IT HAS taken eleven years of hard work by the Friends of Lanteglos Church to raise enough funding for the major restoration of St Julitta’s.

The restoration had to be delayed for six months for the sake of the bats and that in turn made it necessary to completely scaffold and cover over the whole building so that work can continue during the winter hibernation for bats.

Sadly, the medieval roof timbers were more rotten than expected, but at 600 years old that’s no surprise. However there has been some good news since, joint project manager, John Pearce told the Post: “At the same time as finding more rotten medieval timber in the roof we have just heard from the heritage lottery community fund that they have awarded us a £10,000 grant towards a disability accessible toilet, which is essential for our developing role in promoting community activities for everyone.

“A big thank you to lottery players!”

The Victorian restoration in 1870 had to build a new wooden structure over the ancient roof timbers because the timbers were so rotten — but the team at St Julitta’s have since discovered who that builder was. A wooden plank was found in the roof space with the name of the Victorian master builder John Westlake, who lived at 79 Fore Street in Camelford. The earlier roof must have been so leaky that the church would have been semi-derelict in the first half of the 19th century.

A small piece of red painted wood was found in the roof space together with a tiny carved trefoil that was painted gold. Experts say these were most likely from a medieval painted screen in the church about 500 years ago. But perhaps the most interesting find so far is a very early carved block of granite, probably from the top of a pillar and is thought to date around 1150AD. It was found as filling that had been put inside the south aisle wall. It is in a different style from other carvings in the building, so it may be from an earlier church.

A more modern find is a lead pencil dating from the 1950s that was also found in the roof space. It advertises the ESSO garage at St Teath that was run by Harold Burden. The petrol pump was actually on the edge of the road so the fire brigade had to ban the sale of petrol from the pump and eventually the garage closed.

More details of the restoration can be found at www.lanteglosbycamelfordchurch.com, with an application to join the Friends, and updates can also be found at their Facebook page, Friends of Lanteglos Church.