Church of St Mary and St Julian, Maker

St Mary's and St Julian's Church stands in a commanding position on the heights of Maker, on the Rame peninsula in the far south-east corner of Cornwall — the "forgotten corner" of the county, overlooking Plymouth Sound and the sea. A Church of England parish church dating mainly from the fifteenth century and listed at Grade I, it is a landmark of great prominence, so conspicuous on its hilltop that for centuries it has served as a mark for navigators, and its tower was used as an Admiralty signal station during the eighteenth century and the Napoleonic Wars. With its sweeping views over the Sound and its long history bound up with the great estate of Mount Edgcumbe, St Mary and St Julian's is one of the most beautifully situated churches in Cornwall.

There has been a church at Maker since at least the twelfth century, when one was granted to Plympton Priory in Devon, but the present building dates substantially from the fifteenth century, with the nave and chancel possibly of an earlier date. Built of local red sandstone with dressings of granite in the Perpendicular Gothic style, it consists of a nave with north and south aisles, a chancel, a north transept housing the vestry and organ chamber, a south porch, and a three-stage west tower. That tower, rising high above the peninsula, was for generations more than a bell-tower: its commanding view over Plymouth Sound and the approaches to one of the nation's greatest naval bases made it a vital lookout, and during the wars against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France it served as an Admiralty signal station, relaying messages to and from the fleet — a reminder that this quiet country church stood on the front line of Britain's maritime defence.

By the middle of the nineteenth century much of the church had fallen into decay, its windows, pews, chancel fittings, roof and flooring all in need of repair. When the Reverend F. T. Wintle became vicar in 1866 he began raising funds for a thorough restoration, a working committee was formed, and the London architect James Piers St Aubyn — a prolific restorer of West Country churches — was engaged, with Philip Blowey of Buckland Monachorum carrying out the work at a cost of around £1,662. The whole church was re-roofed and extensively renovated: it was reseated in pitch pine, the chancel refitted in wainscot, and the floor relaid with encaustic tiles from Webb of Worcester. The galleries were removed and, to make up the lost space, a new south aisle was created, its arches built of granite from Bere Alston; this became known as the Edgcumbe Chapel, after the family whose seat lay below the church. During the work an ancient fireplace was discovered, and its flue was ingeniously used for the new heating apparatus. The Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, one of the principal benefactors of the restoration along with Lord Clinton, commissioned a memorial window from the London glass-makers Lavers and Barraud in memory of members of his family.

The restored church was reopened on 18 June 1874 in the presence of Frederick Temple, Bishop of Exeter and later Archbishop of Canterbury, together with the Earl and his family. The following year the church's harmonium was replaced by an organ built by Hele & Co of Plymouth, installed in the north transept. As the population of the area grew, the parish established chapels of ease to serve outlying communities: one at Cremyll in 1867 and a second, St Paul's, to serve the village of Kingsand in 1882. The church also preserves treasures of great antiquity, including a twelfth-century font of the "Bodmin" type — brought here from the church of St Merryn — a sundial above the entrance dated 1768, and a medieval holy-water stoup in the porch that was discovered in the churchyard.

For all its naval and aristocratic associations, St Mary and St Julian's remains a working country church, serving the combined parish of Maker-with-Rame on its beautiful peninsula. Its hilltop churchyard offers some of the finest views in Cornwall, looking out over Plymouth Sound, the breakwater, the dockyard and the open Channel beyond — a setting that has made the church beloved of visitors as well as parishioners.

The church stands on the Rame peninsula, in the very south-east corner of Cornwall, just across the water from the great naval city of Plymouth, to which it is linked by the Cremyll ferry. Immediately below lies the magnificent Mount Edgcumbe Country Park, the historic seat of the Earls of Mount Edgcumbe, with its Tudor house, formal gardens and deer park sweeping down to the sea. The picturesque twin villages of Kingsand and Cawsand, the dramatic headland of Rame Head with its medieval clifftop chapel, the beaches of Whitsand Bay, and the South West Coast Path are all close at hand, in one of the least spoilt and most beautiful corners of Cornwall.

From a church granted to Plympton Priory in the twelfth century, through its fifteenth-century rebuilding in red sandstone, its long service as a naval signal station in the age of Nelson, and its Victorian restoration under the patronage of the Earls of Mount Edgcumbe, St Mary and St Julian's Church gathers centuries of Cornish and maritime history into one hilltop building. A Grade I listed church with commanding views over Plymouth Sound, it remains the living parish church of Maker-with-Rame — a landmark of the sea and a treasure of the forgotten corner of Cornwall.