I am Gillian Kempster volunteer (OPC) for Maker and Rame. As an OPC I am making my small but growing collection of genealogical resources for these parishes available to help with your research. You may to contact the me by e-mail with your research queries or to share your research with others interested in these parish.

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MAKER parish, which occupies a great part of the bold promontory and peninsula, which juts out into the English Channel on the west side of Plymouth Sound, and the south side of the harbour of Hamoaze, opposite Stonehouse and Devonport, is partly in Cornwall, and contains 2725 inhabitants and 2260 acres of land, of which 1156 souls and about 1320 acres are in VAULTERSHOME tithing, which is in Devonshire, and includes the beautiful seat of Mount Edgcumbe, the parish church, the village of Kingsand, and part of Millbrook. The whole parish is in the Archdeaconry of Cornwall and deanery of East, and the Union of St Germans. . . The Parish church of Maker is dedicated to St. Macra, and the living is a discharged vicarage, valued at £2333, in the patronage of the Lord Chancellor, and the incumbency of the Rev. Edward Trelawney, M.A. [From: White's History, Gazetteer and Directory of Devonshire, 1850]

The name of the parish is said to have been derived from either St Macarius, native of Egypt, who flourished in the 14th century, or from St Macra, the virgin daughter of a Scottish King, who was martyred at Rheims in AF 304. It is bounded on the north by St John's Lake, on the east by Plymouth Sound and on the south by the parish of Rame and the sea. Peskett: The tithing of Vaulterhome was in the county of Devon until it was transferred to Cornwall in 1844. Millbrook and West Stonehouse (distinguish East Stonehouse) are in this parish. Millbrook was created from part of Maker in 1867.

The parish, which in 1943 was united with that of Rame, is in the extreme south-east of Cornwall separated from Plymouth by the stretch of water known as 'Plymouth Sound'. The two villages in Maker and Rame are Kingsand and Cawsand.

A few fisherman were settled here in 1483 when Henry Tudor, later Henry VII, landed here briefly as part of an abortive attempt to overthrow Richard III. The real influx of people began when Plymouth merchants built pilchard cellars along the beach (still here) in Elizabeth I's reign and in the next two centuries smuggling flourished, the goods obtained both from cross-Channel trips and incoming merchantmen. The villages were the headquarters of West Country free trade, finally suppressed by 1850. Kingsand was still in Devon until 1844 and the boundary stone between the two counties is still opposite the Halfway Hotel, separating Turk Town (Cawsand) and the North Rockers (Kingsand). Intense rivalry between the two villages continued well into the 20th century.

The first Lord Mount Edgcumbe built Mount Edgcumbe House at Cremyll in 1552, but unfortunately it was bombed in the Second World War. The house was restored in 1960, but it is the magnificent gardens overlooking Plymouth Sound which are the main a ttraction for visitors. The Edgcumbe family have been major employers and benefactors of the parish since that early time, to the present day. The house and gardens are now jointly owned by Plymouth City and Cornwall County Councils.

In March 1587 a Spanish pinnace landed a raiding Party at Cawsand which tried to burn down the village, but one man with a musket put them to flight. In the Civil War Maker Church tower was fortified by the Royalist garrison of Mount Edgcumbe and was captured by the Plymouth Parliamentary forces in May 1644. For the next two centuries the Bay was a major anchorage for the British Navy - Nelson for instance in 1801. In the 18th century Maker Church tower was an Admiralty signal station with its own crew, passing messages by semaphore to Devonport Dockyard. Massive Fortifications of many centuries still dot the peninsula.

Useful books include:

• Campbell-Culver, Margaret. Mount Edgcumbe. Maker: Mount Edgcumbe House (1993) 35p : col ill ,maps [ISBN 0952188007] [Westcountry Studies Library - px728.8/MAK/MOU]
• Carne, Tony. Cornwall's Forgotten Corner- including Cawsand, Kingsand, Milbrook, St John & Sheviock, Rame, Tony Carne (1985) 132 p. [ISBN: 0 946143 13 7] [Kingsand and Millbrook make up the parish of Maker (formerly Devon). Mount Edgecumbe, Cremyl, etc., figure quite highly.]
• Crossing, William. Mount Edgcumbe Park: historical - descriptive - pictorial. Plymouth: Hoyten & Cole [1900?] 17p. [Westcountry Studies Library - 712.5/PLY/CRO]
• Manpower Services Commission. Survey of Mount Edgcumbe, Cornwall. Truro: Cornwall County Council (1984) v,63p : maps [Plymouth Library - 72]
• Warwick, Jill and Warwick, Glyn, (Ed.). As it Was, Jill Warwick, Maker with Rame Women's Inst. (Printed by Liskeard Printing Company) (2000) 204 p.
• A walk round Mount Edgecumbe (2nd ed.) Plymouth Dock: L.Congdon (1805) 36p. [Westcountry Studies Library - sB/PLY 1/1805/PLY]
• History and guide to Mount Edgecumbe House & Country Park. Cornwall County Council (19--) 15p : ill [Plymouth Library - 728.8MOU.
• The parish of Maker with Rame and its parish churches (rev ed.) Guildford: Home Words Ltd (1966)
• Two towers: a short history of the churches and parish of Maker with Rame. [Maker?]: [Maker Church?] [1990]

Maker was united with Rame parish in 1943 to form Maker-with-Rame parish.