Panorama -The village of St Breward in Cornwall
Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward – Cornwall
St. Breward
A History of a Cornish Village
Humble Beginnings
Written by David Freeman
for Secret Britain
A Complete and comprehensive history of the village of St Breward Cornwall, History of St Breward, Village of St Breward, History of the Cornish village of St Breward, Jackie Freeman, Photgraphs Photography St Breward, Cornwall , Images of St Breward -
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Panorama -The village of St Breward in Cornwall Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward – Cornwall |
St. Breward A History of a Cornish Village |
Humble Beginnings Written by David Freeman for Secret Britain |
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teeped deep in the ancient mists of history lies the ancient Cornish village of St Breward. |
Set high above a green and enchanted land of legend and myth, lies the Cornish village of St Breward, nestling like a guardian above a timeless river, the Camel where the valley’s higher western slopes meets the great Moor of Bosvenegh.
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Here close by, rises the Camel river's moor born tributaries, the ice crystal De Lank, a haven for the playful otter and a world of rare fauna and flora. This too is where the picture book Jump and the Allen rise, quiet moorland streams where brook & rainbow trout and salmon have spawned since before the dark ages.
Here too within the arms of St Breward can be found ancient holy wells guarded in timeless glades by nymphs and faeries. These are places of great mystical power to which Celtic travellers and ancient pilgrims turned for cure and respite. Surely, saints once passed through this place & trod amongst its sunken paths and mossy walkways. The rare & diverse beauty surrounding this place abounds and has turned the heads and filled the eyes & minds of warriors & poets, of artists and thinkers through the eons. St Breward seems timeless, a gentle and secret reminder of the history recorded in its shadows. Take a journey with us through its ancient past and listen to its whispers.
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Camel River at Wenford Bridge; Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward – Cornwall
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St Breward's Well - Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward – Cornwall |
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he village of St Breward's is the eternal custodian of two holy wells, not one it seems. The first to be found along an ancient sunken track and in close proximity to an old chapel dedicated to St James.
In any case and like many holy wells hidden within this captivating landscape, St Breward's well was said to hold magical healing powers and offer up a cure for; "all aylements of the eyees and aforde respite from temporary blindeness."
Here, lying towards the setting sun just below the village of St Breward, its said that the poor and afflicted alike would commonly drop pins or a farthing if it could be afforded, into it's healing waters as an offering of thanks to the saints who drank here and to propitiate the well's guardian gods and nymphs.
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Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch, English author and son of Bodmin, was a keen amateur artist who famously recorded the Well at St Breward in 1856 in a drawing, which in turn was engraved by J T Blight and produced in the publication Cornwall's Holy Wells.
Quiller Couch's drawing of St Breward Holy well.
Mr. Quiller Couch recalls in his account of the time, that the St Breward well at Chapel was dilapidated and makes a rather interesting observation. The well is built on the site of an ancient chapel. According to a publication of 1442 called Oliver's Montasticon, there were two chapels in St Breward and this one was dedicated to both St Michael and St James and not to St Breward's saint Brelade. Thus dispelling the myth that the well is named St Breward's well as Western Antiqaury has it. Clearly there is another by that name.
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St Breward's Holy Well from an engraving published in Western Antiquary See; Meyrick, J A Pilgrims Guide to the Holy wells of Cornwall 1982  |
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he second and more secret holy well in St Breward is much, much harder to find and not talked about, though many are aware of its existence.. |
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Close to the site of the original Celtic Oratory and latterly the beautiful church dedicated to St Brewardus in 1278, it is now hidden amongst dense vegetation, crumbling and unseen. Here is an ancient well head fed by a moorland spring which has all but destroyed its foundations over the millennia, choked its walls and felled its stones. Yet it mush have heard a thousand prayers . The well's proximity to the oratory and Church of St Brueredus far down a forgotten roadway, across a purposeful five bar granite style and a huge moss covered granite slab bridge, leads one to imagine if this is indeed the original Holy well of St Breward. A well used for wayside respite by Celtic pilgrims and worshippers of the Norman times. But why unrecorded but by a few? |
St Breward's second Holy Well? Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography |
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t was to the breathtaking, primordial granite strewn slopes of Bodmin Moor that first came the earliest of Bronze age settlers who hewed the land and homed here. This infinite landscape of staggering yet stark beauty is an unbounded panorama which was to give birth to great order and structure from within its heart. The mighty granite. |
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Rough Tor - or Roughtor - St Breward Cornwall: Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward – Cornwall
To this place came the very first Cornish farmers who cleared the forests and heaved and prized the great stone blocks and boulders upon each other to coral and field and invent agriculture. It is here then, near the bounds and sets of the fine village of St Breward that we began her history.
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Rough Tor -
or Roughtor with dry stone walling
- St Breward Cornwall:
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ver the ensuing years, this barren landscape would give up its treasure of modest amounts of copper, silver and tin being found here, latterly the fine clay being sought from the moors around the village of St Breward at Stannon, destined for the fine china industry. Still evident today as a scar on the landscape.
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aint Breward sits high above the Cornish landscape like an ancient sentinel of forgotten secrets, a bastion and keeper of the moorland stone it's born for aeons. |
Some of the largest remaining ancient natural woodlands in Cornwall are to be found alongside the Camel river on whose valley shoulder St Breward perches. Sessile oak, alder, ash, sycamore and grey willow thrive here and invite an abundance of bird life and fauna to stay. Rarely seen kingfisher flash by, darting between sparkling shafts of sunlight and fern filled shadows. Herons stalk the shallows playing I spy with the trout as dragon flies flit between cowslip and ox-eye daisy.
Inevitably, the main focus of St Breward's early village settlement fell to the region around its original Celtic oratory and latter Norman church, on high ground at Churchtown. Where they sensibly raised the granite minster at the highest point of the village, nearly 800 feet above sea level. This was to be an impressive and dominant vantage point for St Breward's protection and of course for the prayer house to be nearer to God than any other in Wessex. The forgotten Churchtown of St Breward, boasted in its time not only farms and cottages but several shops alongside an 18th century tavern which still exists to this day called the Old Inn. A favoured watering hole for walkers and locals alike. Churchtown also had a separate brewery serving the inn with ale and a lively market place, though no royal charter was ever proclaimed it seems.
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Churchtown. The Old Inn and St Breward Parish church beyond Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward l l |
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The old shop in Churchtown, St Breward, now near derelict still sports a vintage AA distance sign. Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward – Cornwall
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ll becomes much clearer about the importance of the early settlement of the St Breward high ground - later be called Churchtown, when you look back in time as its physical geography. This place epitomised exactly what this land’s name 'Cornovii,' meant. |
For the original Cornwallians who ventured here were simply hill dwellers and dwell here at St Breward they did. |
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It was but a few of the ancient Stone age travellers who made the land bridge trek to this far northern place by the moor at St Breward, but some of them did make it here some 5,500 years ago. Evidence of their part in the history and creation of St Breward has been found and recorded up on the moor close by Churchtown. But it was when the bronze age descended upon us that a very different story was to be told. They were the legendary Beaker People, so named because of the odd pottery vessels they buried with their dead. Leaving behind eerie dolmen for us to fathom, bearing the earth bound kneeling bodies of their leaders, secret burial chambers and mênhirs (standing stones) throughout the area to wonder at.
It is clear that these early settlers cleared much of the forests of the moor leaving it today the barren waste we see. They built great walls of granite boulders and farmed here extensively. Where now the China clay pit at Stannon Downs sits, just to the north of the Parish of St Breward, important evidence of serious bronze age settlement including roundhouses, field walls and burial cairns, each dating back over 2,500 years have been discovered and excavated by archaeologists. |
Cattle at Stannon Down, near Rough Tor. Cornwall. Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward – Cornwall |
Stannon circle of standing stones, Bodmin Moor. Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward – Cornwall
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Remote and nestling here after 5000 years under the ever watchful eye of its great guardian Rough Tor, you have to fathom at the original intent, be it astrological or simple seasonal worship. But today it occupies other more strange users. It is certain that in darker times the Druids regularly practised here and its said, still do. Lights are seen at night here and eerie chants carried on the wind makes it a forboding place at night. Strange ritualistic offerings of coloured stones, sea shells, twine bound bone and feathers can often be seen placed within the power of the circle. This time placed there perhaps by more modern witches incanting the stones strange magic. The great moor of Bodmin hides many such secrets. Trethevy, the Hurlers and the mystical Trippett stones recorded by John Thomas Blight in the 1850's along with Stripple Stones circle henge close to St Breward are magical places and are recorded here later.
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The forgotten people who once lived here and now long departed were the forefathers of the village settlement of St Breward and likely the first to lay claim to the high ground at St Breward called Churchtown.
Then came the Celts.
Celtic Cross Church of St Breward Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward – Cornwall |
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St. Breward a village in History PART II Saint Bruardus & the Parish Church The Church of St Breward How St Breward got its name History of its mines and quarrying in St Breward |
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Copyright: 2010 Jackie Freeman Photography St Breward Cornwall . All rights reserved Unauthorized use of the images illustrated is prohibited and protected under international laws of copyright. |
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St Breward Community Visitor & Tourist Information |
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Doctors surgery at St Breward |
GP at St. Breward Surgery
Row, St. Breward, Bodmin, Cornwall PL30 4LN Telephone : 01208 851194 St Breward Chiropodist Clinic - Village Hall
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St Breward Parish Council
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Chairperson : Counsellor Mr. D Lusby Clerks name and address: Mrs. A Cornelius Hantergantick Farm Hantergantick St. Breward BODMIN PL30 4NH Telephone: 01208 850954
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Education in St Breward
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St Breward Primary School St Breward, Bodmin PL30 4LX
Contact : Mrs. S King Telephone: 01208850547
St Breward Toddler Pre-school
Village Hall St Breward, BODMIN, Cornwall PL30 4LX Contact : Miss Caroline Ralph Telephone: 07711560838
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Worship in St Breward: |
St Breward Parish Church: Contact Canon Sherry Bryan The Rectory, Green Briar, Coombe Lane, St. Breward, Bodmin, Cornwall PL30 4LT Telephone : 01208 851829
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St. Breward Institute and War Memorial Hall: |
St Breward Village Hall Churchtown St Breward. Contact Person: Veronica Stansfield: Telephone number: 01208 850727
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Retailers in St Breward |
ST BREWARD STORES Row, St Breward, Bodmin, Cornwall PL30 4LN Tel: 01208 850260
ST BREWARD POST OFFICE Row, ST. BREWARD PL30 4LN BODMIN, CORNWALL Telephone number: 01208 850396
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Public Houses & Restaurants St Breward |
The Old Inn and Restaurant Churchtown, St Breward, Cornwall. Telephone: 01208 850711
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Clubs, Societies & Organisations in St Breward |
St Breward Youth Club Organiser Lorraine Kay Telephone: 07818 223950
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St Breward AFC Football Club Penvorder Lane Bodmin PL30 4NY Telephone: 01208 850526
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St Breward Art Group St Breward Brownies St Breward Community Bus Association St Breward Gardening Club St Breward History Group St Breward Women's Institute All meet in the St. Breward Institute and War Memorial Hall
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St Breward Silver Band Telephone: 01208 832455
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| St Breward Holiday Accommodation and Self Catering | Bolt Hole Bolts Quarry Farm Penvorder Lane - St Breward - Bodmin - Cornwall - PL30 4NY |
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Coombe Mill St. Breward, Bodmin Cornwall, PL30 4LZ Tel: 01208-850344 |
Darrynane Cottages St Breward, Cornwall PL30 4LZ Telephone: 01208 850885 |
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East Rose Farm Cottages East Rose, St Breward Bodmin Cornwall PL30 4NL Tel: 01208-850674 |
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HALLAGENNA FARMHOUSE & COTTAGES Hallagenna Farmhouse, St Breward Bodmin, Cornwall PL30 4NS 01208 851550 |
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Higher Lank Farm St Breward, Bodmin Cornwall PL30 4NB 01208 850716 |
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Mellon Farm St Breward, Bodmin Moor, Cornwall, PL30 4PL Telephone: 01208 851497 |
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Penrose Burden Cottages St Breward, Bodmin Cornwall PL30 4LZ Telephone: 01208-850277 |
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“Riverdale” Keybridge, St Breward, Nr Bodmin, Cornwall PL30 4QL Phone:-01208 851390 |
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Sandy Barn Cottages Lower Penquite, St Breward, Bodmin Moor, Cornwall, PL30 4LY 01208 850780 |
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TREMORCOOMBE St Breward, Bodmin Moor, North Cornwall, England 01208 851744 |
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Widewalls Barn Widewalls Farm Bodmin Moor Cornwall PL32 9PY Telephone 01840 211 284 |
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| Other Self Catering Accommodations in St Breward: | Gambridge Barn, St Breward Daydream Cottage, St Breward Palmers Longhouse, St Breward. Fern Gully, St Breward |
| Listed and buildings of Historical importance in St Breward: | ONGOING Project with St Breward photographs and images. |
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KEYWORDS: St Breward, Saint Breward, St Breward Cornwall, history, history of St Breward, Bodmin moor, photographs, images, photo, Jackie Freeman, photography, legend, Camel, Allen, Camel river, Camel valley, De Lank, Holy well, holy wells, Celtic, oratory, Church, granite, bronze age, Rough Tor, Roughtor, Stannon, china clay, industry, Old Inn, Old Inn St Breward, Churchtown, Druids, witch, Celts, photo, community information, vistor information information, self catering accommodation,
or whatever reason the bronze age settlers of Bodmin Moor placed these near 70 granite Stannon stones in a neat circle near St Breward on Dinnever Hill is and will always remain a mystery. With forty of the stones still standing and its main stone aligning exactly with Rougtor's peak where the sunrise equinox lights the circles main stone first, its rather odd that you will be hard pushed to find this incredible forty metre wide monument to the moors Gods in any of the Cornish guide books, local or otherwise.
St Breward Cornwall