When my daughter returned from her semester abroad studying in London in 1998, she brought back some photos taken on her trip to Cornwall. They include pictures of the Nance Farm at Illogan. The Nance Farm is on the outskirts of Illogan, a small village about 3 miles northeast of Camborne, which lies about 10 miles east of St. Ives. Illogan is only about a mile from the sea. For more information about Illogan, see the website of the Saint Illogan Parish.
PHOTOS OF THE |
 Flowers
on a road near Nance Farm |
 Sign
at the entrance to Nance Farm |
 The House at Nance
Farm |
 A
closer view of the house |
 A view of the area in back of the house - gives some idea of
its size |
 Another
view of an area in the back of the house |
 Wall
and road in the front of the house |
 Another view of the wall and road in the front of the house |
This residence was thought by M. L. "Pete" Nance to be the ancestral home of a line of Nances extending down to the grandfather of the Richard Nance who emigrated to Virginia in the early 1600's and who was the head of the entire Nance family in America.
I have come to believe that "Pete" Nance's theory, described in his "Nance of Cornwall" article, may be mistaken. For more about this, see my article, "A Farewell To Illogan" - Are we actually descended from the St. Clement Nances?". However, the story of the Nance Farm is still an interesting one to me.
About the history of the house -- According to my daughter, the houses in the village of Illogan are small, and the house at the Nance farm is much the largest house in the area. This reflects the fact that, in the 16th Century, what is now called Illogan was, in effect, the Nance estate (which was in the Parish of Illogan). According to "Pete" Nance's "NANCE of Cornwall", the name "Nans" as a place appears in Illogan Parish records in 1536, with a mention of "Henry Trengove, Esquire, of Nans in Illogan". "Pete" Nance believed that Nans was actually built by this Henry. Indeed, I have a reproduction of a map of Cornwall created in 1630, and almost exactly where the village of Illogan is now, this old map instead shows a place with the name "Nans".
"Nans" (or "Nance"), the Illogan Parish estate of the Nances (including the house at the Nance Farm), passed to Henry's son John, and then to John's eldest son and heir at law, Henry Nance Esquire, of Nance in Illogan, b. 1556.
Henry's younger brother Richard was the father of John Harry Nancewho was the father of Richard Nance, christened in 1610, believed by some to have been the Richard Nance who emigrated to Virginia. Undoubtedly, the elder Richard (i.e., Henry's younger brother) was born in and grew up in the Nance estate house in Illogan which you see in these pictures, but as it passed to his older brother Henry, and as Richard was later referred to referred as "Richard of Trewynnard" and was buried (1582) in St. Erth Parish (about 10 miles to the southwest), it is clear that he established a new home.
