Church Of Saint Breaca

Parish church at Breage. The building incorporates part of a pre-15th-century chancel but was mostly rebuilt and reconsecrated in 1466, with the south porch added soon after and the north and south transepts probably added later in the 15th century. The church was restored in 1891.

The structure is built of granite ashlar with granite dressings. Dry Delabole slate roofs cover the nave and chancel, and parallel roofs cover the north and south aisles, all with granite coped gable ends. The porch, transepts, and tower have nearly flat roofs presumed to be lead-sheeted, hidden behind embattled parapets. A large ashlar stack clasps the north-west corner of the north transept.

The plan comprises a nave and chancel (the chancel roof stepped down), a west tower, north and south aisles all built together over six years from 1460 to 1466, with the chancel incorporating earlier fabric. The south porch was probably added next, and the north and south transepts, positioned just west of the rood screen, are probably late 15th century. The 1891 restoration involved re-roofing the nave and chancel and repairing or reconstructing the aisle roofs.

The three-stage tower has a plinth and set-back weathered corner buttresses with set-offs. Strings divide the stages. Carved head gargoyles sit under a cornice of embattled parapet with crocketted corner pinnacles over blind-panelled embattled turrets. The bracket-moulded west doorway is four-centred with carved spandrels and label stops terminating at plinth-moulding level; the door is 19th century. The traceried four-light granite window directly above the doorway is 15th-century Perpendicular with hoodmould, as are all the other windows in the church, though with variation in detail. The second stage is blind, while the upper stage has slate-louvred three-light traceried windows to each side.

The north aisle has a four-light window at the west gable end and an eight-light window at the east gable end. The north wall has two windows close together left of the north transept and two windows wider-spaced right of the transept, with a moulded four-centred doorway between. The windows have cinquefoil-headed lights and cusped tracery, similar to the chancel east window and the south and west windows of the south aisle. The other windows are uncusped and untraceried except for the traceried east windows of the aisles, which have steep four-centred arched lights under shallow four-centred arches. The transept windows lack hoodmoulds. The leaded glazing is either rectangular or latticed panes, though some windows have both types.

The north transept has a four-light north window, a three-light east window, and a four-centred arched doorway towards the angle in the west wall. The east gable end of the chancel projects and has a three-light Perpendicular window with cusping in the tracery, and incorporates pre-15th-century plinth and other masonry. A 17th-century inscribed former chest tomb slate is attached to the south wall of the chancel.

The east gable ends of the north and south aisles have five-light Perpendicular windows with uncusped tracery. The south aisle has three-light south windows similar to the chancel window: one left of the porch, two between the porch and the south transept, and two right of the transept, with a blocked four-centred arched Godolphin family door between. The south transept has similar windows to the north transept: a four-light south window and a three-light east window.

The porch has weathered set-back buttresses with set-offs like the tower. Over the doorway is a sundial dated 1795. The doorway is late Perpendicular with panelled octagonal jambs (comparable to doorways at the churches of St Just in Roseland, Mylor, Budock, and Gunwalloe, and the resited courtyard doorway at Godolphin Hall). The moulded inner doorway is like the north doorway, with a four-centred arch and square hoodmould, suggesting the porch is later than the aisle. The door is studded and probably 17th century, with two panels.

The interior contains much 15th-century timberwork: ceiled waggon roofs with carved bosses over the aisles; a coffered ceiling with cross-braced panels and carved bosses over the north aisle; and a moulded beam with some moulded joists to the tower ceiling. A seven-bay arcade with standard A-type piers (Pevsner classification) runs on either side of the nave and chancel, with moulded basket arches between. The tower arch is carried on octagonal panelled jambs. Medieval glass is incorporated into windows in the south wall east of the transept and in the east window of the south transept. A holy water stoup with convex-sided arched head sits in the porch. A curious corbel with dog-tooth and fluted decoration sits over the left-hand respond of the north transept arch.

The most remarkable 15th-century features are fine painted murals on the north and south walls, including a striking figure of Saint Christopher on the left of the north doorway.

Fittings are mostly 19th century, including a round granite font with round corner shafts in the Norman manner; a traceried oak rood screen; a reredos; oak choir stalls and pews; a free-standing cast-iron candelabra; and a traceried granite tower screen given as a memorial to James Jewill Hill. Earlier fittings include a Roman milestone in the north-west corner of the north aisle, bearing the name of Emperor Postumus (260–268 AD), found a few hundred yards from the church in 1924; a probably 14th-century stone representing the crucifixion in the Godolphin Chapel, found by the coast near Tremearne; and a painted copy of a letter from Charles I dated 1643, at Sudely Castle.

The east end of the south aisle is the burial place of the Godolphin family, known as the Godolphin Chapel, with three helmets suspended from iron wall brackets, fitted with wooden replicas of dolphin crests (dolphins being the principal feature of the family crest). The chancel contains a slate to John Goode of Methleth with an incised coat of arms incorporating a goose and three doves. On the south wall is a pedimented monument with an urn to Peter James, died 1850 aged 76. Three memorial windows with coloured glass commemorate members of the Carter family. The glass in the west window of the south aisle was given by parishioners in 1863 to commemorate the marriage of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, to Alexandra, Princess of Denmark.

Despite being reportedly of one build, the church displays curious design changes and anomalies. The east windows of the aisles, the transept windows, the porch doorway, and the tower arch are in a later Perpendicular style. An alternative explanation is that there was a deliberate architectural distinction between the traditional style used for the more important ecclesiastical parts and the modern style for lay entrances and chapels. The result is a remarkably complete 15th-century building. The only serious change since construction (excluding the loss of all 15th- and 16th-century fittings) is the replacement of the nave and chancel roofs in the 19th century. The Victorian practice of skinning walls with plaster did not occur at Breage, and the surviving painted murals are among the finest examples in Cornwall and indeed in England.