Madron Parish Church

St Maddern’s Church stands in the village of Madron, a few miles north-west of Penzance in Cornwall. Built largely in the 15th century, it keeps older work in the chancel and a Norman font bowl. The church was once the mother church of Morvah and Penzance, and its history reaches back to the 12th century when the Knights Hospitallers took charge of the estate. In 1336 the Bishop of Exeter arrived with a large retinue to consecrate the building during a summer tour of fourteen churches. The church also holds the brass of John Clies and family from 1623. The tower houses a ring of eight bells, the result of many recastings and additions. The first three were sold in 1761 and replaced by five new ones, though several had to be recast in Bridgwater, Helston, Loughborough and Hayle before they rang true. A sixth bell was added for Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee in 1898, and two more followed in 1950. Inside, a two-manual pipe organ by Hele and Co. fills the building with sound. Outside, the circular churchyard was enlarged in 1828 after the original acre filled. A granite mausoleum for the Rose-Price family of Trengwainton stands to the north-east, its oak door and Yorkshire-slab floors still bearing the marks of time. The architect Edmund Sedding is buried here, and the stream from Madron Well was once diverted to raise the ground by six feet.