Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/232

 226 THE CORNWALL COAST The cove of Porthglaze with its strange turret- Hke rocks, the coves of Pendour and Zennor — all these are beautiful, and cannot be seen from the road ; the visitor must explore them by scrambling along the cliffs, crossing summits and gorges and gullies, not deterred by difficulties that to a careless or nervous climber might become dangers. Only so can this fine coast be fully known. In its situation the village of Zennor is like some of the wild, stony parts of Ireland ; but the cottages are too comfortable to be Irish. Close to it stretches the stone-strewn moorland. Every- where we have proof of the abundance of stone, the scarcity of wood ; hedges are of rough boul- ders and pebbles ; stiles are the charming Cornish •' gridirons " ; there is a stream crossed by rugged little stone bridges. The church is of the thir- teenth century, restored in 1890 ; of course there had been earlier restoration, for the tower is Perpendicular. The dedication is to St. Sinara or Senar, a virgin probably of Irish origin ; but we know nothing about her, and little of the early building itself, except that in 1270 the Bishop of Exeter granted it to his college at Glassiney near Penryn, and the living seems to have been starved. Zennor, indeed, was formerly known as the place " where the cow ate the bell-rope," a sportive neighbourly reference to its poverty and infertility. But the most famous feature of the church is its carved mermaid. There are two good old bench- ends, now forming the sides of sedilia, and of these the mermaid is one, represented with comb, mirror, and fishy tail. The story tells that the men of Zennor were very fine singers in the old days, and one, a squire's son who sang in the choir, had