Four Lanes

Coordinates: 50°12′08″N 5°14′18″W / 50.2022°N 5.2384°W / 50.2022; -5.2384

Four Lanes (Cornish: Peder Bownder) is a village in west Cornwall, England, United Kingdom approximately three miles (5 kilometres) south of Redruth at grid reference SW 689 386 in the civil parish of Carn Brea.

Pencoys is a smaller settlement which adjoins Four Lanes immediately to the south.

Four Lanes and Pencoys are on the upland plateau of the Carnmenellis granite batholith. Four Lanes village centre is 220 metres (720 feet) above sea level.

The village is centred on The Square which is at a crossroads where the north-to-south B3297 Redruth-Helston road is intersected by unclassified lanes to Stithians (south-east) and Carnkie (north-west).

History

Four Lanes is the main settlement in the ecclesiastical parish of Pencoys (the parish was established in 1881). In earlier times the area was part of the parish of Wendron and the name Pencoys means the end of the wood. The granite-built parish church, St Andrew's, dates from 1881 and the parish war memorial is the church's lych gate (built in 1921) which features commemorative plaques in the gateway. Maria Charlotte Broadley, the wife of the Vicar of Carnmenellis, wished to provide a church for the outlying hamlet of Four Lanes but her husband died and she moved elsewhere. In the late 1870s she returned and ensured that a building used for occasional services which had become dilapidated was repaired. However she still wished to provide a proper church, made appeals for funds and in 1881 the church was built at a cost of £1,250. Mrs. Broadley had given £1,050 of this and also the cost of many of the fittings and the east window. She is commemorated by a plaque in Pencoys church placed there in 1977 as part of the celebrations of the centenary of the Diocese of Truro.