ST. BUDEAUX CHURCH. 151 



merits, from which it would appear, that the erection 

 took place soon after 1560, a period when the purer 

 ages of Gothic architecture had passed away. It 

 may, therefore, be said to belong to the Protestant 

 era of church building, and has no traces of screen 

 or roodloft, stoups, piscinae, sedilia, or other vestiges 

 of Romanist worship. The lateral windows are 

 mostly surrounded by rectangular dripstones ; those 

 in the eastern gables are pointed with the tracery 

 most generally in use in the less ornamented struc- 

 tures of our ancestors ; while the windows at the 

 west end have three lights with plain semicircular 

 heads. Many of the architectural members appear 

 to have been transferred from another building of 

 more ancient date, from their somewhat clumsy 

 adaptation to their present situation ; a circumstance 

 far from improbable, since it is known, that the pre- 

 sent edifice does not occupy the site of the original 

 parish chapel, but was erected here as more con- 

 venient and central than the low, remote and almost 

 insulated spot near the water side where the old 

 chapel formerly stood. 



When a church is found in a situation so mani- 

 festly inconvenient as to excite general surprise, 

 there is usually some legendary tale at hand to ac- 

 count for the anomaly. The materials deposited 

 during the day, were mysteriously and perseveringly 

 transported in the succeeding night to a spot so gla- 

 ringly unsuitable, that the removal could not possibly 

 be attributed to any other agency than to that of the 

 enemy of all good. Such is the account which may, 

 I presume, be met with in every part of the kingdom ; 

 but the truth, divested of its traditional garb, may 

 generally be discovered in the fact, that great num- 

 bers of our rural districts were first provided with 

 places of public worship by the lords of the soil. 

 St. Budeaux (formerly Budock) chapel was in all 

 probabihty, therefore, erected by the owner of Bu- 

 dockshed (Budock's hide), now by abbreviation 

 Budshed ; and this may account for the choice of its 



