Cornwood Online Parish Clerk Pages

Calling all Cornwood Descendents! St. Michaels's and All Angels Church, where many of our ancestors were baptized, married and buried, is in need of some repairs. The congregation is fairly small and they have limited means of raising needed funds. If you think you can help with even a small donation, please contact Marilyn Sharp, Church Warden. Any assistance will be most appreciated.

Parish History
Schools and Charities

Facing the church on the north and with it's windows looking into the churchyard, stands a cottage, which formerly was used as the village school over which a Dame presided, and where subsequently meetings of the church council were held, but in place of this large school buildings were erected in the village. Inscribed on a marble tablet at the entrance is a Latin inscription, which translated may be read as follows: 'This school has been erected to the Glory of God and the advancement of His church, 1859.'

It is with the same view that the Rev. Duke Yonge, a former vicar, founded the Yonge Charity. He left certain lands at Lutton and a sum of Money to trustees for the benefit of the poor of the parish, and directed that one part of this endowment should be devoted, among other things, to the education of a certain number of poor children of the parish, to be selected by the vicar, and to the teaching of the Catechism and principles of the Church of England, and another part to the purchase of bibles, testaments and religious tracts published by the S.P.C.K. to be distributed in the parish.

Before Mr. Yonge had taken Holy Orders, he had studied medicine in one of the London hospitals, and perhaps this gave him the idea of directing that another portion of the charity should be spent in medical aid for the poor parishioners, who were not receiving parish relief, and he bequeathed a sum of money to the Plymouth Public Dispensary, on condition that each year an adequate number of tickets of admission should be at the disposal of the vicar of Cornwood.

The Rook Charity was founded in 1700 by the Fortescues of Hangar, who conveyed to trustees a messuage and tenement called East Rooke, alias Reed's or Wakeham's Rooke and the rent of this farm is now spent at Christmas, in blankets, coal and clothing.

In 1875 a small school room for infants was built by some of the landowners of the parish at Lutton, on land belonging to Yonge's Charity trust and subsequently an addition was made by Admiral Parker, to form a chancel and vestry, for use when the room is required for Divine Service, and in 1885 Lord Blachford built a house for the school teacher, also situated on land belonging to the same trust.