St Petroc's Church, Bodmin

Padstow’s church marks the start of the 27-mile Cornish Saints Way, which crosses to Fowey on the south coast via several of the county’s interesting old churches

Highlights

• Petroc’s reliquary
• Holy well outside church, two other wells nearby

Bodmin’s church has a reliquary that once held the skull of St Petroc. Nearly all such reliquaries were destroyed at the Reformation. St Petroc’s casket survived, though the relic it once contained has gone. It is a fine piece of Sicilian workmanship, made of ivory, brass, and gold in the 12th century. It is displayed in a glass-fronted safe set into the south wall of the nave.

Some enterprising soul hid the casket at the Reformation in a niche inside the church porch, where it was rediscovered in the 19th century. It is described as one of the finest surviving medieval reliquaries in Britain, though it is up against rather scant competition. The casket not only evaded the reformers but was stolen in 1957 and later found abandoned – on a moor outside Sheffield.

Look out too for the elaborate Norman font. It is carved with angels above and monsters below, demonstrating the victory of good over bad through the baptismal rite.

We don’t know what became of St Petroc’s relics at the Reformation. They were kept in a shrine chapel in the Priory of St Mary and St Petroc, which was destroyed. A few remaining foundations of the monastery can be seen in the grounds of Priory House, 50m from the parish church on the other side of Priory Road as you head out of town. As happened elsewhere, the saint’s relics might have been buried anonymously or burned and scattered locally.

A Gospel was written at Bodmin Priory in the late Saxon period and is now in the British Museum. The Bodmin Gospels is the only surviving document from a Cornish monastery, of particular interest since it contains Latin, Saxon, and Cornish text.

Being Cornwall, this holy place would not be complete without a holy well. In fact, the town has three of them, two of which are dedicated to the town’s early saints. The main one rises right next to the church. Its strong current is channeled underground from the little wellhouse near the church’s west door, emerging a few meters away in a stone trough beside the road. It is dedicated to St Guron, a hermit who lived here until St Petroc arrived. His image is carved into the stone lintel of the wellhouse, kneeling to pray beneath a tree.

St Petroc’s own holy well is 500m from the church and took me a while to track down, on the edge of playing fields to the east of town. This stone wellhouse is marooned in the middle of a pool, part of a modern drainage system designed to alleviate flooding. An information panel alongside claims that the dedication of the two holy wells was switched, and that this was originally St Guron’s Well. It is referred to as such in a document of 1635 – although as I’ve discovered all too often, documents make mistakes about holy wells.

St Petroc is the town’s principal saint, so it would certainly be more convenient if his well were next to his church. A wooden statue of the Blessed Virgin was found hidden inside this wellhouse at the turn of the 20th century. It is now kept at the Catholic Church of St Mary and St Petroc, on St Mary’s Road in Bodmin. The pool itself appears to be fed by the holy spring since the water level is higher than the drainage ditch and the wellhouse is often mostly submerged. So it can safely be considered holy, though at first glance it looks anything but.

St Petroc also worked in Padstow, where the church is also dedicated to him (page 196). His shrine was moved from Padstow to Bodmin following Viking raids in the 10th century. He originally came from Wales but served in Cornwall until his death around 564. His saint’s day is 4 June.

St Guron (or St Goran as he is better known) left Bodmin when St Petroc arrived, presumably so he could maintain a hermit’s solitude. He moved to Gorran, 15 miles to the south. His saint’s day is 7 April.

Scarletts Well, the third holy well in Bodmin, has no saintly connection but was hugely popular among pilgrims seeking miraculous cures. Indeed, the information panel alongside says that it attracted so many crowds the town justices closed it down and forbade people to use it. It is named after a local family of landowners prominent during the 14th century. The water runs in a trickle from the rocky ground in front of the original well structure.

Directions

St Petroc’s Church, Priory Road (A389), Bodmin PL31 2AB

www.bodminchurch.com

W3W: pays.stump.cure

GPS: 50.4713N 4.7170W church

W3W: salon.runs.free

GPS: 50.4685N 4.7131W Petroc well

W3W: cliff.labels.hears

GPS: 50.4750N 4.7399W Scarletts

The parish church is beside the road as you drive into town along the A389, Priory Road. It is open daily. The well is outside the west end. Details of the Bodmin Way pilgrimage are on britishpilgrimage.org and www.bodminway.org. To find St Petroc’s Well, head east out of town along the main A389/Priory Road, with the park on your right. After 450m, turn right along the last footpath into the park, following its boundary fence. There is a football pitch ahead to your right, and a skateboard park can be seen straight ahead as you walk further downhill, 150m away. The well is in a pool on your left just before the skateboard park.

Scarletts Well is on the other side of town, at the far end of Scarletts Well Road (the nearest postcode to it is PL31 2PL). The road starts as a turning off Berrycombe Road and eventually turns into a narrow single-lane track; look out for the turning on your left along the final stretch of this road, signposted to a car park and footpath along a 20mph limited zone. It is easiest to park and walk, but you can drive down this lane all the way to the well and park opposite it.