Ertach Kernow - St Wenn a rural parish a place of Cornish giants

Rural view with mist hanging over the valley near St Wenn

St Wenn is a quiet rural parish, along with an area just over the parish boundary in St Breock parish having some claim to fame. There are two locations which might be described as homes to Cornish giants. This is not in the legendary sense but in size and fame and just two aspects of Cornish historical and cultural heritage.

The parish of St Wenn covers some 4,700 acres and has no major settlements apart from the small village of St Wenn and smaller hamlets of Rosenannon, Tregonetha and Demelza. Along with several farms and isolated houses it remains little influenced by industry and tourism. The village after which the parish is named, St Wenn, consists of the church, a foundation school, a WI hall and a few houses. Close to the church there is a large dairy farm whose buildings dwarf others close by. Named Glebe Farm it is likely this was part of glebe land formerly owned by the church. First mentioned in 1236 as Sancta Wenna older histories indicate St Wenn was mentioned in Domesday, but recent publications indicate otherwise. However, the area does have a history of well to do families owning manors and land going back to the 13th century. In fact the farm settlement of Borlase is where the ancestors of the renowned Cornish antiquarian Dr William Borlase had their Cornish origins. It is from here they took their name as was the tradition.  

St Wenn Church tower

As always click the images for larger view

Rear view of St Wenna Church

The architect Edmund H Sedding wrote of the church of St Wenna ‘this charmingly proportioned little building is an ideal village church.’ I agree, although the historian Charles Henderson thought it uninteresting. The church was in existence from the 12th century but rebuilt during the 15th. The tower appears rather squat but Henderson does say that this was once a fine three stage tower and partially destroyed by lightening in 1663. The second stage was repaired, but the top third stage was never replaced. There was substantial rebuilding to the church in 1825 and further restoration by James Piers St Aubyn in 1868 with additional work between 1886-1889. Today any historic pews have been removed replaced by chairs and the church interior has a bright open look whilst retaining some older features. It is quite obviously a well-loved and maintained church.

Schools are often a central part of small villages and there has been one at St Wenn since 1855, with record logbooks dating from 1863. National Schools had been set up throughout Cornwall, England and Wales during the 19th century by The National Society which aimed to set up a school in every parish. It wasn’t until 1870 that through ‘The Elementary Education Act’ central government began to provide schooling. In July 1863 twenty-eight children were tasked for being late, the same month they started to teach fractions and on the 13th John Osborne it was noted played truant in the afternoon. The district Inspector of Schools the Reverend E P Arnold reported ‘this little school as far as its influence extends, civilising and Christianising the children of a wild and remote district.’ It’s interesting to note that children came from other villages such as Withiel and Roche and that there would be a lot of absenteeism at the time of harvest with children expected to help out on farms and smallholdings. The school is happily still open today and extended to accommodate up to seventy-seven children.

St Wenn Primary School [2006] by Tony Artkin
K6 Telephone box at St Wenn repurposed

Another central building to the village is the WI Hall built by local builder George Allan in 1960 and opened by Florence Creswell-Payne of Newquay in 1961. The cost of building the hall was £1,700 with the St Wenn WI group working hard over a number of years to recoup the money. This was then refurbished and modernised ready for reopening in 2004 and is a great asset to the village and parish.

These days with the wider use of mobile phones red telephone boxes are becoming somewhat rarer. These are held in affection by great numbers of people and many now being repurposed. The original design was by architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in 1924 with the refined K6 model from 1936. If there is electricity to existing boxes which are being repurposed BT will continue supplying this free of charge. St Wenn Parish Council has used the boxes at St Wenn, Rosenannon, and Tregonetha and installed defibrillators in each one. Lovely to see them there and another good use of these iconic units.

 

To the north of St Wenn village is a 274-acre area of land known as Rosenannon Bog and Downs. This is an extensive tract of heathland which is gradually becoming rarer in Cornwall. Roughly rectangular in shape it’s bordered by agricultural fields and is itself used for cattle grazing between June and October. Owned and managed by the Cornwall Wildlife Trust it forms part of a wider area totalling nearly 335 acres designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). The Trust first leased the land in 1999 and it was bequeathed to them ten years later. Originally named Rosenannon Bog it was renamed following the expansion of the SSSI to its current area and one of 167 in Cornwall having been designated solely for their biological interest.

Downs & SSSI in St Wenn
Rosenannon Downs (Cornwall Wildlife Trust) credit David Hawgood
Rosenannon Downs (Cornwall Wildlife Trust) credit Ben Watkins

Cornwall contains just over two percent of the world’s lowland heathland and with a number of rare species of flora and fauna inhabiting the various areas. This makes them incredibly valuable from an ecological perspective. Sadly, there are those who would destroy this and in recent years there have been suspected arson attacks on this nature reserve. In 2022 thirty-seven acres were set ablaze and it took six separate firefighting units to supress the fire. This followed other fires in 2020 and 2021 which led the Cornwall Wildlife Trust to put in place measures to restrict fires through firebreaks, thus helping contain the 2022 blaze. No doubt climate change will add to the potential danger to these areas of gorse and heather throughout Cornwall. Arson set fires are far more destructive by destroying roots and seeds leading it to take up to 10 years to accomplish full regrowth. These have a devastating effect on ground nesting birds and mammals often leading to local extinction. Controlled authorised burning of gorse and heather called swaling is carried out from time to time to encourage regrowth.

Now we come to the first of our Cornish giants. This is Cornwall’s largest and heaviest monolith located at St Breock Downs and known in Kernewek as ‘Men Gurta’ (stone of waiting). This large monument weighs in at sixteen and a half tons with a total length of sixteen feet stands ten feet high within a low cairn. It was first erected in the late Neolithic Stone Age or early Bronze Age between 2,500 and 1,500BCE falling over in 1945 but re-erected in 1956. That was an opportunity to carryout archaeological work on the site. It stood in a setting of quartz pebbles above two small shallow hollows. These hollows uncovered at other sites contained human bone or ashes making them potential ritual sites. This monolith was first mentioned in records from 1613 was later adopted as a St Breock parish boundary marker with St Wenn.

There are a number of other ancient sites within the parish including the hill fort at Demelza. First recorded in 1309 this is a small  multivallate hillfort with two concentric ramparts with ditches, although the Cornish  historian William Hals mentions it as a 'treble entrenchment' around 1730. The hillfort dates from the Iron Age, about 600 BCE, and overlooks a small River Camel tributary to the south where there is evidence of early medieval tin stream workings. Remains of the outer rampart measure up to 14 feet and the inner nearly 12 feet with part of the outer bank and ditch unfortunately obliterated by a roadway.

‘Men Gurta’ with Cassie Sheppard
'Jethro' - Geoffrey McIntyre Rowe a Cornish giant of comedy
A Cornish giant, rest at peace 'Jethro'

Our second Cornish giant associated with St Wenn is far more recent and in life was a beloved man who made people laugh. Geoffrey McIntyre Rowe is perhaps better known, especially in Cornwall, as Jethro. Many stories opening with ‘what happened was’ and his ‘friend’ Denzil Penberthy was a great part of his act. Yes his humour was definitely not one for children, but most Cornish folk loved his lack of political correctness. Dawn French commented on his death in 2021 ‘Oh. Bugger. This gloriously un-pc Cornishman, Jethro, (Geoffrey Rowe) has left us. Some of my most helpless with laughter moments were in his presence. A supremely gifted comedian.’ Thousands of people packed the streets of Truro to watch his cortege wend its way to his funeral at Truro Cathedral, but it is in the quiet grounds of St Wenn Church that the legendary Cornish comedian Jethro now lies at peace.

I dedicate this article to a far less well-known man who as a local historian added much to the knowledge of St Wenn and later his home in St Columb Minor, Newquay. William John James was born to a farming family at Borlase in St Wenn and later retired as senior partner of accountancy firm Whittaker Redfern Pappin & Co in Newquay. He authored several books and contributed to articles and websites, sharing St Wenn and St Columb Minor history. Knowing his passing was imminent John wrote to me just a few days before he died on January 23rd 2019 to send me his latest unpublished and sadly incomplete work ‘Mawgan Matters’. I promised that I would share this and it will be added, albeit belatedly to the website shortly. I attended his funeral, which was well attended and now John too lies in the peacefulness of St Wenn churchyard a place he knew well and loved.

William John James - St Wenn & St Columb Minor historian
St Wenn a rural parish a place of Cornish giants
St Wenn a rural parish a place of Cornish giants

Heritage Column

Ertach Kernow Heritage Column 29th January 2025 – Cornish language film 'Hegoledh' – Community newsletters
Ertach Kernow shared in VOICE, Cornish Times, Cornish & Devon Post newspapers
Ertach Kernow shared in VOICE, Cornish Times, Cornish & Devon Post newspapers