Church Of Saint Crewen

Church of Saint Crewen

Parish church of the 15th century, incorporating some earlier fragments, heavily restored in 1872 by J.P. St Aubyn. The porch and south vestry transept are probably later additions. The building is constructed principally of granite ashlar, with mostly 19th-century Perpendicular style granite windows. The porch and south transept are built of rock-faced granite brought to course. The roofs are of Delabole slate with gable ends; the chancel gable is coped. A stone chimney with paired round shafts rises over the transept gable.

The plan consists of a nave and chancel under one roof, a west tower, a north aisle with a rood stair projection, a south aisle, a 19th-century south vestry transept, and a south porch. The tower survives virtually complete and unaltered, whilst the rest of the church was heavily restored in 1872 by J.P. St Aubyn. The 15th-century arcade and principal plan layout remain.

The west tower is a fine example of 15th-century work, consisting of three stages of diminishing width. It has a moulded plinth and strings dividing the stages, an embattled parapet with corner pinnacles, and bracket moulding. The ground stage features a 4-centred arched doorway with a 3-light Perpendicular window over. The second stage has a clockface to its south wall. The upper stage has a 3-light slate louvred traceried Perpendicular window to each side, and a small slit window on the north wall serves the stair in the north-west corner.

The north aisle has a 2-light west window with quatrefoil tracery and old slender weathered buttresses at either side, each topped with an ancient carved head. Three heavily traceried windows line the north wall, one to the left of the rood stair turret and two to the right. To the left of the leftmost window is a narrower blocked 4-centred arched window opening, flanked on its right by an old slender weathered buttress with a carved head over, and on its left by a wide 19th-century buttress. A knitted joint appears near the left-hand corner, above which is a datestone dated 1746, possibly marking a gable end rebuild. A 3-light 19th-century traceried east window is present. The chancel gable projects beyond both the vestry transept to its left and the north aisle gable to its right. The chancel has a 19th-century traceried east window and a 2-light north window. A fragment of Norman masonry is built into the south-east corner.

The south aisle has a transept returning at its right-hand end and a porch on the far left. Between these are two traceried 3-light windows with relieving arches of original narrower openings over them. The transept has a 3-light traceried south gable end window. The porch has a moulded 4-centred arched doorway and an inner doorway.

Interior

Between the nave and north aisle is a 15th-century seven-bay standard A arcade (Pevsner) with steep 4-centred arches. Steep 4-centred arched doorways open to the rood stair and tower arch. A trefoil-headed aumbry is located in the St Aubyn chapel at the east end of the north aisle. Otherwise the interior features are 19th-century in character: arch-braced wind-braced roof structures and 19th-century glass in the 19th-century windows.

The font is a curious repaired late medieval square granite piece with a round bowl and roll-moulded cornice and corners, with pieces of new stonework inserted. A 19th-century column of four engaged shafts stands on a freely carved square-plan base with entwined figures, set into a 19th-century octagonal granite slab. Other 19th-century fittings include a polygonal pulpit on a granite base, a parclose screen between the chancel and north aisle, a painted mosaic reredos depicting the Last Supper, granite sedilia with polished granite shafts in the south wall of the chancel, and several coloured glass memorial windows.

Monuments

The north aisle contains some ancient reset brasses dating from around 1400 to 1599, and several fine stone monuments to members of the St Aubyn family, including those to Geoffrey St Aubyn (c.1400), Geoffrey St Aubyn and his wife (c.1490), and Thomas St Aubyn and his wife (c.1550), as documented by Pevsner. Three brasses are reset in slate and are difficult to decipher. The stone monuments date from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.

A 17th-century wall monument features a male and female figure within a Baroque aedicule with an open and broken pediment and the Godolphin coat of arms. Below is an inscribed slab to Francis Godolphin of Treneneage, Esquire, buried 4 February 1652, who married Anne, daughter of Richard Carew of Anthony.

Two 18th-century monuments are present: a limestone chest with a moulded base, recessed square carved corner columns, panelled sides, and a moulded black marble lid, commemorating Sir John St Aubyn of Clowance, Baronet, who died in 1714 aged 45; and a fine marble wall monument with an Ionic aedicule featuring a triangular pediment with dentilled cornice. Within this frame are two cherubs with trophies and a central urn in the Adam style, with an inscribed plaque below commemorating Sir John St Aubyn, Baronet, 1726-1772.

A 19th-century marble wall monument is carried on enormous consoles with an inscribed plaque between them, commemorating Sir John St Aubyn of Clowance, Baronet, 1758-1739, above which is a mourning female figure in Grecian dress leaning on an urn. Another marble Ionic aedicule with a dove in the tympanum of the pediment, on the north wall at the west end, commemorates the restoration and reopening on the feast of Saint James in 1872. The credits list J W Johns as vicar, T W Paynter as curate, Abraham and W Carah as churchwardens, J P St Aubyn as architect, and W Carah and W Edwards as builders, with the initials I H S at the bottom.

Memorial windows include the west window of the south aisle, given by George Hickman Johns BA in memory of his wife, and the west window of the north aisle, dedicated to Henry Jenkin of Kerthen, dated 1860.

This church has undergone a severe 19th-century restoration. It retains a fine 15th-century tower and contains several good-quality monuments.