Latest House Prices

Latest house prices for St Mabyn show the average selling price realised in the past 12 months was £351,333.

St Tudy Road Walk

Wall collapsing

Who dumped the tennis court fencing here I wonder?

Happy Christmas!

O.G.Pinch

Large silver prize medal awarded to O.G.Pinch of St.Mabyn by a Camelford Implement agent T. B. Burns for 'the best piece of ploughing', with a Davey Sleep & Co. plough, at Camelford in around 1877.
Seen on eBay here

St Mabyn Inn 1900

Christmas Dinner Appeal

The RSPCA Cornwall Branch has a Christmas Dinner appeal every year and many supermarkets and shops respond throughout the county by inviting their customers to buy a tin of pet food and leave it for the Animal Centre at St Columb. This year St Mabyn Post Office and Stores joined in and Laura Brown - postmistress - was pleased to hand over to Gillian Beviss from Cornwall Branch a car boot full of pet food and cat litter left by her customers.
Gillian said: 'The annual food bill for the re-homing centre is £5,000 so donated food is a huge bonus and much appreciated. Thank you to everyone who contributed.'

St Mabyn Post Office and Stores

The post office is not just a village store. It provides the local community with such a varied service that very frequently you can just forget about getting into the car.
Free ATM, local quality produce, weekly meat ordering service, frozen foods, bread, croissants, hot savouries and pasties baked every day, DVD hire, stationery, groceries and beer, wine and spirits, not forgetting Cornish Curries.
What more do you want? Why not use its Christmas ordering service and save yourself a lot of hassle - pick up a leaflet.
Laura prepares the most wonderful Cornish Christmas hampers, fruit baskets and wicker gift baskets, and flowers, too.
Happy Christmas to Laura and Joe, who are always there when we need them.

Cornish Historic Churches Trust

This splendid, but little known organisation has just offered a much-needed grant of £5000 to the St Mabyn Restoration Appeal and this seems a good opportunity to bring its activities to a wider notice. It raises money in a variety of ways, The Bike Ride being a very well-known one and has a Friends organisation - The Friends of Cornish Churches. The Membership Secretary is Mr Geoffrey Holborrow, Ladock House, Ladock, Truro TR2 4PL and he has passed some membership forms to me for anyone who cares to join. The Friends organise some lovely events - a summer lunch somewhere with a glorious garden and a winter drinks party are two - to keep the fun in fund-raising! Individual membership costs £10 per year, £15 for a couple or £150 for Life membership.These are modest sums and of course tax payers can boost it by Gift Aid. If you'd like to know more or be sent a form please contact me on 850651.

St Mabyn Church Restoration Appeal

We are reaching the end of Phase One and thanks to incredible support and the promise of grants from the Church's Special Repairs Fund and also from the Friends we will be able to show English Heritage that we WILL be able to pay our share of the bills for Phase Two, so we will be permitted to go ahead and scaffolding will go up next year! Fund-raising will have to continue as we need to raise all the money - otherwise the accounts of the Special Repairs Fund and the Friends will be cleaned out and future maintenance both routine (the Friends remit) and extra special (the PCC's emit) will be impossible. Work is needed on both the tower and its pinnacles and also the great East window (the Hext memorial window) will need attention, so the Show goes on!!

We have a Coffee Morning by kind invitation of Esther Old on Friday 25 January, at Estmond, Station Road, 10am - 12noon and yet again the Slates will be there. They are filling up fast as we record the generosity of the donors so far. It has been encouraging to hear that so many people, whilst not being regular church-goers now still want the building there as part of our built heritage and also for the benefit of future loved one, for baptisms, marriages and funerals. We have received some generous donations from families represented in all three categories.

Next summer we intend to continue the successful programme of Summer Music with a monthly concert in this wonderful venue - all the musicians who perform there praise the acoustics. Jennifer Tarring, our Appeal Hon Sec and former Secretary to the Wadebridge Music Festival will coordinate this and details and dates are still being worked out though we know we kick off with Duchy Opera in May.

Date for the Diary is Friday 29 February when we welcome our Patron, Bishop Bill before he retires and it will be good to report that our project is succeeding.
Abigail Kirby-Harris

More Mistletoe fair photos...

photos taken by Peter Barrett

Mistletoe Fair

Mistletoe Mayor Nathan and Mistletoe Mayoress Callie with Village Crier Tony.

Mistletoe fair

The village hall mistletoe fair, on December 8th, will be opened at 1.30pm by the mistletoe mayor and mayoress, together with the village crier. Mistletoe and holly will be on sale. There will be a good variety of stalls, a raffle and a tombola. Tea and coffee will also be available. If you remember last year, the choice was varied to purchase Christmas presents including fare for the Christmas table. Welcome to all - we look forward to seeing you. The school playground will be available for parking. If you are able to give a hand on the day, especially with setting up the event from 10am, you will be most welcome. Any gifts, cakes, mince pies, biscuits, preserves etc. for sale at the fair can be brought along to the coffee morning or on Saturday morning.

St Mabyn Young Farmers' Diary

Friday December 7th, line dancing at St Mabyn, followed by a business meeting - details from secretary Emma Braunton 07876 708077.

Friday December 14th carol singing. Meet St Mabyn Bus shelter 7pm.

St Mabyn School

December 17th 6.30pm, carol singing in the playground at St Mabyn school

December 18th and 19th the school Christmas play will take place.

Coffee morning

Friday December 7th, village coffee morning, 10.30am to 11.30am. The place was buzzing last time with 28 people attending. We look forward to seeing you on Friday. Coffee/tea and biscuits £1pp. All funds raised are in aid of the upkeep of the hall.

Village hall diary

The village hall Christmas decorations are up and look just great. Many thanks to Mike and Sue. The Christmas tree will arrive today and will be decorated by the pre-school children. It is hoped that with even more Christmas lights the village will look very colourful this year.

Friday December 7th - YFC social.

Monday December 10th - Salsa, 7pm to 9.30pm/beginners 7pm.

Thursday December 13th - Yoga classes 7.30pm to 9pm.

St Mabyn Pre-School celebrates

The new Chairman of St Mabyn Pre-school, Gillian Molesworth-St Aubyn invited all the parents of the current children, and as many as possible of those who had been involved previously to a party in St Mabyn Village Hall to celebrate the granting of £5000 from Lloyds TSB. This is to pay for much needed admin support and expert advice with updating policies, making the most of the grant monies and also marketing. Jenny Ahern, from the North Cornwall Pre School Learning Alliance helped with this application and can now be retained for further help and support. Gillian said "This is a really wonderful boost as it means Angela Brown, our hard-working Supervisor will be able to spend more time and energy on what really counts - the children!" Founder Chairman of the then St Mabyn Playgroup, Mrs Abigail Kirby-Harris said "It is marvelous to know that the Pre-School is still flourishing, and what a tribute to all those founder members, and their successors who have all worked so hard over the years. Times have changed a good deal and there is now an enormous amount of paperwork, and many more regulations than in our day so this grant will help by giving them a real boost"
Gillian hopes before too long to restart the Toddler Group too.

Photo left to right, Abigail Kirby-Harris, founder Chairman, Gillian Molesworth-St Aubyn present Chairman and Angela Brown, Supervisor.

Lioness Latest!

Check out lioness on Radio 1 tonight!!
They are unsigned artist of the week on Daniel P. Carters rock show!
The show begins at Midnight (which makes it Tuesday morning) on December 3rd.
photo by Marianne Harris

St Mabyn Christmas Party

This enjoyable annual event will be held on Friday 7th December at Many Views, home of John and Anthea Lobb, at 7.30pm, with entertainment, delicious savoury supper and very good company! Tickets cost £7.50, available from 01208-841581, and this year all proceeds go to the Restoration Appeal.

Church Roof Appeal

Pat and Richard Danielson have donated £2500 to the Appeal, in memory of Pat's parents, Gweneth and Donald Hoskin, and Gweneth's parents, Mr and Mrs Hughes. Both couples in turn kept the St Mabyn Stores and Post Office, for a total unbroken 60 years and all four are buried in the Churchyard. Pat Danielson, and her two brothers Christopher and Jeremy Hoskins (who both still live in the Bodmin area) were all baptised there as were the Danielsons' two sons in their turn. Pat was written to as part of the letter-writing campaign to all Brides who had been married there - and also to all the babies who had been baptised there. Richard and Pat felt that their contribution was a proper reflection of the part the Church had played in all their lives but in fact it isn't their only donation. Some years ago, shortly after the acquisition of an extension to the graveyard (now in the care of the Parish Council) they paid for a brick path to be laid and a sturdy wooden seat, made by local craftsman Tony Dickinson, installed also in memory of Pat's parents and grandparents.

Pat is just one of the Brides to whom we have written and as our deadline grows ever closer we do hope that some of the others will decide to help us too; the Cornish Guardian is keen to publicise any events which are held in aid of the fund-raising, and take pictures! though so far the Brides have simply (and very kindly) sent us a cheque and a Gift Aid form, making £100 actually worth £128 for the Appeal..