Qualla: Boconnoc

Boconnoc: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit EvaK, CC BY-SA 2.5. The diamond came out of an Indian mine in the late 1690s. Twenty-three years later, after a sale to the French Regent for 135,000 pounds, that single stone had transformed itself into a Cornish estate. Thomas Pitt, six times an MP and former President of Madras, paid 54,000 pounds for Boconnoc in 1717 and stepped out of trade and into landed gentry. The Regent Diamond now sits in the Louvre, valued near 60 million pounds. The estate it purchased still sits quietly in the wooded hills east of Lostwithiel, home to ninety-six people at the last count, where the deer park is the largest in Cornwall and old oaks shelter lichens found almost nowhere else in Europe.

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Image: EvaK | CC BY-SA 2.5

Boconnoc: Domesday and the Long Inheritance

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The Domesday Book of 1086 records the manor as Bochenod, one of many holdings of Robert, Count of Mortain, half-brother to William the Conqueror. The tenant who actually worked the place was a Briton known by half a dozen spellings of his name. Twelve manors he held in Devon and ...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Boconnoc: Pitt and the Prime Ministers

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Reading Tom from Reading, UK, CC BY 2.0. Thomas Pitt was the grandfather of William Pitt the Elder, who would lead Britain through the Seven Years' War, and the great-grandfather of William Pitt the Younger, who would lead it through the French Revolution. Two prime ministers in three generations. Pitt the elder bought ...

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Image: Reading Tom from Reading, UK | CC BY 2.0

Boconnoc: Fortescues and a Final Tragedy

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rarb, CC BY 3.0. The estate passed in 1864 to George Matthew Fortescue, second son of the Earl Fortescue, through his aunt Anne Pitt. Fortescues held Boconnoc for the next century and a half. They served as High Sheriffs of Cornwall, fought in the Coldstream Guards, married into other Cornish fam...

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Image: Rarb | CC BY 3.0

Boconnoc: The Lichen Kingdom

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit roger geach, CC BY-SA 2.0. Parts of the ancient deer park around Boconnoc House shelter old-growth sessile oaks growing in steep ravines and on south-facing slopes. The lichens that drape them form what botanists call an internationally important assemblage, one of the most significant sites in Europe. Pla...

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Image: roger geach | CC BY-SA 2.0

Boconnoc: The Hidden Parish

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Johnson [1], CC BY-SA 3.0. A Methodist chapel stood at Trecangate from 1820 to 1954, built of cob, its position marked now only by a sign erected in 2009. Cornish wrestling tournaments drew crowds here in the 1700s. The parish church behind the house has no known dedication, an oddity in itself; inside, a ...

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Image: David Johnson [1] | CC BY-SA 3.0