Camborne Town Trail

The Parish Vestry and Clink

Head right and turn immediately left into Church Lane. To the left of the churchyard entrance is the Parish Vestry building. Probably erected because of the Sturges Bourne's Act of 1819, empowering parishes to appoint vestries `for more effectual execution of the laws for the relief of the poor.

Around the corner from the Parish Vestry and an integral part of it, was the local `clink' or lock-up. Its entrance was through the blocked doorway with a granite lintel dated 1820. Here felons would be held overnight and it also doubled as a pound for stray cattle.

Church of St Martin & St Meriadocus

Enter the churchyard and follow the path round towards the front of the church. In the churchyard you'll find several crosses of note. On the tall cross by the war memorial are dots said to represent the numbers killed in a battle on Reskajeage Downs.

The parish stocks were also in the churchyard and any man found drunk on a Saturday night would be placed there in full view of Sunday churchgoers.

Look for the gravestone of the Cornish sculptor Neville Northey Burnard (1818-1878). His more well-known works include the bust of Dr George Smith in Camborne's Wesley Chapel and the Lander memorial in Truro.

Built on the site of an earlier church, the present 15th century building was restored and enlarged in 1878. Inside is the `Levuit' altar slab, a piece of grey elvan with a key-patterned border at least a thousand years old and said to have come from the chapel of St la, Troon.

The reredos is special as it is constructed of Sierra marble rather than the usual wood. Erected in 1761 by Samuel Percival of Pendarves its inscriptions are the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer.

The oldest memorial is to Alexander Pendarves who died in 1655, and others are connected to both the Pendarves and Basset families. Sir William Pendarves is said to have had his coffin made out of the first copper that was raised from North Roskear mine, which his family used a punch bowl until his death.