St Hilary

The church of St Hilary, in St Hilary village is one of the most delightful and unusual churches.
The tower is 13th century and used to be painted white as a marker for ships at sea, as it can be seen from both the south and north coast of Cornwall.
Following a fire in 1853 the tower was saved, but the rest of the church was rebuilt.  In those days this was a very wealthy area due to the mining of tin and copper.
The inside was quite plain until the 1920's when the vicar commissioned painters from the Newlyn School of Art, including his wife,  to decorate the church. 
One memoria, designed by Ernest Procter, was for the  Hon Gerard Collier, WEA pioneer and active worker for peace, who tried to open a disused tin mine to alleviate the chronic unemployment in Cornwall after the first World War.

There is a very interesting Visitor Centre which is open from April to September, on Wednesdays and Fridays.

I did discover the grave of Grace Collick who died in 1819 age 23. Wife of Hugh Collick.  
Now just have to try and find out the connection to my great grandmother, who lived in the next village.

Our day started out with a visit to Newlyn to buy fish, and then on to Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens.
It was nice to see how the banana palms etc. had recovered from The Beast from the East 18 months ago. Last time we visited they looked dead.
We always enjoy the exotic planting, and woodland walk full of tree ferns.

A big big thank you to all of you for the kind comments, stars and hearts for my 8 year blip yesterday.
I will get round to thanking each of you in time. Getting a bit behind at the moment. Hope to catch up soon.