h St. Ive (pronounced Eve)
near Liskeard, or the St. Ives of Huntingdonshire. She appears to have
reached Cornwall late in the fifth century, coming in the company of
the Irish prince, Fingar, who renounced his kingdom in order to preach
Christianity. Fingar is claimed as a convert of St. Patrick. St. Ia is
said to have floated to the Island, anciently named Pendinas, on a
miraculous leaf, by which is clearly meant a coracle of the kind still
to be seen in parts of Wales. Her comrades went on to evangelise other
parts of Cornwall, but she remained here, living in a beehive-hut of
the style called "Picts' houses," and doing her best to soften the
faith and manners of the rude inhabitants. It is said that she was
martyred by a local king or chieftain, Tewdrig, or Theodoric. She
resided here long enough to impress her name permanently on the
locality, whose earliest Latin name that we can trace was _Parochia
Sancte Ye_, while the Cornish name was Porthia. The existing church
stands on the site of an oratory which was either her own foundation
or was erected soon after her death by loving disciples. Till 1409 St.
Ives, being only a small fishing hamlet, belonged ecclesiastically to
Lelant; but at that date the people petitioned the Pope, through their
lord of the manor, Champernowne, that they might have a separate
church: "As it had pleased the Almighty God to increase the town
inhabitants and to send down temporal blessings most plentifully among
them, the people, to show their thankfulness for the same, did resolve
to build a chapel in St. Ives, they having no house in the town
wherein public prayers and Divine service was read, but were forced
every Sunday and holy day to go to Lelant church, being three miles
distant from St. Ives, to hear the same, and likewise to carry their
children to Lelant to be baptized, their dead to be there buried, to
go there to be married, and their women to be churched." In response
to this appeal the Pope directed the Bishop of Exeter that the chapels
both of St. Ives and Towednack should be made parochial, "with font
and cemetery, but dependent on Lelant." The people set to work at
once, bringing the necessary granite from Zennor by boat, roads being
then quite unfit for transit of heavy burdens. Completed in 1426, the
church consists of chancel, nave, and two aisles, with a tower 119
feet in height. The roofs are of decorated wagon-form, with figures of
angels at the springings of the br