Cornwall's Maritime Churches

Our TRAILER: Entitled ‘Exploring Cornwall’s Maritime Churches Project’, the series examines maritime history of Cornwall in an entirely new way, using ecclesiastical records and the fabric of churches located by the sea to tell unknown narratives.  

Cornwall is a fantastic location to delve into this undisturbed subject area. Located in the far west of Great Britain on a peninsula tumbling into the vast Atlantic Ocean, bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the Channel, and to the east by the River Tamar. Victoria Jenner, an emerging historian of decorative art and architecture, uses different methods to travel across the duchy and perceive these maritime landmarks from the water, and in relation to their communities. Whether she is running in the ancient footsteps of pilgrims or jumping in a kayak, the church is for the first time positioned as an integral and central piece of the puzzle in Cornish maritime history.  

The first episode sets the scene, demonstrating the extent to which Cornwall is renowned for its folklore. Rather than discard stories that seem ‘nonsensical’, this episode attempts to unravel some of Cornwall’s magical places – such as St Nectan’s Glen, Tintagel, Padstow’s Doom Bar and Zennor. By recognising how far the sea and the church not only influences but often sits at the heart of famous myths and legends, historians can decipher why mermaids, giants and chivalric knights have emerged from certain places. What’s more, an important characteristic of Cornish folklore is the fact that stories travelled by early Celtic traders and pilgrims and were retold by Cornish storytellers, otherwise known as droll tellers. To further celebrate this narrative, the film includes a variety of folksingers from Cornwall today, from the well-known Harry Glasson to an all–female acapella group ‘Figurehead’ and two Penzance-born sisters, Martha and Rosa Woods. 

Our Pilot Episode reveals three shipwrecks across three generations in Cornwall.

Join Victoria Jenner as she travels to Marazion in Cornwall with University of Exeter and Falmouth University students, to uncover how these shipwrecks can be told through the famous ‘Benbow Pub’ collection.

With special thanks to the owners of the Benbow Pub.

Slavery and the slave trade in Cornwall is a subject that has been marginalised in Cornwall’s maritime history.

Eighteenth-century Cornwall is renowned for mining and early industrialisation. However the maritime history of Cornwall still remains a relatively overlooked aspect of scholarship, despite offering key evidence that communities were in fact more diverse than has often been imagined. Dr Charlotte Mackenzie will talk about how maritime history, churches and church records have much to reveal about the African diaspora, slavery and the slave trade in Cornwall.

This second virtual lecture discusses the African diaspora and black identities in Cornwall.

When Britain was a maritime kingdom Cornwall was not at the periphery. People of African descent lived, worked, and had families in Georgian Cornwall. This film reveals a dimension of Cornish and black history which had been largely forgotten and untold.