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29th January 1953

Rev Frederick Densham was born in 1870 and was Rector of St Barthelews church in Warleggan, a tiny village on Bodmin Moor.

Until a road was built linking it to the A38 in 1953 it was one of the most isolated villages on the Moor. With a tiny population of just 168 in 1931 which is the year Rev Densham came to be Rector.

The village was insular, a farming community and very set in its traditional ways so Rev Densham’s lack of rural understanding and impulsive behaviour such as closing the Sunday School and ending the daily Mass services, meant the parishioners voted with their feet and often Frederick would be preaching to pews full of name cards of his long dead predecessors but no actual people.

At one point the Parish Church Council tried to get him sacked. However he kept meticulous records of all his sermons which satisfied the diocesan requirements so they refused to sack him.

He was painted as evil and that he had driven the parishioners away with his outlandish ways. He may well have been ahead of the times, however he didn’t help himself with his strict beliefs and ignoring the Church Council. He did build a children’s playground in the Rectory garden (though it was never used), he visited anyone who was ill taking them flowers from his garden and praying for them.

He wanted to rip out the organ (a remembrance for those who died in WWI) and replace it with a piano. He painted the church in bright colours. In a farming community him being a vegetarian probably didn’t go down well either.

He was ecumenically minded and preached at the local Methodist chapels, he banned the annual pigeon and rook shoot, banned the whist drive and disagreed with most entertainment such as reading a novel, visiting the cinema, or a drink down the pub (as they weren’t mentioned in the Bible) and kept a pack of dogs.

His lack of understanding of rural life was apparent as the dogs would escape and worry the sheep, which really annoyed the farmers in the community. To solve this he built a fence of barbed wire all around the three acre Rectory gardens and installed a high gate also of barbed wire, which made the Rectory seem more like a prison.

As the years rolled on he became more reclusive and the Rectory garden became over grown and the path to the door almost impassable.

Although his parishioners avoided his services in life he put it “They all come to me in the end. I conduct all their funerals”.

He was eccentric, he was quirky, he was strict and austere, and his life before Warleggan is shrouded in mystery. The only account of his 22 years at the village is in the diocesan records and the recollection of the villagers.

Frederick died on 29th January, 1953. His body lay undisturbed for two days until the lack of chimney smoke was noticed and the police were called. He knew he was dying and had left piles of apples, labelled, on the kitchen table to give to those who were ill in the village. His brother came and destroyed all the personal papers and records he had kept. The church was white washed and the Rectory was sold off.

Many books and two films have been made about his life, Sir John Gielgud  played him in the 1973 television film ‘Deliver Us from Evil’ and, then, the later 2009 film ‘A Congregation of Ghosts’ starred Edward Woodward in the lead role.

The myths and legends that have circulated the life of Frederick Densham have lead to rumours of ghosts and dark carrying-ons. I don’t think Rector Densham was an evil man just one who was a square peg in a round hole, he didn’t fit the village and isolated rural life, and his congregation didn’t fit him. Sad he was left so isolated for so many years, no duty of care from the Church of England back then.

In 2009 when the church was being renovated by the Church Conservation Trust, part of the original bright paint was found and there is now a square portion of a wall that will forever be Rev Frederick Denshams.

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References:

Warleggan News – blog

The Strange Story of Reverend Densham article

Atlas Obscura article

Kowethas Ertach Kernow article about Warleggan village