St Fimbarrus Church

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The church from the southeast

The St Fimbarrus Church (also: Church of St Nicholas) is a Grade I protected Anglican Church in Cornwall in Great Britain . The church is in a small, tree-lined churchyard in the center of Fowey town . In the churchyard there is a war memorial for the fallen of the two world wars. In the north, the church is directly adjacent to the surrounding wall of the Place House mansion .

history

A chapel is said to have been on the site of today's church as early as the 6th century. At the beginning of the 7th century, Saint Finbarr is said to have come to Fowey on a journey from Ireland to Rome. Before he sailed from the port to Brittany , he is said to have built a new chapel to replace an older one dedicated to St. Goran .

Around 1150 a church consecrated to Saint Finbarr was built in the Norman style , of which only parts of the foundation walls have been preserved. After a pirate attack, the church had to be renewed in 1328. In 1336 the Bishop of Exeter consecrated the rebuilt church to St. Nicholas of Bari . However, the new patronage could not prevail against the traditional one of St. Finbarr, so that the church is usually named after St. Fimbarrus. In 1456, the church was badly damaged in another attack by French pirates. With the support of the Earl of Warwick as Lord High Admiral at the time , the church was rebuilt from 1460 onwards. The reconstruction was completed at the beginning of the 16th century, around 1500 a chapel was built for the Treffry family in the south aisle . A comprehensive restoration took place in 1876. In 1894 the new sacristy was built in the north-west of the church. In 1995 the Friends of St Fimbarrus Church was founded to support the preservation of the church. The church is now the Anglican parish church of Fowey and the Diocese of Truro under the Church of England .

Building description

The three-aisled church, built from slate stone in the Gothic style , with a straight choir closure, is inconsistent from the outside. The walls of the choir, the five-arched main aisle and the north aisle date from the 14th century, the south aisle and the crenellated west tower are from the 15th century. The tower is offset on the west facade, has a flat end without a spire and is considered the second tallest church tower in Cornwall. The choir , the main nave and the north aisle are covered by a steep slate roof, the south aisle has a crenellated flat roof. On the south side there is a two-storey, crenellated entrance porch.

The main nave has a wooden barrel vault from the 16th century, the side aisles are provided with a simple monopitch or flat roof. The interior walls are largely plastered in white, but the window frames, the pillars without a chapter and the arches of the arcades between the main and side aisles and the wall of the south aisle are made of natural stone. The church interior is illuminated by large windows, the tracery of which, however, mainly dates from the 19th century. The stone font in Norman style comes from the previous building of the 12th century. The richly carved, hexagonal wooden pulpit dates from 1601 and is said to have been made from the wood of a captain's cabin on a Spanish galleon . The neo-Gothic rood screen dates from the late 19th or early 20th century. There are several grave monuments from the 17th to 19th centuries on the walls, four grave slabs from the 16th century are set in the floor.

Web links

Commons : Fowey Church  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ British listed Buildings: Church of St Fimbarrus or St Nicholas, Fowey. Retrieved July 15, 2014 .
  2. ^ Fowey Parish Church. Retrieved July 15, 2014 .
  3. ^ Fowey Harbor Heritage: St Fimbarrus Church. Retrieved July 15, 2014 .
  4. ^ Fowey Harbor Heritage: St Fimbarrus Church. Retrieved July 15, 2014 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 20 '7.4 "  N , 4 ° 38" 8.5 "  W.