Located in the westernmost of the nine ancient hundreds of Cornwall, St. Just-in-Penwith or Lanuste, ‘Church-site of St. Just’ has been described as being ‘set in a granite and greenstone country of windswept treeless farm tenements and black, carn crowned moors’. Founded during the 'Age of the Saints' by Saint Just, (Cornish Ust), one of the sons of a 5th century Cornish King Gerient I, there has been Christian worship on this site for over 1,500 years, the Church providing the religious focus for the small farms and fishing communities in the parish.

This is the site where Saint Just made his base, where he planted his cross to mark the site as consecrated ground and where he built his ‘cell’. Over time the area became enclosed and known as a ‘lan’ and included a small prayer or oratory chapel with beehive huts. The Cornish name for this area was ‘Lanuste’, i.e. ‘Church-site of Saint Just’ or ‘Saint Just’s religious enclosure’ derived from the word lan and the saint’s name and pronounced ‘Lan-AIST’.

Evidence of the Church’s great antiquity abounds; the Selus memorial stone commemorating Saint Just's brother, Selevan, dates from the late 5th or early 6th century; a length of cross shaft decorated by Cornish craftsmen in the Hiberno-Saxon style dated towards the end of the 8th or early 9th century; and an associated holy well and a mediaeval playing place or Plên-an-Gwary.

At least four churches are thought to have stood on the site and parts of the cruciform church (Easter sanctuary, piscina and sedile) built in 1334 can still be seen incorporated into 14th and 15th century additions. The completed cruciform church was dedicated on the 13th July 1336 as part of Bishop Grandisson of Exeter's ‘progress’ around Cornwall, a 'progress' that took the form of a tidying up operation in that he regularised the position of a number of ancient Celtic churches. Here at St. Just he dedicated the new building and rededicated the site. For 200 years this date was kept as a special Feast Day, in fact a public holiday enforced by law. But as so many of these feast days fell close together, making it difficult in some places to gather the harvest successfully, an Act Henry VIII in 1536 declared a prohibited period and moved the feast days within it. St. Just’s Feast came within this period and was accordingly transferred to the Sunday nearest All Saints’ Day. Nowadays St. Just Feast is still actively celebrated in the autumn combining, as it does leisure pursuits with religious observance and folkloric ritual, maintaining the fullest traditions in which church, chapel and community round about join together instinctively. However, St. Justers don’t like to miss out on a party and the action of Henry VIII has left the town with two dates for celebration. It’s worth noting that the former carnival and its successor Lafrowda Day are both held near to the original Feast date in July!

Lafrowda – The Church of the Good Cross
There is good reason to believe that the Church existed here long before the advent of the town of St. Just and that its ancient name was 'Lafrowda.' The name ‘Lafrowda’ which is still used to describe the surrounding churchtown tenement is referred to in ancient documents and deeds variously as ’Lafroudha’, ‘Lafrooda’, ‘La Frouda’ and ‘Lanfrowdha’ and is thought to indicate either the given name for the Church or a description of its cruciform shape. When broken into its constituent parts the word 'Lafrowda’ provides us with this evidence. The word itself being derived from Laf or Lan, the Cornish word for religious enclosure; Rood, Rode, or Rod, Saxon words signifying a cross, crucifix, or an image of the crucifixion; and D(h)a, a Cornish word meaning good. Thus ‘Laf-rood-dha’, most probably signifies the ‘Church of the Good Cross’ or alternatively ‘the Holy Place of the Good Rood’ synonymous with the church of the holy cross. Today the memory of that early church is retained in the names ‘Lafrowda House’, ‘Lafrowda Close’, ‘Lafrowda Terrace’ and ‘Lafrowda Common’ and pronounced by St. Justers as ‘La-Throw-Da’. In the late 14th and early 15th century the 1334 church lost its cruciform shape when the two side aisles were added.

Inside the Church
Inside the Church the first thing that strikes the visitor’s eye after adjusting to the lower level of light is the way in which the interior walls have had their plaster removed revealing the Cornish random rubble style of construction; a style which is accentuated by the pitch lining and black pointing of the natural granite which has heightened the effect of being at one with the most beautiful moorland and cliff scenery in one of the wildest and most picturesque parts of Cornwall.

Unusually for Cornish Churches, the dressed stone of the internal arches, pillars and their capitals are formed from limestone, most probably Bere or Caen stone, thought to have been shaped by masons from Brittany with which the area has many long standing connections. Placed on granite footings the pillars are topped with capitals of an early 15th century design. Each is richly sculptured and decorated with a variety of patterns, which include shields, grapes, vine leaves, quatrefoils and roses. One frequent design depicts leaves bound over their stems, which are twisted like cords. Some of the capitals have angels bearing the shields and arms of de Beaupré, Bray and Fitz Ive, three wealthy families intimately connected with the 1334 church. The large east windows of the North and South Aisle are remarkable for their flowing and flamboyant tracery.

The fine secco wall paintings of 'St. George and the Dragon' and 'Christ of the Trades' date from the 15th century. Their history and preservation is remarkable. During the 16th century Reformation everything colourful and decorative was considered popish and deemed inappropriate and instructions were given for them to be covered with whitewash. This didn’t happen in St. Just until Puritan days when the parishioners bowed to convention and concealed their paintings by covering them with lime wash. More coats of lime wash would have been added over the centuries and so there the paintings stayed until the major restoration of the Church commenced in 1865.

This part of the world played host to the Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549. The Cornish, were outraged - literally up in arms - about the new Book of Common Prayer that was written in English. They petitioned the King saying that the new service was, “Like a Christmas game . . . we will have our old service of Mattins, Mass, Evensong and Procession in Latin as it was before. And so we the Cornish men (whereof certain of us understand no English) utterly refuse this new English.” Cranmer failing to understand that from early times Latin had been used for the bulk of the service but the Creed, Commandments and other parts of the Liturgy had been celebrated in Cornish.

‘…..it is clear that the history of this building reflects the history of its people, local people who have over the generations bequeathed to us an incredible visual legacy, a beautiful tapestry of the Church in its surrounding Christian landscape.. . . . .To visit St. Just Church today is to tread upon the very ‘Land of the Saints’ where the first seeds of Cornish Christianity took root. St. Just Church offers us ‘brooding spirit of ancient sanctity’ from a long vanished Celtic past and providing a continual place of prayer – a centre of Christianity in good times and bad.'

May the Lord’s Peace be with you now and always.

Andrew M. Burt, Lanuste, Kernow
© Andrew Burt, Lanuste, Kernow

Text taken from ‘A History, Directory & Gazetteer of the Parish Church of Saint Just-In-Penwith, Cornwall.’ Researched and compiled by Andrew M. Burt, 2003 first published by The Boleigh Press. This book will be reprinted during summer 2005.

St. Just Church Friends sell a wide range of cards and booklets including more detailed information material about the Church in the Baptistery. Current publications include A5 Booklets on:

• Short History & Guide Book
• Just about the Secco Wall Paintings

A 1/3 third A4 leaflets on:

• Just About Saint Just and His Church
• Just About Saint Just and His Church - Cornish
• Just About Saint Just and His Church - French
• Just About Saint Just and His Church - German
• Just About the Church Badge
• Just for Children
• Just About Prayer

The following A5 booklets will go on sale shortly:

• Just About St Just Feast
• Just About the Plen an Gwarry
• Just About Saint Just and Saint Helen's