Description: On 10 August 258 A.D. Deacon Laurentius (St Lawrence), Spanish by birth, raised in Rome was tortured to death by the order of Emperor Valerianus for refusing to renounce his principles. As the legend goes, Laurentius was grilled live on an iron grid. Having been canonized a saint in the 4th century, he began to be worshipped as the patron saint of fire around the end of the 10th century, and his cult spread gradually all over Europe. St. Lawrence's Day is a church calendar date well suited to be taken over by the folk calendar as a late-summer term of harvesting and of sowing winter crops. The Church at Whitwell is dedicated to St Lawrence.