Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/147

Rh very closely connected in race and tradition; also even in name, for there was a Cornouaille in Brittany which former chroniclers have sometimes confused with the English Cornwall.

The church, which is chiefly late Decorated, has a very good Norman doorway, and a most interesting hagioscope, resembling that of Landewednack, with the difference that the Cury window is a single light. Much change and mutilation seems to have taken place in this church; a former vicar found many remains of alabaster figures hidden among plaster and debris behind a slab. There is a very singular aumbry or alms-box, formed in an oak bench-end near the door. The rugged old building is finely placed, with a magnificent view over land and sea. But the ordinary visitor takes more notice of Gunwalloe, which is one of the most curiously situated churches in the kingdom, standing where the sea-spray sometimes makes a clean sweep over it. Its churchyard walls rise immediately from the sands of Gunwalloe Church Cove — at times the very graveyard has been invaded by dashing waves; and its little campanile tower is literally built into the solid rock. Thus founded on rocks, it stands old and weather-beaten, in a desolate district of sand-towans. The dedication is to St. Winwaloe, and it must be left to more learned hagiologists to decide who this Winwaloe really was, or whether he was identical with the founder of Landewednack. There are about half a dozen churches with detached belfries in Cornwall, but this of Gunwalloe is perhaps the most striking; the campanile here stands 14 feet west of the main building. It is difficult to account for the peculiarity, but of course there are stories that