A little history of our church...
The church is Grade I Listed – meaning that the site is of exceptional national, architectural or historical importance. It is 14th Century – rebuilt, and the Dedication Festival is October 6th (anniversary of the re-opening of the church after the 1858 rebuilding).
‘Restored’ sometimes has an ominous ring for lovers of old churches but the building has effectively been remarkably restored twice since 1741. The church dates from the 14th Century but in 1741 the south aisle was almost completely rebuilt, and the old wooden tower taken down. Just over a century later however, the church was in a most dilapidated state and it was pulled down literally to its foundations by the then Rector Sir Hugh Molesworth. Sir Hugh was much influenced by the Tractarian, High Church Movement and it was rebuilt under the direction of a fashionable London architect, William White using as far as possible its old materials. In 1898 the patronage passed to Athelstan Riley, who employed J. Ninian Comper to restore the church to what it had been before the troubles of the 16th Century. The incongruous 19th Century decorations were swept away, and it became a remarkable shrine to Anglo-Catholicism.
The names of the parish of St Issey and Little Petherick proclaim its saintly origin, for it was the Celtic custom to dedicate places to holy men and women who had sanctified them by their actual presence, and on the place where the church now stands there is little doubt that St Petroc had a preaching cross and probably a cell beside a fountain during the time that he lived at Padstow. Somewhere hard by, either in St Issey itself or Little Petherick, it is believed that there was a convent of nuns under the rule of St Issey and the direction of St Petroc, and the saint would have found it convenient to have a little local habitation.
Points of interest…
* The gable windows in the roof are the only ones in a Cornish church.
* The font is made of granite and dates from the 14th Century church.
* The bench ends – three of which in the north aisle are early but the remainder are copied from local examples found in St Teath, Cardinham and St Minver. A First World War Belgian refugee M. Wilhelm completed the carving of all the restored ends.
* The tower – holds a peal of six bells, two of which are mediaeval. The clock was placed in the tower in 1910. The four pinnacles were brought from the ruined church of St Cadoc.
* The screen and chancel.
* The High Altar, the beautiful reredos was given by Father Winstanley’s widow. Ernest George Winstanley was rector of the church from 1909 - 1944. The reredos depicts the Risen Christ holding the Gospel book on which is inscribed in Greek “I am the light of the world”. The saints are Alban, Petroc, Mary the Virgin, John, Peter and Katherine. The Greek words below are Jesus Christ Son of God, Saviour, from which the five first letters make the Greek word meaning fish, which became the secret sign of the early Christians.
