St Blazey Church, Cornwall

This Church was built in the 15th century (about A.D. 1445) and dedicated to St Blaise, the patron saint of weavers and woolcombers. In those days St Blazey was an important local centre of the wool  industry, and a wool factory existed here until recent years.  There was an earlier church dedicated in A.D. 1309 by Walter de Stapleton, Bishop of Exeter; and prior to that there were doubtless earlier churches going back to Celtic times, for the ancient name of the place LANDREATH, i.e. “The Church on the sands,” implies a Celtic origin.  In bygone days a creek of the sea flowed right up the valley to St Blazey Bridge and beyond  -  hence the name Landreath.  St Blaise was an Armenian bishop martyred in A.D. 316, who was tortured with a woolcomb, and so later became the patron saint of wool-workers. A fragment of mediaeval glass representing St Blaise can still be seen in the tower window.  The church was restored in 1839 by Gilbert Scott, when the North aisle was added; and again in 1897 by Sedding, when the galleries and pews and plaster from the walls were removed.