A BRIEF HISTORY OF St. JOHN THE BAPTIST, BODINNICK-BY-FOWEY In the Parish of Lanteglos-by-Fowe
St.John’s Bodinnick must be one of Cornwall’s smallest and least pretentious places of worship and yet, over the years, its unique charm and friendly atmosphere have endeared it to regular worshippers and visitors alike.
The following is a brief history of the church, prepared by the late Canon May, the first vicar of St. John’s Bodinnick.
In 1948 the vicar of Lanteglos, who normally said the daily offices of Morning and Evening Prayer at St. Saviour’s, Polruan, found there were a few people who would be happy to join him if he said Evening Prayer on Fridays in Bodinnick. The proprietor of the Old Ferry Inn offered the use of a room in a house which belonged to the Inn and, for some weeks, half a dozen people gathered to say Evensong there.
From this beginning, the need for a proper church in Bodinnick began to be felt. There were elderly communicants in Bodinnick for whom the Parish Church of St. Wyllow, Lanteglos was too far to travel. In those days the ‘house church’ (celebrating the Eucharist with the dining room or kitchen table as alter) was unheard of. The Eucharist, it was felt, must always be celebrated at a properly consecrated altar, except in emergencies.
One day, while he was delivering the parish magazine to the Inn, the vicar asked the proprietor if he could give him a piece of land so that he could erect a prefabricated garage to use as a church. The proprietor replied that he could do better than that and offered to give the vicar his stable. The magnificent gift aroused much enthusiasm in the village. The stable was old but well built and in an ideal position, and what could be more suitable than an old stable ?
The church has continued to provide the village with somewhere where services could be held and continues do so to the present day.