St Austell

St Austell (/ˈɒstəl/, /ˈɔː-/; Cornish: Sen Austel)^{[citation needed]} is a town and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, 10 miles (16 km) south of Bodmin and 30 miles (48 km) west of the border with Devon.

At the 2021 census the parish had a population of 20,985 and the built up area as defined by the Office for National Statistics had a population of 24,360.

St Austell is named after Austol, a 6th-century Cornish saint. A 10th-century manuscript at the Vatican includes a list of Cornish saints, which some authorities deduce is a list of Cornish parishes from around 900 AD, suggesting St Austell was already a parish by that time.

St Austell was a village centred around the parish church, until the arrival of significant tin mining in the 18th century turned it into a town.

St Austell is not mentioned in Domesday Book (1086). However, A. L. Rowse, in his book St. Austell: Church, Town, and Parish, cites records which show a church was dedicated on 9 October 1262 by Bishop Bronescombe, and other records show a church there in 1169, dedicated to "Sanctus Austolus". The current church dates from the 13th–14th centuries, and was extended in 1498–99. The join between the two sections is still visible.

In the time of Henry VIII, St Austell is described as a poor village. In John Leland's Itinerary he says, in around 1542, "At S. Austelles is nothing notable but the paroch chirch". Neither travel writer, John Norden (c. 1547 – 1625) or Richard Carew (1555–1620) in his Survey of Cornwall mentioned St Austell as a place of any consequence. Oliver Cromwell granted a charter to hold a market on Friday, as a reward to a local gentleman who fought for him at the battle of Boconnoc.

The village started to grow in the 18th century. The nearby Polgooth mine became known as the greatest tin mine in the world. Around 1760 the Land's End to Plymouth road went through the town. Along with William Cookworthy's discovery of china clay at Tregonning Hill in west Cornwall, and the same mineral, found in greater quantity in Hensbarrow downs north of St Austell, the town became more prominent.

China clay mining soon took over from tin and copper mining as the principal industry in the area, and this eventually contributed enormously to the growth of the town. The china clay industry really only came into its own during the mid-19th to early 20th centuries, at a time when the falling prices of tin and other metals forced many mines to close down or convert to clay mining. The success and high profitability of the industry attracted many families whose breadwinner had been put out of work by the depression in the local metal mining industry, and increased the population of the town considerably. This meant that more shops and businesses took root, providing more jobs and improving trade. This, along with other factors, led to St Austell becoming one of the ten most important commercial centres of Cornwall.