St Pinnock is a hamlet in SE Cornwall, 8 miles E of Bodmin and 3 miles W of Liskeard. The church is in the village centre and is built of rubble stone with granite dressings. It consists of a W tower, a nave with a N aisle and a S porch. The tower is late-14thc., and the nave 15thc. In the late 15thc. a N transept was demolished and the N aisle added The porch was built in the 16thc. The church was in a neglected condition by the mid-19thc, and was extensively restored by Hine and Odgers between 1876 and 1882. The only possibly Romanesque feature is the font.

St Pinnock is not mentioned by that name in the Domesday Survey, but according to Gilbert (3, 348) the only village in the parish was Trevillis, and that is. It was held by Aelfstan before the Conquest, and by Humphrey from the Count of Mortain in 1086.

The font is extremely puzzling in that it relates to no others on the county, and its iconography is opaque. The List Description describes it as having 'carved long eared heads and arms on corbelled corners' and Beacham has a similarly ambiguous description. The Historic Environment record describes the font only as 'possibly medieval'.If it is medieval it is likely to postdate the 12thc. on the grounds of the octagonal form of the shaft and capital necking.