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Devon is not as rich with saints as Cornwall but there were a couple of prolific ones.
St. Sidwell was beheaded in the 8th century on the orders of her jealous step-mother, who persuaded her servants to cut off her head with their scythes. Where blood splattered a spring began to flow and is now St. Sidwell's Well in Exeter.
It was in Crediton that St. Boniface was born in 680AD. He was the son of Anglo-Saxon parents who christened him Winfrith. He did a lot of missionary work in Germany and was made Bishop of all Germany by Pope Gregory II in 722AD. He was one of the founding fathers of the Christian Church in Europe and is patron saint of both Germany and the Netherlands. Boniface means doer of good.
He chopped down the sacred oak of Thor in Geismar and managed to set up a church there. In 738 he became Archbishop and facilitated the formation of Charlemagne's Holy Roman Empire. He died on 6.6.785 when heathens hacked him to pieces. He tried to fend off their sword blows with his bible but it was pierced by one and he died.
The church of St.Nectan at Stoke has a 128ft tower and is one of the highest in Devon. Legend has it that one day while St. Nectan was out looking for his cattle, robbers attacked him and cut off his head. Undaunted he tucked it under his arm and walked the mile or so back to his holy well at Stoke where he finally died.
