Boconnoc

Boconnoc (Cornish: Boskennek) is a civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, approximately four miles (6 km) east of the town of Lostwithiel.

[5] The manor of Boconnoc is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Bochenod, and was then one of the many hundred possessions of Robert, Count of Mortain, the half-brother of King William the Conqueror.

[9] At some point Boconnoc came into the possession of the Carminow family, who originated in the Cornish parish of Mawgan in Meneage.

They had two sons, the elder being Sir Ralph Carminow (died 1386), who sat three times as MP for Cornwall, in 1383, 1384 and 1386, but left no surviving children.

In the 1370s he and his brother petitioned Edward the Black Prince, as Duke of Cornwall and his father King Edward III of England against John Sergeaux, husband of his wife’s sister, alleging that Sergeaux had sent men to Boconnoc, viciously assaulted him and his wife, removed 200 pounds worth of goods, and left him for dead.

While serving as sheriff of Cornwall, Sergeaux then launched a second effort to obtain the property by an attachment order, taking more of his possessions to an alleged value of 1,000 pounds.

[12] On a visitation of the diocese in 1371, Bishop Thomas Brantingham of Exeter found that Sir Ralph and his first wife Catherine Champernowne were living as husband and wife illegally, their marriage being invalid in canon law as they were related in both the third and the fourth degrees of consanguinity.

Summoned before the bishop in 1372, Sir Ralph presented letters he had obtained from the papal nuncio, Cardinal Simon Langham, granting the couple dispensation for the marriage.

[12] In 1381 a royal commission found that William Botreaux, 1st Baron, hearing of the Peasants' Revolt in London, had gathered 80 men and broken into the park at Boconnoc, hunted the deer, killing 20 of them, and generally damaged the property.

[15] His son and heir by his 3rd wife Matilda Beaumont, was Sir Hugh Courtenay (d.1471) of Boconnoc, who married the heiress Margaret Carminowe.

[16] It is believed that Boconnoc reverted to the crown in consequence of an attainder in the Courtenay family,[17] and was later regranted to John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford (c.1485-1555).

Thomas Pitt (1653-1726) of Blandford St Mary in Dorset, was President of Madras in India and six times a Member of Parliament.

[36] A monument survives near the house, in the form of a tall granite obelisk, in memory of the antiquary Sir Richard Lyttelton (d.1770), the uncle of the 1st Baron Camelford, who bequeathed him much of his fortune.

The two wings formed an L-shape and the grounds are finely landscaped: on a hill behind the house is an obelisk in memory of Sir Richard Lyttelton (1771).

During the 19th century the estate passed into the ownership of the Fortescues who made some alterations to the structure in 1883: there are some more recent additions and the south wing was demolished in 1971.

[47][48] The estate includes the largest landscaped deer park in Cornwall, the home of the Boconnoc Cricket Club.

Effigies of Roger Carminow (d.1308) and his wife Joan Dinham in the church of St Mawgan-in-Meneage, Cornwall. In the cross-legged pose supposed to represent crusaders, he displays on his shield the arms of Carminow: Azure, a bend or
arms of Carminow: Azure, a bend or
The Courtenay family, Earls of Devon, during the Wars of the Roses, showing the ancestry and descendants of Courtenay of Boconnoc
Mural monument with kneeling effigy, in Boconnoc Church, of Penelope Mohun (d.1637), a daughter of Sir Reginald Mohun, 1st Baronet (c.1564-1639) of Boconnoc, with arms of Mohun: Or, a cross engrailed sable
The "Pitt Diamond", 40% of the proceeds of which were used by Thomas Pitt to purchase the Boconnoc estate after 1717
Boconnoc House, east front, re-built in 1721 by Thomas Pitt, President of Madras, and expanded in 1772 by his great-grandson Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford
Obelisk erected at Boconnoc in 1771 by Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford in memory of his uncle and benefactor Sir Richard Lyttelton (d.1770). Situated 1 km to N-E of the house
Sign marking site of Trecangate Chapel