Trevellas
Encyclopedia
Trevellas is a village in Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, situated midway between St Agnes
St Agnes, Cornwall
St Agnes is a civil parish and a large village on the north coast of Cornwall, United Kingdom. The village is situated approximately five miles north of Redruth and ten miles southwest of Newquay....

 and Perranporth
Perranporth
Perranporth is a small seaside resort on the north coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is southwest of Newquay and northwest of Truro. Perranporth and its long beach face the Atlantic Ocean....

.

The village had a post office and shop until the 1980s when it was closed and is now divided into two dwellings. The shop was owned by Mrs Menadue and was known as Menadue drapers and store. It was famed for its ginger beer. Until the late 1990s Trevellas also boasted a garage and petrol filling station known as Lewis' Garage. Since 1999 the site has been occupied by a thriving camping and caravanning centre called Aztec Leisure.

The Perranporth Airfield
Perranporth Airfield
Perranporth Airfield airfield is located southwest of Perranporth and southwest of Newquay, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is a former World War II Royal Air Force fighter station....

 is also located in the village of Trevellas. The airfield was developed in World War II for the use of spitfires. The land was supposed to be handed back to the local residents at the end of the war but fell into disrepair until the purchase as a private airfield. Despite the area being an SSSI and English Heritage listed site, the current airfield owners continue to develop the site against the wishes of local residents and tourists.

There are many scenic cliff path walks around the area, static caravan sites and walks in Woodland Trust wooded areas. The area towards Trevellas Porth is known as "Blue Hills" due to bluish in-ground slate
Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...

. Trevellas valley has been a site for tin
Tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...

 mining for several centuries, and in 1810 the Blue Hills Sett incorporated many of the small mines. Though Blue Hills closed in 1897, tin production has continued in Trevellas to the present and the Blue Hills works can be visited throughout the year.

John Opie
John Opie
John Opie was an English historical and portrait painter. He painted many great men and women of his day, most notably in the artistic and literary professions.-Life and work:...

, the painter known as The Cornish Wonder, was born here.

History

Trevellas is first recorded in 1302, and was for several generations the seat of the Trevelles Family. The estate then passed through the families of Kearne, Croker, St. Aubyn, Donnithorne and finally the Chilcots.
In Lysons's Magna Britannia
Magna Britannia
Magna Britannia, being a concise topographical account of the several counties of Great Britain was an ambitious topographical and historical survey published by the antiquarians Daniel Lysons and his brother Samuel Lysons in several volumes between 1806 and 1822...

it states the following:
The estate was broken up in several sales, the final one being in 1948.

World War II

In World War II the nearby Perranporth Airfield
Perranporth Airfield
Perranporth Airfield airfield is located southwest of Perranporth and southwest of Newquay, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is a former World War II Royal Air Force fighter station....

was used as a base for the RAF. It became operational on 28th April 1941. At the height of the war over nineteen spitfire squadrons from Australia, France, Canada, Poland, Czechoslovakia and the U.K were based there.

On 13th September 1943 Supermarine Spitfire Vc EE727 FU-? Of 453 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force returning to Perranporth crashed onto the cottage at Trevellas occupied by a woman and her four year old son. The woman was seriously injured and the son was killed. The pilot 414505 Flight Sgt Mervyn Francis Nolan RAAF was also killed.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK