CHRISTMAS carols from the Roseland Peninsula will star in a special service at Truro Cathedral on Wednesday, December 4.

Ten carols will be sung by choirs from Truro and the Roseland, including Amici Voci, the Roseland Churches Choir, and a brand new community carol choir brought together this year.

Hosted by the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies (OCS), the service will also include a newly commissioned carol written by Gareth Churcher, head of Cornwall Music Service Trust, and performed by a children’s group; a poem in praise of old-time preachers from Trounce Guy; and reminiscences of Roseland carolling from Christine Edwards and Father Doug Robins.

Truro OCS president Bert Biscoe said: “For the past few years, we have invited people to come to a non-denominational carol service featuring ‘curls’ from different parts of Cornwall. This year, we explore the carolling tradition of the Roseland: a big headland of many villages, coves and communities, of fishing and farming and Celtic kings.

“We’ll hear a rich collection of distinctive Christmas carols, with the cathedral’s sonorous beauty to enrich what’s sung and heard. It’ll be a wonderful occasion.”

The service is part of a project to get people singing traditional carols on the Roseland again.

Several carols will be accompanied by community band St Anthony’s Noyse, which has accompanied carol singing in St Mawes and Portscatho for many years, and hosts a popular annual singalong coffee morning just before Christmas.

Band leader Emma Campbell said: “It is good to have some new tunes to add to our repertoire. We are particularly enjoying I, which we hope to get everyone to sing in the cathedral, as well as While Shepherds Watched to Lyngham, which has long been a favourite.”

A new carol book featuring all the carols sung on the night will be launched at the service. Published by the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies, the book features words and music for 40 carols known to have been sung historically on the Roseland including, excitingly, the republication of a 1927 book of Old Cornish Carols from a Tregony manuscript dating back to the early 19th century.

The carol service is the culmination of the Roseland Carol Project, which emerged from a wider Music of the Roseland project: a collaboration between the Roseland Music Society, St Gerrans and Porthscatho OCS, and the Cornish National Music Archive.

Carol researcher Kate Neale, from the Cornish National Music Archive, said: “For over a year, we have been researching carols that have been known and sung on the Roseland, and we’re delighted to find so many.

“It’s been wonderful to work with the Roseland community to rediscover traditions and tunes, and make these historic carols available to contemporary choirs and singing groups once again.”