CHAPTER XII

ST. BURYAN

NT. BURYAN is the most prominent landmark of the flat, bare plateau of the Land's End peninsula. You can see the thinly-spread-out village and tall, dominating church tower miles away all round long before you can get there.

In the square-if so may be called the open place in front of the church-a mounting-stool attracts attention, and carries one back in thought to those days before 'buses and motors, to the dim distance when even wheeled vehicles were scarce and only main trunk roads existed, when each man or woman who went any distance worthy of the name journey did it on horseback. From the top of this old mounting-platform of stone, approached on either side by five stone steps (3 feet 4 inches wide by 11 inches in depth), many a good stout yeoman must, in days gone by, have helped his wife, or sweetheart, on to the pillion before taking his seat beside her astride the horse. The stone on the top is a large granite monolith, 8 feet 4 inches by 3 feet 5 inches. The boys of St. Buryan, nowadays, find this a grand structure to play on-running up one side and down the other, so that the old mounting-stool still has its use.

The old lichen-covered, long bench seat against the church and wall has, too, a history. Upon it, not so very many years ago, culprits used to sit with their feet in the stocks. Now the stocks have gone into the limbo of departed memories, and I in vain made pathetic inquiries as to their remains.

A fine specimen of ancient market cross in the centre of the square is a prominent object, and at once arrests attention. The cross itself is only thirty-two inches in height from top to base, but it rests upon an imposing pedestal ten inches high. The form of this town-place cross is of the Greek type.

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The entrance, double-folding iron gates in the churchyard leading to the south porch are close against a long, flat block of granite, half sunk in the ground. This is the coffin-block where the remains of mortality are laid as the mourners file by into the church. Hundreds and hundreds of mortal remains have there rested on their way to final resting-places in the sacred edifice or in the churchyard around.

The water supply at St. Buryan is obtained from the stream in the adjacent valley, where the stream itself is made to turn a water-wheel which constantly forces a small flow of water up a pipe into a cistern, near the church, in the same square facing the cross, old mounting-stool, and ancient stock-bench.

The spelling of the name of this ancient Cornish village varies even in the county itself. That usually adopted is "St. Buryan," but the Ordnance Map (which I have found from practical experience frequently to adopt a pedantic or even quite erroneous form of name-words) gives it as "St. Burian," and so does the sign-post at the juncture of roads where that to the Logan Rock branches off from the Penzance to the Land's End road. Other sign-posts in the country roads around I notice display "St. Buryan." One expects uniformity, at any rate, in the spelling of names in the same county; but my experience in Cornwall, as in other counties, is that one does not always find it.

The church of St. Buryan is, as I have said, one of the most conspicuous landmarks of the Land's End district of Cornwall, for it stands on a commanding eminence, or rather ridge. It is visible from almost every spot for many miles around, and the little cluster of houses nestling close up to its sacred shade gives the village a pleasant and peculiarly homely and typically English appearance.

The church may best be described by that rather hateful epithet, elegant. It is well proportioned, well situated, and well built; it verges on the dainty, yet it is altogether-well, just elegant. In construction it is massive. The walls of the tower at the base are six feet thick.

It is one of the larger churches of Cornwall, and consists of nave, chancel, north and south aisles, south porch, and west tower. The nave is fifty-eight feet long, the chancel

forty-three feet; and their width 14 feet 6 inches throughout.

The history of the origin of the church is most interesting; indeed, from its historical associations this is one of the most entrancing spots in Cornwall.

In the first place, the saint from whom the church and the village derive their name was a woman. This prevalence of female names among the Cornish saints is a notable historical feature of the Land's End district. It shows a great respect for women, an innate natural chivalry, which one would scarcely have expected in such a rough age, and it speaks volumes for the character of the Cornish at that early period. If the Cornish were barbarians, as some suppose, and have had the audacity to write, women would not have been so respected, especially women from foreign parts, for most, if not all, of these female saints were strangers, either Irish or Welsh.

These Irish or Welsh ladies seem to have quite forsaken their native countries and emigrated to Cornwall, where they were respected during their lives and honoured after their deaths, for their memories are to this day held in esteem.

St. Buriana, a holy woman of Ireland, who was held in high veneration as a "goodly saint," settled down at what must then have been a lonely spot, and did much to reclaim the natives from their idolatrous practices. When death released her from her labours of love, the natives reverently laid her body to rest near her hermitage, which then became an oratory and most holy place. In those times St. Buryan was a village of wise men and sainted Tom Tiddlers, who retired to their solitude to prove that they were better than the world they had abandoned. Thus it acquired a renown above other places of probably equal merit in the neighbourhood.

The events which led to the foundation of the church on the spot are worth recording.

Howel, who was King of Cornwall, had to pay tribute to Athelstan; but after a time the Cornish people refused to do so, the suspension of payment being a good reason for revolt. Be this so or not, something must have occurred to bring back Athelstan into the country, no more than nine