Landreath Gardens sits among a number of streets just to the south and west of the Manadon Roundabout that take their names from places in Cornwall, among them – Tintagel, Boscastle, Duloe, Anthony and Kynance. All of them well-known Cornish locations and easy to find on the map, but try looking for Landreath and you might struggle, unless you just happen to have a Tudor gazetteer to hand.
Up until the sixteenth century St Blazey was most commonly known by its ancient Cornish name Ladrait or Landrayth. Quite literally the name means ‘the church site on the strand’ (or estuary and the same ‘strand’ that Tywardreath – the house on the strand – refers to).
That church on the strand (which is now silted up and built upon and the strand,at Par Beach, is over a mile away) was dedicated to St Blazey – Sanctus Blasius – an Armenian martyr who, it is thought, lived in the fourth century, and in honour of his being tortured with wool-combs was adopted as the patron saint of wool-combers. After the reformation however many old Cornish names were Anglicised and Landreath was renamed after its patron saint.
In more recent years a new estate has revived the name in St Blazey, while here in Plymouth we have our own reminder of it.
