St. Columb Major
St Columb Major
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 The crest of St. Columb with town motto |
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 St Columb Major
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| St Columb Major shown within Cornwall | |
| Population | 4,587 (2011 Census) |
| OS grid reference | SW912633 |
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| Unitary authority | |
| Ceremonial county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | ST. COLUMB |
| Postcode district | TR9 |
| Dialling code | 01637 |
| Police | Devon and Cornwall |
| Fire | Cornwall |
| Ambulance | South Western |
| EU Parliament | South West England |
| UK Parliament |
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St Columb Major (Cornish: S. Colom Veur) is a civil parish and town in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. Often referred to locally as St Columb, it is situated approximately seven miles (11 km) southwest of Wadebridge and six miles (10 km) east of Newquay The designation Major distinguishes it from the nearby settlement and parish of St Columb Minor on the coast. An electoral ward simply named St Columb exists with a population at the 2011 census of 5,050.
Twice a year the town plays host to "hurling", a medieval game once common throughout Cornwall but now only played in St Columb and St Ives. It is played on Shrove Tuesday and then again on the Saturday eleven days later. The game involves two teams of several hundred people (the 'townsmen' and the 'countrymen') who endeavour to carry a silver ball made of apple wood to goals set two miles (3 km) apart, making the parish, around 25 square miles in area, the de facto largest sports ground in the world.
Monuments that date from this period include: Castle an Dinas, an Iron Age hillfort.; the Nine Maidens stone row, the largest row of standing stones in Cornwall; the Devil's Quoit (sometimes recorded as King Arthur's Quoit) in the hamlet of Quoit; and King Arthur's Stone (this long lost stone is said to be not far from the Devil's Quoit near St. Columb, on the edge of the Goss moor). It was a large stone with four deeply impressed horseshoe marks. Legend has it that the marks were made by the horse upon which Arthur rode when he resided at Castle An Dinas and hunted on the moors.
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Wikipedia