St. Enodoc Church and Graveyard

 church, Grade I Listed (UK)

This church is actually situated in Trebetherick near Polzeath but almost everyone thinks of it as just “St Enodoc”. It is a far from spectacular church architecturally but few churches are quite so charming.

St Enodoc is indelibly associated with the Poet Laureate, John Betjeman. Betjeman spent many childhood holidays in Trebetherick. He immortalised it in one of his best-loved poems and was also buried in the churchyard here after his death in 1984. Betjeman had a life-long love of the English parish church and wrote “Collins Guide to English Parish Churches” in 1958.

St Enodoc is quite some way from the road and to get to it you have to cross the fairways of the St Enodoc Golf Club. We visited on a fine day and, although not golfers ourselves, spent a dreamy half hour watching the ball-bashers below, listening to the bees, and looking out to delightful the Camel Estuary.

St Enodoc golf course is a “links” course and that gives you the clue that it is somewhat sandy around here! It is the stuff of legends - and entirely true - that in c19 the vicar had to be lowered every year through the roof of his sand-entombed church to hold a service and keep his church “open”!

The bulk of the church was built in 1430. it comprises a nave, a chancel, a short south aisle and a tower, the base of which forms a tiny transept.


However, some parts of the church clearly pre-date 1430, although strangely many accounts of the church overlook this. The crude round-topped tower arch and the tower’s deeply-splayed window are clearly Norman. There is also a Norman font. Simon Jenkins refers to the church’s “Victorianised Norman interior”. I think it is possible that the nave was indeed originally Norman, but I am far from convinced about the aisle and its arcade. This is a remote church and has no great claim to fame other than its Betjeman associations. We should not, perhaps, be too surprised if its architectural evolution is not well-documented. In any event, this is a church to enjoy rather than to study!