Church Of Saint Corentin

Church of Saint Corentin

A parish church with some 12th-century remains but predominantly 15th-century work, re-roofed in the 19th century. The walls are mostly serpentine rubble with granite door and window dressings, and the tower features granite ashlar. The roofs are Delabole slate with gable ends, the chancel roof slightly lower. The building comprises a nave, chancel, west tower, north aisle, south transept and south porch, with a quadrant stair projection and squint splay in the angle of the chancel and transept, and a rectangular stair projection to the opposite north aisle wall.

The original plan was probably cruciform in the 12th century. The north aisle, tower and porch were added in the 15th century, with some 19th-century rebuilding to the chancel gable, south aisle and porch.

The two-stage embattled west tower has a plinth string and parapet cornice, with small pinnacles over each corner and a taller pinnacle over the stair towards the north-west corner. The steep 4-centred arched west doorway has a 3-light Perpendicular window above it; both feature relieving arches and reused carved serpentine heads as label stops. The upper stage has 2-light 15th-century louvred windows with trefoil-headed lights and quatrefoils above.

The north aisle contains 15th-century 3-light Perpendicular windows, except for a 4-light window to the east gable end and a 5-light window to the north wall. There is one window to the left (east) of the stair turret and a 15th-century 4-centred moulded doorway positioned centrally between the windows to the right. The gable ends are coped.

The chancel gable projects further to the east and was partly rebuilt in the 15th century and further remodelled in the 19th century with the insertion of a Perpendicular-style granite window. The walling above was rebuilt and the eaves of the north and south walls were heightened, thereby reducing the roof pitch. A 19th-century trefoil-headed light was inserted near the angle in the south wall.

The transept has a rendered east wall and a 2-light 19th-century freestone window with a quatrefoil. A stair turret occupies the angle. A 19th-century 3-light window with intersecting tracery is set into the south gable end.

The porch, positioned in the angle between the south wall of the nave and the transept, has a diagonal corner buttress and a 19th-century pointed arch doorway. To the left of the porch is a 15th-century window with two 4-centred arched lights and a square hood-mould. All windows contain leaded glass.

The inner doorway is a fine and complete Norman example of serpentine with nook shafts to the jambs. It features variations of chevron and pellet enrichments and a chain of endless rings symbolising eternal life within the tympanum.

The interior has a 6-bay arcade with standard A piers (following Pevsner's classification) and steep 4-centred arches springing from carved capitals. Parts of a 15th-century waggon roof over the north aisle remain, restored in 1823-24, while the remaining roofs are 19th-century hammer beam roofs.

Newel stairs to the former rood are positioned at either end (north and south). The south stair is entered from the south transept and rises behind and over a 15th-century squint. The threshold of the higher doorway is corbelled out to form the capital of the chamfered pier on a moulded base which carries it, with respond piers at either end of the squint.

The east window of the aisle features fine 15th-century intrados carving of quatrefoils enclosing a Tudor rose within panels, and tree of life carving to the rear arch. Good 19th-century coloured glass is freely used here and in the chancel window.

Two piscinas are present: one in the south wall of the chancel within what may be 12th-century wall, and a further one in the east wall of the porch.

The tower arch has moulded responds. Fittings include a 12th-century font with a round ornamented bowl; the polished serpentine corner shafts and round central pillar are 20th-century replacements. Other fittings are 19th-century, comprising pitch-pine pews with shaped ends and an octagonal pulpit.