St Agnes is a village on the north coast about five miles from Redruth, standing above the coves that its mines once worked. In Kernewek it is Breanek, a name that may come from bre, hill, and Anek, Agnes. The parish stretches wide: Blackwater, Mithian, Mount Hawke and Porthtowan all sit within it.
Mining country
Copper, tin and arsenic were worked in the parish until the 1920s, and the coast around the village still carries the engine houses and walled shafts of that trade. The Miners and Mechanics Institute was a gift to the village from John Passmore Edwards in 1893, and it still stands at its centre.
The church and the coast
The parish church began about 1482 as a chapel of ease, was restored in 1848, and had its spire rebuilt in 1905. The railway came in 1903 and left in 1963. Long before that, St Piran's round served as a plain-an-gwarry, a place for the old miracle plays, and it is still sometimes used as a theatre.
The heritage coast
St Agnes Heritage Coast has been protected since 1986, and the cliffs and heaths of the Godrevy Head to St Agnes SSSI run for hundreds of hectares above the sea.
Sources
Last checked: 2026-10-11