The Hill Family
Sampson Manaton of Manaton, heir at law to Manaton manor, died in 1642 leaving four daughters and no male heir. At length, his daughter Elizabeth Manaton (1625-c.1717) married her second cousin Arthur Manaton (b.1626) and their descendants were Sampson’s heirs. However, another daughter of Sampson, Frances Manaton (1616-c.1699), married Michael Hill of Trenethick in Wendron (d. 1673).
Michael Hill was the second, but eldest surviving son of Francis Hill and Grace Randall of Wendron. On the death of his grandfather, John Hill (d. 1653), Michael Hill inherited the manor and barton of Trenethick. There the hill family constructed a manor house in the 16th century including a rear courtyard wall and gateway which was extended and remodelled at various points in time into the nineteenth century. Pictures of the building and the gatehouse from the early 1900s are displayed below.
In Manaton Chapel at St. Sampson’s there is a monument to Michael Hill (1655-1663) in remembrance of the son of Frances Manaton and Michael Hill who died as a young child. The monument displays the Manaton arms impaled with those of Hill and is mounted on the east wall of Manaton Chapel and bears the inscription:
“Strange, that this stone should tell
Of Saint turned angel Michael.
Stranger, that so high a Hill
Should sink so low a vault to fill.
Strangest, when next we fleet,
If two and all we Hills do meet.”
As a part to the 1654 marriage settlement between Michael Hill and Frances Manaton three-eighths of the manor of Manaton remained in the Hill family until 1813 when it was then then sold by the Hills.