Page:Cornwall (Salmon).djvu/137

 ST. GERMANS the Confessor, is so uncertain that it is safest to give no date at all. There was a priory of secular canons here, in the tenth century, its grounds and site being now occupied by Port Eliot. The present church, on the site of the old cathedral, dates from i 261 ; but it embodies a good deal of Norm, work from the earlier building. The porch is late Norm., and the two towers, peculiar in differing from each other, are both Norm, in their lower sections. The upper stage of the N. tower is E.E. octagonal ; the S. is square and Perp. The S. aisle and nave are separated by massive pillars and arches ; the roofs of both were raised during the restoration of 1893. It is possible that the Port Eliot pew stands on the site of a former N. aisle. In 1592, unhappily, the old Norm, chancel " fell suddenly down of a Friday," as Carew says, " very shortly after publick service was ended ". The parish- ioners quickly repaired the damage, stimulated by their narrow escape. Notice should be given to the sedilia, the font, the remarkable miserere, and the niche called the Bishop's Throne. The church can boast some fine windows, one of which bears evidence to the combined genius of Burne-Jones and W, Morris. At the Dissolution St. Germans' Priory came into the hands of John Champernowne, of the old Devon family; he exchanged it with John Eliot for Coteland or Courtland, in his own county, and it has remained in the Eliots ever III