Page:County Churches of Cornwall.djvu/272

 232 THE CHURCHES OF CORNWALL architects and restoration committees have stripped all the ancient churches here of their old coverings, and have supplied their place with the thinnest and smoothest of slates, all of a precise machine-made size and pattern, and applied in lines of mathematical regularity. The smug contrast between these prim roofs, usually further embellished with cheap red ridge tiles, and the old granite walls is often painfully vulgar. The reason alleged for these sadly new and cheap-looking roofs would no doubt be the sound one that the House of God must above all be safely ceiled from the weather ; but, nevertheless, that does not really justify the removal of the beautiful, characteristic, and time-stained roofs that we can remember so late as the early " seventies " on several of these churches. A score of old manor- houses (now for the most part farmsteads) and a few cottages can be pointed out in this very district, per- fectly sound and rain-proof, which still retain the whole or most of their picturesque silvery-toned roofing. The reason is that they have been carefully repaired from time to time, and there has been no large sum forth- coming to spend on a general smartening-up contract. Restoration revealed some primitive shallow steps in N. wall to gain rood-loft. (Registers, 1726.) Treneglos. — Church of St. Werburgh, rebuilt in 1858, consists of chancel, nave of 4 bays, N. aisle, S. porch, and W. tower. Good Norm, tympanum, carved with two lion-like beasts facing each other beneath a conventional tree, has been built into S. wall over 16th cent, doorway. Aisle arcade rests on monolith granite piers. Rood-stairs on N. side.