Twice a year the town plays host to the game of "hurling", a medieval game once common in Cornwall but now only played in St Columb and two other towns. It is played on Shrove Tuesday and then again on the Saturday eleven days later. The game involves two teams of several hundred people (the 'townsmen' and the 'countrymen') who attempt to carry a silver ball made of apple wood to goals set two miles (3 km) apart, making the parish the largest pitch for a ball game anywhere in the world.