Follow the brown signs

Our only church in Cornwall!

• Behind the turreted ancestral home of the Spry family, and looks across the creek to St Mawes.

• Look out for what appears to be carved woodwork at the top of the walls. In fact it is an ingenious use of Cornish tin, painted to resemble wood.

• In summer, the churchyard is full of flowers, growing wildly over pretty headstones.

St Anthony-in-Roseland is unusual in that it still has its original Medieval cruciform plan, despite being extensively restored in the 19th century. Pevsner thought it ‘the best example in the county of what a parish church was like in the 12th and 13th centuries‘.

During the 12th century, much of the land at St Anthony was owned by the Augustinian Priory at Plympton, Devon; it was during this time that the Prior established the church here.

It is thought that the fine Norman doorway was brought here from Plympton Priory, probably by sea. By the 19th century the chancel was in ruins, and Samuel Spry, MP for Bodmin, employed his cousin, the Revd Clement Carlyon, an amateur architect, to oversee the restoration of the church.

Carlyon rebuilt the chancel, and installed the wooden roofs, floor tiles and stained glass. He also designed many of the furnishings, including the chunky pulpit and pews, some of which he may have carved himself.

In the north transept you can see impressive monuments to members of the Spry family, spanning three centuries. The most noteworthy is to Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Spry who died in 1775.

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