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In Brief

Next Service:

24th March at 10:30 am.

Holy Communion
(Palm Sunday )

The next village event will be A Talk on Landkey Hedgehogs on 26th March 2024 at 7:30 PM in Landkey Village Hall

Diocesan Magazine

Click here to visit the Exeter Diocese website

A link to the magazine is available on the Home page.

Safeguarding

View our Safeguarding policy

Diocese of Exeter Safeguarding contacts

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Our Mothering Sunday service on 10th March 2024 was ably led by Anne Foster, who is pictured here on the left with Revd Cathy Scoffield and Church warden, Hazel Price. Image courtesy of Charles Waldron 10th March 2024.
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Revd John Ewington led our very enjoyable Candlemas service on 28th January 2024. Image courtesy of Charles Waldron 28th January 2024.
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In Brief

Next Service:

24th March at 10:30 am.

Holy Communion
(Palm Sunday )

The next village event will be A Talk on Landkey Hedgehogs on 26th March 2024 at 7:30 PM in Landkey Village Hall

Diocesan Magazine

Click here to visit the Exeter Diocese website

A link to the magazine is available on the Home page.

Safeguarding

View our Safeguarding policy

Diocese of Exeter Safeguarding contacts

Recent Images Highslide JS
Our Mothering Sunday service on 10th March 2024 was ably led by Anne Foster, who is pictured here on the left with Revd Cathy Scoffield and Church warden, Hazel Price. Image courtesy of Charles Waldron 10th March 2024.
Highslide JS

Revd John Ewington led our very enjoyable Candlemas service on 28th January 2024. Image courtesy of Charles Waldron 28th January 2024.
More Images
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Church History

Saint Kea established the first church in Landkey as long ago as the fifth century AD. The present-day structure stands on the site of the original building and contains some fascinating features, including three rare stone effigies.

Saint Kea's First Church

St Kea was a Celtic monk who spent a part of his life in the great abbey at Glastonbury. While there, he evidently felt called to proclaim the Christian Gospel and eventually gave up his sedentary lifestyle in order to embark upon a period of missionary travelling. Recent research has revealed that St Kea was present in the area that we now know as Landkey sometime between 450 and 490 AD.

The enclosure within which the church was built was referred to as a "lan" in the Celtic language of the time and it is from this ancient site, or "lan-de-Kea" that Landkey derives its name

After establishing his church in Landkey, St Kea went on to found other churches in Cornwall and north western France. He died in Cleder in Brittany in 495 AD.

The Present-Day Church

The present-day church stands within St Kea's ancient enclosure. The banks surrounding the churchyard provide the only clue to the existence of the original church as the first structure would have long since been lost to the ravages of time.

It is known that second church was built on the same site several centuries after the first. The evidence for this comes from a mention of a church in Landkey in the foundation documents of the Deanery of Exeter in 1225. None of that building survives apart from the font and three stone effigies. These were of members of the Beaupel family and more on these can be read on our Beaupel Effigies page.

A third church was erected, again on the same site, sometime in the second half of the fifteenth century. It is that that building which stands to this day. The chancel was restructured in 1870 but, apart from that, the church has remained largely unaltered since it was built.

If you would like to discover more about the history of St Paul's, you may like to visit the "Explore North Devon" website. This site contains contributions on local history from many communities in North Devon and the Landkey section includes photographs dating back to the late 1900s. A link to this site is included on our "Useful Links" page.

Please feel free to browse through our collection of pictures below. By clicking on each one, you will be able to view an enlarged image.


Our Church in Pictures - New and Old

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A modern picture of St Paul's, viewed from the south.
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This tranquil scene, which is reminiscent of the modern-day image, was probably taken around 1900.
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A recent view of the nave.
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The nave in the mid 20th century.
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St Paul's Church viewed from along the front of the nearby Ring O'Bells pub.
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The same view, possibly at the beginning of the 20th century.
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St Paul's, viewed recently from the west.
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The same view in the early 1900s.