Zelah is a village in
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 Atlan ...
, England, United Kingdom, approximately 5 miles (8 kilometres) north of
Truro
Truro (; kw, Truru) is a cathedral city and civil parish in Cornwall, England. It is Cornwall's county town, sole city and centre for administration, leisure and retail trading. Its population was 18,766 in the 2011 census. People of Truro c ...
. Zelah is the largest settlement in the
civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of Parish (administrative division), administrative parish used for Local government in England, local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below district ...
of
St Allen
St Allen ( kw, Eglosalan (hamlet), Pluw Alan (parish)) is a civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The church town of St Allen is an isolated hamlet and the main settlement in the parish is Zelah which is situated on the A30 trun ...
. The parish population in the 2001 census was 435.
History and toponymy
The
A30 London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
-
Land's End
Land's End ( kw, Penn an Wlas or ''Pedn an Wlas'') is a headland and tourist and holiday complex in western Cornwall, England, on the Penwith peninsula about west-south-west of Penzance at the western end of the A30 road. To the east of it i ...
road used to pass through Zelah until 1992 when a bypass was built south of the village to divert the trunk road away from the "High Road" that ran through the village. This typical ridge road runs from Carland Cross to Chiverton with barrows and burial cemeteries along its length gives some idea of the age of this old way. The public house in Zelah is an old coaching inn named The Hawkins Arms in the 19th century in honour of a descendant of the West Country seafarer Sir
Richard Hawkins
Admiral Sir Richard Hawkins (or Hawkyns) (c. 1562 – 17 April 1622) was a 17th-century English seaman, explorer and privateer. He was the son of Admiral Sir John Hawkins.
Biography
He was from his earlier days familiar with ships and the s ...
who gave it patronage. E. R. Kelly's Directory of Cornwall lists two public houses in the village in the 1883 edition and shows on the map both The Hawkins Arms – licensee Mr John Borlase and just behind to the east the Half-Moon Public House – licensee John Jose. This second pub stood right up to the turn of the century until it was demolished along with a wheelwrights smithy (one of three in the village at that time – the two others being blacksmiths) and a larger barn in the Hawkins car park nearby. The old pub site is now occupied by Half Moon House.(''Kelly's Directory of Cornwall''; 1883. London: Kelly & Co.)
Zelah is named after a
place
Place may refer to:
Geography
* Place (United States Census Bureau), defined as any concentration of population
** Census-designated place, a populated area lacking its own municipal government
* "Place", a type of street or road name
** Ofte ...
in ancient
Judea
Judea or Judaea ( or ; from he, יהודה, Standard ''Yəhūda'', Tiberian ''Yehūḏā''; el, Ἰουδαία, ; la, Iūdaea) is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous Latin, and the modern-day name of the mountainous south ...
which was the burial place of
King Saul
Saul (; he, , ; , ; ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the first monarch of the United Kingdom of Israel. His reign, traditionally placed in the late 11th century BCE, supposedly marked the transition of Israel and Judah from a scattered t ...
, his father Kish and his son Jonathan.
[Old Testament: Joshua 18: 21; 2 Samuel 21: 14] The Rev. John Bannister (1816–1873) Vicar of
St Day
St Day ( kw, Sen Day) is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated between the village of Chacewater and the town of Redruth. The electoral ward St Day and Lanner had a population at the 2011 census of 4,473 ...
wrote in his Glossary of Cornish Names in 1869 the entry for Zelah as Ze-Alla or Ze-Lah meaning dry (seek) enclosure, (lan).
References
3. ''Kelly's Directory of Cornwall''; E. R. Kelly, ed. (1883) Lincoln's Inn Fields London: Kelly & Co.
4. Bannister, John, Rev. (1869). ''A Glossary of Cornish Names''. Truro: Netherton.
External links
Zelah listings
Villages in Cornwall
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