Cardinham



Cardinham (the spelling 'Cardynham' is almost obsolete) is a civil parish and a village in central Cornwall, United Kingdom. The village is situated approximately three-and-a-half miles (6km), east-northeast of Bodmin.

Large areas which were once deciduous woodland are now plantations of conifers known as Cardinham Woods and managed by the Forestry Commission. Edmund John Glynn, of Glynn in the parish, rebuilt the house at Glynn in 1805 (it has a front of nine bays and a portico). Cassie Patten, the British Olympic swimmer, was born at Cardinham.

Early history
Richard Fitz Turold (Thorold) was an Anglo-Norman landowner of the eleventh century, mentioned in the Domesday Survey. He had a castle at Cardinham, where he was a major tenant and steward of Robert of Mortain. The holding included the manor of Penhallam. His son was William Fitz Richard of Cardinham. Restormel Castle belonged to the Cardinhams in the 12th century, until Andrew de Cardinham's daughter married Thomas de Tracey. Cardinham Castle remained in the family (succeeded by the Dinhams) until the 14th century and later became a ruin. The manor of Cardinham is one of the few where the custom of Free Bench is recorded: by this a widow could retain tenure of the land until she remarried.

Parish church
The parish church is dedicated to St Meubred: it has north and south aisles and a tower of granite. The chancel suffered bomb damage in World War II. Two freestanding Celtic crosses of stone, bearing inscriptions in Latin have been found in Cardinham; both had been embedded in the walls of the fifteenth-century church and were moved after their discovery to the churchyard. One has been dated to the fifth to eighth centuries, the other to the tenth or eleventh centuries: Langdon (1896) also records five other stone crosses in the parish. In the church is the brass of Thomas Awmarle, rector of Cardinham, d. 1401?