The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Austell (medieval)
Parish church
St Austell is a town near the S coast of central Cornwall, 9 miles S of Bodmin and 30 miles W of the Devon border. It was no more than a village centred around the church until the 18thc., when it begain to grow through the tin mining and then the china clay industries. The population in 2021 was 20,900. The church is in the centre of the town and is dominated by a tall late-15thc. W tower of Pentewan (Elvan) stone dateable to the episcopy of Peter Courtenay. It consists of a nave of five bays with N and S aisles, a chancel of two bays and a two-storeyed S porch. All of this is 14th-15thc work, but the earliest fabric is in the S aisle chapel which is 13thc. The latest work is the result of an enlargement in 1498-99. The church and the font were restored in 1891-92 under the direction of G. H. Fellowes Prynne (Royal Cornwall Gazette, Western Morning News). The remains of the previous building can still be seen and there are two Romanesque pieces: the font and part of a pillar piscina.