St. Bartholomew's Church, Warleggan
The isolated Cornish village of Warleggan, which lent its name to the eponymous villain of the Poldark series, was briefly famous in the 1950s following the incumbency of Rev. F W Densham.
Rev Densham drove his parishioners away with his unique style
and within a year was preaching to an empty church on a weekly
basis, immortalised by his own notes in the register "no fog, no
wind, no rain, no congregation".
Undeterred, he allegedly used cardboard cut-outs of people with
the names of former vicars on them to "flesh" out the
congregation.
It is said that the vicar's ghost still haunts the vicarage
where he died...
Nowadays, the church is much better attended and the village has
been twinned with Narnia, in celebration of its isolation and
otherworldly atmosphere.
The church tower was in a very poor state when the church
applied to Viridor Credits to help make it water-tight and renovate
the interior, which resembled a lush jungle rather than a church
tower. The tower was repointed and the flora removed, resulting in
an impressive transformation.
I wonder what Rev Densham would have thought of it?