Name: ST DENNIS
Council: Restormel District Council
Location: St Dennis is situated in Mid Cornwall, 6 miles north west of St Austell, 14 miles north east of Truro and 2 miles east of Indian Queens.
Main period of industrial settlement growth: 1842-1946
Study Area: Hensbarrow
NGR: SW 95113 57667 (centre)
Main industry: China clay

Industrial history and significance

St Dennis belongs to a recognisable type of churchtown settlement affected by industrialisation – they are found throughout the various industrial areas of Cornwall; they often became the principal ‘industrial’ settlements of an area not because they were closest to the working sites, nor because they housed the most workers, but because they enhanced an already existing role as parochial, ecclesiastical, educational, commercial and social centres, the focus of trades, exchange and recreation. St Dennis stands apart from most such settlements, however. It is not strictly a churchtown – the church was never in any of the constituent settlements; it is a polyfocal settlement – comprising at least two early medieval hamlets and a 19th century off-shoot. The churchtown functions as in all true polyfocal settlements were divided amongst the various constituent parts, and it has never fully lost the separate identities of those parts. It is in a rare, if not unique class of Cornish industrial settlement.

Downloads:

The downloads offered below represent the different elements of the CISI St Dennis Report including the core text and the four illustrative map figures
 

Title	Description	Format	Size
CISI St Dennis report	Report text.		1140kb
Figure 1	Location map		475kb
Figure 2a	Historical development map		338kb
Figure 2b	"		328kb
Figure 3a	Surviving historical components map		323kb
Figure 3b	"		312kb
Figure 4a	Gazetteer sites, existing designations and recommendations map		390kb
Figure 4b	"		383kb

Last Updated: 16/12/2004. © Cornwall County Council, Historic Environment Service.