St Just in Penwith
Encyclopedia
St Just is a town and civil parish in Cornwall
, England, United Kingdom. The parish encompasses the town of St Just and the nearby settlements of Trewellard
, Pendeen
and Kelynack
: it is bounded by the parishes of Morvah
to the north-east, Sancreed
and Madron
to the east, St Buryan
and Sennen
to the south and by the sea in the west. The parish consists of 7622 acres (31 km²) of land, 12 acres (48,562.3 m²) of water and 117 acre (0.47348262 km²) of foreshore. The town of St Just is the most westerly town in mainland Britain and is situated approximately eight miles (12.7 km) west of Penzance
along the A3071
. St Just parish has a population of 4690.
, as some sources claim. Another possibility is the 6th or 7th century Saint Iestyn, said to be the son of a ruler of Dumnonia
.
Among the prehistoric antiquities nearby is Ballowall Barrow
, a chambered tomb. St Just is one of the most ancient mining districts in Cornwall and remains of ancient pre-industrial and more modern mining activity have had a considerable impact on the nearby landscape.
The parish church is a fine 15th century building: see St. Just in Penwith Parish Church
. St Just is the home of Cape Cornwall Secondary School
which serves Sennen, Sancreed, Pendeen, St. Buryan and many other surrounding villages.
history and was during the 19th century one of the most important mining districts in Cornwall both for copper and tin. Mines within the area included Boscaswell Downs, Balleswidden, Parknoweth, Boscean, Wheal Owles, Wheal Boys, Levant
, Botallack
and Geevor
(which closed in 1990) (see list of mines around St Just). Geevor mine is now a tourist attraction which allows visitors to explore Cornish Mining heritage (see Geevor Homepage). The boom in 19th century mining saw a dramatic increase in the population of St Just, the 1861 census records the population figure as being 9290, however like other areas in Cornwall the population declined with the collapse in the tin trade in the 20th century. The town also suffered from the decision of the Great Western Railway
to abandon its plans to make St Just the terminus of the London mainline to Cornwall. It was announced in July 2006 that the St Just mining district and the rest of the historic mining areas of Cornwall had become the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape
World Heritage Site
http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=29003.
has a stream which runs to the sea. The area has been heavily mined, as was the area around St Just. The round boulders in the Cot Valley cove here are of specific scientific interest. Also nearby is Cape Cornwall
.
, St Just being previously an Urban District Council. Principal local government functions are now undertaken by the Cornwall Council.
St Just is home to the popular Lafrowda festival http://www.lafrowda-festival.co.uk/ a seven day community and arts celebration.
A more ancient celebration associated with the town is St Just feast which is held in November every year to celebrate the dedication of the parish church. The feast itself is a 2 day event with a church service and civic procession being held on the Sunday of the feast and a larger scale popular celebration being held on the Monday (which includes a meeting of the local hunt). A description of St Just feast from 1882 follows
"Rich and poor still at this season keep open house, and all the young people from St. Just who are in service for many miles around, if they can possibly be spared, go home on the Saturday and stay until the Tuesday morning. A small fair is held in the streets on Monday evening, when the young men are expected to treat their sweethearts liberally, and a great deal of "foolish money" that can be ill afforded is often spent"
St Just is also home to a 'Plain an Gwarry' (Cornish - playing place). These sites were open air performance areas used for historically for entertainment and instruction. St Just's Plain an Gwarry occasionally hosts productions of the Cornish Ordinalia
mystery plays http://www.ordinalia.com/.
St Just has a healthy artistic scene including the several times televised Kurt Jackson
.
Contemporary singer and comedian Jethro
from nearby St Buryan
has recorded a song entitled "St Just".
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...
, England, United Kingdom. The parish encompasses the town of St Just and the nearby settlements of Trewellard
Trewellard
Trewellard is a small village on the north coast road between St Just and St Ives in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated 7 miles from Land's End and 7 miles from Penzance...
, Pendeen
Pendeen
Pendeen is a village on the Penwith peninsula in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is north-northeast of St Just and west of Penzance.The village has a community centre, a shop, a post office, a primary school, and a few small businesses. Community activities include an art club, silver marching band...
and Kelynack
Kelynack
Kelynack is a settlement in west Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated on the Penwith peninsula approximately four miles north-northeast of Land's End and one mile south of St Just. Kelynack was mentioned in the Domesday book where it was listed as Chelenoc....
: it is bounded by the parishes of Morvah
Morvah
Morvah is a civil parish and village on the Penwith peninsula in west Cornwall, United Kingdom. The village is situated approximately eight miles west-southwest of St Ives and 5½ miles north-west of Penzance....
to the north-east, Sancreed
Sancreed
Sancreed is a village and civil parish in Cornwall, United Kingdom. The village is situated approximately three miles from Penzance....
and Madron
Madron
Madron is a civil parish and village in west Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is a large rural parish on the Penwith peninsula north of Penzance.Madron village is situated approximately two miles northwest of Penzance town centre....
to the east, St Buryan
St Buryan
St Buryan is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, United Kingdom.The village of St Buryan is situated approximately five miles west of Penzance along the B3283 towards Land's End...
and Sennen
Sennen
Sennen is a coastal civil parish and a village in Cornwall, United Kingdom. Sennen village is situated approximately eight miles west-southwest of Penzance....
to the south and by the sea in the west. The parish consists of 7622 acres (31 km²) of land, 12 acres (48,562.3 m²) of water and 117 acre (0.47348262 km²) of foreshore. The town of St Just is the most westerly town in mainland Britain and is situated approximately eight miles (12.7 km) west of Penzance
Penzance
Penzance is a town, civil parish, and port in Cornwall, England, in the United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is approximately 75 miles west of Plymouth and 300 miles west-southwest of London...
along the A3071
Great Britain road numbering scheme
The Great Britain road numbering scheme is a numbering scheme used to classify and identify all roads in Great Britain. Each road is given a single letter, which represents the road's category, and a subsequent number, with a length of between 1 and 4 digits. Originally introduced to arrange...
. St Just parish has a population of 4690.
History
It is not known who Saint Just was. Cornwall's long resistance to the edicts of Canterbury and Rome makes it most unlikely that the saint was Archbishop JustusJustus
Justus was the fourth Archbishop of Canterbury. He was sent from Italy to England by Pope Gregory the Great, on a mission to Christianize the Anglo-Saxons from their native Anglo-Saxon paganism, probably arriving with the second group of missionaries despatched in 601...
, as some sources claim. Another possibility is the 6th or 7th century Saint Iestyn, said to be the son of a ruler of Dumnonia
Dumnonia
Dumnonia is the Latinised name for the Brythonic kingdom in sub-Roman Britain between the late 4th and late 8th centuries, located in the farther parts of the south-west peninsula of Great Britain...
.
Among the prehistoric antiquities nearby is Ballowall Barrow
Ballowall Barrow
Ballowall Barrow is a prehistoric funerary cairn which Ashbee and Hencken state contains several phases of use from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. It is situated on the cliff top at Ballowall Common, near St Just in Cornwall, England, UK...
, a chambered tomb. St Just is one of the most ancient mining districts in Cornwall and remains of ancient pre-industrial and more modern mining activity have had a considerable impact on the nearby landscape.
The parish church is a fine 15th century building: see St. Just in Penwith Parish Church
St. Just in Penwith Parish Church
St. Just in Penwith Parish Church is a parish church in the Church of England located in St Just in Penwith, Cornwall, UK.The church is Anglo-Catholic and under the care of the Bishop of Ebbsfleet rather than the Bishop of Truro.-History:...
. St Just is the home of Cape Cornwall Secondary School
Cape Cornwall Secondary School
Cape Cornwall School is a comprehensive school in St Just in Penwith, Cornwall, United Kingdom, that teaches 11-16 year olds. It is the most westerly comprehensive school in mainland England and is also one of the smallest secondary schools in Penwith with just over 400 students...
which serves Sennen, Sancreed, Pendeen, St. Buryan and many other surrounding villages.
Mining
The ancient settlement has a strong miningMining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
history and was during the 19th century one of the most important mining districts in Cornwall both for copper and tin. Mines within the area included Boscaswell Downs, Balleswidden, Parknoweth, Boscean, Wheal Owles, Wheal Boys, Levant
Levant Mine & Beam Engine
Levant Mine and Beam Engine is a National Trust property at Trewellard, Pendeen, near St Just, Cornwall, England, UK. Its main attraction is that it has the world's only Cornish beam engine still operated by steam on its original site...
, Botallack
Botallack
The Botallack Mine is a former mine in Botallack in west Cornwall, United Kingdom.The village is in a former tin mining area situated between the town of St Just in Penwith and the village of Pendeen....
and Geevor
Geevor Tin Mine
Geevor Tin Mine is a tin mine in the far west of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, between the villages of Pendeen and Trewellard. It was operational between 1911 and 1990 during which time it produced about 50,000 tons of black tin. It is now a museum and heritage centre left as a living history...
(which closed in 1990) (see list of mines around St Just). Geevor mine is now a tourist attraction which allows visitors to explore Cornish Mining heritage (see Geevor Homepage). The boom in 19th century mining saw a dramatic increase in the population of St Just, the 1861 census records the population figure as being 9290, however like other areas in Cornwall the population declined with the collapse in the tin trade in the 20th century. The town also suffered from the decision of the Great Western Railway
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...
to abandon its plans to make St Just the terminus of the London mainline to Cornwall. It was announced in July 2006 that the St Just mining district and the rest of the historic mining areas of Cornwall had become the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape
Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape
The Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape is a World Heritage Site which includes select mining landscapes across Cornwall and West Devon in the south west of the United Kingdom...
World Heritage Site
World Heritage Site
A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...
http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=29003.
Geography
The nearby Cot ValleyCot Valley
Cot Valley is located half-a-mile south of St Just in west Cornwall, United Kingdom.The stream which runs down the valley discharges into the Atlantic at Nanven. This area of Cornwall was once mined for tin as evidenced today by the ruins along the stream.There is a settlement in Cot Valley and a...
has a stream which runs to the sea. The area has been heavily mined, as was the area around St Just. The round boulders in the Cot Valley cove here are of specific scientific interest. Also nearby is Cape Cornwall
Cape Cornwall
Cape Cornwall is a small headland in Cornwall, UK. It is four miles north of Land's End near the town of St Just. A cape is the point of land where two bodies of water meet and until the first Ordnance Survey, 200 years ago, it was thought that Cape Cornwall was the most westerly point in...
.
Local government
For the purposes of local government classification St Just is a town and elects a Mayor every 12 months from among the St Just Town Councillors. The St Just Town Council was created following the re-structuring of English Local Government in 1974Local Government Act 1972
The Local Government Act 1972 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974....
, St Just being previously an Urban District Council. Principal local government functions are now undertaken by the Cornwall Council.
Culture and local traditions
A more ancient celebration associated with the town is St Just feast which is held in November every year to celebrate the dedication of the parish church. The feast itself is a 2 day event with a church service and civic procession being held on the Sunday of the feast and a larger scale popular celebration being held on the Monday (which includes a meeting of the local hunt). A description of St Just feast from 1882 follows
"Rich and poor still at this season keep open house, and all the young people from St. Just who are in service for many miles around, if they can possibly be spared, go home on the Saturday and stay until the Tuesday morning. A small fair is held in the streets on Monday evening, when the young men are expected to treat their sweethearts liberally, and a great deal of "foolish money" that can be ill afforded is often spent"
St Just is also home to a 'Plain an Gwarry' (Cornish - playing place). These sites were open air performance areas used for historically for entertainment and instruction. St Just's Plain an Gwarry occasionally hosts productions of the Cornish Ordinalia
Ordinalia
The Ordinalia are three medieval mystery plays written in Cornish from the late fourteenth century. The three plays are Origo Mundi, , Passio Christi and Resurrexio Domini...
mystery plays http://www.ordinalia.com/.
St Just has a healthy artistic scene including the several times televised Kurt Jackson
Kurt Jackson
Kurt Jackson is an English painter whose large canvases reflect a concern with natural history, ecology and environmental issues. Born in Blandford, Dorset, he developed an early interest in natural history and landscape. He studied zoology at St...
.
Contemporary singer and comedian Jethro
Jethro (comedian)
Jethro is the stage name of British stand-up comedian Geoffrey Rowe, based in Lewdown in Devon. Rowe was born in 1948 in St Buryan, a village in west Cornwall....
from nearby St Buryan
St Buryan
St Buryan is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, United Kingdom.The village of St Buryan is situated approximately five miles west of Penzance along the B3283 towards Land's End...
has recorded a song entitled "St Just".
Notable residents
- Edward Grenfell, 1st Baron St Just, raised to the peerage as Baron St Just, of St Just in Penwith
- Craig WeatherhillCraig WeatherhillCraig Weatherhill is a Cornish author both of fiction and non-fiction works about Cornwall.-Biography:Raised in St Just in Penwith and then in Falmouth, after serving in the forces he developed a career in conservation and architecture. In his younger days, the 6' 3" Weatherhill was a goalkeeper,...
, historian and novelist - Lt Col J. H. WilliamsJames Howard WilliamsJames Howard Williams or 'Elephant Bill' was a British soldier and elephant expert in Burma, known for his work with the Fourteenth Army during the Burma Campaign of World War II, and for his 1950 book Elephant Bill...
(Elephant Bill), soldier and elephant trainer