August 2nd Northcott Chapel
     

On this day in 1450, a chapel in Northcott was licensed for worship.  Although only a hamlet, Northcott has a fascinating history.  Part of the manorial estates of the Prideaux family, it was first owned by Nicholas de Pridias, Lord of the Manor of Prideaux (1135-1200).  An important man in Cornwall, responsible for collecting taxes, Nicholas was himself fined twice for tax evasion.  On each occasion, 1189 and 1195, he had to pay a penalty of one half a mark.  The mark, never used as coinage, was used for accounting purposes only and was assessed to be the equivalent of 13s/4d, two-thirds of  one pound sterling.  Nicholas fought in the Crusades and following the death of King Richard was responsible for the care of pilgrims to the Holy Land.  Since they were at great risk of robbery and murder, he was instrumental in the formation of the Knights Templar whose chapel, at Temple on Bodmin Moor, was a staging post on the Saints’ Way (from Ireland to the Holy Land, which crossed Cornwall from Padstow to Fowey crossing Bodmin Moor, then known as Foweymoor).

The religious connections continued in Tudor times with the martyrdom of Agnes Prest, who lived in Northcott Hamlet.  Convicted of blasphemy for denying the real presence of Jesus in the Holy Sacrament, she was burnt at the stake in Exeter (November 1588). The only person in Devon or Cornwall to be executed for her Protestant beliefs, almost unbelievably, the main witnesses against her at trial were her own husband and children.

 



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