WADEBRIDGE — Today I went on a tour of parish churchyards in search of more ancestors. First stop was St Merryn, not far from Padstow. A banner outside the church proclaimed that it was celebrating its 750th anniversary—1259-2009. I didn’t find any family names though, so it was off to the second stop on my tour: St Wenn.

St Wenn was yet another picturesque village church and knowing that I had family from this parish I was very pleased to find a couple of tombstones.

The next parish on my list was Roche. Finding my way there was easy enough but a wedding was about to start so I carried on to Luxulyan with the intention of retuirning later in the afternoon.
The churchyard of the Luxulyan parish church was overgrown though I later found a notice saying that it was part of a Living Churchyard Project where the environs of the churchyard is managed in such a way as to encourage the proliferation of both plants and wildlife—hence, I suppose, the overgrown look. I didn’t find any family tombstones, but I wasn’t really expecting to as the family presence in Luxulyan was in the early 1700s and readable tombstones from that period tend to be quite rare.

Making my way back to Roche I caught sight of a stone building that was appearing to grow out of a rocky outcrop. This is, I understand, the ruins of a chapel on Roche Rock and was supposed a one time to have been the home of a hermit. It looked very unworldly.
The wedding was just finishing so I went and found somewhere to park the car and walked back to the church. After exploring the churchyard I returned to the car and discovered a football game had started near where I had parked, so I went in and had a look.
The game was being held at the home ground of the the Roche AFC so I suppose one of the teams was Roche! I have no idea who the other team was. I watched the game for twenty minutes or so before heading back to Wadebridge.