103.   Bright sol and luna time and tide doth hold.
Chronodix Humbrale, 1720.

Over the church door at Towednack, Cornwall.

The church of St. Twinnock is an ancient building of stone, in the Perpendicular style, restored and reseated in 1870; it consists of chancel, nave, south aisle, divided from the nave by an arcade of five arches, south porch and a low embattled tower, containing 3 bells: the first two are dated 1667 and 1744; the tenor bears an invocation to the Holy Spirit: the aisle retains an aumbry, and there is a curiously carved font, which bears the date 1720: two ancient bench ends, the only ones surviving, display medallion profiles of James Trewhila, warden, and Matthew Trenwith, warden, with the date 1633: the monuments are modern, and include one to the Rosewalls, of Hellesvear, St. Ives, 1829–41: there is a chalice dating from 1576: there are 200 seats, all free.

The register of baptisms dates from the year 1676; marriages, 1677; burials 1683.

The living is a chapelry, annexed to the vicarage of Uny Lelant, tithe rent-charge (Towednack) £150, joint net yearly value £440, with a residence and 10 acres of glebe, in the gift of the Bishop of Truro, and held by the Rev. Richard Frederick Tyacke M.A. of Trinity College, Dublin, and surrogate; the Rev. James Frederick Lemon M.A. of Keble Collage, Oxford, is the resident curate.
A house and field are given by the Hon. Mrs. Gilbert for the use of the curate.

There are Wesleyan chapels at Lady Downs, Nancledrea and Coldharbour: others for Bible Christians and Teetotal Methodists at Lady Downs; and one for Primitive Methodists at Georgia Lane. Carminnis Hill, a short distance from the church, is 805 feet above the sea level.

Parish church

The church is dedicated to St Tewennocus and did not become parochial until 1902. It was built in the 13th century and has a plain tower. A south aisle was added in the 15th century. The font is of granite, 1720, and stands on a base which is an inverted Norman font.^[5] Towednack church is claimed to be the last church in which services were conducted in the Cornish language (in 1678),^{[citation needed]} though the claim is also made for Ludgvan. The parish saint disguised under the name 'Tewennocus' is almost certainly St Winwalo (pet-form: Winnoc), also commemorated at Gunwalloe and Landewednack, as well as Landevennec, Brittany: the place-name being derived from Old Cornish "te-Winnoc" (thy St Winnoc [Winwalo]), now represented as Late Cornish Te Wydnek. The aisle, chancel and nave was restored under the direction of Mr Sedding in 1870 and in 1880 the tower and its roof restored. The cost of the 1880 building work was paid for by money from the weekly offertory. The Cornishman newspaper described the parish thus,^[6]

The parish is poor; the people are only a few hundreds; many (probably most) of them are Dissenters who never enter a Church; and the Church itself is small; and yet the offertory has been the means of doing more than Church-rates ever did. When the two broken bells are re-cast (will any rich man do this for poor Towednack?) this parish will process the most thoroughly restored Church in West Cornwall.

One of the bells has the inscription ″Baragwanath″ (wheat bread), a name which was still common in this part of Cornwall at the time of the visit of the Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society, in September 1882. They noted, ″a true chancel-arch″, which was described as the church's ″peculiar and rare feature″. Also seen was the benchends and their medallion-portraits of the 1633 bearded and hatted churchwardens. Their inscriptions are ″James Trewhela, warden″ and ″Master Matthew Trenwith, warden″.^[7]

Further restoration work was carried out in 1884 with the replacement of the wooden floor of the nave, which was destroyed by dry rot. The new floor was cement, covered with a wooden platform between the benches and red tiles replaced the ″rough″ slate floor of the aisle.^[8]

Until 1902 Towednack was a chapelry of Lelant; right of sepulture was only obtained in 1532. The early incised cross on a stone in the porch and the altar slab suggest that the subordination to Lelant only began after the Norman Conquest.^[9] The stone in the porch forms a bench; the cross shaft has crosses at both ends.^[10] Over the porch is a typical sundial of a wide class of Cornish church dials from 1720. The inscription reads ″Bright Sol and Luna Time and Tide doth hold. Chronodix Humbrale″.^[11]

There was a Cornish cross at Tredorwin; it was found in use as a building stone in a cottage at Coldharbour in 1880.^[12] It is now in the churchyard (illustrated right).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towednack#Parish_church]