Prior to the Reformation the farm buildings (since rebuilt and considerably dwindled) had appertained, like much of the glebe-land around Valmouth, to the Abbots of St. Veronica, when at the confiscation of the monasteries by the Crown one Thierry Monfaulcon Tooke, tennis-master to the Court of King Henry VIII, feinting to injure himself one day while playing with the royal princesses, had been offered by Henry, through their touching entreaties in consideration of his mishap, the Abbey Farm of St. Veronica's, then recently vacated by the monks .