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Pillaton's History

Last updated on 21 Nov 24

Introduction

Pillaton's origins date back prior to the Domesday Survey of 1086 where it is recorded as the manor of Piletone or Pilatona.

The church of St Odulphus was dedicated in 1259 and the Weary Friar hotel is said to date from around that time, with the suggestion that it was used by the monks building the church.

For many centuries, Pillaton remained a quiet rural village in a quiet rural parish with its roots in farming. It had become part of the Newton Ferrers estate by the time of the auction in 1924 and various farms, fields and village buildings, which had been rented up to then, became available for purchase. You can see a map of the village at this time on the Gallery page.

The next significant change was brought about by the opening of the Tamar Bridge in 1961. This made access between the village and Plymouth much easier and resulted in the village virtually doubling in size to accommodate the demand by commuters.

Pillaton's Church

The church of St Odulph (sometimes called St Odulphus) was dedicated on 16 October 1259 and took its name from St Odulph (Odulf) a monk and missionary from Oirschot, North Brabant (Netherlands).
The church was remodelled around the 14th and 15th centuries and the granite walls, piers, arcades and wagon vaults in the porch, north aisle and south transept are typical of that date. The south transept might have been built on the foundations of an earlier building - note the aumbry in the south wall of the transept.
During the 19th century a restoration was carried out (at a cost of £800) when the whole of the main roof of the chancel and nave was replaced with a new roof of pitch pine. The medieval wagon roofs still remain in the north aisle, the south transept and the south porch. The unusually wide 'squint' connecting the south transept to the church is very interesting and the rood staircase opens off this squint.

The splendid granite tower (restored in 1900) has been divided in its height and the first storey forms a vestry with a ringing gallery over. Unfortunately, this tower and the church suffered considerable damage from a lightning bolt on the night of 21 January 2013. You can read more about that and follow up the subsequent repair process in the 2013 News archive and in the two items below that appeared in the "Church Building & Heritage Review" in 2013 and 2014 and have been kindly provided for our archives by Jim Bennet.
St Odulph Lightning Strike Damage, 2013
St Odulph Lightning Strike Repair, 2014
The building is listed Grade 1 of architectural and historical interest.

Church Bells

In 1809, three bells cast by the Pennington family who lived in the Stoke Climsland and Lezant area, were hung in the tower. Tradition says that the treble and second bells were cast in Church Park field, part of the glebe land close to the church. These would have been supported by a wooden frame and were rung from the ground floor of the tower (now the vestry).

In 1909, Mears and Stainbank recast the number three bell (tenor) at their Whitechapel Foundry in London and augmented the ring to six with the addition of three larger bells. The old wooden frame was replaced at this point with a steel one. A new floor for the ringers was added above what is now the vestry. All this work was carried out for £400.

In 2009, to commemorate the centenary and bi-centenary of the above events, two new bells were cast at the Whitechapel Foundry (formerly Mears and Stainbank) and installed above the old treble. The older bells were refurbished and all eight bells then tuned as a ring in F#. The cost for this was a hundred times that of the 1909 work - a sign of continuous inflation over the century!

More photographs of the Bell Project.

As a result of this work, Pillaton now has one of the best rings in the area. You can hear what the new bells sound like by listening to this recording on YouTube made by Eric Bannister: Pillaton Church Bells Ringing Plain Bob Triples.

Bell ringing practice is held on Tuesdays from 1930 to 2100. Visiting ringers are always welcome.

Whilst the ringers usually repair to the local hostelry for refreshment after practice, they certainly do not indulge to the extent that some of their predecessors seem to have! See The Merry Bell-Ringers.

Church and Churchyard Memorial Inscriptions

A list of the memorial inscriptions in the church, old churchyard and new churchyard is available on the Memorials page.

Post Office Directory Extracts

Useful sources of historic information about towns and villages are the various Post Office Directories - those published by Kelly are probably the most commonly encountered. These directories contain details of the social structure and give a brief outline of the history, geography and architecture of the place. This text is then followed with a list of inhabitant names and usually an indication of where they live. Links to extracts about Pillaton from some of these directories are given below:
1856
1873
1883
1893
1906
1914
1923
1939
More of these are available in larger libraries, eg. Plymouth and Truro, as well as online. The University of Leicester has copies for various counties including Cornwall at Special Collections Online.

Pillaton At War 1914-1918

The Lost Men of Pillaton is a tribute from Don King to the seven men of Pillaton who were killed in action during World War 1. It was originally given at the WW1 commemorative service ("The Lamps Are Going Out in Pillaton") held in the church on 4 August 2014. Don kindly provided a slightly revised version of this for our website.

In 2015 Don King considerably expanded that tribute into a memorial booklet Pillaton At War 1914-1918: A Tribute. It gives more details about those from Pillaton who died in this war but also deals with some who survived. Background information is given on the various campaigns, battles, regiments, ships and aircraft, etc. that they were connected with. This is a fascinating and well written account.

Eustace Trehane Elliott: 1884-1917
One of the seven men mentioned in the tributes above was Eustace Trehane Elliott. Here are images from a 1920s roll of honour, and of a memorial plaque and scroll .

Pillaton At War 1939-1945

In addition to the names on the War Memorial of those lost during WW1, there are a further two who are commemorated from WW2. The links below provide some background information on each of them:
Douglas Harry Search
Leonard John Fowell
 

Our thanks go to Don King for kindly providing the results of his research for use here.

1699 Map of Pillaton

This little map of Pillaton comes from A Map of the County of Cornwall Newly Surveyed published by Joel Gascoyne in 1699.

Cornwall was the first county to be mapped at a scale of (roughly) one inch to the mile.

Here you can see a larger section of the map and some information about Gascoyne.

The map was reproduced in 1991 by the Devon and Cornwall Record Society, from a print owned by CWR Corfield. Our thanks to Rory Rickard for lending us his copy.

19th Century Map and Boundary Change

This little map of the village dates from about 1868. It comes from a larger map of the parish and surroundings in this document, which also contains commentary about place names and the proposed Saltash & Callington Railway. (Robin Dwane wrote an article about that - The Railway that Never Was - in the July 2023 edition of the Village News Magazine.)
Before 1894, part of the current parish of Pillaton belonged to St. Stephens by Saltash. This document has more detail and a map showing the area affected.

Pillaton Maps at the National Library of Scotland

The NLS offers scanned Ordnance Survey maps from seven different years, 1883 to 1964.

  • Follow this link.

  • Click on Browse all Ordnance Survey maps for a place.

  • Remove two little windows on the left (Map Finder and Filter by Date) by clicking the "X".

  • You'll be left with a little window called Search. In that  window, under Filter by keyword, type 'Pillaton'. You'll see a map of here. (Because of map boundaries, you may need to click elsewhere on this map to change the results.)

  • On the right you'll see a scrolling list of OS maps published on seven different dates: 1883, 1888, 1906, 1907, 1942, 1954, 1964. Click on the one that interests you.

My thanks to Rory Rickard for explaining how to navigate this.

Pillaton from Above

This aerial photograph shows the village as it was in 1972. A larger version with commentary is here.

 

You'll find many more aerial photos, from 1946 to 2022, at the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Historic Environment Record.
(Thanks to Rory Rickard for explaining how this works...)

  • In the menu at the top, click Search. Type in 'Pillaton' then choose, for example, Weary Friar Inn. You'll see the area around our pub.

  • In the menu at the top, click Layers. You'll see on the left a list of features you can explore.

  • Click the "+" sign next to Aerial photo keys. You'll see a list of years when aerial photos were taken.

  • Click the tick-box next to the year that interests you. The map will show coloured spots (you may have to zoom out). Clicking on the "+" sign explains what the colours mean.

  • Click on a coloured spot. A pop-up gives information about the photo.

  • Click on HOTLINK to see the photo.

  • Click within the photo to enlarge the image.

Pillaton History in the Village News

Over the past few years Robin Dwane has included in the Pillaton Village News magazines a number of articles (nearly all written by him) about the village.
The list below provides links to many of these (you will need to scroll down to the indicated page).

Old School Photographs

This photograph shows pupils of Pillaton Primary School lined up on the road outside the church in 1921. (Photo courtesy Dave Joslin.)

Here are four traditional school photographs of the pupils at St Mellion C. P. School, thought to be from between 1948 and 1953. Names have been added where known. (Photo courtesy Dave Joslin.)

Another traditional school photograph of the pupils at St Mellion C. P. School, thought to be from around 1957, again with names where known. (Photo courtesy Dave Joslin.)

Two photographs of the Infants (KS1) class at St Mellion C. P. School from the 1980s. One is a traditional class photo, the other a school production. (Photo courtesy Maire & Richard Warwick. Contrary to the note, they can't be enlarged.)

Other Old Photographs

In addition to the sections following, there is a slowly expanding album of old local photographs that can be accessed through Days Gone By in the Gallery.
Also some images of the Weary Friar from ca 1955 can be seen (and purchased if desired) on the Francis Frith website.

Here's a photograph taken at the Coronation cricket match in 1953, between the women and the men of the village. There's also some background information and names of participants. (Photo Dave Joslin.)

A newspaper cutting reporting on the May Fair in 1980. There are many familiar names mentioned. (Image courtesy of Maire & Richard Warwick.)

Pillaton Rainfall Records

From 2011 to 2023 Brian Hutfield kept records of rainfall in Pillaton.

Pillaton WI (Women's Institute)

A Pillaton branch of the WI was in existence for many years, having started just after World War II, but was wound up in 2022.
A special meeting was held on Saturday 19 September 2015 as part of the WI's 100th Anniversary celebrations. Here is a photograph and report of that.

Links to other sites

These websites have more information about Pillaton's past:

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