House History Files: Little Gillies, Luxulyan, Cornwall
Liz Toth has always felt a strong connection to the stream that flows at the bottom of her garden, which winds its way through the rugged moorlands of rural Cornwall surrounding the 230-year-old stone cottage (previously, two adjoining cottages), Little Gillies, where she lives with her husband, Phil, and their furry companions. ‘It’s always been special to me. Every day I go and watch it and listen to it for a minute, and give thanks for it. I don’t want it to ever become just background noise.’
‘And to find out that for the people that lived here, it wasn’t just a pretty stream – it was actually integral to their lives and their livelihoods - that really resonated.’
LITTLE GILLIES’ INGLENOOK FIREPLACE IN THE SALE CATALOGUE OF 2021
INSIDE LITTLE GILLIES IN THE SALE CATALOGUE OF 2021
THE GILLEY WORK
The ancient work of tin streaming on the moors uncovered additional tin from the stream bed, employing a process used in Cornwall since the Bronze Age. Tinners washed the tin ore from the surrounding rocks and gravel, which was collected and processed further to extract the tin. The work of a tin streamer was physically demanding, often beginning before sunrise and finishing after sunset, and tinners were paid according to the amount of tin they were able to extract, so they had to work quickly and efficiently to make a living.
LITTLE GILLIES AS SEEN IN THE 2021 SALES MATERIAL
LITTLE GILLIES COTTAGES SEEN AS TWO SEPARATE PLOTS (224 & 275) IN THE 1910 VALUATION SURVEY (SOURCE: THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES (TNA), REF: IR 128.5.401)
The first record of tin streaming at Little Gillies came in the will of Stephen Cock of Roche, who died on 19 March 1799, aged 82. Stephen left his son John, ‘all my right I have in that tin stream work called by the name of the Gilley work’. And he left his grandson Stephen, ‘my little mare and my bed furnished that I now sleep on, all to be his so soon as he arrive to the age of fourteen years’. There was no mention of the Little Gillies cottages yet, although the first cottage was believed to have been built around this time and the second by the early 1800s — most likely by the Cock family.
ILLUSTRATION OF TIN STREAMING - 1556 (GEORGE AGRICOLA, ‘DE RE METALLICA’, BOSTON LIBRARY)
THE FAMILIES OF LITTLE GILLIES
‘When we first moved in, we stood against the big granite lintel above the fireplace in the oldest part of the house, and we touched it, and I remember saying, I wonder how many people have had their hands on this lintel? Because it would have been the hub of the house; it would have been where they cooked, where they cleaned and told stories, where they argued, where they laughed, where they cried. And there would have been hundreds of people over the years, in this room, doing exactly what we do - having dinner - I wonder how many people have sat and had Christmas dinner in this very spot?’
In 1841, Joseph Coad, an agricultural labourer, lived in one of the Little Gillies cottages with his wife, Darcus, and their three children. Their daughter, Christiana, may have been the same ‘Christiana Code’ admitted to Bodmin Asylum in 1850 and again in 1853, where she died aged 19.
‘LOWER GILLIES’, CENSUS RETURN, 1841. (SOURCE: AVAILABLE ONLINE AT ANCESTRY. CO.UK. ORIGINAL DATA: TNA, REF: HO107/145/7/13/46/13).
And by 1861, Census records confirm that John Stoneman, a 48-year-old tin stream miner, lived in one of the cottages with Jenifer Keam, 27, his housekeeper, along with his two children with his late wife and his two illegitimate children with Jenifer — John and Richard. Under the law at that time, cohabitation outside of marriage was considered immoral and could be punished by imprisonment or fines. It’s not known why the pair did not marry, but it may have been more socially acceptable in some rural areas.
In 1864, the Stonemans witnessed an incident involving an out-of-control horse and cart near the cottages on 10 June, and a newspaper report covering the story referred to William Stoneman of Gillies (who lived in the second Gillies cottage) as ‘Capt. Wm. Stoneman, captain and agent of the stream works at Conce Moor’.
On 28 November 1871, Walter Cock, of Luxulyan, 13, ‘a boy having a very respectable appearance’, was bought up in custody on the charge of stabbing William Stoneman of Little Gillies, aged 15, ‘with intent to do him grievous bodily harm’.
Jenifer Keam died on 18 December that year of typhoid fever at Little Gillies, and John Stoneman was present at her death. There were 17,639 deaths due to typhoid fever in England and Wales in 1871; it was a common disease in areas where sanitation was poor and contaminated water was widespread, and it continued to be a significant public health problem in England until the early 20th century.
1871 DEATH CERTIFICATE OF JENEFER KEAM, AGED 35, AT GILLYS, LUXULYAN. CAUSE OF DEATH: TYPHOID FEVER
(SOURCE: GRO.GOV.UK)
FROM TIN TO CLAY
Tin streaming had begun to decline by the late 19th century, and the proportion of streamers in Luxulyan parish collapsed from nearly 20% in 1861 to just 2% in 1891. At the same time, mining companies in Cornwall began to shift their focus towards china clay production.
By 1901, Marwood Toms, 29, a clay labourer, occupied the cottage furthest from the road. He lived there with his wife Rebekah, 30, and their children. On 14 June 1918, the Cornish Guardian reported that ‘news has recently been received by the parents of Sergt. Preston Toms, of Gillies, Lanivet, Worcester Regt late of the D.C.L.I. that he is a prisoner of war in Germany. Sergt. Toms some time ago won the D.C.M. for bravery in the field. Mr and Mrs Toms lost a son, Pte. Harry Toms, D.C.L.I, of fever in a hospital in England shortly after the outbreak of war.’ Preston was later safely released to return home.
On 29 October 1919, labourer Raymond Toms, 18 (another son of Marwood and Rebekah), was imprisoned for 18 months for attacking a local girl, Ethel May Hooper, 16. Toms pleaded guilty, and Mr Justice Darling, in passing sentence of eighteen months’ hard labour, said there was no possible excuse for what the prisoner had done. ‘Had he been an older man, I would have sent him to penal servitude’.
AUCTION OF THE TWO COTTAGES AT GILLIES, LUXULYAN - SAT 07 JUNE, 1919 - WESTERN MORNING NEWS (SOURCE: BRITISH NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE)
The cottages were auctioned at the Royal Hotel in Bodmin on Saturday, 14 June 1919, at 4.30pm. The lot included ‘All those Two Freehold Cottages and Gardens and Two Small Meadows, at Gillies, Luxulyan, occupied by Messrs. Merrifield and Marwood Toms, at a total annual rent of £9 10s. The cottages each contain 4 Rooms and have nice gardens attached, and the meadows are about an acre in extent.’
By 1921, the Toms, having bought both cottages in 1919, had knocked through to create the one six-room house we see today.
The Toms later lost their grandson, Harold, in World War Two, and Marwood died in 1957, aged 86. His son, Ernest, 53, still lived at Little Gillies in 1965, when he filed for divorce due to his wife Betty Doreen’s adultery. The cottage then passed hands several times before Liz and Phil made it their home in September 2021, marking the next chapter in this 230-year-old story.
RESEARCHING THE STORY OF LITTLE GILLIES
One challenge in piecing together the history of the cottage came in the census records – the single cottage we see today was previously two semi-detached dwellings, and both were often simply named ‘Gillys’ in the census, along with another cottage further up the road which is now called Higher Gillies. Using old and current maps to find locations of the surrounding named houses in the census records allowed me to plot the enumerator route for each census year and cross reference with other records of occupants to confirm which of the Little Gillies cottages (road-side or field-side) were inhabited by which occupants.
Some key records that helped underpin and guide the research include the tithe maps of Luxulyan in 1839, which allowed me to trace back the owners of the cottages and surrounding land into the 1700s, leading me to the wills of the Cock family. Voter’s lists and parish rate books also revealed a change in ownership in the mid-1800s, and the many newspaper reports that referred to the property by name revealed many clues, including the sale of the cottages in 1919, which led me to the conveyance to the Toms in Cornwall archives. And the single Gillies cottage in the 1921 Census, plus the increase in the number of rooms, revealed they had knocked through to create one cottage within two years.
PARISH RATE BOOK, LUXULYAN, 1860 (SOURCE: AVAILABLE ONLINE AT FAMILYSEARCH.ORG. FILMED BY THE GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY OF UTAH, 1989. ORIGINAL DATA: CORNWALL COUNTY RECORD OFFICE, TRURO. IMAGE NO.275)
‘Finding out the history of the place makes things make sense in the house because you always wonder why that's there or why that's like that, and it all starts to fit in place. I feel that I'm almost in touch with the people that lived here.’
House History Package Details:
LITTLE GILLIES, A HOUSE HISTORY. JUNE 2023. RESEARCHED & WRITTEN BY REBECCA MERRIFIELD.
Liz commissioned a Premium house history package, which includes fifty hours of professional research (including two to three days in local and national archives), and comes with a beautifully designed A2-sized wall print and accompanying printed storybook, including a longer version of the story, a house timeline and a full list of sources consulted, alongside findings, record transcriptions and analysis, and images of all archive documents and material uncovered.
‘I love that you get all the different forms of media in the package. The wall print is beautiful to look at every day and I’ve caught so many guests over the summer reading it; the storybook, which is your own little book of the history and the research that you can peruse; and the digital storybook - with links to all the sources online; you’ve given us so much information, which is absolutely wonderful.’
Learn more about the Premium house history package: