THE HISTORY OF TREBARTHA HALL - Extracts from a talk by Robert Latham in October 2011

Lemarne and the Landrey Family

Lemarne was purchased along with Trewortha in the late 1500s by Henry Spoure (c1541-1603). Of particular interest was the tin mine which provided so well that Henry was able to give £1000 a piece to his five daughters. Apparently this was the first time that such a large sum of money had been given to a daughter by a private gentleman from his class in Cornwall. Henry built the great parlour and other rooms and buildings as additions to the existing Trebartha Hall.

Lemarne Mine was situated between Lemarne and Stonaford. In addition to tin and arsenic it also yielded enough gold to make a ring which is now the possession of the Rodd family. It is recorded that Mary Spoure, wife of Henry, sunk the shaft but she became discouraged by the death of a village boy who fell into the shaft whilst playing with a windlass on a Sunday. Robert Latham has seen plans in the Cornwall Record Office of a mine dating back to 1886 but this was marked as abandoned in 1888. There was an attempt to mine there by some Americans in 1953 but this was not a success.

The picture above, taken around 1910, shows the Landrey family outside Lemarne. The older man Harry Landrey was the gamekeeper and sitting on the step is his son and namesake Harry Landrey who was batman in World War One to Francis Rodd. William Landrey, standing on the right, was killed in 1916 whilst serving with the Tank Corps in France. Harry Landry senior was gamekeeper for 43 years and his father had been gamekeeper for 21 years before him. The 1884 Ordnance Survey map shows kennels near Lemarne Mine but by 1916 they had been brought back to Lemarne.

There exists an engaging theory as to who are the people shown in the above photograph.

In April 2015 Julian Hargreaves wrote “Around fifteen years ago I spent some considerable time researching this photograph, and came to different conclusions as to the identity of the persons shown. In particular, the censuses show a difference of four years in the ages of the youngest Landrey children, whereas in the photo, the little girl is much closer in age to her younger brother.”

Julian wrote a very well researched treatise on the photograph and came to the conclusion that the family in the photograph may not be as indicated above. Read more ..

The image at the top of the page shows views of and around Trebartha Hall used by Robert Latham in his talk.