CORNWALL ONLINE PARISH CLERKS - helping bring the past alive

THE PARISH OF

CHARLESTOWN

was created from part of St. Austell parish in 1850; at the same time, Treverbyn parish was also formed in the eastern section of St. Austell. Records before 1850 are included in St. Austell.

The village of Charlestown was conceived in 1779 by Charles Rashleigh, an entrepreneur and lawyer from St. Austell, who realized the need for a port to service the newly developing china clay industry. He bought the village of West Polmear (pop. 7), and hired men to hand-carve the port from solid rock. While completing this vision, he created a new Georgian town of great charm.

The parish of Charlestown extends from Par, south to Porthpean, encompassing Carlyon Beach and St. Austell bay, with the village as the centre. While no longer used for shipping china clay, the port is in use by movie crews, visitors, and residents, and is the home port for 3 'tall' sailing ships.

For more photographs, see the link below.

The Online Parish Clerk for Charlestown is Julia Mosman, who may be reached via Email.

A Message from the OPC:

Please visit my website for extensive records, photographs (historic and current), maps, and information about the parish (including history). Charlestown records after 1850 are shown in separate categories.

I've been an OPC since the inception of the project, and really enjoy helping people learn more about my parish, as well as providing parish record information. While I do not live in the parish, or nearby, I do have friends in the area who will be glad to help provide photos of specific areas. Please check my website for information; if you cannot find information there, please contact me and I'll be glad to offer whatever help possible.

Julia

PARISH INFORMATION

CENSUS:

1841, 1861, and 1891 Census data can be found at COCP - the Cornwall Online Census Project - which is almost complete for 1841 to 1891 and has been verified, FreeCen at Rootsweb, which has a very good search engine and information from COCP, as well as GenUKI, which has more reference information and alternate resources.

I'm transcribing the 1851 Census - St. Austell District for FreeCen, and will be glad to do lookups from my manuscript upon request.

REGISTERS:

Marriages from 1612 to 1835,and burials from 1565 to 1854 are on the website. These are Holy Trinity, St. Austell registers.
Charlestown burials are being transcribed, and will be posted as soon as possible.
Transcriptions of Wesleyan, Bible Christian, and Quaker records are on the website.
Baptisms may be found at FamilySearch, by accessing the IGI, choosing the area "British Isles", and entering "P016511, C05361, OR C065351" in the batch number space. the first results with records of Holy Trinity, C. of E.; the second, Wesleyan registers, and the third, other nonconformist records. The transcriptions of the official parish baptismal records were done by LDS volunteers.

For further Parish Register information, please see GenUKI - link below.

DIRECTORIES:

Pigott's 1831 and 1871 are indexed, and on the website.
Other directories are held by the OPC; please contact her via email.

For descriptive information, see GenUKI. Link below.

OTHER:

There are photographs, both historical and recent, excerpts and articles regarding parish living and history, and maps with lists of dwelling places - all on the OPC website. Please see link above.

MAPS

For a Parish Locator map, please click here. Charlestown can be located at coordinates G/H - 4.

For further map information, please visit GenUKI (Genealogy - United Kingdom & Ireland).

To see a current, zoomable Ordnance Survey map, please visit MultiMap, or for maps and satellite images use Google Maps.