GENEALOGY & FAMILY HISTORY FOR THE PARISHES OF ST GORAN,
MEVAGISSEY, ST EWE & CAERHAYS
LINKS
The Middle Ages During the Middle Ages, Bodrigan, whose lands included much of Gorran Haven and stretched as far as Dodman Point, was the home of the Bodrigan family, who achieved some eminence in the county, sending members to Parliament and providing several sheriffs. In the late Middle Ages they built a fine fortified manor house, using stone obtained from the quarry at Pentewan. Nothing survives of it today, though worked stones are occasionally found in the hedges around.
A fishing community was early established at Gorran Haven. One of the first references to the practice of seining occurs in relation to this cove in 1271. In the later Middle Ages a small pier was erected by the Bodrigan family to provide shelter for the fishermen's boats and about the same time they built the quaint little church in a delightful situation overlooking the harbour and having an unusual pentagonal tower.
The last of the Bodrigan family, Sir Henry, was really of the family of Trenowth, but his father having married the Bodrigan heiress, he changed his name when he came into the estates. Unlike his predecessors, he was a wild and wayward character and taking advantage of the unrest of the time-this was the period of the Wars of the Roses-he robbed and pillaged his neighbours with an armed retinue. He sent to sea two carvels: the Mary Bodrigan and the Barbara of Fowey, and attacked and plundered trading vessels. It is said the tower of the little church at the Haven had a more sinister purpose than for the glorification of the Almighty: it was by means of a beacon on its top that his vessels were guided into port at night after a marauding expedition. His end had to come though, and backing the wrong side at the Battle of Bosworth, his estates were forfeited to Sir Richard Edgecumbe and other Cornish gentry. Cornered by Sir Richard at Bodrigan in 1487, he rode out of a back entrance over the fields to a low cliff, a little to the south of Chapel Point, and jumped his horse down to a little grassy: island, where a boat was waiting to transport him to France. (Hence the already noted " Bodrigan's Leap ").
Christmas dinner being cooked by "Hick's" bakery
Mevagissey costs 6d per meal
