MarhamchurchCornwall

Marhamchurch at a glance

Marhamchurch: a ridge top village with a Grade I church and the Bude Canal, just south of Bude

Marhamchurch is a village on a ridge in north Cornwall, just south of Bude and just east of the A39 Atlantic Highway. The parish stretches from Widemouth Bay in the west to the Devon border at Bridgerule in the east. It is a mainly rural parish of farms and holiday accommodation, and the village core is a Conservation Area.

The village takes its name from St Marwenne, or Morwenna, who is thought to have set up a hermitage here at the end of the 5th century. Marhamchurch appears in the Domesday Book as a small manor. The Grade I listed church of St Marwenne dominates the village and can be seen from many miles away. Most of it dates from the 14th century, with a 15th century aisle and porch.

The line of the old Bude Canal runs through the parish. The Marhamchurch Incline was one of the canal's six inclined planes, where tub boats were hauled up a slope 836 feet long by a waterwheel. The canal is still in water from Bude as far as the foot of the first incline, but most of the old route is not open to the public.

Each year on the Monday after 12 August the village holds the Marhamchurch Revel. A Queen of the Revel is chosen from the village schoolgirls and crowned by Father Time in front of the church, then a procession led by the band goes to the Revel Ground for entertainments.

The village has a primary school, a playing field, Bray Village Hall, a Methodist church, a community shop and a pub, the Bullers Arms on Helebridge Road. Bude is a short drive north.