St Martin, Lewannick, Cornwall

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Location
(50°36′1″N, 4°26′19″W)
Site Location
Lewannick
National Grid Reference
SX 275 807
Boundaries
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Cornwall now Cornwall
Diocese
medieval Exeter now Truro
Dedication
medieval St Martin now St Martin
Type of building/monument
Report authors
  • Richard Jewell
Visit Date
31 Mar 1991

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Feature Sets
Description

The church is of standard Cornish type, double-aisled with five bays, and a W tower.
The font is the only surviving Romanesque feature.

History

In the Domesday Book the parish of Lewannick included several small manors, one of which, Trewanta, belonged to Tavistock Abbey. The parish itself is not mentioned by the Survey.

Features

Furnishings

Fonts

Comments/Opinions

The font is in a very good state of preservation and perhaps of mid-12thc. date. Sedding also mentioned "nine pieces of Norman pier-stones, and three pieces of capitals which seem to have been about three feet square. These were found under the floor and are now in the churchyard. The capitals are like those at St. Clether And North Petherwyn" (i.e. multi-scalloped). The present writer saw no trace of these fragments. The parish of Lewannick contains both the Hick's Mill and Polyphant stone quarries.

Bibliography

P. Beacham and N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Cornwall (New Haven and London 2014), pp. 304-05.

A History of the County of Cornwall, Vol. 2, parts 5 and 8: The Domesday Survey for Cornwall, Victoria County History (London 1924), p. 67, 87, 99, 100, 103.

N. Pevsner and E. Radcliffe, The Buildings of England: Cornwall, 2nd ed, (Harmondsworth 1970), p. 101 

E. H. Sedding, Norman Architecture in Cornwall: A Handbook to old Cornish ecclesiastical architecture with notes on ancient manor houses (London and Truro 1909), pp. 232-35