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St Neot, Liskeard, PL14 6NG 

St Neot's

On entering the village one often wonders why such a large and beautiful church was built in a mainly moorland parish.. The answer seems to be that the moors provided the tin won from the the tin streamers to line the pockets of the landowners of the time. St Neot is the second largest parish in Cornwall and the church is in the village or churchtown. It is recorded in the Domesday Survey of 1086 as Neotstow. There was a religious house here possibly headed by Neot himself.

A visitor will first notice the Oak Branch that is erected every 29^th May on the top of the tower to commemorate the Battle of Worcester, being Oak Apple Day. It reminds us that the future King Charles II hid in an oak tree while his enemies searched for him below. He vowed that when he became king May 29^th should be a holiday.

Another item of interest outside the church is the Celtic Cross facing the Church door. It is the best example of interlaced plaitwork design in Cornwall. Every side is different. The shaft fits into the St Neot Stone on which St Neot is said to have stood when he lived in the parish in the 9^th century.

The present church standing on the site of a previous church dedicated to St.Guerir was consecrated in 1321 and dedicated to St Anietus. Only the tower and part of the chancel of the previous church remain. The church was re-built/enlarged from about 1480. From that date a series of painted glass windows were installed, the Creation, and Noah windows being the earliest .They contain a very large part of the original glass but the donors are unknown. Most of the rest of the windows in the south aisle were given by local families and those in the north aisle by parish groups. The St Neot Window was given by the Young Men but the Harys Window in the North aisle was donated by the Harys family and Harys was the glazier. It is thought that the Wives and Young Women’s windows were also glazed by him. There are seventeen windows in the church but most were in a very neglected state and needed drastic action by early in the 19^th century.

The Rev R.H. Grylls appointed John Hedgeland between 1826-30 to undertake the repairs, which he did by moving panels of glass, re-positioning it and adding new work to make up for plain glass that had replaced old and broken glass.

In addition he glazed three windows entirely. These famous old windows are, with Fairford in Gloucestershire, the most complete surviving medieval glazing schemes in Britain though of very different styles. Churchwardens’ accounts for 1651-2 suggest that the windows were ultimately saved by being whitewashed by the parishioners.