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Lanteglos Church
Camelford |
North Cornwall
NGR: SX 08816 82340 |
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Lanteglos church stands in a small valley south west of Camelford.
Today there is no sizeable settlement surrounding the church and its
relative isolation may indicate an earlier mediæval monastery site
superseded by the Domesday Manor of Helstone whose former deer park
lies to the south of the church. This possibility is also supported
by the earliest recording of the name as “Lantegles” in 1272. The
name is Cornish and contains the elements nans “valley” and eglos
“church”. The church also sits within 130 acres of glebe land which
historically would have provided the church with income from the
rent and tenure of its land. 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 subsequently moved to St Conan’s
church at Washaway. The font is potentially one of the oldest in
England and may further signify an early ecclesiastical settlement
at Lanteglos.
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
and was preceded by a Norman cruciform church, parts of
which still survive. The north walls of the nave and chancel are
Norman but are restored with the addition of a window and doorway.
The lower sections of the north transept arch are also Norman but
the arch itself has been restored. The church was rebuilt in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The nave and aisle are large
with six bays and the aisle itself is built entirely of granite. The
font is C15 and there is a niche in the south doorway with a stoup
for carrying holy water. Some of the windows contain unusual tracery
design, and fragments of C15 glass are to be found in the windows of
the south aisle.
Within the churchyard lie several mediæval crosses of particular
interest. Only one was found on site in the nearby Rectory garden.
It is an unusual equal limbed cross with five small bosses, one in
the centre and four lying within the triangular recesses between the
arms of the cross. At some point it was erected on top of an
inscribed stone which was discovered in 1870 propping up the roof of
a barn in nearby Castle Goff which gets its name from the Iron Age
Round which lies to the north west of the settlement, the name being
Cornish and meaning “castle” or “village” and “smith”. The
inscription on the stone is in Roman capitals and in English and
reads “Alseth and Generth wrought this family pillar for Aelwyne’s
soul and for themselves”. The date of the stone is uncertain,
probably somewhere between the 9th and 11th centuries and the script
is thought to contain some early dialect forms in the Cornish
vernacular. A tenon cut on the lower end of the stone’s shaft
suggests it may possibly have been an inscribed cross shaft
originally but it’s secondary addition was also subsequently removed
and the two monuments then stood separately within the churchyard
near the south aisle of the church. In 1997 restoration work was
carried out on the cross head and it was placed in a suitable
granite base. Both the cross and the inscribed stone are now
Scheduled Monuments and come under the protection of English
Heritage.
The other crosses of interest came from elsewhere in the parish. The
largest of the crosses was found on a cross roads at Valley Truckle
and is a rudely executed wheel headed design with cross faces front
and back and large neck projections. It would originally have stood
over two metres high but it was found on the site of a former
blacksmith’s shop where it had been modified for the purpose of
binding iron tires for cart wheels. It is in a good state of
preservation and is also a Scheduled Monument. It lies almost
opposite the inscribed stone on the south side of the churchyard
path.
The other crosses within the churchyard are all wayside crosses,
originally marking the junction of roads within the area. According
to The Cornish Church Guide by Charles Henderson, the church is
sited on several important trackways and the crosses’ original
position would seem to support this. One, a wheel headed design with
a cross relief, which was found at Tregoodwell, lay near an old
Camelford boundary stone near the junction of two lanes, one of
which is known as Higher Cross Lane. It may have marked an ancient
track leading to Tyland Corner on Davidstow Moor. This cross head
now lies within the interior of Lanteglos Church beside the font.
The church can be accessed from the main road running through
Lanteglos. It is not known whether access to the interior to the
church is available at all times but access to the churchyard itself
is unlimited.
Sources
Langdon, A, 1996. Stone Crosses in North Cornwall. Federation
of Old Cornwall Societies. ISBN 0 9528684 0 7.
Preston-Jones, A, and Attwell, D, 1997. The Rectory Cross-head at Lanteglos By Camelford.
Historic Environment Service, Cornwall County Council. |
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Ground & Aerial photographs |
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