Mount Hawke

Coordinates: 50°16′53″N 5°12′31″W / 50.2815°N 5.2085°W

Mount Hawke parish church.

Mount Hawke is a village in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated approximately eight miles (11 km) west-northwest of Truro, five miles (8 km) north-northeast of Redruth, and two and a half miles (4 km) south of St Agnes.^[1]

The village is in a former mining area in the administrative civil parish of St Agnes. It has a school, Mount Hawke Community Primary School,^[2] a post office and various shops. The settlements bordering Mount Hawke are Banns (northwest) and Menagissey (south); Porthtowan is further away westward.^[3]

An electoral ward termed Mount Hawke and Portreath exists. The population at the 2011 census was 4,401.^[4]

Churches

Mount Hawke ecclesiastical parish was created in 1847 from part of the parish of Perranzabuloe and a smaller part of the parish of Illogan.^[5] Before this date, Mount Hawke was enumerated under St Agnes. The parish has been in the Hundred of Powder and the Truro Registration District since its creation.^[6] It is in the rural deanery of Powder and the archdeaconry of Cornwall.^[7] The parish church is on the south edge of the village and is dedicated to St John the Baptist. It is built of local stone with Bath stone dressings in the Perpendicular style and was consecrated on 5 August 1878 by the Bishop of Truro, Edward Benson.^[8][9]

Mount Hawke also has an active Methodist chapel.^[10]

Recreation

Mount Hawke is the location of Cornwall's largest indoor skatepark.^[11] There is also a cricket club which plays in the Cornwall League. The village has a park called the 'Millennium Green' with a jungle gym, a slide and swings. 'The Mount Hawke Boys' is a private club for young people. Mount Hawke also has its own Women's Institute building and a playschool held in the Methodist church.

Railway

When the first section of the Truro and Newquay Railway was opened in 1903, it passed east of the village. In 1905, extra stations were provided along the line as halts. Mount Hawke Halt railway station was the first such halt for eastbound trains 1⁵⁄₈ miles from the junction with the main line west of Chacewater.^[12] The halt was nearly a mile from the village on the road to Chiverton Cross. The line closed in February 1963, the first Cornish railway to close under the Beeching axe.^[13]

Notable residents

British singer-songwriter Alex Parks, winner of the television show Fame Academy in 2003, was brought up in Mount Hawke. Legendary local cricketer Richard Chynoweth was also born here.^[14]

References

1. Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 203 Land's End ISBN 978-0-319-23148-7
2. Main. Mount Hawke School. Retrieved April 2010.
3. Philip's Street Atlas; Cornwall. London: Philip's, 2003; p. 68
4. "Mount Hawke and Portreath electoral ward 2011 census.Retrieved 10 Feb 2010".
5. N.B. St Agnes was in the hundred of Pydar and Illogan was in the hundred of Penwith.
6. Mount Hawke. GENUKI. Retrieved April 2010.
7. Jago, W. (1925) "An Ecclesiastical Map of Cornwall and parts of Devon together forming the Diocese of Truro, 1877", in: Cornish Church Guide. Truro: Blackford
8. St John the Baptist, Mount Hawke. A Church Near You. Retrieved April 2009.
9. "Consecration of Mount Hawks Church". The Cornishman (4). 8 August 1878.
10. Church History. Mount Hawke. GENUKI. Retrieved 23 September 2012. Also see: Mount Hawke Parish Church.
11. Mount Hawke.
12. John Vaughan, The Newquay Branch, Oxford Publishing, 1991, ISBN 0-86093-470-5
13. Lewis Reade, Branch Line Memories Volume One, Atlantic Publishers, 1983, ISBN 0-906899-06-0
14. "Biography of Alex Parks." BBC. Retrieved April 2010.