St Terninus, St Erney

Regular Services

11.15am Morning Worship – 1st Sunday in each month
from the Book of Common Prayer
11.15am Holy Communion – 3rd Sunday
11.15am Morning Worship – 3rd Sunday (from September 2024)

On fifth Sundays there is just one service in the Area Ministry. It is a Sung Communion Service at 10am and rotates around four of the churches. Please check the calendar to see where it next takes place and for any service changes.

Visit the Church

St Erney is part of the Celtic Quiet Places network and will be open on some days from March 2024 - see celticquietplaces.com/?id=29 for up-to-date information

Baptisms, Weddings, Funerals

• To make general enquiries please ring the Team office on 01752 844456 or use the contact form.
• To enquire about a wedding, please ring the Team office on 01752 844456 or fill in the Wedding enquiry form.
• To enquire about baptism, please ring the Team office on 01752 844456 or fill in the Baptism enquiry form.
• To enquire about a funeral, please ring ring the Team office on 01752 844456 or use the contact form.

More information on:
Baptisms - Weddings - Funerals

Facilities

• The church seats around 80 people.
• There is a small area for children with a few books/toys at the back of the church.
• There are no toilets, in fact no running water.
• Disabled access is via the South door but there is one small step to be negotiated. An uneven pathway leads up from the lane to the churchyard entrance South of the church. (This is also the route to the small parking area). To the North there is a flight of steps up from the lane.
• There is a very small parking area to the South of the church. Mostly parking is on street nearby (at a road junction just to the North).

History

Below is a short history, more information can be found in the booklet available from the back of the church for a donation to church funds. The booklet covers St Michael and St Erney.

The church at St Erney, which is Grade 2* listed, is a small church with a squat tower. The earliest reference to the church, in 1269, gives its dedication as St Terni. Officially it is St Terninus – this is the Latinised version of Terni. Nothing is known about this saint although there is a saint in Brittany with a similar name.  The plan of the land around the church suggests an early Christian site that could date back to Celtic times. The church, which originates mainly from the 14^th and 15^th centuries, was the parish church of the parish of St Erney. Although it has had the same vicar as Landrake for centuries, old references suggest the two parishes worked more or less independently.  

It seems, according to old histories of Cornwall, that the South wall of the church was rebuilt in about 1750 and the North wall in 1826. Major repairs were done in 1872, including reroofing. More work was done in 1901, including a new buttress for the tower. There are three bells. The earliest dates from about 1425. Only the two treble bells can be rung because the tenor bell is badly cracked.

According to the tithe redemption map of 1842, there was a field called chapel field near Markwell which was then a village including five farms. Therefore there may at one time have been a chapel in the parish of St Erney in addition to the church. We are not aware of any other information about this chapel, so it may not have been part of the Anglican church

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