Church Of Saint Towennac

The Church of Saint Towennac is a parish church located in Towednack. It features the base of a Norman font and a chancel arch and chancel dating from the 13th or 14th century, while the rest of the church is primarily from the 15th century. The structure is built from granite ashlar and some granite rubble, topped with dry Delabole slate roofs that have coped gable ends and 19th-century crested clay ridge tiles.

The plan includes a nave that was rebuilt in the 15th century, a chancel from the late 13th or early 14th century, a 15th-century west tower, and a south aisle and south porch also from the 15th century. The windows and roofs were replaced in the 19th century.

The exterior features a squat, two-stage embattled west tower with an original doorway and a window above it, along with louvred two-light windows in the upper stage. There is a prominent external stair turret at the northeast corner, accessed from a doorway in the nave. The south doorway has a four-centred arch and possibly reused pointed porch doorway with a sundial from 1720 above it, while the north doorway is basket-arched. The 19th-century windows are typically two or three-light with hoodmoulds and round-headed lights, except for the chancel's east window, which has intersecting tracery within a pointed arch and may be a 19th-century copy of the original.

Inside, the church has a 13th or 14th-century ordered pointed chancel arch and thick chancel walls, along with a 13th-century piscina. The 15th-century arcade consists of four bays with octagonal piers supporting four-centred arches. There is a circa 1500 four-centred tower arch with octagonal responds and a basket-arched doorway of the same date leading to the tower stair. The interior features 19th-century waggon roofs and plain plastered walls, possibly over older plaster.

Notable fittings include a Norman granite altar with incised crosses reinstated in 1934, a chevron-headed Norman base to an octagonal font dated 1720 with the initials WB and JR, and two 15th-century carved oak bench ends reused in the chancel. There is also a medieval incised cross shaft in the porch, while the rest of the fittings are from the 19th or 20th centuries.