Illogan Village Trail

The Village Trail is a short walk around the Village of Illogan. It allows you to explore its history and its architectural variations.

To download a printer friendly version of the Illogan Village Trail please click here.

You start and finish in the centre of the village, known as Paynters Lane End.

How to find Illogan

The Village of Illogan is situated north of the conurbation of Camborne, Pool and Redruth. The village can be approached from the A30 using the A3047 and secondary roads; or from the North Coast road (B3301) which runs between Hayle and Portreath. The Ordinance Survey Map reference is SW673 434.

From the A30 (Truro/Bodmin or Penzance)

Take the exit signed for Redruth. Follow the signs to Camborne and Pool (A3047). Staying on the A3047, pass the Camborne Redruth Hospital on the left, then a garage on the right, and take the second right, signed ‘Chariot Road’. Continue to the five crossroads at Paynters Lane End. This is Point 1 of the Village Trail.

From the North Cliffs Road and Portreath (B3301)

At the top of Tregea Hill, Portreath, turn and follow the signs to lllogan. Continue along the road, and at the East Lodge gates to Tehidy Woods, turn left into Alexandra Road. Continue to the five crossroads at Paynters Lane End. This is Point 1 of the Village Trail.

Illogan-map

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An early picture of the Crossways at Paynter’s Lane End

The Platt and Paynter’s Lane End

Starting at the area known locally as The Platt, there is the beginning of the drive to the old Rectory, with the adjoining community woodland, Maningham Wood. This woodland was previously part of an ornamental garden for the Rectory.

To the south is the Plymouth Limestone and granite-faced Paynters Lane Methodist Church built in 1890 at a cost of £1086.

Opposite is the Robartes Arms . Note the Coat of Arms of the Robartes family of Lanhydrock and the houses of Robartes Terrace, called New Row in 1851. At the end of the 19th century, Billy Beale, who had a smithy and hired out horses and carriages, occupied No 3. No 4 was a Fish and Chip Shop. Between what is now No 5 & No 6 there was a well. No 10, which has been enlarged, was a butchers shop. On the opposite side of the road further down there was a cobbler’s hut. Mr Phillips, the local postman and cobbler, lived opposite!
The shop was a barbers shop for 50 years. Opposite the Post Office is the Rectory built in 1958 and down Ventonraze there was probably a holy well. This road originally continued across from Ventonraze to the church, but the road now bears round past the cemetery to Churchtown.

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The Bain Memorial Alms House

Mr James P St Aubyn built the Parish Church in 1846 from designs. The houses opposite were built in 1950.Oxland Road was named after Parson Harry Oxland, Rector of the Parish for 50 years. The Ecclesiastical Parish of St Illogan extends beyond Cam Brea and includes long stretches of the North Cliffs – from Reskajeage Downs to Cambrose. This is larger than the civil parish, which has a population of 5000 people, while the ecclesiastical parish has a population of 12,500 people.

The old church stood for many centuries and when it became too small it was pulled down. But the tower still stands as Trinity House had scheduled it as a landmark on Navigational charts. Traces of the 5th-7th Century Lan – an oval enclosure round the original church – can still be seen. Within the tower are six bells in two tiers, cast in 1889. In 2001, following concerns for the safety of the tower if the bells were rung in the traditional way, an electronic radio-controlled system to strike the bells was installed The clock was given in 1836 by Mrs Basset, the clock hammer strikes the tenor bell.

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New Row, Robartes Terrace

The churchyard is nearly six acres and is overseen by the Cornwall Wildlife Trust. The graves include victims of the plague of 1591, an area set aside for the 52 War Graves, and the grave of Thomas Merritt, whose carols are sung by Cornishmen world wide and who was commissioned to write the Coronation March of 1902 for Edward VII.

Illogan Churchtown

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Churchtown, taken from the old Illogan church tower

Walking towards Illogan Churchtown one can see a mounting block or ‘Uppingstock’, placed there in 1807 near the entrance to the old church. Road widening took place in 1967, gravestones were placed against the wall and bodies buried elsewhere in the graveyard.

The Square was at one time dominated by a Wheelwright and Carpenter business owned by Penberthy, where the house called Roseland is situated. One member of the family invented the anti-phthisis mining drill. Adjoining is the old Boys School, converted into flats in 1973. Adjoining the Boys School was a cottage, once thatched and used as an almshouse. It was built in 1685 from a bequest of £20 from William Lanyon. The photographer Edward Bragg lived there around 1903. It also served as an Institute. The next row of cottages once held the Post Office. Beyond them there is an opening, which is the church way to Bridge.

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A gathering in Churchtown, Illogan

Returning to the square, notice on the left the house with granite porch. Bearing around to the right there was once a public house named Farmers Arms built in the 19th Century. now, known as Hendra House. Here lived Jack Morrish remembered for delivering milk in his pony and trap. Several of the cottages opposite were shops. Round to the left is the North Gate entrance to the church. The gates and railings were made mid 19th Century and are listed, as is the Basset Monument (above the vault in the old church) and the Ancient cross -this cross can be found just off a path leading to the site of the old church. Outside the gates is the coach house built to house the Basset coach when they came to church from Tehidy, whilst horses were stabled in the building on the west side, this building later became a mortuary housing the parish bier (a device for holding and transporting corpses) and from 1868 was known as the Dead House.

Further along Parsonage Lane, past Illogan School, there are bungalows built on the tennis courts of the old rectory; now called Llangwedh.

Next door is the old rectory, now called Maningham, built from Bath stone in 1783 for the Reverend John Basset, brother of Lord De Dunstanville whose monument is seen on Cam Brea. It is to here that the drive from the Platt leads.

Returning past the North gates and bearing round to the left, one passes the Village Hall, originally the Girls Boarding School built in 1881. On the opposite side – now the Wellbeing Centre- is the old school house that was Lady Basset’s Girls School, the cornerstone being laid in 1884. Straight ahead is Nance farm, mainly a Georgian building. The site of a medieval chapel lies to the Northeast and overlooking Portreath are the remains of an Iron Age circular camp.

Parsonage Well

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The gateway to Illogan Woods opposite Parsonage Well

Turn down the road to the left- Well Lane- this leads to the entrance of Feadon or Illogan Woods through which a path leads to Portreath. The water from the pond on the right was used to feed a leat to drive a water wheel, through a system of rods and chains, a threshing machine in a barn at Nance. This was still in position in 1960.

Here are two wells Parsonage Well and one with a pump. Aviary Cott [now Court] built in the 19th Century and was used as a home for the Curates of the Parish-in 1838 the Revd Charles Grylls lived here. James Tangye was one of five brothers who trained many young men in engineering and had an observatory. He was responsible for the water supply to Mary’s Well.

Mary’s Well

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Picture of the Glebe Field showing Illogan Woods and the Harris Memorial Hall in the background

Carry on past Barnyard, originally Glebe farm and possibly the original rectory prior to Maningham, bear to the right onto Parsonage Lane where we meet a part of the Portreath Tram road that was part of the Hayle railway of 1832-1932. The granite gateposts still exist where the gates to stop the traffic hung. This ran from the mines at Carn Brea to the incline at Portreath, down to load the ore into ships, and coal to off load to be transported to the mines.

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Manningham, once the Rectory

We now enter Merrose Lane.

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Filling the bowser at Mary’s Well

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Interior view of Tangye’s workshop at Aviary Cottage showing Mr Tangye in his 81st year

At the cross roads, is Mary’s Well 1888, which was named after the wife of Gustavus Lambert Basset whose family for hundreds of years owned Tehidy House and much surrounding land and mines around the area.

Alexandra Road

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Aviary Court, now a hotel

If one were to carry on straight on we would come to Travellers Rest, where Kiddly Cottage was once a hostelry, but turn left here, this road is known as Alexandra Road. To the right the road leads to Tehidy Country Park.

Around 1779 this road was created on almost a straight line from East Lodge to Harris Mill and North Country, thereby by passing Redruth. The builder was paid £59. Further on, you pass Alexandra House, supposed to have been built from stone taken from Maningham when the top storey was removed as it overlooked Tehidy. The house was built to house the Parish Curates.

On the right is a pasty shop. The Smale family as a butchers shop first opened this shop with slaughterhouse facilities. In 1920 the Post Office moved from Churchtown to the house next door, having a door in the side now a window. The Post Office then moved to its present position in 1953.

One returns to the cross roads where we began. On the road to the left we can see the Methodist Sunday School built in 1858, 30 years before the Chapel.

With Thanks:

to Gill Meteyard who originated the idea, Michael Tangye, local historian and Paddy Bradley for the use of his photographs.