St Goran

Cornwall Information & Accommodation Guide

St Goran is a coastal parish near Mevagissey on Cornwall's south coast.

The parish comprises the church town, Gorran Churchtown, inland and the largest settlement Gorran Haven, on the coast.

The patron saint of the parish is Guron or Goronus, who is believed to have come here from Bodmin. The parish church is from the 15th century, though there was a church here in Norman times.

The church has good bench ends and the font is from the late medieval period. Thomas Tonkin, MP and historian, is buried at the parish church.

At Gorran Haven there is a 15th-century chapel of St Just, restored in the 1860s.

At Bodrugan there are the remains of the medieval manor house of the Bodrugan family.


Folklore

THE HACK AND CAST.

IN the parish of Goran is an intrenchment running from cliff to cliff, and cutting off about a hundred acres of coarse ground. This is about twenty feet broad, and twenty-four feet high in most places.

Marvellous as it may appear, tradition assures us that this was the work of a giant, and that he performed the task in a single night. This fortification has long been known as Thica Vosa, and the Hack and Cast.

The giant, who lived on the promontory, was the terror of the neighbourhood, and great were the rejoicings in Goran when his death was accomplished through a stratagem by a neighbouring doctor.

The giant fell ill through eating some food--children or otherwise--to satisfy his voracity, which had disturbed his stomach. His roars and groans were heard for miles, and great was the terror throughout the neighbourhood. A messenger, however, soon arrived at the residence of the doctor of the parish, and he bravely resolved to obey the summons of the giant, and visit him. He found the giant rolling on the ground with pain, and he at once determined to rid the world, if possible, of the monster.

He told him that he must be bled. The giant submitted, and the doctor moreover said that, to insure relief, a large hole in the cliff must be filled with the blood. The giant lay on the ground, his arm extended over the hole, and the blood flowing a torrent into it. Relieved by the loss of blood, he permitted the stream to flow on, until he at last became so weak, that the doctor kicked him over the cliff, and killed him. The well-known promontory of The Dead Man, or Dodman, is so called from the dead giant. The spot on which he fell is the "Giant's House," and the hole has ever since been most favourable to the growth of ivy.

Books online:
Click here to buy books online about St Goran

  Topical phrases of the month October: 'Festival Phrases'

  Place Name of the Month October: Karrekreun – Cargreen