See my comment below.
The St Cleer parish church which is of Norman origin, was first built in about 800AD and was then rebuilt in the 13th century. During the 15th century, the 30m tower suffered damage and was repaired later that century along with other additions. It is constructed of granite rubble with a slate roof.
The parish takes it name from St Clarus, an Englishman who went to Cornwall to preach to the inhabitants in the 8th century. He founded the church of St Cleer and lived a saintly life nearby.
However a local chieftainess fell in love with him and even though he rejected her advances, she continued to pester him. He fled to France where he lived in an isolated hermitage. The enraged woman had him pursued and then murdered. (Shades of Game of Thrones?)
The place he had lived was afterwards named Saint-Clair-sur-Epte. (Wikipedia).
As I said in my profile, my wife and I are both amateur genealogists and during our research, we have attempted to visit, and photograph the locations where our ancestors were hatched, matched, despatched and worked. This has taken us all over Australia (obviously) the UK and Ireland as well as parts of Poland and Germany.
I was recently updating information on one of my ancestors and looking at some of the photos I had taken and had the bright idea of running a series of shots of the parish churches we had visited.
We were both very fortunate in that almost all of our ancestors came from small rural communities and hence the task of visiting these communities was a very enjoyable one (as distinct from say, traipsing around the suburbs of Birmingham). We have certainly been to some very non-touristy places.
The focus on the parish church is not in any way a religious thing on our part but rather an acknowledgement of the very important role the church played in the everyday lives of our early ancestors. For centuries, the church was the de-facto government that levied taxes (tithes) and enforced its own version of law and order. The church itself was also an important social focal point for the parish community.
From a genealogical point of view, a very important part of the parish church is the burial ground and the first thing we would do when we arrived at a church was to troll through ll of the headstones like a couple of ghouls looking for any names relating to our ancestors. Great fun although I would never have thought so prior to being bitten by the genealogy bug.
Terry I have you and Rhoda especially to thank for sorting out our family tree and will always be grateful for the window on the past which was opened for us. I have thought about visiting the many parishes in our tree and having seen this image today it has reminded me this is something I really want to do. I shall be interested to see where your journey took you and look forward to seeing your images. I can feel a trip coming on!! LOL!!
David and I have been bitten by the genealogy bug for years and have traced our families back along some lines to the early 1700s. David is presently working on the story of his great uncle George Moorhouse who was the first native of England to play in a FIFA world cup. Not for England though, but for the United States.
I wondered how you could be shouting a cockatoo breakfast one morning and photographing parish churches in Cornwall the next until I discovered the date. Cornwall is Pengelly country.
@onewing We have gone back to the 1500s for a couple of twigs of our respective family trees Babs. If you have any ancestors from Cornwall, you are very fortunate since their BDMs have been conscientiously recorded and are incredibly well preserved. Given its location, I expected Cornwall to be a wild and woolly place but it seems to have been the complete opposite. I guess its remoteness isolated it from many of the wars and subsequent destruction of records that occurred in the home counties and other parts of Britain.
On the other hand, if you have Irish ancestors as I do, well good luck. You're going to need it.
What an interesting story thanks for sharing it with us no nobility down the line I assume then Terry, Jenny has traced my side of the family back to early 1700's all farm labourers and servants to the landed gentry none with a penny to rub together, lol:)
I just love the height of the tower in comparison to the church. Well done for tracing and visiting your heritage - it would have been very satisfying. A lot of my family history has been researched but unfortunately I haven't visited their sites. On the other hand I did visit some Ireland sites where my past husband's sister had traced their heritage to - we did enjoy wandering the graveyards and exploring their tiny town of heritage. I look forward to seeing more of your history :)
I was recently updating information on one of my ancestors and looking at some of the photos I had taken and had the bright idea of running a series of shots of the parish churches we had visited.
We were both very fortunate in that almost all of our ancestors came from small rural communities and hence the task of visiting these communities was a very enjoyable one (as distinct from say, traipsing around the suburbs of Birmingham). We have certainly been to some very non-touristy places.
The focus on the parish church is not in any way a religious thing on our part but rather an acknowledgement of the very important role the church played in the everyday lives of our early ancestors. For centuries, the church was the de-facto government that levied taxes (tithes) and enforced its own version of law and order. The church itself was also an important social focal point for the parish community.
From a genealogical point of view, a very important part of the parish church is the burial ground and the first thing we would do when we arrived at a church was to troll through ll of the headstones like a couple of ghouls looking for any names relating to our ancestors. Great fun although I would never have thought so prior to being bitten by the genealogy bug.
On the other hand, if you have Irish ancestors as I do, well good luck. You're going to need it.