St Briocus

Work on the church commenced in the 13th century and it was dedicated to St Briocus in 1259 by Bishop Branscombe. Virtual rebuilding in 1677 was necessary because it had fallen in a state of disrepair.

The catacleuse stone font dates from around the 14th century and the church has a number of memorials including a priest’s tombstone believed to be similarly dated, and a brass monument to Christopher Tredennek, Sheriff of Cornwall, and his wife.

There are 17th and 18th century slate memorials to the Tredennek, Tregagle, Goodfellow and Tyake families. The first references to the bells in the west tower appear in 1772. Of the present bells, five were cast in 1804 and recast in 1828; Revd Thomas Sherlock added the sixth in memory of his wife in 1898.

The tower itself is of three stages with battlemented parapet. The Wills organ is first mentioned in 1883 when it was in the north Transept. It was fully restored in 1959 and overhauled again in 1993. Lying at the foot of a steep valley the church has been subject to flooding in 1846, 1949 and, most severely, in July 1965 when 5½ inches of rain fell in under 3 hours.

The church was flooded to a depth of 57 inches and closed for almost 12 months for restoration, repair and the construction of a flood prevention scheme. The 50th Anniversary of this event was commemorated in 2015.

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