S. Burian Church does not stand on the site of the old settlement of
Buriena; that is about a mile south-east, at Bosliven, where the
"sanctuary" remains about some mounds and ruins. It was destroyed by
Shrubsall, one of Cromwell's miserable instruments of sacrilege. When
Athelstan traversed Cornwall from east to west he made a vow that if he
reached the Scilly Isles and returned in safety he would endow a
collegiate church where was the oratory in which he made the vow. This
he did, and the date of the foundation is supposed to have been 936.
The church had a superb screen, probably the finest in Cornwall, but it
was taken down and destroyed in 1814. Some fragments have been
preserved sufficient to admit of its complete reconstruction at some
future day. Many of the bench-ends remain, and are fine. The church has
been illtreated in that fashion which is in bitter mockery called
"restoration." The new woodwork is a fair example of what woodwork
never should be. It is treated like cheese.
S. Levan has fine old bench-ends and exquisitely bad modern woodwork,
and in the neighbourhood is the Logan Rock and some of the finest coast
scenery of the Land's End. S. Levan was priest and metal-worker in S.
Patrick's company, and some of his bells and book-covers remained long
preserved as treasures in Ireland.
S. Senan has been gutted by the restorer, and has in it no longer
anything of interest except a mutilated statue of the Virgin and Child.
Madron has not much of interest, except the oft-quoted epitaph on
George Daniel:--
"Belgia me Birth, Britain me Breeding gave,
Cornwall a Wife, ten children and a grave."
Paul's, dedicated to S. Paul of Leon, brother of S. Wulvella of Gulval,
has a good tower, and several points of interest. Here was buried,
1778, Dolly Pentreath, the last person able to converse in the old
Cornish language. Pentreath was her maiden name. She was married to a
man of the name of Jeffery. It is still the custom in the villages of
Mousehole and Newlyn for women to be called by their maiden names after
marriage; indeed, there are some instances in which the husband goes by
the maiden name of his wife, when his individuality disappears under
her more pronounced personality. Such would doubtless be the case in
the following instance I quote from the _Cornish Magazine_:--
_Girl_ (selling papers): "If you please, sir, do you want a _'Ome
Companion?_"
_Householder_ (at door): "No, thank'ee, my dear. I got wan."
_Girl_: "_'Ome Chat_, sir?"
_Householder_: "_'Ome Chat!_" (throws open the door). "Here, just come
fore and listen for yourself. Hark to her a bellerin' in the back
kitchen."
Or in such a case as this.
Pasco Polglaze was henpecked. He opened his heart to Uncle Zackie at
the "Dog and Pheasant."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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