St. Ia's Church, St. Ives
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50°12′45.18"N 5°28′47.82"W
St Ia, St. Ives Parish Church, St Ives is a parish church
Parish church
A parish church , in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....

 in the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

 located in St Ives
St Ives, Cornwall
St Ives is a seaside town, civil parish and port in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The town lies north of Penzance and west of Camborne on the coast of the Celtic Sea. In former times it was commercially dependent on fishing. The decline in fishing, however, caused a shift in commercial...

, Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

. It is dedicated to Saint Ia of Cornwall
Ia of Cornwall
Saint Ia of Cornwall was a 5th or 6th century Cornish evangelist and martyr.Ia was said to have been an Irish princess, the sister of Saint Erc. She was a spiritual student of Saint Baricus and travelled as a missionary to Cornwall where she joined Saints Fingar and Piala...

, a 5th- or 6th-century Irish saint.

History and description

The church is dedicated to Saint Ia the Virgin, also known as Ives, supposedly an Irish holy woman of the 5th or 6th century. The current building dates to the reign of King Henry V of England
Henry V of England
Henry V was King of England from 1413 until his death at the age of 35 in 1422. He was the second monarch belonging to the House of Lancaster....

. It became a parish church
Parish church
A parish church , in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....

 in 1826. It was built between 1410 and 1434 as a chapel of ease: St Ives being within the parish of Lelant
Lelant
Lelant is a village in west Cornwall, England, UK. It is on the west side of the River Hayle estuary about 2½ miles southeast of St Ives and one mile west of Hayle....

. The tower is of granite and of four stages (over 80 ft high): the church is large but not particularly high and built in a Devonian rather than a Cornish style. An outer south aisle was added by the Trenwith family about 1500: this is now the Lady Chapel and contains a statue by Barbara Hepworth
Barbara Hepworth
Dame Barbara Hepworth DBE was an English sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism, and with such contemporaries as Ivon Hitchens, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, Naum Gabo she helped to develop modern art in Britain.-Life and work:Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth was born on 10 January 1903 in Wakefield,...

.

The font is of granite and probably of the 15th century. It is carved with four angels hold ing shields. There are bench ends of the standard design and also two complete benches in the chancel. There is a brass to a member of the Trenwith family, 1463, and a monument to the Hitchens family by Garland & Fieldwick, 1815.
The church of St. Ives, a beautiful structure of the age of Henry V, with a lofty tower, is dedicated to St. Ia the Virgin; the edifice is well worthy of the observation of those who are curious in ecclesiastical architecture: the living is part of the vicarage of Uny Lelant, but has lately been endowed, by a grant from Queen Anne's bounty, the maintenance of a perpetual curate
Perpetual curate
A Perpetual Curate was a clergyman of the Church of England officiating as parish priest in a small or sparsely peopled parish or districtAs noted below the term perpetual was not to be understood literally but was used to indicate he was not a curate but the parish priest and of higher...

; the present incumbent of the parish is Rev. Dr. Cardew, the curate is the Rev. C. Aldrich; the patronage of preferment is the diocesan bishop.–Pigot & Co.'s Directory of Cornwall, 1830.

Organ

The church has a pipe organ dating from 1831. It has been restored by Telford and Telford in 1859 and by Hele and Co in 1907, and more recently by Lance Foy in 1993. A specification of the organ can be found on the National Pipe Organ Register.

Churchyard

There is a late medieval lantern cross ten and a half feet high on an octagonal shaft.
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