#58 WARLEGGAN--AN ANCESTRAL VILLAGE

                                      

                                 WARLEGGAN, BODMIN MOOR, COUNTY CORNWALL

                                    St. Bartholomew's Church, Warleggan, County Cornwall

                                                             

Bodmin Moor is a granite moorland in north-eastern County Cornwall, England. It has been inhabited since the stone age, when early people cleared the trees to farm the land. Much of the moor is poorly drained and marshy; the rest of the moor is rough pasture or covered with heather and other low vegetation. There were once very large tin workings in the parish; the mines and quarries were extensive but closed in 1945.

The village of Warleggan sits on the height of the moor and has been described as “the loneliest and most remote village on the moor”. No road reached the village until 1953 and even this road is narrow and rough. Today, Warleggan has a population of 200 with 11 houses, a church and a chapel. (when my Lemin ancetsors lived in the area, the village had double the population. Many emigrated)

        Main Street (only street) Warleggan + a lone telephone booth which was used to store stepladders

For some unknown reason, Warleggan is twinned with Narnia, C.S.Lewis' fantasy world of magic, mythical beasts and talking animals. The Chronicles of Narnia is considered a classic of children's literature and is Lewis' best-selling work, having sold 120 million copies in 47 languages.

A narrow, rocky trail between high hedges leads downhill to the farms where generations of my Lemin family ancestors worked as farm labourers. My great-great grandmother Jane Oliver Lemin was baptized and married to Richard Harper in St. Bartholomew Church in Warleggan. Quite likely, many generations of the Lemin family attended this small church. I have twice been in Warlaggan. Most churches in Cornwall are left open to the public. What a thrill to simply walk into a church where ancestors worshipped, were baptized, married, and were buried.

The churchyard of St.Bartholomew’s is circular which is unusual and which can indicate an ancient burial site, especially on a hilltop as in Warleggan.  We found the yard to be roughly mown and many of the old gravestones unreadable. It is protected a little by beech trees. Lemins may be buried here but they most likely could not have afforded a slate stone. Outside the church is an ancient granite cross, thought to be much older than the church; it was likely used to mark the footpath across the moor.

There has been a church in Warleggan for over 800 years. It likely began as a manorial chapel. It was dedicated in 1434 to St. Bartholomew, one of the 12 apostles of Jesus, who was flayed alive and beheaded on an evangelical mission to the East. He is venerated by leatherworkers, tanners and artisans who work with animal skins and he is the patron saint of bookbinders, plasterers, butchers, and shoemakers.

The original flat-top building of the Warleggan church is post-Conquest and one wall, the nave, is a rubble one (also called a gravity wall, it is a pile of undressed rough stones piled up without mortar). The rest of the church was finished in Bodmin Moor granite in the 15^th century; there are five irregular arches, a south wall for the organ and a Norman window near the tower. The few glass windows are replacements. The rather strange shape of the tower is because it once had a steeple, unusual in Cornwall. In March 1818, the tower was struck by lightning and it fell on the church with much damage; windows all shattered, altar table split, the tower on fire, the medieval pews destroyed. To pay for repairs, two of the three bells were sold off. It was not possible to replace the steeple.

Inside the church are five bays divided off by rather worn, simple arches. Box pews for a congregation of 77 were replaced by open pews for 100 parishioners. In the north wall is a blocked 14th century doorway known as a Devil's Door. A widespread belief in the Middle Ages was that the Devil resided in an unbaptised child's soul; at the baptism, the Devil would be driven out of the child and had to be able to leave so accordingly a door was built into the "heathen" north wall for the escape. These doors were often too small to have any real use and were therefore only figurative. Most Devil Doors in England, like at St.Batholomew's, have been blocked off--reputedly to prevent the Devil's re-entry. (More likely they were blocked up more for draft control than theology or devil control)

The church's simple octagonal baptismal font (used for my Lemin kin) is 15^th century.  The very large organ is a World War I memorial. (Hear this organ on YouTube “Jonathan Delbridge plays Wesley’s Choral Song at St.Bartholomew’s Church, Warleggan”) The roof is boarded in pitch pine. The most notable feature of the church’s interior is the Royal Arms of 1664; as in many other Cornish churches, it is an acknowledgement of Cornish support for Charles I in the Civil War. Whatever silver chalices the church had were stolen or disappeared.

                                                    Baptismal font from 1400s

                                    Royal Coat Arms--in support of Charles I during Civil War

In the Bodmin area, the phrase “sent to the Moors” apparently applied to those who, for some reason, needed a speedy marriage or a quiet baptism. Because it was so isolated, Warleggan attracted couples from further afield and had a reputation in the area for “slubbering up” bad marriage bargains since couples could marry there without banns or licence.

Warleggan is a small parish; it was never wealthy and thus, the Church of England rector was often an absentee, leaving his flock in the care of a curate who, for a pittance, probably officiated in several other parishes as well. Warleggan's isolation and its windswept position would have made it unattractive to many.

                                          Rev. Frederick William Densham (1870-1953)

In 1931, long after Richard and Jane Harper emigrated to Canada (1849), a most peculiar rector arrived in Warleggan. Rev. F.W.Densham was 61 years old. Although capable of great kindness, he was a church autocrat. When Densham arrived in Warleggan, he found only 168 parishioners-- Cornish men born and bred, distrustful of strangers and unwilling to change their patterns of worship. They were likely against Densham right from the beginning. The new rector was soon at loggerheads with his congregation. His predecessor had celebrated Mass, but Densham reverted  to Holy Communion and had strong Methodist sympathies. He wanted to replace the organ (a gabbled profanity, he called it) with a piano and harmonica more suitable for a children’s service, but the organ had been bought by public subscription and was a war memorial. Densham held strong views about smoking and drinking and opposed any gambling even the church raffles. There were no more genial Sunday teas on the church lawn beneath the big trees. Densham was vegetarian, an alien concept in a remote farming community. (He considered boiled nettles not only a treat but "one of the best things you can eat.") He banned rook or pigeon shooting, a popular church social event. He and his congregation quarreled constantly over legal title to stoves, chairs and other parish furniture.

In a village of close-knit families, discontent spread quickly. People asked the Bishop of Truro to remove Densham but the Bishop was powerless for, under the Church of England Constitution, the rector had committed no crime and was conducting his services acceptably. Stuck with their rector, the flock refused to go to church, and drifted off to other churches. After 1935, never again would anyone enter St.Bartholomew's for a Sunday service.

But even though his parishioners stopped coming to church, nonetheless, each Sunday for two decades, Densham robed himself and preached twice weekly, well-prepared services to the bare 13^th century walls. He sang the hymns himself and composed his sermons  with care. He would place small cards inscribed with the names of prior vicars in the first six empty pews and so preached in his imagination to his peers. It was rumoured (and unfairly popularized by writer Daphne du Maurier in her book, Vanishing Cornwall) that in lieu of a congregation, Densham would prop up cardboard shapes in the pews and preach to them. The only time people attended the church were for weddings and funerals. “They all come to me in the end” he said. “They won’t come to church on their feet, but they come in their black carriages.” 

                                                    the only remnant of Densham's repaint

Well-educated and quite well-travelled (South Africa, Ceylon), Densham was unmarried and lived alone in the Rectory next to the Church. He named his rooms after Biblical places. He painted the rectory in in garish red, orange, primrose, yellow and blue but when he painted parts of the church in a kaleidoscope of bright colours, the church board quickly had it removed at Densham’s expense. The rectory, itself, became run-down and rat-infested. And people were cruel to him—even stealing his dogs then making him pay a reward for their return.  Provisions—apples, bread and notably oats since porridge was his staple diet-- had to be left at the gate and there were dogs roaming the grounds. As the years passed, alone and crippled by arthritis, Densham grew more eccentric, more reclusive, and he fortified the Rectory against intruders and casual visitors. He insisted on four days notice from anyone intending to visit; those unable to  make such an appointment had to bang on an oil drum at the end of the garden path until Densham appeared. Some rare visitors to the rectory spoke of mysterious books in Densham's library on witchcraft and satanic worship. (most likely these were books exploring eastern religions as he had been well-travelled). His reputation and the stories of his disputes with his parishioners and his personal eccentricities spread throughout Cornwall and beyond. 

One January morning in 1953, locals noticed that for several days there had been no chimney smoke and no sightings of Densham. Investigation revealed that Rev. Densham had died partway up the stairs several days previously.  He was 83 years old. His funeral service was attended by no one except his solicitor and unlike several of his predecessors, he was not buried in the Warleggan  churchyard; nor were his ashes scattered on his own Garden of Remembrance in Warleggan as he had requested but in a Plymouth cemetery. His brother donated money in Densham’s memory and the Bishop, perhaps mindful of the dangers of isolation in remote parishes, decided to use it to buy cars for rural clergy. Rejected in death as in life, his ghost is said to haunt Warleggan village to this day.