Rame Church

Rame Church

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The name meaning "The high protruding cliff, the ram's head" from which the hamlet and parish take their name.

981-King Aethelred founded Tavistock Abbey and his Uncle Earl Ordulf owner of vast estates in the West Country gave Rame to the abbey.

1259-The Church was first consecrated. The slender unbuttressed tower with a broached spire (an unusual feature in a Cornish Church), the north wall, north aisle and the chancel are all probably of this date, when the church was cruciform shape.

1397-The little chapel of St Michael on the summit of Rame Head was still licensed for mass It is probably a site of a much earlier Celtic hermitage.

Over the centuries the Manor passed down to the Dawneys, the Durnfords and finally the Edgcumbes.

1486-Plymouth was paying a watchman at Rame to maintain a beacon there to warn shipping and to bring news to Plymouth of important ships.

1543-The beacon at Rame is used to inform Plymouth of the return of the Newfoundland Fishing Fleet.