KINGSAND HOUSE AND THE GRAY FAMILY
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In the 1950‟s the inconvenient character of the old vicarage at Maker, it‟s remoteness, size and damp, led to the preparation of plans for a new benefice house. The Mt Edgcumbe Estate was prepared to offer a site at the south end of the Minadhu. The papers are in the parish documents. At this point, the Rev T V Hordern found that Mr Norman Trethowan, a grocer and property owner of Kingsand, was willing to sell Kingsand House in Fore Street for £5,000 and on his instigation the Church Commissioners acquired it in about 1955. The old vicarage remained unsold for about eighteen months when it was bought by Mr and Mrs Fryer with two acres of land for £1,700.
Kingsand House appears to date from about 1800. The land attached included the fields as far as the New Road and in the tithe award of 1840 is all the property of Mr France Gray; the earliest deed is an abstract of the will of France Gray dated 11 July 1842. The land must have been purchased from Mr Edgcumbe and there may be evidence of date and purchaser among the Edgcumbe papers at CRO Truro.
It is reasonable to suppose that the house was built by France Gray‟s father, Thomas Gray, but there is no evidence. Thomas Gray‟s will has not been found.
The house and the Gray family are both illustrative of Kingsand and Cawsand‟s greatest period of growth, during the time of the Napoleonic War.
Sources of Information a. The family vault – a tomb-chest monument to the east of the main southward path at Maker. Much affected by lichen etc (M) b. Entries in Parish registers (R) c. Recollections of old inhabitants, notably Mrs Lee of Hillside House, Lower Row, born about 1875 (T)
Tombstone Inscriptions
Top
To the memory of
Mr Thomas Gray Surgeon
RAME HISTORYOf Kingsand in this Paris GROUPh 2011
He departed this life 16 May 1821
Aged 62 year (there follow several illegible lines of tribute)
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Also of his wife
Mrs Jenny Hamline Gray
Daughter of Mr Nathaniel France Surgeon RN
Who died on 1 April 1801
Aged 4(3?) years
(there follow several illegible lines of tribute)
Also of
(John? and ?) William Gray
(sons?) ….. Thomas Gray
….. 10 April (179(0?)
Also in memory of
William France Gray
(several illegible lines)
France Hartly Gray Surgeon
Son of the above Thomas and Jenny Gray
Died of cholera in Kingsand in the
….. his professional duties
On the North Side On the South Side Also FranceRAME Gray HISTORY Elizabeth FrancGROUPe 2011 Son of Harriet Gray Sister of Mrs Jenny Gray
Died 25 March 1901 Died October 1846 Aged 75 Aged 7(6?)
In memory of Harriet Gray On the West Side
Widow of
France Hartley Gray In Memory of Henrietta
Who died 27 March 1891 Daughter of France Hartly Gray
Aged 88 Born 13 June 1832
Died August 19 1910
Also of Mary Gray
Daughter of the above On a stone close to the Vault
Died 30 June 1872 on it‟s North Side
Aged 28
Margaret Ann
Lucy Ann Daughter of the late
Born 18(56?) Died 1908 Mr Thomas Gray
Surgeon Kingsand
Who died 9 May 1851
Aged 64
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Thomas Gray and Family Thomas GrayRAME‟s family did not originateHISTORY in this parish. He was GROUP born sometime before 162011 May 1759. His wife Jenny Hamline France, also born outside the parish earlier than 1 April 1758, was the daughter of Nathaniel France, a Naval surgeon. She had at least one sister, Elizabeth, born about 1769 (T).
After their marriage (not in the parish), and before taking up residence here, they had at least one child William, who is probably the William Gray buried 14 April 1790 (R).
Their daughter Jenny was baptised at Rame on 10 September 1783 which suggests that they then lived in Cawsand. She married one Samuel Woolmer, Minister of the Gospel, by license on 4 August 1801, apparently without her father‟s consent.
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Margaretta Ann, baptised 22 January 1787 at Maker. This suggests a move to Kingsand and Kingsand House could have been built at any time from this onwards. She died unmarried 9 May 1851.
Thomas Hope, baptised 29 August 1788. Buried 31 March 1791.
William France, baptised privately 21 July 1790. Burial not recorded but his name appears on the stone.
Rosetta Hamline, baptised 29 November 1792. Married Joseph Soady, Lieut RN 29 August 1822.
Thomas Nathaniel, born 27 December 1793, baptised 5 July 1803. Not otherwise recorded.
Charlotte Wilson, born 20 March 1796, baptised 5 July 1803, presumably with Thomas Nathaniel. Married Thomas Skardon, gentleman, of another medical family. He died at Millbrook and his son has a monument in Maker Church
France Hartly, born 29 January 1798, baptised 5 July 1803. Quite a christening.
Thomas‟ wife Jenny died 1 April 1801 and was buried as “Jane”. Her last three children were not baptised until two years after her death. Thomas does not seem to have remarried and died 16 May 1821. The family line continues in the only surviving son of the marriage, France Hartly.
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France Hartly Gray was born 29 January 1798 and baptised 5 July 1803 with an elder brother and sister (R).
The first record which concerns him is that in the “Accounts of the Poor of the Parish of Rame”:
Mr Gray, first six months to Michaelmas 1819 £3 23RAME March 1821, Mr Gray‟sHISTORY bill for care of the poor GROUP £6 2011 Received of Mr Badcock the amount of Poor bill for medicine, 25 March 1820 – 25 March 1821, France Gray £6 He continues to receive the same amount, sometimes annually or quarterly or half-yearly, up to the end of the account book, where we find:
25 March 1834, Mr Gray‟s salary £3
On 16 December 1824, he married Harriet Vallack by license. Both parties “of this parish”.
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Harriet was a daughter of John Vallack, a purser in HM Navy, and Elizabeth Sargent who were married 26 July 1803. She was baptised 26 July 1804.
There are at least two John Vallacks of suitable age, each the son of James and Sara Vallack, born respectively in 1776, and 1774. There are two possible marriages of a James Vallack and a Sara.
Vallacks appear at Maker in the last years of the 17th century. The name occurs earlier in Plymouth. There is a Tevallack in Cornwall.
Elizabeth Sargent seems to be the daughter of Isaac and Mary Sargent. The marriage of these two was on 24 November 1769 as “Isaac Sargent of this parish, gentleman, and Mary Sargent of Lezant, spinster”.
France Gray went through the serious cholera outbreak of 1832. There was a more serious outbreak in 1849. The first death was that of Elizabeth Ford at Millbrook on 11 July. By August, deaths had multiplied and the situation cannot have been eased by the death of Alfred Henry Vallack MD on 16 June at the age of 31.
Gray took a room in the house opposite his own in Fore Street, Kingsand in order to reduce the risk of infection to his own family (M). The peak of the epidemic was reached in early September and on the fourth of that month, sixteen people, including seven children, were buried in the two churchyards of Maker and Rame.
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Gray contracted the disease carrying out his professional duties (T M) and was buried, aged 51, the 111th victim in the two parishes. In all, 116 persons were buried at Maker and 36 at Rame. Thirty were from Millbrook, ninety-three from Kingsand and twenty-one from Cawsand. The last burial was on 12 October.
In his will dated 11 July 1842 he left to his widow and eleven surviving children, one twelfth part each of two-thirds of the house which he owned, the other third belonging to his wife. Harriet Gray died 27 March 1892RAME (T) aged 87 (R). HISTORY GROUP 2011
Children of France Hartly and Harriet Gray
France, baptised 26 January 1826. Became a doctor and practised at Kingsand House. In old age he was a cripple and walked on two sticks (M). He did not marry; he died aged 75 in 1901. Note
Emma Vallack, baptised 29 December 1826. Married Henry Cornelius Pierson, aged 33, clerk in the Board of Control, 15 September 1853.
John, baptised 14 December 1828. Buried at Maker 6 October 1831.
Harriet Charlotte Soady, baptised 30 May 1830. Buried at Maker 8 August 1849. Death not recorded as cholera.
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Henrietta, baptised 15 July 1832. Did not marry. Buried 23 August 1910.
Jane, baptised 14 October 1834.
Watson, born 17 May, baptised 18 September 1836.
Lucy Ann, baptised 12 May 1837. Did not marry. Was „fair‟ (M). Buried Maker 30 November 1908 aged 72.
Mary Skardon, baptised 28 July 1839. Did not marry. Buried Maker 30 June 1874, aged 34.
Elizabeth (Bessie), baptised 1 October 1843. Did not marry. Buried 8 February 1934, aged 90.
Rosetta (Rosie), Elizabeth‟s twin, baptised the same day. Did not marry. Buried 27 April 1931, age incorrectly given as 93.
These twins were „dark‟. They belonged to St Paul‟s Church and taught in the Sunday School, where they were “very strict”.
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The children had to learn each Sunday‟s Collect and a part of the Gospel for the day and were rewarded with marks which went towards a book prize at the end of the year. In old age, they lived on in the house when it was too much for them and visiting errand boys got glimpses through the open door of cobwebs „hanging down‟.
Alice, baptised 12 October 1845, married 27 August 1873 Henry Cavendish aged 28 of HM Civil Service, a lawyer, said to be descended from a Lord Walerpark, an Irish Peer. They had three children, Anne who married JohnRAME Currie, France who HISTORY did not marry and Muriel who GROUP married Humphrey Frost, 2011 a Londoner. Florence (Florrie), baptised 19 April 1846. Did not marry. Buried at Maker 16 September 1916. She was „chapel‟ and supported Cawsand Congregational Church. While the daughters of France and Harriet Gray were young there were frequent entertainments at the house and on the occasion of balls both house and street were decorated with fairy lights. Local people spoke of the house as “beauty‟s bower”.
Of thirteen children, (three boys, ten girls) ten survived infancy (one boy, nine girls) and of the nine surviving girls only two married.
When France Gray died in 1901, his nephew France Cavendish inherited Kingsand House, Birdcage Cottage, Triangle Garden, Egloshayle and Coombe End where he built himself the present house.
At Kingsand House he moved the kitchen from the south-east room to a room added over a cellar beyond the original north wall. Above this kitchen were two bathrooms, a lavatory, a large cupboard and a landing.
France was found dead in his bath at Coombe End. He left Kingsand House to his niece Margot Frost and the remaining property to his sister Anne Currie. Margot Frost sold the house to Norman Trethowan, grocer and property owner who made of it a sort of small holding and let some rooms. He sold it to the Church Commissioners in 1955.
Now occupied by Egloshayle and Coombe End House
With consent of John Vallack, her father
When nine Vallacks were baptised in one year
Not of Cholera
Now Lexden
The alterations visible on the floors and walls of the north-east downstairs room of Kingsand House were old in 1910 and appear to date from the time when the doctor‟s surgery and waiting room were not needed on France‟s retirement or death.
Now Mas-Kee and Thistledo
Demolished in 1976
The north portion of the garden was sold in 1976 to Major Sidney Moore, then owner of Egloshayle RAME HISTORY GROUP 2011