Saint Nectan was one of many Celtic hermits and missionaries associated with early Christian sites in south-west Britain, South Wales and Ireland in the fifth and sixth centuries.

The history of the area is obscure; however, the first recorded building here was a collegiate church served by twelve secular canons founded ca.

Nothing is known of the earliest building nor whether it was rebuilt or enlarged when the collegiate church was replaced by a house of Augustinian regulars at Hartland Abbey in the twelfth century.

It was built about sixty years after the rest of the church and it contains a peal of six bells cast in nearby Buckland Brewer by John Taylor & Co[1] and last rehung in 1952, weighing practically 3 tons.

The arch of the tower, open today, once housed a musicians' gallery where the 'church orchestra' of fiddles, double bass, flute and clarinet played for services.