Liskeard
Liskeard is an ancient stannary and market town and civil parish in south-east Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated approximately 20 miles west of Plymouth, west of the Devon border, and 12 miles east of Bodmin. The Bodmin Moor lies to the north-west of the town. At the 2021 census the population of the parish of 10,902.
History
The Cornish place name element Lis, along with ancient privileges accorded the town, indicates that the settlement was once a high status 'court'. King Dungarth whose cross is a few miles north near St Cleer is thought to be a descendant of the early 8th century king Gerren of Dumnonia and is said to have held his court in Liskeard. Liskeard was at the time of the Domesday Survey an important manor with a mill rendering 12d. yearly and a market rendering 4s. William the Conqueror gave it to Robert, Count of Mortain by whom it was held in demesne. Ever since that time it has passed with the earldom or Duchy of Cornwall. A Norman castle was built there after the Conquest, which eventually fell into disuse in the later Middle Ages. By 1538 when visited by John Leland only a few insignificant remains were to be seen. Sir Richard Carew writing in 1602 concurred;Historically, Liskeard belonged to the ancient hundred of West Wivelshire
Liskeard was one of the 17 Antiqua maneria of the Duchy of Cornwall. The market charter was granted by Richard, Earl of Cornwall in 1240. Since then, it has been an important centre for agriculture. The seal of the borough of Liskeard was Ar. a fleur-de-lis and perched thereon and respecting each other two birds in chief two annulets and in flank two feathers.
Liskeard was connected to the electric telegraph network in 1863 when the Electric and International Telegraph Company opened stations at Truro, Redruth, Penzance, Camborne, Liskard and St Austell.
When Wilkie Collins wrote of his visit to the town in his Rambles Beyond Railways he had a low opinion of it: "that abomination of desolation, a large agricultural country town". The town went through a period of economic prosperity during the pre-20th century boom in tin mining, becoming a key centre in the industry as a location for a stannary and coinage.
The A38 trunk road used to pass through the town centre but a dual carriageway bypass now carries traffic south of the town, leaving the town centre accessible but with low traffic levels.
Present day
Liskeard was one of the last towns in Cornwall to have a regular livestock market, ending in 2017. There is a range of restaurants, cafés and pubs in the town, and some shops retain their Victorian shopfronts and interiors.Liskeard puts on a pantomime in the last week of January and holds a carnival every June. Every July, Liskeard holds a large agricultural show, The Liskeard Show, which is always held on the second Saturday in July. St Matthew's Fair was originally established by charter in 1266, the fair was re-established in 1976 which runs in September/October. Every December, there is street entertainment and a lantern parade for 'Liskeard Lights Up', when the Christmas lights are switched on.
Notable buildings
The town boasts St. Martin's, the second largest parish church in Cornwall Built on the site of the former Norman church, the oldest parts of the current structure date back to the 15th century. Other places of worship include a Roman Catholic church and Methodist chapels.- The Foresters Hall now houses the Tourist Information Office and Liskeard & District Museum. The Foresters still meet in the town at the Public Rooms in West Street.
- Stuart House was used by Charles I as a lodging in 1644, when his forces were chasing the Parliamentarians. Restored, it is now used as a community building for arts, heritage and community events
- Luxstowe House. Designed by George Wightwick for William Glencross.
- Liskeard Guildhall was built in 1859 and has a prominent clock tower.
- The Public Hall was constructed in 1890.
- Webb's House is a classic early Victorian market-town hotel featuring in royal visits, parliamentary declarations and much more but recently converted into flats and is the home of the local newspaper The Cornish Times.
- Pencubitt House was built in 1897 for J. H. Blamey, a wealthy wool merchant. The house was designed by local architect John Sansom, responsible for many Liskeard homes of that period.
- The Liskeard Union Workhouse, architect John Foulston of Plymouth.
- The Pipe Well, a holy well.
Governance
For parliamentary elections, Liskeard forms part of the South East Cornwall constituency. The seat has been represented by Anna Gelderd of the Labour Party since the 2024 General election.
Administrative history
Liskeard was an ancient parish in the West Wivelshire hundred of Cornwall. As well as the town itself, the parish historically also covered surrounding rural areas, especially to the west and south of the town. There were several other settlements in the parish, including Dobwalls and Trewidland.The town was an ancient borough, with its first known charter having been granted by Richard, Earl of Cornwall in 1240. The borough also served as a constituency for parliamentary elections from 1295, as the Liskeard parliamentary borough, returning two members of parliament. The constituency was reduced to having one MP under the Reform Act 1832, and was abolished in 1885.
From the 17th century onwards, parishes were gradually given various civil functions under the poor laws, in addition to their original ecclesiastical functions. In some cases, including Liskeard, the civil functions were exercised by subdivisions of the parish rather than the parish as a whole. In Liskeard, poor law functions were administered separately for area of the borough and the rest of the parish. In 1866, the legal definition of 'parish' was changed to be the areas used for administering the poor laws, and so the old parish was split into two civil parishes: 'Liskeard Borough' and 'Liskeard', the latter covering the rural parts of the old parish outside the borough.
The borough was reformed to become a municipal borough in 1836 under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, which standardised how most boroughs operated across the country. In 1858, the borough council built Liskeard Guildhall at the corner of Fore Street and Pike Street to serve both as a courthouse and the council's meeting place. In 1929 the council moved its meetings to a new council chamber at the Public Hall on West Street, which had been built by a private company in 1890. In 1950 the council's offices, which had previously been based in rooms at the town's library, also moved to the Public Hall.
The borough of Liskeard was abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, when the area became part of the new Caradon district. Caradon District Council based itself at Luxstowe House in Liskeard, which had been the offices of the old Liskeard Rural District Council since 1947.
A successor parish called Liskeard was created as part of the 1974 reforms, covering the area of the abolished borough, with its parish council taking the name Liskeard Town Council. To avoid having two neighbouring parishes both called Liskeard, the rural parish of Liskeard was renamed Dobwalls and Trewidland at the same time.
Caradon was abolished in 2009. Cornwall County Council then took on district-level functions, making it a unitary authority, and was renamed Cornwall Council.
Education
The first school in Liskeard was founded in 1550 on Castle Hill. For a time it was maintained by the Earls of St Germans, but it closed around 1834 due to a decline in numbers and financial difficulties. From 1835 a series of private schools existed in the borough, until 1908 when Cornwall Education Committee built the County School at Old Road. From 1945 it was known as Liskeard Grammar School until September 1978 when it became the Lower School site of Liskeard School, following amalgamation with the town's secondary modern school.Liskeard County Secondary School received its first pupils on Monday 12 September 1960, and was formally opened by the Minister of Education, Sir David Eccles on 7 July the following year. Costing £100,000, it was built to accommodate around 500 pupils on the site of the current school at Luxtowe. Its glass and steel structure made "free use of fresh air and sunlight" according to local newspaper reports, whilst other modern features included a well-equipped gymnasium, automated central heating and synchronised clocks across the school, operated from the secretary's office. A new block was opened by Margaret Thatcher, Secretary of State for Education and Science in 1974, following the raising of the school leaving age from 15 years to 16, two years earlier. Like many similar secondary schools in Cornwall, from the late 1970s it housed the Upper School, when it merged with the town's grammar school to create a split-site comprehensive school.
Twenty years later, with increased pupil numbers requiring many to be taught in temporary buildings, the need for improvements to Liskeard's secondary and primary schools was being raised in Parliament. By the late 1990s, Liskeard School and Community College had been extended at Luxstowe, and the Old Road site closed and redeveloped for housing. Further multimillion-pound science and technology facilities were added in 2002, and the original 1960s and 1970s buildings were completely modernised by 2011. As Cornwall's only school with an engineering speciality, it now caters for approximately 1300 students aged between 11 and 19, and employs around 200 teaching and non-teaching, full- and part-time staff. It also has a creche, a teenage advice and information service, a centre for children with autism, and facilities at Moorswater where some engineering-based courses are taught.
There are two primary schools in Liskeard: St Martin's Church of England School in Lake Lane and Hillfort Primary School on Old Road. The latter was opened in September 2006 following the renaming of Liskeard Junior School after its merger with Liskeard Infant School.
Caradon Short Stay School is located in West Street, on the site of the former Liskeard Infant School. It provides education for students aged 11–16 from across south east Cornwall who are unable to attend a mainstream school or special school. The nearest independent schools are in Plymouth and Tavistock, Devon.