St Columb Minor (Cornish: Sen Kolomm Vyghan) is a village on the north coast of Cornwall, UK. St. Columb alone by default refers to the nearby St. Columb Major.
At one time St Columb Minor used to be the main settlement in the area, but it has now been encroached upon by its larger neighbour Newquay. The National School in the Square was built in 1842. It is on the site of the Parsonage and is now used as a Men's Institute. While still an ecclesiastical parish St Columb Minor is no longer a civil parish, forming part of Newquay CP.
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The position is in full view of the twin tumuli. It is sheltered from the strong winds of the Atlantic and looks down the Rialton Valley and across at Castle-an-Dinas. Local legend has it that the Celtic missionaries, centuries before the Columba legend arose, drove away the evil spirits and replaced pagan magic by Christian worship, and erected the first wooden sanctuary. The church-town lay to the west and south while the shelving ground to the north and east prevented building. Hence, as in the case of so many villages, the houses extended more and more from the parish church.
In Celtic and Anglo-Saxon times Rialton was the head manor of the Hundred of Pydar and belonged to the monks of St Petroc at Bodmin. The monastery remained in possession after the Norman Conquest and a manor house was built here by Prior Vivian (Thomas Vivian, titular Bishop of Megara) ca. 1510. The manor passed to the Duchy of Cornwall in 1538 but some of the manor house remains.[1]