The church, with the church town and the rectory, are placed in a commanding situation, and being surrounded by trees, make one of the most pleasing objects in the Mount’s Bay. The house has been entirely rebuilt by the late rector Mr. John Stephens. The tower is one of the most correct in its proportions and in its ornaments of any in the west of Cornwall. About the year 1761, a pinnacle was thrown down by lightning, and the effect was then universally imputed to the vengeance of a perturbed spirit exorcised from Treassow, and passing eastward towards the usual place of banishment in the Red Sea.
A more ancient legend is also connected with this church. After St. Ludgvan, an Irish missionary, if such a one ever existed, had constructed the fabric, he brought a stream of water under the church stile, with the intention of bestowing on the water various miraculous powers; among others, that of enabling every infant sprinkled with it at the baptismal font, instantly to acquire the power of making all the responses in distinct words, and probably in the Latin tongue; but, being interrupted by some unhallowed interference, his general purposes were defeated, so that one alone of the many intended qualities could by possibility be conferred; a qaality very different from the former, but so much esteemed by some descriptions of persons, that, within times of memory, children are reported to have been brought there for baptism, to acquire the protection afforded by this consecrated stream, which, after washing away the stain of original sin, does not indeed effectually guard the infant against committing crimes of his own, but against ever expiating them through the medium of an hempen cord; and experience is said to have proved that the charm does not extend to one of silk.
But the church of Ludgvan is not driven to seek renown from ancient missionaries or from legendary saints: during fifty years of the eighteenth century, it had for its rector Dr. William Borlase, a man of whom Cornwall will ever have reason to be proud.
At a time when the very names of natural science were scarcely heard among us, and when our mining and metallurgic processes were matters merely empiric, Dr. Borlase kindled the first spark of light, and fanned it by long-continued and able exertions, guided by a correspondence with persons the most distinguished on the continent of Europe, as well as at home, with the great Linnæus, and with Boerhaave, in some departments superior even to Linnæus himself. When no communications were maintained by the rapid circulation of periodical journals, antiquities, as connected with classical acquirements, had proceeded much further than the sciences dependent on mathematics and on natural philosophy. Dr. Borlase, in a most learned work, essayed to trace the learning, the mythology, and the civil institutions of the Celtic people, the earliest inhabitants of Britain, and especially of their priests the Druids; and with such success, that it established his high reputation for learning, for extensive research, and for discriminating judgment, throughout the literary world, where the subject, from its general nature, excited universal attention. For this work the degree of Doctor in Civil Law by diploma was conferred on him by the University of Oxford; an honour bestowed with so much discrimination and regard to its high value, that the next instance occurs in the case of Dr. Johnson, about ten years afterwards.