St Mawes' Church was opened by the Bishop of Truro George Wilkinson on 5 December 1884.

[4] Local opinion holds that St Mawes built the first landing at the harbour to help pilgrims access his Holy Well, which is preserved on nearby Grove Hill.

He moved to the small deserted island of Gueldénez (now called Île Maudez] in the Bréhat archipelago[3] where he settled with two disciples, Budoc and Tudy of Landevennec probably in the second half of the 5th century.

[6] Traces of a beehive hut known as Forn Modez (Maudez's oven) are visible on the island.

[3] The hagiographer Alban Butler ( 1710–1773) wrote in his Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, under May 18, St. Maw, Confessor

He was a native of Ireland, and came young into Cornwall that he might live to God alone in the closest solitude, in the practice of the most austere penance and the exercises of divine prayer.

The place is still called St. Mawes, in Latin S. Mauditi Castrum, where a church, and in the church-yard a chair of solid stone and a miraculous or holy well still bear his name.