St Sithney's Church, Sithney, Cornwall

A cryptic message hinting at the site of St. Sithney’s grave in this quiet church offers a trail for modern-day pilgrims to follow‍

Highlights

• Shrine chapel and possible grave of St. Sithney
• Sculpture of the saint

St. Sithney’s relics are thought to lie in the north transept of this church, a narrow side chapel just wide enough for a small altar. St. Sithney came here as a missionary in the 5th or 6th century and was venerated in his church during the Middle Ages. As far as we know, his grave was undisturbed during the Reformation. Perhaps the small side-chapel was too modest to attract the attention of reformers, though it has a grand stone archway stretching across the wide entrance. There is no trace of a shrine, so if his grave still exists, it is buried under the floor.

The church guide quoted an unspecified legend that the saint was buried beneath “the blood-red stone.” The span of the arch certainly has red-tinged stonework. The chapel is a very narrow extension to the 15th-century building, perhaps a fragment from an older structure.

A modern wood carving of the saint is now positioned at the foot of the arch, and a prayer kneeler inside marks the presumed position of his relics. Restoration work in the main church in 2018 certainly uncovered several skeletal remains under the floor, indicating, at the very least, it was a popular place of burial.

There is a medieval statue of St. Sithney visible outside, on the southeast corner of the tower – the corner nearest the porch. It is just below the pinnacle, a worn stone image of a man with something in his hand, perhaps a staff or crook.

A slab of granite engraved with a cross is displayed near the chapel but is thought to be 9th century and originally from a priory in nearby Helston. The Life of St. Breage, a saint whose church is just one mile west of Sithney, records that Sinninus the Abbot came to Cornwall with St. Breage. The Life has since been lost, but a summary was made by the 16th-century antiquarian John Leland. If St. Sinninus and St. Sithney are the same person, it would explain why the statue on the tower is holding an abbot’s crook. A will dated 1420 calls him ‘St. Syddininus,’ which seems to record the transition from one spelling to another.

There are a few other fragments of documentary evidence about St. Sithney. The church guide does an excellent job recording them all, the first being a reference to an endowment made to the Church “of St. Sythyni” in 1230. William of Worcester, a generally reliable historian, visited Sithney in 1478 and saw the saint’s shrine here.

His saint’s day is celebrated by the church on 19 September. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints gives 4 August, presumably the date used in Brittany, where the saint is also venerated.

Incidentally, a Breton folk story records a highly suspect tale about St. Sithney. When told by God that he was to become the patron saint of girls, the saint begged to be spared from endless prayer requests for ‘husbands and fine clothes.’ Instead, he was given mad dogs to watch over and now hears prayers for protection against rabies – unlikely to keep him gainfully occupied these days.

Directions‍

St. Sithney’s Church, Sithney, Helston TR13 0RW

W3W: singled.grasp.triads

GPS: 50.1138N 5.3073W

The church is in the middle of the village, which is 1.5 miles west of Helston off the B3302. It was unlocked when I visited.