St. Mawgan, Newquay,
TR8 4ER
Web: www.friendsoflanherne.org
Ancient Cornish Manor House
Lanherne is an historic manor in the parish of St. Mawgan in Pydar. The village of St. Mawgan is situated four miles north-east of Newquay. It was the family home of the prominent Arundell family. The surviving manor house known as Lanherne House is an early 16th-century grade I listed building. The manor of Lanherne was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086. It was held by Fulchard from the Bishop of Exeter.
Sir John Arundell VII (1421–1473) of Lanherne in the parish of St. Mawgan in Pydar was Sheriff of Cornwall and Admiral of Cornwall, and served as a general for King Henry VI in his French wars. He became the largest free tenant in Cornwall.
The Arundell family "of Lanherne" have been the chief landowners in St. Mawgan since the 13th century. It was a branch of the prominent and widespread Arundell family also seated at Trerice, Tolverne, Menadarva in Cornwall and at Wardour Castle in Wiltshire. In 1794 Lanherne House, mainly built in the 16th and 17th centuries, became a convent for émigré nuns from Belgium. Many memorials of the Arundells survive in the parish churches of St. Mawgan, dedicated to St. Mauganus and St. Nicholas, including monumental brasses to George Arundell (1573), Mary Arundell (1578), Cyssel and Jane Arundell (ca.1580), Edward Arundell (c.1586). Further memorials of the Arundells survive in the parish church of nearby St. Columb Major.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon's illustrative poem, St. Mawgan Church and Lanhern Nunnery, is directed at the Manor House's period as a nunnery.
The property is in private ownership and not open to the public.
About four miles north-east of Newquay.
Newquay St. Columb Major Mawgan Porth Trewan Hall