CHAPTER IV.

OF THE EARLY CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITIES WITHIN THE DISTRICT

OF SAINT IVES.

Chapels.

SOON after the death of Saint Ia, other Christian oratories were built in and near Saint Ives, besides that which owed its foundation immediately to her:

This was

I. The Chapel of Saint Nicholas on the top of the Island. This is still standing, but has for centuries been subjected to such patching and alterations as have perhaps left but little of the original structure. Its latest metamorphosis was when it was transformed into a look-out for the revenue officers. probably done some time in the last century; and brick additions. were then made to the ancient building, turning it into a sort of cottage, with a low wall on the rock behind, on which the pilots rest their telescopes when scanning the horizon for vessels. The Chapel of Saint Nicholas is mentioned in the Liber Regis,' says Lysons. Tonkin says:

'On the island (or peninsula) work of Saint Ives standeth the ruins of an old chapel, wherein God was duly worshipped by our ancestors the Britons, before the Church of St. Ives was erected or endowed.'

Hals says:

'This town, as Mr. Camden saith, was formerly called Pendenis or Pendunes, the head fort, fortress, or fortified place, probably from the little island here, containing about six acres of ground, on which there stands the ruins of a little old fortification and a chapel.'

Leland also refers to this chapel, as mentioned in our last chapter. Throughout the Borough and Churchwardens' Account Books, largely transcribed into these pages, are frequent entries of payments made for the repair of this chapel, and the next one to be mentioned.

II. The oratory of Saint Leonard, at the spot where the stone pier juts out from the shore. This ancient building is still called 'The Chaple,' and the people regard it with some lingering reverence. The Chaple still preserves its original outline, with its eastern end narrowing inwards, and the little narrow doorway in the north wall, having a rude flight of steps leading up to it. Against the inside of the eastern wall are slight remains of the stones which formed the base of the altar. During the Middle Ages the Chaple was especially devoted to the use of the fishermen, who maintained a chaplain to say Mass for them there, they paying him by an offering of fish proportioned to each catch. This office seems to have been continued even after the Reformation, for Warner tells us of a chaplain who, in his time, said prayers there for the fishermen, whenever he was sufficiently sober to do so. For the past hundred years or more, the Chaple has been used as a shelter for the long-shore men of various kinds, for whose benefit a rude seat has been provided, formed of the mast of a ship, and ranged along the wall inside. The Chaple was repaired out of the pier fund; but this having been long discontinued, the venerable oratory was beginning to fall into ruins in 1886, when it was saved and restored by the timely and intelligent action of the mayor, Mr. Edward Hain, junior.

III. The chapel or oratory which formerly stood on the rocks under Penmester Hill, and which gives its name to the cove and neighbourhood of Porthminster ('the sandy cove of the church'). In some parts of Cornwall, as at Boscastle, old people still call the church 'the minster.' Some years ago the sand was washed down from the top of the beach, close to the Tregenna stream, leaving uncovered a portion of the foundations of this oratory, near which were found two stone coffins with leaden chalices, marking the interment of priests. It was said that these remains were deposited in the museum at Penzance, but I have never seen them. The find was made about the year 1870, and was reported by the local press. This chapel, together with the village of Porthminster, was destroyed by French men-of-war, who burned them to the ground in the reign of Henry VI.

IV. At Brunian or Brunnion in Lelant was another ancient chapel, dedicated to Saint Mary. Its site is marked by an old cross, and a carved stone arch which formed the entrance. Close by is a garden which is said to have been originally the burial-ground. The Exeter Episcopal Register records that Thomas Mohun and Isabella his wife, Michael Trenuyd (Trenwith) and Margery Eyr,

applied to the Bishop for licence to have Mass celebrated for a year from June 17, 1398, in the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin

Mary at Breynyon in parochia Sancti Eunii in Cornubia'; but in the margin are the words, 'Non habuit effectum.' In the

same manuscript, under the date 1410 or thereabouts, it is called the Chapel of Saint Mary Magdalen.

V. At the farm of Trevarrack, in the parish of Towednack, is a croft known as the Chapel Field, where formerly stood the ruins. of an ancient oratory. The site was ploughed up in the year 1840, and the remains of the chapel carted away. A few of the carved stones, including a fragment of the ashlar ogee of a window, are to be seen in the garden of the farmhouse, and into the front of the house an inscribed stone from the chapel has been built, concerning which a few words must be said. It is an oblong block of freestone, about three feet by one foot, and the inscription is in early medieval Latin characters, lightly incised. The stone is high up in the wall, and, being upside down, the inscription is difficult to make out on a cursory inspection; but the following marks may be distinguished:

ISD

EI + E

M

Without presuming to hazard a conjecture as to the actual reading of this inscription, we would call attention to the similarity between these characters and the letters marked on the front of the cross at Lanherne Convent, as figured in Blight's 'Cornish Crosses.' It is to be noted also that Blight says the Lanherne cross was removed from an ancient chapel in the parish of Gwinear.

VI. At Higher Tregenna, in 1814, the foundations of a similar old oratory were, according to Lysons, still visible.

VII. The foundations of another chapel of the same kind are to be seen on the narrow part of the small headland called the Gurnard's Head in the parish of Zennor. At its eastern end is a large slab, said by some to be the altar-stone, under which, according to another tradition, certain drowned mariners lie buried. At the beginning of the present century it was still the custom to make a pilgrimage to this spot on the parochial feastday.

VIII. The MS. collections of Dr. Borlase, quoting from the Exeter Episcopal Registers, mention the Chapel of Saint Ante alias Ansa, prope ripam maris,' under the year 1495, at Saint Ives, in which a guild or fraternity was established, and say that it was turned into a smith's shop in June, 1770.