St Kew
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St Kew ( kw, Lanndohow)Place-names in the Standard Written Form (SWF)

List of place-names agreed by the MAGA Signage Panel
.
Cornish Language Partnership The Cornish Language Partnership ( kw, Keskowethyans an Taves Kernewek , ) is a representative body that was set up in Cornwall, England, UK in 2005 to promote and develop the use of the Cornish language. It is a public and voluntary sector partn ...
.
is a 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, United Kingdom. It is also the name of the
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 ...
(known in Cornish as ''Pluw Gew''), which includes the church town, St Kew, and nearby St Kew Highway (''Fordh Lanndogho''). The parish is named for a Welsh saint, Cywa or Kew, possibly the sister of Docco, also known as: Docuin, Docwinn, Docquinn, who founded a monastery at or near the village of St Kew. The 15th-century church is now dedicated to St James.


Place name

St Kew is mentioned in history earlier than any other place in Cornwall since it appears in the ''Life of St Samson''. The life includes an account of the saint visiting a monastery called Docco which was over the seas (St Samson came from Wales). Docco is said to have come with his sister Kew from Gwent in south Wales to Cornwall and founded a religious centre known as Lan Docco. St Samson first visited Lan Docco when he came to Cornwall in the early 6th century, was greeted by Junavius and well treated there. Some have interpreted this to mean that Kew and Docco were either dead or not in charge of the centre by that time. Legend reports that Kew vowed to build a church at the spot where a bear that had been troubling the area was killed, this being considered to be the location of the current Church building. Over time the place name became shortened from Landocco to Lannou or Lannow, and records from the 12th century use this name. There was a chapel dedicated to St Kew located at Lannou from before 1373, and in 1575 the place was referred to "Lannow alias St Kew" in the bishop's register thus bridging the older name used in documents with the name familiar at the time.


History

There is a Cornish cross at Polrode Mill; its original site is unknown and the head has been damaged. Job's Cross is on the road from Trewethern to St. Kew. St Kew was a large manor at the time of Domesday Book. There were 5 hides of land which included land for 22 ploughs. There were 59 villagers and 26 smallholders with 20 ploughs between them. Also of meadow, of pasture and a large woodland; the livestock were 9 cattle and 120 sheep. The annual value was £6. St Kew was part of the estate of
Plympton Priory Plympton Priory was a priory in Devon, England. Its history is recorded in the Annales Plymptonienses. History The site of an Anglo-Saxon minster, Plympton Priory was re-founded as an Augustinian house by Bishop William Warelwast in 1121. The f ...
and later the Bishop of Exeter, before the dissolution of the monasteries. For many years, the manor was held by the Molesworth family. At Bokelly there are a Tudor barn and a house which was apparently refronted in the late 17th century. The farmhouse at Bokelly was built in the 16th century and remodelled in the 18th; the outbuildings include a 16th-century barn and 19th-century granary and pigsties. In the late 16th century it was the home of William Carnsew, who wrote about his visits to other important houses in Cornwall. Pengenna is a 17th-century manor house. The estate of Treharrack () (also known as Treharrock and Trehannick) was submitted for public auction, by the owner Rev Gustavus Basset, on 8 October 1879; the estate consisted of approximately , a mansion, stables, coach-house, walled garden, greenhouse, etc. Basset had purchased the property, some years previous, for £11,000 and in 1879 was bought by Mr Magor of Lamellyn for £7,700. The manor, which was dismembered in circa 1700, belonged to the Treharrick family many years before the
Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
and passed by marriage to the Cavell family. A new house was built on the site in 1820. Spoil-tips survive of Trevinnick mine which produced
antimony Antimony is a chemical element with the symbol Sb (from la, stibium) and atomic number 51. A lustrous gray metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (Sb2S3). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient t ...
, lead and zinc in the latter part of the 19th century.


Church of St James

The 15th-century parish church, in the village of St Kew Churchtown, has important
stained glass window Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...
s, including one depicting the
Passion of Christ In Christianity, the Passion (from the Latin verb ''patior, passus sum''; "to suffer, bear, endure", from which also "patience, patient", etc.) is the short final period in the life of Jesus Christ. Depending on one's views, the "Passion" m ...
, which were restored in 2005. The windows were the most "memorable" part of
Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...
's visit. He also praised the pulpit: "Uncommonly good, Elizabethan, with ornamental panels ... ". He notes the carved capitals, the wagon roof, the 15th century font, bench ends, a 15th-century cross-head and the Royal Arms, in stone. There is a curious Ogham stone, found in a local farm, in the church. According to Charles Henderson, writing in the ''Cornish Church Guide'' (1925), the tracery and stonework of some windows at St Kew may have been transferred here from Bodmin Parish Church. The dedication was originally to St Docco but in the mid-15th century the patroness of a chapel (St Kewa, Virgin) nearby was transferred to the parish church when the church building was enlarged. Two other chapels existed in the parish in the late medieval period, one of St Wenna, and another of St Aldhelm at Chapel Amble (in Cornish: An Heyle 'by the estuary'). Edward Benson, 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 ...
reopened the church on 24 July 1883 following a restoration.


Gallery: The church of St James

File:DSCN1857StKewChurch.jpg, Church with ancient cross File:DSCN1878StKewChurchCaptal.jpg, Decorated capital in the church File:DSCN1890StKewChurchPulpit.jpg, Pulpit of the church File:DSCN1886StKewChurchMemorial.jpg, Detail of face – slate memorial at the church File:DSCN1887StKewChurchWindow.jpg, Passion of Christ at the church File:Plaque in support of King Charles II at St Kew church.jpg, The arms of King Charles II, 1661


St Kew Highway railway station

The station on the
North Cornwall Railway The North Cornwall Railway was a railway line running from Halwill in Devon to Padstow in Cornwall via Launceston, Camelford and Wadebridge, a distance of . Opened in the last decade of the nineteenth century, it was part of a drive by the Lon ...
opened on 1 June 1895, and had a passing loop and a single siding with headshunt that served a goods shed and loading dock. Both lines through the station had platforms although the down platform had no buildings and was only accessible via a foot crossing at the down end of the station. The station building itself, like the goods shed, was substantially constructed out of local stone, as was the locking room of the signal box. The passing loop was extended in 1939, but the up loop, sidings and signal box were taken out of use on 21 November 1965 as goods services had ceased on 7 September the previous year. Traffic was never very heavy and by the late 1930s was averaging five passengers per day, less than a third of that ten years earlier. The station was unmanned from 6 December 1965 and closed on 3 October 1966, although the building functioned for some time as a guest house but is now a private residence: it is partially visible from the A39.


Walmsley Sanctuary

The Cornwall Birdwatching and Preservation Society owns the Walmsley Sanctuary which covers over on the River Amble, a tributary of the
River Camel The River Camel ( kw, Dowr Kammel, meaning ''crooked river'') is a river in Cornwall, England. It rises on the edge of Bodmin Moor and with its tributaries its catchment area covers much of North Cornwall. The river flows into the eastern Ce ...
, with two bird-hides for use by its members. The sanctuary is nationally important for wintering waders and wildfowl. The sanctuary was purchased in 1939 with a legacy from Dr Robert Garrett Walmsley (d. 1939). The legacy was on condition that the society undertook "to provide and administer a Sanctuary for Migrating Waders within the Duchy of Cornwall".


St Kew ACE Academy

The St Kew ACE Academy, formerly St Kew Community Primary School, campus includes an infant playground, large general playground with quiet garden, playing field with adventure equipment and science garden. The building is all on one level and comprises three classrooms and additional teaching space. There is a pre-school room, library, reception and hall, with kitchen facilities. The school was originally located in the Parish Hall at the turn of the 20th century, and moved to its present location in 1928. Further extension and improvement in 1991 added a new wing. The school is part of Kernow Learning, a multi academy trust of primary schools across Cornwall.


Notable residents

* Sir
Edward Braddon Sir Edward Nicholas Coventry Braddon (11 June 1829 – 2 February 1904) was an Australian politician who served as Premier of Tasmania from 1894 to 1899, and was a Member of the First Australian Parliament in the House of Representatives. Bradd ...
(1829-1904), premier of
Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...
, was born in St Kew. * Rev Thomas Hutton (1566–1639), Vicar of St Kew (January 1607 until his death in December 1639) and author of ''An Answer to Several Reasons for Refusall to Subscribe to 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 ...
'' (1605).


References


Citations


References

*


Further reading

* Maclean, John (1872–79) ''The Parochial and Family History of the Deanery of Trigg Minor''. 3 vols. London: Nichols & Son


External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Kew Civil parishes in Cornwall Manors in Cornwall Villages in Cornwall