The Church
The church of St Moran, Lamorran is a small, stone, cruciform church lying in an idyllic remote wooded location, within the Tregothnan estate beside a creek of the river Fal. The location is within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and the church is listed Grade II*.
Within the churchyard is a detached belfry, one of only four in Cornwall, also listed Grade II*, and the shaft of a Grade II listed medieval cross which is scheduled as an Ancient Monument.
The church dates originally from the 13th century but was partly rebuilt in the 1840s for the Earl of Dartmouth. It was further restored in 1854 under the supervision of the architect William White who was an original and inventive church architect with strong Cornish connections.
White re-roofed the building, added a north transept, ‘improved’ some of the window tracery and refitted the interior.
As well as White’s furnishings, the interior contains a vigorously carved Norman font and a large and elaborate mid-seventeenth century slate monument to John Verman. The Verman monument is one of the finest incised stone monuments in England. Conservation has revealed its original colours.
Lamorran graveyard abounds with mature camellias and is carpeted with primroses. Some eminent gardeners rest there.
Our Work
The church hosts a colony of brown long-eared bats and was closed in 2014, partly because of the difficulty of cleaning the heavy accumulation of droppings. Extensive spotting is visible on all the timber fittings and on the flagstone and tile floors.
A suite of bat surveys, including Light Touch Survey (LTS) and nocturnal surveys, carried out in 2019, also recorded non-breeding day roosts for small numbers of common pipistrelle and soprano pipistrelle bats. There is also evidence of greater horseshoe and possibly lesser horseshoe using the porch as a night roost.
The project worked with the church community, ecologist and church architect to separate the church community from the impacts of the bats with the aim of re-opening the church.
Ambitious mitigation is now complete: two transept voids have been constructed, with new access for the bats, and the ceiling sealed from the interior with Glasroc. The church looks fabulous and is now very light - and bat-proof. Conservation of the important Verman monument took place in 2023, and the church reopened in January 2023 with cleaned and conserved furniture and fittings. Monthly services are now held and a Friends' group has been created.
Lamorran case study
Lamorran longer case study
Lamorran factsheet
Lamorran bat management plan
Final bat report Lamorran
Upcoming events
If you’d like to contact or find out more about the church, visit their page on A Church Near You