is included).
The village is on the northeast bank of the
Carnon River
The Carnon River ( kw, Avon Carnon) is a heavily polluted river in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It starts in Chacewater. Trewedna Water and River Kennall flow into the Carnon before it merges with Tallack's Creek to become Restronguet Creek, which ...
at its confluence with
Restronguet Creek
Restronguet Creek is a tidal ria in south Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is a tributary of Carrick Roads, the estuary of the River Fal, and is situated approximately four miles (6.5 km) south of Truro and three miles (5 km) north o ...
, a tidal creek which flows into
Carrick Roads
Carrick Roads ( kw, Dowr Carrek, meaning "rock anchorage") is the estuary of the River Fal on the south coast of Cornwall in England. It joins the English Channel at its southern end near Falmouth.
Geography
It is a large flooded valley, or ...
above
Falmouth. Devoran is at the Normal Tidal Limit (NTL) of the creek
but until the 20th-century the
tidal limit
Head of tide, tidal limit or tidehead is the farthest point upstream where a river is affected by tidal fluctuations, or where the fluctuations are less than a certain amount. This applies to rivers which flow into tidal bodies such as oceans, b ...
stretched much further up the valley than now.
[Cornwall Industrial Settlements Initiative; Devoran]
PDF. Retrieved 8 April 2016
The name ''Devoran'' comes from the
Cornish language
Cornish (Standard Written Form: or ) , is a Southwestern Brittonic language, Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family. It is a List of revived languages, revived language, having become Extinct language, extinct as a livin ...
''Deveryon'', meaning 'waters'.
Mining
Devoran played an important role in the
tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal.
Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...
and
copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...
mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...
industry. It developed as a small port engaged in the export of mined minerals and the import of mining materials and coal. The
Redruth and Chasewater Railway
The Redruth and Chasewater Railway, (otherwise called the ''Redruth and Chacewater Railway'' using modern spelling), was an early mineral railway line in Cornwall, England, UK. It opened in 1825 and was built to convey the output from copper mine ...
, an early industrial line which served the many mines a few miles to the north, terminated at the port (although there was an extension to wharves at
Point
Point or points may refer to:
Places
* Point, Lewis, a peninsula in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland
* Point, Texas, a city in Rains County, Texas, United States
* Point, the NE tip and a ferry terminal of Lismore, Inner Hebrides, Scotland
* Point ...
on which trains were hauled by horses rather than locomotives). Today, this long-disused railway forms part of a coast-to-coast
footpath
A footpath (also pedestrian way, walking trail, nature trail) is a type of thoroughfare that is intended for use only by pedestrians and not other forms of traffic such as motorized vehicles, bicycles and horses. They can be found in a wide ...
and cycle route.
A ruined engine house of
Carnon Mine
Carnon Mine was a tin mine at Restronguet Creek, near the village of Devoran in Cornwall, England. A ruined engine house survives on the north bank of the creek. It is a Grade II listed building.
History
The tin mine opened in 1824. The survivin ...
is on the bank of the estuary near Devoran. The tin mine was in operation from 1824 to 1830.
Church
The church of St John and St Petroc (architect
John Loughborough Pearson
John Loughborough Pearson (5 July 1817 – 11 December 1897) was a British Gothic Revival architect renowned for his work on churches and cathedrals. Pearson revived and practised largely the art of vaulting, and acquired in it a proficiency ...
) was built in 1855–56 and consists of a nave and chancel only. It was renovated in 1879.
Thomas Lobb
Thomas Lobb (1817–1894) was a British botanist and, along with his older brother, William Lobb, collected plants for the plant nursery Veitch.
Lobb worked in India, Indonesia and the Philippines. In 1845 he discovered the first orchid species ...
,
Victorian botanist
Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...
and plant hunter is buried in Devoran churchyard. The parish war memorial by H J Martin lists seventeen names "in grateful memory of the men of the parish of Devoran who fell in the
Great War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
1914–1919". A further section of eight names was added of
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
casualties.
References
Further reading
* Acton, Viv ''Life by the Fal: Years of change at Point and Penpol'', Penpol, Landmark Publications (1993)
* Acton, Bob ''Exploring Cornwall's tramway trails, Volume 2: The coast-to coast trail: Portreath to Devoran and beyond'', Penpol, Landmark Publications (1997)
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Villages in Cornwall
Ports and harbours of Cornwall