"Have you been to Trewen?" asked an acquaintance.
"Do you mean the farm near Pelynt?"
"No it is a little place with a Church near Launceston".
I believed that I had visited all the villages and hamlets on Bodmin Moor, but I had not been to Trewen. I went and found a hamlet with a mill, a Church, a few houses and farms and Innyside Cottage.
Trewen is situated in the Parish of the same name. This is 988 acres and is surrounded by Egloskerry, St. Thomas, South Petherwin, Lewannick, Alternon and Laneast. It is at a junction of roads and footpaths, which begin at Launceston and seem to continue as far as St. Clether. It seems a hidden forgotten place, and, as I researched the origin of Innyside Cottage, I wondered if this was a deliberate decision.
The ancient Holy Well, the site of the Church on a mound, and the dedication to St. Michael, the vanquisher of devils, suggest a Celtic pagan site. The earliest written reference is in a deed of 836 A.D. The Saxon King Edgar gave the Bishop of Sherbourne an estate named Landwithan. This included Lezant, Lawhitton, South Petherwin and Trewen. The gift was made for two reasons: to enable the Bishop to conduct a mission against the Celtic Church and the rebellious Cornish. He does not seem to have been successful because in 909 A.D. Landwithan became part of the Bishopric of Devon based at Crediton.
The Bishop had been ordered to visit the Cornish annually " in order to extirpate their errors. For in times past as far as possible they resisted the truth and were not obedient to the Apostolic decrees". It took until 936 A.D. for King Athelstan to conquer the whole "country" including Cornwall. But military conquest is easier than spiritual.
In 905 A.D. King Edward the Elder had created seven new prelates in the West Country at the request of Pope Formosus and Trewen, as part of the Landwithan estate had been taken from the Bishopric of Sherbourne to the newly created Bishopric based at Crediton.
The present Church at Crediton stands on part of the site of the great monastery of St Boniface, 'the doer of good'. He was famous for making many converts in the Netherlands and Germany. He was fanatical in his opposition to the Pagans, and, dared to go to Geismar where the great oak of Thor grew in one of their most sacred groves. He hacked it down and showed that the old gods had lost their power.
In 738 A.D. the Pope summoned him to Rome. He met Bishop Forthvere of Sherbourne and Queen Frithogyth, wife of the King of Wessex there. It is reasonable to assume that he used his influence with them because in 739 A.D. King Aethelheard of Wessex granted land " for the construction of a monastery in the place which is called Cridie ". He must have been delighted if he instigated this at his birthplace. All that remains of his monastery is an archway incorporated in the South-West corner of the Vicarage garden. The Churchyard was enlarged in 1872 and the ruins of St. Boniface's great monastery swept away. As the vanquisher of the Pagan religion, St. Boniface's seat seems a good choice to subdue a famous Pagan centre such as Trewen seems to have been.
In 980 A.D. St Dunstan wrote to King Ethelred requesting that Lanwithan should be transferred to the Diocese of St. Germans. This was a creation of King Athelstan in 930A.D. and he had founded the Priory there.
Whether this request was granted is unknown but in 1043 A.D. the Cornish and Devon Sees were united under Bishop Leofric and in 1050 A.D. became part of the Bishopric of Exeter, the Bishop's new seat.
Trewen is mentioned next in 1084 A.D. in the Domesday Book. "Alternon", one of the adjacent Parishes, "was taxed in the Domesday Roll either under the name Trewint, Treuint, the Spring, fountain or well town, situate upon the fens or springs otherwise under the jurisdiction of Trewen". This is interesting - the famous Alternun under the "jurisdiction of Trewen". Carew suggests that "alter" is derived from altar of St. Nun's pool and that offerings or sacrifices by fire were made on it. Is it possible that the Celtic Pagan Priesthood was based at Trewen and the neighbouring sacred sites were under its jurisdiction? This would confirm Trewen as a great Celtic Pagan site. Certainly other sacred Celtic sites had Churches built on them such as Roche Rock and Rough Tor, and these were dedicated to St. Michael, the vanquisher of the devil. The name Trewen means a beloved town or white town (town, of course, meant small settlement not a town as we know it today). Here is a suggestion that it was a place revered by the area. The Holy Well at Trewen is very close to the Church on the mound. If there was altar it would have stood on the mound of the Church. I can imagine a sacred grove of trees and the altar in the centre.
Between 1161 A.D. and 1184 A.D. Bishop Bartholomew of Exeter re-organised St German's Priory from the Collegiate Church of "Secular Canons which might marry wives" endowed by King Cnut in 1020 A.D. to a Priory of Augustinian Canons. These were an order of Parish Priests living together under the severe Augustinian Rule. This order supplied the Priests for Trewen. In 1269 A.D. the Rectory of Trewen was dedicated by Bishop Brouscombe.
In 1284 A.D. there was a change as Earl Edmund of Cornwall
gave the Landwithan area to Launceston Priory, another Augustinian foundation.
The Priory was situated at St. Stephens-on-the-Hill until 1126 when it was moved
to St Stephens-amidst-the-Hill and the rule was changed to that of St. Augustine.
At the time of the dedication of the first recorded Church of Trewen (Innyside
Cottage) Richard of Montisfont was the Prior. It seems tragic that after the
Reformation
The beautiful building was razed to the ground and used as a rubbish tip and
the site lost until Launceston had gas. It was discovered by the Victorians
when they built a gas works on part of it.
Thus after 1284 the Priests of Trewen were supplied by Launceston Priory. After the dissolution of the monasteries the Advowson of Trewen passed to the Crown. This remained with the monarch until 1553 when Mary 1 gave the Living to the University of Oxford "because of the impoverished state of the University". Her choice may have been influenced by a bequest of William Menwenecke " clerk in the Parish Church of Southpederwyn to a Scholar of Oxforde for his exhiberjon yerely of forty shillings ". He was a friend of the Queen's Latin and Greek Tutor.
The University is still the Patron of the living of South Petherwin and Trewen. The Clerk lived at Trewen where Menwhinnick was his old family home. In 1558 A.D. his wife, "Wilmot Menwenecke of Trewen left 6s 8d to be buried in the Church of St. Michael's, Trewen and 3s 4d to Sir Gregory Martin, the Priest of Trewen".
An amusing event occurred in the Church in 1427 A.D.
On the 29th November a Commission was held to enquire whether the Church had
been polluted by bloodshed in a quarrel between Joan Langdon wife of Walter,
and Elinor Tremayne, wife of Robert Tremayne. A declaration was made that "no
pollution has been sustained". This tantalising story suggests either a
feminine quarrel or it could suggest much more. Why the neurosis about blood
at this period? I have never read of a similar case and only the Jehovah's Witnesses
of this century seem to care about this type of problem: the shedding of blood
in a Church. Was
The Church concerned about an older Religion being practised in Trewen?
Where was the first Church of Trewen built? It was a Chapelry like the Well Chapel at St. Clether. The present Church was built in the fifteenth century and restored in the nineteenth. There are no remains of the earlier Church near the present Church site. In 1478 A.D. William of Worcester wrote of "Sanctus Michaelis Trewin per 5 Miliaria Ultra Lastendon Super Altam Montem" so the present Church was built then, but I believe that the earlier Church was Innyside Cottage in Trewen.
Before 1436 A.D. the local people were forced to use the cemetery of St. Stephen's-by-Launceston, a journey of five miles. The residents of Laneast complained of "the danger of the ways, mountainous as they are, now steeply up, now down, flooded and very deep in mud, by reason of the excessive rainfall, nowadays often heavier than it used to be"
No doubt the people of Trewen agreed because the "Chapel and Cemetery of Trewen, dependant on the Mother Church of St. Stephens-by-Launceston "was consecrated by Bishop Lacey in 1436 A.D. Architecturally the oldest part of the Church is of this period. There was no Churchyard around the earlier Church.
Innyside became the Priest's house after the new Church was built but before that it was the Church, and instead of the Priest living in a part built onto it for his use, he took over the whole building. This was rectangular with a small eastern projection, which housed an altar. The Celtic Church plan had progressed on different lines to the Roman and was based on monastic oratories. There are Churches like this in the Channel Islands. The one at La Maitre Ile, Les Erehous was identical to Innyside Cottage, not Cruciform like the Roman Churches.
A stream from the Holy Well ran through the Church and it was open at the beginning of this century when the room was a dairy. St. Clether has a stream running under the altar and so did this one. The floor is constructed in the same way as Launceston Priory. It has layers on stone set on edge with earth thrown over them, then rammed down level with slates laid on this.
In 1594 it was 'modernised' by Ralph Honey the incumbent turning it into a three room cross passage house. He was buried in the Churchyard on the 18th May 1596. His memorial slab lies horizontally beside the Church door. He extended the Chapelry, created a first floor and left many of the earlier features. He had the Chapel area panelled and the west window was infilled with a small-unglazed quatrefoil window. It is the same pattern as part of the Church windows. In the projecting area of the East wall where the altar would have stood he inserted a Tudor window. The granite fireplace in the Chapel's South wall is interesting and has elegant shaped granite at the top, which is unusual. An archaeologist suggested that it was originally a kist. It is very similar to the altar stone at Madron Well. Certainly the axial chimney was built at this time.
Ralph Honey's open roof with it's great beams exposed to show an 'R' at the apex of one and an 'H' at the apex of another is still in it's original state, but the decayed panelling was stripped from the Chapel and the best of it used as bedroom doors.
The snowdrop is one of the sacred flowers of the Virgin Mary and at old religious sites quantities of them are found. In February the Churchyard and Holy Well areas at Alternun are carpeted with them. Similarly the high hedge beside Innyside is an explosion of them at the same time. On the North side of the Church (Innyside Cottage) are a line of yew trees, another Church symbol.
In 1598 Ralph Honey's successor arrived. He was James
Tredennecke "housed to serve as the Curate of the Chapel of Trewenne".
Between 1539 and 1681 Trewen was a Parochial Chapel of South Petherwin but at
this date became a joint Church. After this the Priest-in-charge often lived
outside the Parish, one lived in Launceston. Services were held every fortnight
and in 1710 there were four yearly communions with 20 communicants. By 1745
the population had increased to 17 families but the communicants had not.
Trewen always seemed to take the easier course if there was religious strife.
There is a certificate of 1641 preserved in the House of Lords revealing that
the "clergy, churchwardens, overseers and constables of Trewen did as the
Houses bade them" concerning their "declared attachment for the reformed
religion and to the rights and liberties of the subject". They did not
want problems with the Cromwellians, but, if the old religion still existed,
they would have been indifferent to the established Church. As it still seems
to be pursued by unknown individuals now it would not be surprising.
In 1775 a small school was established at Trewen with a teacher's salary of £2.0.0 per annum. The Chapel would have provided a schoolroom, and the Priest was the only inhabitant who would have had the education to teach the children. Certainly he would have appreciated the addition to his stipend.
In 1863-64 the Church was restored but the piscine and font are original. There is an ancient Holy water stoup on the floor beside the font. This was discovered in the hedge beside Innyside Cottage. It is much older than the Church. It must have been in the Chapelry. The Church porch is interesting as the early jambs have been heightened and above is a lintel. Probably there was an arch there. On the gable above is a primitive carving of a Celtic fertility symbol of the Mother Goddess. These were adopted by the early Christian Church. There is one at the entrance to St. Paul's Church In Ziberias and at Akoren a sixth century Christian Church in Cilicia. Another example is at Akoren in South Asia Minor.
At Laneast the same symbol has been carved on the font, and one of the bench ends, but these are beautifully executed, not like Trewen's primitive flower. This crude carving was part of an early Church and so sacred that the people of Trewen placed it at the entrance to the new Church. It is a link with a Celtic past, and may have been brought from the original Chapelry. Either the Priest never noticed it or wisely decided to let it remain. Inside the porch carved on the roof beams are two more interesting symbols! A Star of David and a Green Man. Above the inner door is a niche where a carving of St. Michael may have stood.
Instead of a tower there is a bellcote with one 15th century bell which has a mellow tone. In the Church are two aisles, a Chancel with a three light window, a porch and South door, and a blocked up North door. It has a spiritual simplicity. In 1710 there were 20 communicants, and at a recent service there were 17. The population is smaller today.
Did the Church have a Celtic dedication? The plan of the Church is similar to St. Clether : the stream running under the altar from the Holy Well, the Celtic plan, the piscine, the Celtic symbol. The old spelling of Trewen is Trewenne. St. Clether is supposed to have arrived with his sister St. Wenn or Wenna. The Celtic missionaries often travelled like this. St. Ivon of St. Ive came with St. Keyne, and St. Sampson came with a group. Wenn has two Churches dedicated to her at St. Wenn and Morval. It is possible that Trewen was dedicated to her, but like St. Martin's at Liskeard, which was supposed to have been dedicated to St. Keyne, there is no evidence for this. It would have been an attractive dedication.
So much could be speculated about Innyside Cottage. Perhaps it was always dedicated to St. Michael like the great monastery at Skellig in South Kerry, which was flourishing 1400 years ago. Trewen is a mysterious hamlet and when I met a spiritualist there he told me that he had been on an astral journey and visited Trewen when there was an enormous Druid monastery there. I asked him what it was like and described a place like Skellig. I led the conversation to a discussion about remains in Ireland. He had never been there. It was interesting, but of no historical use. I found the recollections of a 94 year old lady who had lived at Trewen far more accurate! She had made butter in the dairy and stood it in containers in the stream of Holy water when she was a teenager.
Innyside was the earliest Church of Trewen, but how it has been changed. The stream runs under the present floor, the original East wall projection for the altar remains and the old stones and perhaps a part of an arch or lintel can still be seen outside. The piscine is in the new Church. The interesting point about the house is to see how it has developed from Church to Vicarage to farm and then a private house. If only it could talk!!