England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
St Erney St Terninus

The Parish

The chapelry of St Erney, its mother parish being Landrake, lies in the extreme southeast of Cornwall forming a stretch of its rather intricate coastline. St Erney is located about 3 miles west of Saltash, as the crow flies, and sits about a mile south of the A38 road which links Plymouth with Liskeard. St Erney is a tiny place with no distinct village just farms and cottages dotted across it acreage. That acreage was and is largely used for pastoral farming with small fields and many cattle. Modern developments have come to the chapelry as Isambard Brunel's Great Western line from Plymout to Penzance passes through without granting a station. St Erney sits on a peninsula of land with deep rias to both east and west, that to the east being the flooded valley of the River Lynher whilst to the west lies the similarly flooded course of the River Tiddy. The two drain the chapelry into a combined channel which makes its way east to Plymouth Sound and the English Channel. St Erney is mainly a ridge-top settlement with its church standing at around 80 metres above the sea, to the north heights close to 115 metres are found around Landrake. Around 800 acres of Landrake parish was assigned to St Erney and that acreage would have supported close to 100 parishioners. Whilst St Erney is not mentioned in Domesday Book the manor of Tredinnick is in that book as a holding of Count Robert of Mortain with assets of just a single plough it was as tiny as it remains today.

The Church

The parish church sits around a mile and half due south of Landrake where the narrow lane forms a junction with the entrance to Treluggan Manor. Whilst the is documentary evidence of a church here as early as 1269 there is nothing of that age remaining in the present structure with virtually everything dating from the later medieval period. Pevsner dates the two-stage western tower to the later 14th century, a dating which is contradicted by one of the bells being inscribed with the date 1425, either way it shows the later Perpendicular style. The main body is clearly later as the 4-bay northern aisle shows styling from the 15th century. Restoration work began early for this church as the southern wall was rebuilt in 1750 whilst its northern counterpart followed in 1826, a more thorough Victorian restoration followed in 1872 at which time the arch-braced roofs were installed, finally 1901 saw buttressing to the tower to prevent untimely collapse. Parking for this church is difficult as the lane is a typically narrow Devon lane, searching for a spot is required. The churchyard sits some height above the road with 6 steps leading to the gates, apart from trees clustered around the western tower most aspects are available to the photographer.