22nd March 2009
Later home of the father of St Petrock
A chapel was built here in around 600AD
St Clement's Isle
Mousehole
St Clement's Isle is noted in Lysons 1814
'unquestionably there was a chapel dedicated to St Clement on a little island opposite Mousehole, which still bears that name'.
I read in the Vita Petroci and
Rev Lach-Szyrma confirms, of St Petroc being the son of a Christian king of a part of Cornwall,
he was named Clemens or Clement,
and he had lived on the island
after his son had decided to dedicate his life to Christ, rather than continuing as a king of the area.
The Bonedd y Saint tells of his father being Clement a Cornish prince.
Petroc, according to John of Tinmouth and Suasius, was born c600 AD.
St Petroc had moved from this area to Bodmin and settled in Padstow,
then went to Rome and Jerusalem and beyond, returning to Padstow.
Petroc died at Treravel. John Leland writes in 1538 or so ... after declaring that Penzance had a little pier, and Newlyn had a pier ...
Mousehole: There is a pier. Mousehole was Porth Enis (portus insulae)
on a bay from Mousehole to Newlyn called Gnaverslak,
a little beyond Mousehole an islet and a chapel of St Clements in it;
[he adds there was found of late years since, spear heads, war axes and swords of copper wrapped up in linen].
Many 'saints' were solitary hermits or holy men.
There is some difference in the opinions of researchers,
but Rev John Adams considers that Petroc did indeed go to Ireland to the school at Clonard for nearly twenty years.
Raymond Forward
