MAKER & MAKER CHURCH

The name means a stone wall, a ruin, in Cornish, but another name for Maker is Egloshayle, ‘the church on the estuary’, and the tower is still a landmark commanding the Tamar estuary. It was used as a signal station during the Napoleonic War.
In their western advance across England the Anglo-Saxons halted at the Tamar but in AD 705 King Geraint of Cornwall gave the promontory on the Cornish side of the mouth of the Tamar, roughly from Kingsand to Millbrook, to Sherborne Abbey (which held much western land on behalf of the kings of Wessex) to keep control of the Tamar mouth in Saxon hands. This was royal land when the Normans came and remained in Devon until 1844. The Normans installed the Valletorts as tenants of most of the land controlling the mouth of the Tamar, including Maker. From them Maker passed by marriage to the Durnfords and then the Edgcumbes.
Maker Church is first mentioned in 1121 when it was given to Plympton Priory. On the Dissolution of the monasteries the right of appointing the vicar was taken by the Crown. A little well house with painted plaster walls and a tiled floor originally was built over the nearby holy well in the 14th or early 15th century. It may have been dedicated, like the church, to St. Julian, who was patron saint of travellers and ferrymen. The little chapel is hidden in the woods, close to the road leading up from the Cremyll ferry. No Celtic saint is recorded for this parish and the church is now dedicated to St. Mary and St. Julian.
The present church dates from the 15th and early 16th century and is unusual in having an extra south chapel adjoining the south aisle built for the Edgcumbes. Small bequests to the church occur in wills of the Carew family in 1492 and 1521. This was a time of much rebuilding of churches in Cornwall, which were not yet designed for preaching the word. The aisles are the same length as the nave and were originally intended for catholic processions banned during the Reformation. There is also a massive western tower with large Tudor west door. The fine font is Norman, originally from St Merryn. There are many reports highlighting the poor state of repair of the building at the beginning of the 19^th century; modest repairs were undertaken in the 1850s, the precursor to an extensive restoration between 1872 and 1874 by J. P. St Aubyn at a cost of £1,662. 13s. 6d. The Edgcumbe chapel, also the work of J.P. St Aubyn, was added at the same time. The restoration included the installation of two Fouracre & Watson vestry windows. There is an extensive array of Edgcumbe monuments.
To establish churches nearer people’s homes, various chapels were established in the 19th century including St Paul’s in Kingsand and St Andrew’s in Cawsand. St Paul’s is now the Community Hall for the twin villages of Kingsand and Cawsand.