Page:A Book of the West (vol. 2).djvu/393

Rh sequence of this that Piran left Ireland and came to Cornwall.

S. Burlan 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 18 14. 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