Paul
| Paul Cornish: Pawl | |
| Cornwall | |
|---|---|
 Paul parish church | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SW462269 |
| Location: | 50°5’24"N, 5°32’49"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 234 (2001) |
| Post town: | Penzance |
| Postcode: | TR19 |
| Dialling code: | 01736 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Cornwall |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
St Ives |
Paul is a village in Cornwall, a short walk up the hill from Mousehole, two miles south of Penzance and one mile south of Newlyn. Paul is the original village for which Mousehole was the port, though Mousehole has long since surpassed its mother village. The village of Paul now falls within the civil parish of Penzance.
Like many Cornish communities Paul has its own community celebration. Paul Feast is held on the Sunday nearest 10 October every year when the village is decorated and a civic service takes place on the Sunday of the feast itself led by the Mayor of Penzance.
History
Much of the history of Paul is connected with its parish church, St Pol-de-Leon. Traditionally the church is said to have been founded in 490, a very uncertain date and not documented, by Paul Aurelian, a Welsh saint known in Brittany as Paol Aurelian in Breton, known her as St Pol de Leon. However there is no historical evidence to support his ever coming to Penwith. He was founder of the cathedral at Saint-Pol-de-Léon, the city named after him.
If the story of foundation by St Pol-de-Leon is doubtful, the church's dedication might come originally from Paul the Apostle, or Paulinus of York, but there is no evidence for any particular Paul. The church was only named 'St Pol-de-Leon' in 1907 and is probably connected with Henry Jenner who opposed alleged 'Englishness' and stamped consistent spelling of Cornish place names on Ordnance Survey maps. The first documented name for Paul Church comes from the registers of Bishop Bronescombe, when on 2 May 1259 the first recorded priest was installed, as Rector in his own right, in the 'Ecclesie Sancti Paulini'--Church of St. Paulinus.
Paul village, original name 'Brewinney' and its church have a long association with Mousehole and the church has served as this community's parish church since its inception. Paul was one of the communities along with Mousehole, Newlyn, and Penzance to be destroyed in the Spanish raid of 1595 carried out by Carlos de Amésquita.[1]
Langdon (1896) recorded the existence of five stone crosses in the parish.
Cornish language memorials
Within the village churchyard there is a memorial to Dolly Pentreath, reputedly and disputedly the last native speaker of the Cornish language. This memorial was placed there by Louis Lucien Bonaparte, a relative of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the Vicar of Paul in the 19th century.
The Cornish language writers Nicholas Boson, Thomas Boson and John Boson are all buried in Paul Churchyard, and a monument in the church by John Boson (to Arthur Hutchens, d. 1709) is the only surviving lapidary inscription in traditional Cornish.[2]
References
- ↑ West Penwith Resources - The Spanish Attack - 1595
- ↑ Spriggs, Matthew, 'Boson family (per. c.1675–1730)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 12 Oct 2007