The Clay Country Piper: The piper serenading the Streets of St Austell from the top of the Church tower deserves mention although he or she predates the formation of the Clay Country as we know it today by several hundred years. We know little about the carving of the piper except that it presumably dates to the building of the church in 1500 making it one of the oldest depictions of bagpipes in Cornwall. Carvings of pipers further east can be identified with people and events but we have no way of knowing whether the St Austell piper was inspired by a local performer, someone further afield or indeed creativity on the part of the sculptor. Bagpipes were nevertheless very much part of the Cornish world in the 16^th century, they took part in the mystery plays and led processions such as the riding at Lostwithiel.[i]

The carving is quite detailed and shows the piper blowing into the bag with a drone over the shoulder and fingering double chanters. There are two further carvings of double chanters in Cornwall, at Altarnun and Davidstow churches. The detail on these three carving have inspired modern reconstructions of double chanter bagpipes, and which have become popularly known as “The Cornish Pipes” in the world of medieval bagpipe re-enactment. There are also carvings of creatures playing of pipes at nearby St Ewe and St Braddock but these are common medieval iconography.

We have no records of the tunes that our St Austell piper might have played but close by at Fowey the three man’s song “John Dory” was contemporaneously recorded and does lend itself well to a bagpipe arrangement.

 

[i] See Cornish Bagpipes Project