ST MERIADOC – FACT AND FICTION

First, the facts:

Meriadoc was a wealthy Welshman who lived in the fifth or sixth century. At some point, he gave all his money to poor clerics and his land to the needy. Setting aside opulence and the purple silks he loved to wear, he dressed in rags, ate simple food and lived in complete poverty. He came to Cornwall, where he founded several churches, before crossing over to Brittany to continue his ministry. Elected to be Bishop of Vannes, he accepted the post with great reluctance and continued to live a life of abstinence. To this day, he is remembered in both Cornwall and Brittany – the parish church at Camborne is dedicated to St Martin and St Meriadoc, a miracle play in Cornish still survives recounting his legendary exploits and there is an infant school named after him. His feast day is 7 June.

‘Poverty is a remover of cares and the mother of holiness’ St Meriadoc

Now for some fiction:

St Meriadoc’s Cove, the well (there is no known well ascribed to the saint) and Paradise are fictional, as are the osteopathy practices in Bodmin and Wadebridge. The cove is ‘situated’ on the north coast of Cornwall between Com Head and Carnweather Point, overlooking Port Quin Bay and almost directly north of Polzeath. There are two lanes leading down to the cove, one from the east is disused and leads directly to the house: ‘Paradise’. The other, from the west, drops down to the head of the cove, passes the old boatyard and ‘The Row’, crosses the stream that runs down from the well and divides to the left, leading to ‘The Lookout’, and to the right, to Paradise.