Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/257

 ST. IVES 251 River to Mount's Bay is only about four miles across ; a good road makes the journey from sea to sea. It is just a neck of land dividing north from south, and persons susceptible to climatic change say that the difference can be noticed when they get half- way across. Hayle, a little waterside town of less than two thousand inhabitants, is not particularly attractive. There is a charm in the endless sand- blown dunes that stretch on both sides of the estuary, but dismal weather can make them deso- late, and wild weather converts them into a hoAvling waste ; while Hayle itself, with some small shipping and industry, is a place that the lover of beauty does not often care for. But it is not altogether to be despised, and it is conveniently situated on the main Great Western line. This Hayle district was once the great landing-place of saints from Ireland, who came here rather numerously about fifteen centuries since ; those who came from Wales usually landed near Padstow or came to Cornwall by way of Devon. One such Irish saint was Gwy- thian, who built his oratory a few miles north of Hayle, and the remains of this rugged little church have lately been rescued from the sands, with a special service of commemoration held over it. The Irish saints brought their style of building with them, and such relics as those of St. Piran and St. Gwythian are exactly similar in style to the oldest memorials of the same nature in Ireland. The masonry was of the simplest — a mere laying of rough stones together without mortar. Some have supposed this oratory of St. Gwythian to be the earliest religious building surviving in Britain, but it is very difficult to say anything definite. If the little church really survived as the saint left it its claim would be a good one, but, like St. Piran's,