St Nonna’s Church

St Nonna's Church stands on a site sanctified by the 6th-century Celtic missionary Saint Nonna, mother of St David of Wales. The current building dates primarily to the 15th century, with notable Norman elements surviving from an earlier rebuild. The church's exceptional collection of Tudor bench end carvings by Robert Daye represents one of the finest examples of early 16th-century Cornish woodcarving.

According to tradition, Saint Nonna was born into nobility in Pembrokeshire, Wales. She became a nun at Ty Gwyn, but her life was marked by violence—she was violated by Sanctus, King of Ceredigion, and the child conceived from this trauma was David, who would become the patron saint of Wales. The circumstances of David's birth were said to be attended by miracle: a great storm prevented anyone from approaching Nonna during her labor, yet the place where she lay was bathed in divine light. Her pain was so intense that her fingers left marks in a rock, and the stone itself split in sympathy.

Around 527 CE, Nonna left Wales and traveled through Cornwall on her way to Brittany, where she would end her days and where her shrine at Dirinon remains a place of pilgrimage. In Cornwall, she established a prayer community at the place now called Altarnun—the altar of Non. The stone altar she used for worship gave the settlement its enduring name, a linguistic fossil preserving her presence across fifteen centuries.

The church that grew from Nonna's founding served as the spiritual center for the scattered communities of Bodmin Moor. Its tower, at 109 feet one of the tallest in Cornwall, was designed to be visible across the wild landscape—a beacon calling the dispersed faithful to gather.