St Breward is a civil parish and village in Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. It is situated on the western side of Bodmin Moor

Bodmin Moor

Bodmin Moor is a granite moorland in northeastern Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is in size, and originally dates from the Carboniferous period of geological history....

 approximately 6 miles (10 km) north of Bodmin

Bodmin

Bodmin is a civil parish and major town in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated in the centre of the county southwest of Bodmin Moor.The extent of the civil parish corresponds fairly closely to that of the town so is mostly urban in character...

.

The parish name derives from Saint Branwalader

Brelade

Branwalator or Breward, also referred to as Branwalader, was a British saint saint whose relics lay at Milton Abbas in Dorset and Branscombe in Devon. Believed to come from Brittany, he also gives his name to the parish of Saint Brélade, Jersey. "Brelade" is a corruption of "Branwalader"...

. Until the 19th century it was commonly known by the corrupt form of the name: 'Simonward'.

Local amenities

The village has a footpath which takes you in a loop past the holy well, the aviaries, and the church. It has a shop, a snooker club, the village hall, a football club (Brake Parc FC), two playgrounds (one at Rylands, and the other in Penvorder), a Methodist chapel and Sunday school, an Anglican church, a pub (The Old Inn), and a war memorial hall.

Parish Church

The church is situated at the northern end of the village and is dedicated to St Branwalader (or Brueredus). It is a substantial building of the Norman period to which a south aisle and western tower were added in the 15th century (these additions are of granite). It was restored

Victorian restoration

Victorian restoration is the term commonly used to refer to the widespread and extensive refurbishment and rebuilding of Church of England churches and cathedrals that took place in England and Wales during the 19th-century reign of Queen Victoria...

 in the 19th century, and only parts of the Norman north arcade remain. There were in the mediaeval period three chapels in the parish: at Hamatethy the manorial chapel of the Peverells, St Michael's Chapel, Roughtor, and another at Chaple. Thomas Taylor

Thomas Taylor (historian)

Rev. Thomas Taylor was a priest, historian and scholar of Celtic culture.-Life and career:Taylor was born in Thurvaston, Derbyshire, England. He attended King Edward VI School, Macclesfield becoming head boy in 1874. He matriculated at St Catharine's College, Cambridge in 1877, and graduated in...

 the historian was vicar here and edited the parish registers.

War Memorial Hall

Situated further towards the bottom of the village, the War Memorial Hall is used for monthly events such as the gardening club. It has a small kitchen with a microwave, kettle, and cutlery, two toilets, a large carpeted room where meetings are held, and a larger room with stage sets and lighting rigs. When this larger room is not being used for drama productions, there are two table tennis

Table tennis

Table tennis, also known as ping-pong, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight, hollow ball back and forth using table tennis rackets. The game takes place on a hard table divided by a net...

 courts that can be used by members of the public. In November 2008, it was announced that the younger people of the village were no longer allowed to use the memorial hall. This was met with bitter dismay from those who had enjoyed utilising the hall and were now banned. The ping pong room was free to use by any member or the local community, and the key for the hall could be obtained by asking for it at the local village shop. There was a collection box for those who used the ping pong tables and wished to give a donation, and it was asked that the hall was tidied and returned to the state it was found in after every use. According to an anonymous source, the hall had been left untidy and therefore all of the younger people were banned from using it from then on.

History and antiquities

The moorland area of the parish is notable for prehistoric remains, including the earthwork known as King Arthur's Hall

King Arthur's Hall

King Arthur's Hall is a megalithic monument on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, England, UK. It is thought to be a late Neolithic or early Bronze Age ceremonial site....

. For many centuries St Breward's main industry was the mining of granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 which has been used in Cornwall and exported to many other places. The most important quarry is De Lank which produces granite of very high quality. More recently china clay has also been quarried there. There is another important china clay works at Stannon.

The most important prehistoric remains are the earthwork already mentioned, the Fernacre stone circle and two other stone circles (one 2.5 miles north-east and the other near Leaze Farm). The first of these has 76 stones in the circle and a single outlying stone; the latter has 16 stones but probably had 22 originally. Langdon (1896) records seven crosses and six cross-bases in the parish: two of the crosses are at Lanke. In 1998, 1999 and 2000 three seasons of archaeological recording work were undertaken at the china clay works on Stannon Down to learn more about the numerous Bronze Age remains to be found there.

Parts

In the 17th century St. Breward was two separate villages, Churchtown (higher) and St. Breward (lower). More houses were built and slowly the villages merged into one. There are several main parts to the village: Churchtown, Rylands, Limehead, Wenford, Penvorder, Higher Penquite and Lower Penquite.

The bridge and hamlet of Wenfordbridge

Wenfordbridge

Wenfordbridge, or Wenford Bridge, is a hamlet some north of Bodmin and on the western flank of Bodmin Moor, in the English county of Cornwall...

 lies on the River Camel

River Camel

The River Camel is a river in Cornwall, UK. It rises on the edge of Bodmin Moor and together with its tributaries drains a considerable part of North Cornwall. The river issues into the Celtic Sea area of the Atlantic Ocean between Stepper Point and Pentire Point having covered a distance of...

 at the boundary of St Breward parish with the neighbouring parish of St Tudy

St Tudy

St Tudy is a civil parish and village in north Cornwall, United Kingdom. The village is situated in the River Camel valley approximately five miles northeast of Wadebridge.-Parish church:...

. The parish includes a moorland area which contains Rough Tor

Rough Tor

Rough Tor, or Roughtor, rowter, is a hill and tor on Bodmin Moor, Cornwall. Its summit is 1313 ft above mean sea level, making it the second highest point in Cornwall....

 and Brown Willy

Brown Willy

Brown Willy is a hill in Cornwall, United Kingdom. The summit is the highest point of Bodmin Moor and of Cornwall as a whole....

, which is the highest point in Cornwall.

External links