St Corentine's Church, Cury is a Grade I listed parish church in the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

Cury Cury ( kw, Egloskuri) is a civil parishes in England, civil parish and village in southwest Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated approximately four miles (6 km) south of Helston on The Lizard, The Lizard peninsula. The parish ...

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, UK.

History

The parish church is dedicated to St Corentin. The building is cruciform and of the

Norman period The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conque ...

, but a north aisle was added in the 15th century. It was probably originally a manorial church of Winnianton but became a chapelry of

Breage Breage or Breaca (with many variant spellings) is a saint venerated in Cornwall and South West England. According to her late hagiography, she was an Irish nun of the 5th or 6th century who founded a church in Cornwall. The village and civil pari ...

in the 13th century. The church was restored in 1874 but the restoration was carried out locally without the supervision of an architect. The work was superintended by the Reverend A H Cummings, who employed the village mason, carpenter, blacksmith and glazier. The north wall was taken down and rebuilt. The roof of the north aisle was repaired and boarded inside, and enriched with carved oak bosses. The roofs of the nave, chancel and Bochym aisle were re-constructed. The church was reseated and the windows were re-glazed with

Cathedral glass Cathedral glass is the name given commercially to monochromatic sheet glass. It is thin by comparison with ''slab glass'', may be coloured, and is textured on one side. The name draws from the fact that windows of stained glass were a feature of ...

. The expense of the restoration of the Bochym aisle was borne by

Richard Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'stro ...

and Sydney Davey of

Bochym Cury ( kw, Egloskuri) is a civil parish and village in southwest Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated approximately four miles (6 km) south of Helston on The Lizard peninsula. The parish is named for St Corentin and is reco ...

, and the entire cost of the works was £900. It reopened on 23 July 1874.

Sandys Wason

From 1905 to 1920 the parishes of Cury and

Gunwalloe Gunwalloe ( kw, Pluw Wynnwalow) is a coastal civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated on the Lizard Peninsula south of Helston and partly contains The Loe, the largest natural freshwater lake in Cornwall. The parish pop ...

were served by the Rev Sandys Wason as priest-in-charge. Father Wason was an Anglo-Catholic and unpopular with some parishioners; he wrote poems such as "Town" ("I met a clergymanly man, Prostrated in the Strand, He sucked a brace of oranges, One orange in each hand" is the first verse). He is notable for the controversy aroused by his ministry due to his practice of liturgical borrowing from the Roman Catholic Church and other aspects of it. The church members protested against the

Anglo Catholic Anglo-Catholicism comprises beliefs and practices that emphasise the Catholic heritage and identity of the various Anglican churches. The term was coined in the early 19th century, although movements emphasising the Catholic nature of Anglica ...

services which he conducted and wrote a resolution of protest to the

Bishop of Truro The Bishop of Truro is the ordinary (diocesan bishop) of the Church of England Diocese of Truro in the Province of Canterbury. History There had been between the 9th and 11th centuries a Bishopric of Cornwall until it was merged with Credi ...

to restore the services in the

Book of Common Prayer The ''Book of Common Prayer'' (BCP) is the name given to a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion and by other Christian churches historically related to Anglicanism. The original book, published in 1549 in the reign ...

. Though disciplined by successive bishops of Truro ( Charles Stubbs and Winfrid Burrows) he persisted in his ways. He was turned out of his church by the Bishop, but he refused to vacate the vicarage and held services there. When at last the Bishop deprived him of ecclesiastical preferment in the diocese and of the living, the dispute reached an acute phase when the vicar refused to allow his Bishop to conduct services in his church. Eventually a group of his opponents ejected him from the parish by force and he took refuge at St Hilary with

Bernard Walke Bernard Walke, born Nicolo Bernard Walke, was an English Anglican priest. Most of his ministry was in three Cornish parishes; he was parish priest of St Hilary from 1913 to 1936. Personal life Bernard Walke was the eldest of three sons of a ...

. Subsequently, he carried on the business of Cope and Fenwick, publishers, in London.Walke, Bernard (2002) ''Twenty Years at St Hilary''. Mount Hawke: Truran, pp. 227-29

Parish status

The church is in a joint parish with * St Winwaloe's Church, Gunwalloe

History

Sandys Wason

Parish status

References

Further reading