Evidence of early medieval habitation at Madron is in the form of one or two inscribed stones. One was found in the wall of the village church and has since been removed; the inscription consists of a cross and legible text, but its meaning is not clear. The other inscription was reported by
R. A. Stewart Macalister in 1949 as being 'built into the N. wall of the N. aisle, west of the entrance door' of the church, but has not been seen since;
Elisabeth Okasha speculates that Macalister may have seen the inscription in another church, and misremembered its location. Arthur Langdon (1896) records eight stone crosses in the parish, of which one is in the churchyard and one is at Heamoor. The others are at Boscathnoe, Boswarthen, Parc-an-Growse, Trembath Cross, Trengwainton Carn, and Tremethick or Trereiffe. Madron was recorded in the
Domesday Book. It was within the
Manor of Alverton, an area that in the Anglo-Saxon and medieval period formed much of what is now the southern part of west
Penwith. The church itself was once under the control of the
Knights Hospitallers of Jerusalem and was known by the
Cornish name of
Landithy, a name which is still used in parts of the village today. By 1885 the name Landithy referred to an estate of which in that year was ″to be let for a term of 14 years″. It was said to have an excellent house, good buildings and good grassland. Madron Well was, until the 18th century, the principal source of water for the nearby town of Penzance and Madron Church was the mother church of Penzance.
Admiral Lord Nelson The news of the death of
Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson following the
Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 was received first in Britain by the arrival of
HMS Pickle en route to Falmouth under the command of Lieut.
John Richards Lapenotiere in
Mount's Bay. It is believed a fishing vessel from Penzance passed the news to the shore which was formally announced from the balcony of the Assembly Rooms (now the Union Hotel) in Chapel Street, Penzance. Since the mother church of Penzance was at Madron, the
mayor of Penzance took up a procession which made its way to Madron where a memorial service was held and the Nelson banner was paraded for the first time. On it was the epitaph "Mourn for the brave, the immortal Nelson's gone. / His last sea fight is fought, his work of Glory done". Storms in the
English Channel meant that Nelson's body did not arrive by sea in London until January 1806. However, subsequent literature on the Union Hotel and Madron Church makes no mention of these events, and it is not recorded in the borough records or the
Royal Cornwall Gazette, the only Cornish newspaper at that time. A tradition of an annual Trafalgar Service, held to commemorate the death of Nelson, was begun on 27 October 1946, when so many people attended that the service was relayed outside. These services continue to this day. The Trafalgar Fields housing development was so named to reinforce the links with Nelson.
Penzance Workhouse The Penzance Union Workhouse once stood within the parish. The Penzance
Poor Law Union was formed on 10 June 1837 and the population that fell within the Union at the time of the 1831 census was just under 40,000. The workhouse was built in 1838. Designed by
George Gilbert Scott and
William Bonython Moffatt, it was intended to house four hundred paupers and cost £6,050 to build. It was in use until 1948 when the
National Health Service came into being. ==Cornish wrestling==