St Levan's Church and Well, Porth Chapel, St Levan

The road ends at Porth Chapel, a pilgrim’s destination in its own right with a curious cleft rock and a more conventional holy well by the sea

‍Highlights

• Holy well of St Selevan (St Levan)
• Cleft rock by parish church
• Celtic crosses
• Possible location of the saint’s shrine

St Selevan’s ruined holy well overlooks one of Britain’s most appealing beaches. His symbol is a pair of fish, caught miraculously on one hook before some unexpected guests turned up. It is particularly apt for a missionary who eked out a living by the sea.

The holy well is surrounded by the remains of a tiny two-room building. It is possible that visitors would bathe in one room and then sleep in the other, as at other healing wells in Britain (one local example is Madron, page 189). The rooms are the size of a large cubicle, with barely enough space to lie.

No bathing is possible now. The source still trickles into the lower chamber, but the pool is small and clogged with weed. Its water is used for baptisms in the church font, still endowed with the saint’s blessing.

The beach below the well is called Porth Chapel, a popular place on sunny summer days. The footpath to the shore runs alongside the well chamber, about five minutes’ walk from the car park.

Nearly all my reference and guidebooks say that there are two ruined buildings to see above the beach. The well chamber is the first, and the second is said to be a ‘small chapel’ a few metres below the well, down 50 stone steps. There is nothing that fits the description in the vicinity. I befriended a local man looking for rock samphire to photograph, and he told me there was just the ruined wellhouse to see.

A guidebook sold in the parish church points out that almost nothing can be said for certain about the ruined wellhouse, even its date. It then suggests it might have served as the original church, but it is far too small.‍

St Levan Parish Church‍

It is more logical to assume that the saint built his chapel where the parish church stands today. Indeed, a leaflet in the church says St Selevan’s thatched wooden church was probably located where the chancel is now. The earliest identifiable building work dates from the Norman era.

Even without archaeological evidence, the churchyard is clearly an ancient holy place. A large split boulder sits prominently nearby the church, a natural landscape feature that would have attracted the attention of early Christians. It is called St Levan’s Stone.

A round-headed Celtic cross stands alongside, by the path to the church porch. The guidebook makes the mildly amusing claim that it was erected to counteract the suggestive female power of the cleft rock. A less anatomical legend is that the boulder was cleft asunder by the saint.

A local story records that St Levan predicted the world would end when a pack horse with loaded panniers would be able to ride between the two halves. Fortunately, no one has yet attempted to cement the two halves back together, citing either decency or the fate of humanity as a motive.

There is no trace of the saint’s shrine in this church, although a sculpture of him is displayed behind the pulpit. He might be the ‘St Selus’ mentioned on a tombstone at St Just-in-Penwith (page 210). One of the bench ends at Porth Chapel is carved with two fish, representing the saint’s miraculous catch of two bream. The saint is called only St Levan locally, but St Selevan in the Oxford Dictionary of Saints, which gives his possible saint’s day as 14 October.

Directions‍

St Levan’s Church, The Valley, St Levan TR19 6JT

www.stlevanchurch.org.uk

W3W: curry.polka.crib

GPS: 50.0397N 5.6593W (well)

W3W: kilts.stance.safely

GPS: 50.0421N 5.6602W (church)‍

There is a pay car park in St Levan, a tiny village that can get very crowded in summer. The car park is next to the church. To find the well, start at the entrance to the car park. On the opposite side of the road, a few metres towards the church, follow a footpath signed ‘to the coast path’ and Porthgwarra 1m. The path splits at one point, with a branch heading steeply uphill, but ignore that and keep heading directly towards the sea. The path will lead you all the way past the stone wellhouse, which is easy to spot on your left as you start to descend to the beach. It takes less than 10 minutes from the car park.