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Parish Church of:
Roche
The church of St. Gomonda is a plain but substantial rectangular building of stone wit a north transept, was rebuilt, with the exception of the Perpendicular tower in 1822; the latter, of three stages and embattled, contains a clock and 6 bells, all cast in 1819; there is a tablet to a former rector in the transept and a fine old Norman font; in 1890 the church was restored at a cost of £1,900, under the direction of the late Mr J.D. Sedding, archtect, and now affords 302 sittings; in the churchyard is an ancient cross, 7 feet 8 inches high, and 2 feet 4 inches wide with a rudely shaped head pierced with four round apertures. The register of baptisms dates from the year 1572; marriages, 1575; burials, 1612.
Within a short distance of the village, on property of Viscount Falmouth, is a remarkable group of crocks- consisting of huge masses of granite towering one above the other to the height of 100 feet; in the highest point are the ruins of the ancient chapel of St Michael, formed by the adaptation of masonry to the natural rock, and probably the habitation of some anchorite; it consisted, when perfect, of two rooms, one over the other, the lower measuring 12 feet by 90, within a window at the east end; in the upper room or chapel proper, was a larger and more elegant window; steps cut into the rock lead from the cell to the chapel: the “Holy Well” lies on the north side of the Bodmin and Truro road and about ¼ mile to the west of the Victoria Inn; the structure consisting of a single deep pointed arch with some adjacent portions, is of granite, 5 feet, 4 inches wide; there was formerly a granite figure of a saint on the roof, and near the well a chapel, but both have
now disappeared; the spring still maintains its reputation, and before sunrise on Holy Thursday, and the two following Thursdays, it was the custom of the peasantry to frequent the well and invoke the blessings of the saint by an offering of pins, which were sometimes bent and then thrown into the water.
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