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 INTRODUCTION 35 rood-turrets remain at St. Austell. At St. Keverne there are three sets of stairways in the N. wall. The popular notion as to the reading of the Gospel at High Mass from the rood-loft of parish churches is an error ; such a use was confined to collegiate or minster churches. Hence the width of the door- ways and the size of the stairs at the collegiate church of St. Buryan. The usual narrowness of Cornish rood-stairs and their approaches, as com- monly shown throughout the parish churches of England, prohibited their use by richly vested priests. Parochial rood-lofts were chiefly used for instrumental or vocal use. The stairs often yield evidence of considerable use; notably is this the case at Sheviock, where the steps were so much worn that they were recapped. That rare feature, an outside entrance to a rood-loft, occurs at St. Anthony-in-Meneage. At St. Just-in-Roseland and St. Newlyn, the rood-stairs have been utilised to give access to the pulpit. Crass prejudice and vulgar lack of taste of the first half of the 19th cent, did more to bereave Cornwall of her once beautiful chancel screens than Reformation vehemence or Puritan malevolence. The screens of at least 14 churches are known to have been destroyed during that period. There is no ancient rood-loft remaining, and in only two cases is the original vaulting extant, namely, at St. Ewe and St. Mawgan-in-Pyder. At St. Budock there is a considerable array of painted figure panels,