St Erth ( kw, Lannudhno) is a

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

and village in

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

, England. St Erth takes its name from

Saint Erc Erc mac Dega ( la, Ercus; kw, Erth), also known (incorrectly) as Herygh, was an Irish saint. He was active in Cornwall. Tradition ascribes the foundation of the original monastery on the Hill of Slane to him. Early life Erc, son of Dago, is bel ...

, one of the many Irish saints who brought Christianity to Cornwall during the Dark Ages, and is at the old crossing point of the

River Hayle A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wa ...

. The Cornish name of the place derives from St Uthinoch of whom little is known. The church of St Erth dates from the 15th-century, though an older church is said to have once stood on St Erth Hill overlooking the village. The

St Erth railway station St Erth railway station is a Grade II listed station situated at Rose-an-Grouse in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It serves the nearby village of St Erth, which is about away, and is the junction for the St Ives Bay Line to St Ives. The station ...

is 0.75 miles from the village, at Rose-an-Grouse, and is on the

Cornish Main Line The Cornish Main Line ( kw, Penn-hyns-horn Kernow) is a railway line in Cornwall and Devon in the United Kingdom. It runs from Penzance to Plymouth, crossing from Cornwall into Devon over the famous Royal Albert Bridge at Saltash. It directly ...

from

London Paddington Paddington, also known as London Paddington, is a Central London railway terminus and London Underground station complex, located on Praed Street in the Paddington area. The site has been the London terminus of services provided by the Great ...

to Penzance. It is also the junction for scenic St Ives Bay Line.

Geography

The village is four miles (6.5 km) southeast of St Ives and six miles (10 km) northeast of Penzance. The parish shares boundaries with

Ludgvan Ludgvan ( ; kw, Lujuan) is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, England, UK, northeast of Penzance. Ludgvan village is split between Churchtown, on the hill, and Lower Quarter to the east, adjoining Crowlas. For the purposes of local go ...

in the west,

Hayle Hayle ( kw, Heyl, "estuary") is a port town and civil parish in west Cornwall, England. It is situated at the mouth of the Hayle River (which discharges into St Ives Bay) and is approximately seven miles (11 km) northeast of Penzance. ...

in the north, and St Hilary in the south. The old coaching road once led through the village, before the building of the causeway in 1825 along the edge of the Hayle

Estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

. Prior to 1825 anyone wanting to go from Hayle to St Ives or Penzance had to cross the sands of the Hayle Estuary or make a significant detour crossing the River Hayle at the ancient St Erth Bridge. The Star Inn, in St Erth village centre, is a

Grade II listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Ir ...

coaching inn dating from the fourteenth/fifteenth centuries. It was along this route that tin was carried upcountry from the

stannaries A stannary was an administrative division established under stannary law in the English counties of Cornwall and Devon to manage the collection of tin coinage, which was the duty payable on the metal tin smelted from the ore cassiterite mined ...

Penwith Penwith (; kw, Pennwydh) is an area of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, located on the peninsula of the same name. It is also the name of a former local government district, whose council was based in Penzance. The area is named after ...

. Guides took travellers across the sands, but, even with guides, it was sometimes a perilous journey and the shifting sand and racing tide claimed several lives. Because of this major obstacle to trade, a turnpike trust was formed, with Henry Harvey a trustee, to build the causeway which now takes the road below the plantation west to the Old Quay House. Costing £5000 in 1825, the investors charged a toll to use the causeway to recover their costs. St Erth was the site of a large creamery operated by

United Dairies United Dairies is a former United Kingdom-based creamery, milk bottling and distribution company. The company was formed in 1915 and merged to form Unigate in 1959. During World War I, there were dire shortages of men, horses and vehicles com ...

: this was responsible for processing a large quantity of milk produced in Penwith.

Manor houses

Trewinnard Manor is an early 18th-century house built on a different site from its medieval predecessor by the Hawkins family.

Trelissick Manor Trelissick Manor is a listed manor house in the parish of St Erth, Cornwall, England, UK. It was the seat of the armigerous family of Cambron alias Paynter, who were also seated at Antron in Sithney and Deverell in Gwinear. History and descrip ...

is a medieval house remodelled in 1688 for the Jacobite

James Paynter James Paynter (1666 - ?) was the leader of a Jacobite uprising in Cornwall in the 18th century. In 1715 he took an active part in proclaiming James Francis Edward Stuart (the Old Pretender) on the death of Queen Anne, for this he was tried for Hi ...

, again remodelled in the 18th century and extended in the 19th century. Tredrea Manor is a 17th-century house but it was largely rebuilt c. 1856. The front is of five bays built in ashlar.

St Erth Sand Pits

St Erth Sand Pits were worked for

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58puddling the dry dock at Penzance. Later it was used by

Bernard Leach Bernard Howell Leach (5 January 1887 – 6 May 1979), was a British studio potter and art teacher. He is regarded as the "Father of British studio pottery". Biography Early years (Japan) Leach was born in Hong Kong. His mother Eleanor (née ...

at his

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and ...

in St Ives. The clay was the source of significant

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

finds and in 1886 the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

obtained a government grant to search the shell-beds. In 1962 the pits were designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). However, the main use of the

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class o ...

in this location was for the metal foundries throughout Cornwall, but especially for Harvey's of nearby

, and beyond. The sand grains are found coated with a thin film of clay. With gentle pressure and the correct percentage of water the sand grains will bind together and can be used for making a sand mould into which molten metals can be poured to make engineering castings. One of the disused pits is a geological nature reserve owned by

Cornwall Wildlife Trust The Cornwall Wildlife Trust is a charitable organisation founded in 1962 that is concerned solely with Cornwall, England. It deals with the conservation and preservation of Cornwall's wildlife, geology and habitats managing over 50 nature reser ...

. Another good source of clay for fixing candles to miners' helmets was on St Agnes Beacon.

Parish church

The parish church is dedicated to St Erc (Latin ''Ercus'') and is probably of the 14th-century. It is not a large church and has a west tower of three stages. There are north and south aisles, the arcade in the north aisle having piers of two different types. The church was restored in 1874, at which time two dormer windows were inserted in the roof. The wagon roof of the south porch is old and the font is Norman and of an unusual square design. The ornate wooden roofs of the nave and aisles and fine oak screen decorated with the Four Evangelists are due to the restoration of 1874. The church is sited in a wooded area and the churchyard, according to Charles Henderson, "greatly enhances the building". The names of eight places in the parish are recorded as having chapels or shrines in the medieval registers, including Bosworgey (St Mary Magdalene) and Gurlyn. There are six Cornish crosses in the parish: two are in the churchyard and the others are in the churchtown and at Battery Mill, Tregenhorne and Trevean.

Local government

For the purposes of local government St Erth forms a civil parish and elects eleven parish councillors every four years to St Erth Parish Council. The local authority is

Cornwall Council Cornwall Council ( kw, Konsel Kernow) is the unitary authority for Cornwall in the United Kingdom, not including the Isles of Scilly, which has its own unitary council. The council, and its predecessor Cornwall County Council, has a tradition ...

Twinning

St Erth is twinned with Ploulec'h in

Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period ...

, France.

Notable people

* The Rev. William Paynter, (1637 – 1716) Anglican clergyman and

Vice-Chancellor A chancellor is a leader of a college or university, usually either the executive or ceremonial head of the university or of a university campus within a university system. In most Commonwealth and former Commonwealth nations, the chancellor ...

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

was born at Trelissick Walbert, in the parish of St Erth. *

Davies Gilbert Davies Gilbert (born Davies Giddy, 6 March 1767 – 24 December 1839) was an English engineer, author, and politician. He was elected to the Royal Society on 17 November 1791 and served as President of the Royal Society from 1827 to 1830. He ...

PRS (1767-1839) Cornish engineer, author, and politician. Born Davies Giddy, he lived in St Erth in family home of Tredrea. * David Charleston (1848 in St Erth – 1934) Cornish-born Australian politician, emigrated to Australia in 1884 and in 1901 he was elected to the Australian Senate * Major Herbert Augustine Carter VC (1874 – 1916) son of the vicar of St Erth. Served in two campaigns in East Africa. He is buried at St Erth in a plot planted with tropical plants including laurels and castor oil plants. His Victoria Cross is displayed at the

Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry Museum The Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry (DCLI) was a light infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 to 1959. The regiment was created on 1 July 1881 as part of the Childers Reforms, by the merger of the 32nd (Cornwall Light I ...

at Bodmin. * Admiral Sir Henry Bernard Hughes Rawlings GBE KCB (1889 in St Erth – 1962) Royal Navy officer, became Flag Officer, Eastern Mediterranean during World War II. * Sir John William Frederic Nott KCB (born 1932) former British Conservative Party MP for St Ives from 1966 to 1983,

Secretary of State for Defence The secretary of state for defence, also referred to as the defence secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the business of the Ministry of Defence. The incumbent is a membe ...

during the

Falkland war The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial de ...

, now lives on his farm in St Erth.

References

External links

Cornwall Record Office Online Catalogue for St Erth

Article on St Erth parish in Genuki
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Erth Civil parishes in Cornwall Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Cornwall Villages in Cornwall