St Denys, St Dennis

St Denys stands inside a circular churchyard on an Iron Age hillfort above Goss Moor, Cornwall, in the Diocese of Truro. Historic England lists the church at Grade II* as a late fourteenth- to fifteenth-century parish church with a later fifteenth-century granite tower, substantially rebuilt in 1847 and again after a fire surveyed in 1987.

Overview

The listing records nave and chancel in one, rebuilt in 1847 under a single gable with the south aisle, a south porch dated 1847, a nineteenth-century north aisle and a two-stage late fifteenth-century west tower of granite ashlar, without buttresses, with an embattled parapet, circular panelled pinnacles and a north stair turret. Fabric is squared granite rubble with granite dressings and a slate roof. The church occupies the site of an Iron Age hillfort; the circular churchyard follows the fort’s outline. The place-name may derive from Cornish dinas (fort) as well as from Denis, bishop of Paris.

Cornwall Historic Churches Trust notes a Norman church on the site by the late eleventh century, later appropriated with St Stephen-in-Brannel to St Michael Caerhays. The 1847 rebuild moved the south aisle arcade to Nanpean and spanned nave and aisle with one roof. An arson attack in 1985 gutted the interior, leaving tower and outer walls; the church reopened in 1987 after a community rebuild. The churchyard holds the bowl of a Norman circular font and a twelfth-century stone cross. The tower contains a historic ring of bells, the earliest dated about 1465.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1327433
• Cornwall Historic Churches Trust: St Dennis