Church Of St Illogan

The Church of St Illogan is a church of 1846, built by J.P. St Aubyn, to replace a former church of St Illogan of which only the tower remains. It was altered subsequently. The church is constructed of roughly dressed rubble masonry, with granite dressings, and a slate roof. It is of Gothic style, comprising a nave with north and south aisles of equal height, and a short chancel. The aisles have six bays each, with buttresses and angle buttresses with two offsets. There are gabled porches to the second bay of each aisle, featuring moulded two-centred arched doorways and coped gables. The south porch incorporates a sundial over the doorway. The other bays have two-centred arched three-light windows with cusped lights and Perpendicular tracery. The ends of the aisles have similar windows with hood moulds. The west end of the nave has a slightly projecting window with five cinquefoil lights, with lettering on the sill commemorating Gustavus Lambart Basset of Tehidy (died 1889). The chancel has diagonal buttresses and a traceried four-light east window with a hood mould. All gables have raised coping with apex crosses.

Inside, the church has five-bay aisle arcades with double-chamfered two-centred arches on octagonal piers with moulded caps. The west end is now partitioned by a glazed screen wall in the second bay to create a two-storey meeting room. The nave has arch-braced collar truss roof, and the aisles have arch-braced crown post roofs. The chancel has a four-centred arch to the organ chamber on the south side. Attached to the south aisle wall, and now within the upper meeting room, is a painted copy of a letter from Charles I to the County of Cornwall. Numerous wall monuments were removed from the former church. Examples include in the north aisle, a set of small brasses to James Basset and his wife (died 1603), a white marble sarcophagus with a medallion portrait of Francis Basset (died 1769), a bust in a medallion by Richard Westmacott commemorating Francis Lord de Dunstanville (died 1835), a marble relief depicting the weeping wife and children of John Basset (died 1843), a depiction of a young woman feeding the poor, Frances Baroness Basset (died 1855), a standing angel reading, John Francis Basset (died 1869), and in the chancel, an oval tablet with a Latin inscription, John Basset Collins, and an elaborate cartouche with an open pediment and putti, commemorating Mary, wife of John Collins and daughter of Francis Basset of Tehidy (died 1743).