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Parish Church of:
Keyne, St
The church of St. Keyne, standing in a commanding situation on the summit of a hill, is a building of stone, consisting of chancel, nave, north aisle, south porch, and an embattled western tower of three stages, with low crocketed pinnacles, containing five bells of which the first has an inscription in Old English letters; the third is dated 1799, and the tenor 1663; a new bell was added, the second bell recast and the whole re-hung in 1878: from the top of the tower the Eddystone light, distant at least 18 miles, is distinctly visible on a clear night: the chancel was restored and partially rebuilt in 1868 and the church restored generally in 1877, when a great portion of it was rebuilt and a vestry added, at a cost of £1,300: there are 120 sittings. The register of marriages dates from the year 1539; baptisms and burials from 1721; one marriage register also contains publications of banns from 1754 to 1812.
In this parish, about a mile distant from the church, is the famous wayside well of St. Keyne, concerning which there is popular tradition that whichever of a newly-married couple first drinks a draught from this spring obtains and holds the supremacy. St. Keyna, or Keyne, the tutelary saint, was, according to early writers, a pious virgin, of British blood royal, being the daughter of Braganus, prince of Brecknockshire, and lived about A.D. 490.
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