Churches

Camelford Town

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Churches

The parish church of Camelford lies about a mile or so to the south-west of the town. Beautifully situated amid the trees in a small valley to the south west of Camelford, the church today has no sizeable settlement surrounding it and its relative isolation perhaps indicates an earlier mediæval monastery site. The name, first recorded in 1272 as Lantegles is Cornish and contains the elements nans “valley” and eglos “church”. There is a holy well nearby along the Camelford road to the north east. An Anglo-Saxon font was discovered in the nearby rectory garden and was subsequently moved to St Conan’s church in Washaway. This font is one of the oldest in England

The church is dedicated to St Julitta and it is the mother church of Advent and Camelford. The present day Church is a listed building. The north walls of the nave and chancel are Norman but have been restored. It was rebuilt in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries when the fine tower was added. The nave and aisle are large with the aisle itself is built entirely of granite. The font is C15 as are some of the windows which contain unusual tracery with fragments of C15 glass on the south aisle. In the 1950’s dry rot was found in the floor and the church was closed for 2 years while it was dealt with. The floor was replaced with 19th C slate

Lanteglos-by-Camelford

headstones from the churchyard. Services resumed in 1959. The organ having deteriorated beyond repair was eventually replaced with one donated by the local Methodist Church when one of their buildings became redundant. It was placed in the north trancept and the space left in the south aisle was converted into a Lady Chapel.

Within the churchyard lie several mediæval crosses of interest. One is an unusual, equal limbed cross with five small bosses. At one time it was erected on top of an inscribed stone discovered in 1876 holding up the roof of a barn in nearby Castle Goff. The inscription on the stone reads “Alseth and Generth wrought this family pillar for Aelwyne’s soul and for themselves”. The date is probably somewhere between the 9th and 11th centuries and the script is thought to contain some early dialect in Cornish. Restoration work was carried out on the cross head in 1997 and it was placed on a granite base. Both the cross and the inscribed stone are Scheduled Monuments under the protection of English Heritage.

Of the other crosses the largest was found on the site of a former blacksmith’s shop at the cross roads in Valley Truckle. It would originally have stood over two metres high. In a good state of preservation it, too, is a Scheduled Monument, and lies almost opposite the inscribed stone on the south side of the churchyard path.