EARLY CHRISTIAN MONUMENTS 



The opportunity must here be taken of publicly protesting against the disgraceful manner 

 in which the monuments have been neglected, mutilated, broken, and even destroyed, as can 

 be proved by a glance at my ' List of purposes for which some of the Cornish Crosses, etc., 

 have been re-used.' 1 This list occupies three pages, and contains about ninety instances. 

 Dozens have been used as gateposts, though only some fifteen of the most striking examples are 

 given under this head, eight cases of which will be found amongst the inscribed stones. Some 

 few have been rescued, but a great many more yet remain in use. 



It is impossible to comment too forcibly on this subject, especially as the partial destruction 

 of our monuments is by no means a thing of the past, for only recently 2 we had to complain 

 of the mutilation of a small and unique cross in Cardinham churchyard, 3 because the sides of 

 its shaft had been hacked off to make it fit the top of an ancient inscribed stone, 4 on which it 

 was stuck. 



The amount of ignorance, apathy, and indifference displayed by those who should be most 

 concerned in preserving, instead of mutilating, is appalling ; few seem to care, and none 

 trouble to interfere. 



There is an extraordinary practice now prevalent in Cornwall of sticking cross-heads 

 on the tops of new and very tall granite shafts. We submit that this is not restoration, 

 and consider that the parish churches are the proper places in which to preserve these 

 fragments, a precaution which was taken in the case of the second Ogam inscribed stone 

 found at Lewannick. Or if the cross is fairly complete with head and shaft, and its original 

 site is unknown, let it be erected in the churchyard on a rough boulder as a base. The 

 taller of the two crosses discovered at Crane, near Camborne, in 1896, was aptly fixed in a 

 base which happened to be in the churchyard. 



Perhaps the worst case of this so-called restoration is that of the fine cross-head at 

 Carminnow, near Bodmin. It has been ' skied ' on top of a huge granite shaft, too high even 

 to allow of a proper examination of the ornament, and by way of making the restoration more 

 ridiculous, it has been mounted on a base of two steps, exactly like those used for the late 

 Gothic crosses. 



A few public-spirited persons, at their own expense, have done something in the way of 

 restoration, properly speaking, and among the monuments thus rescued the following may 

 be mentioned : 



The second inscribed stone found at Lewannick. 



The fine ornamented cross-shaft at Par, formerly at Biscovey. 



The two ornamented crosses in Sancreed churchyard. 



The Waterpit Down ornamented cross-shaft. 



The tall wheel cross at No-Man's-Land, 6 Lanlivery, which had been cut in two and 

 re-used as steps in a stile, was taken up in September, 1 900, by Mr. Richard Foster, 

 properly dowelled together, and fixed in a rough moorland granite base, in a well 

 selected position, close to where it was found. 



But the most remarkable instance of the restoration of a cross is that in St. Teath new 

 churchyard, effected by the Revd. F. Worthington, while curate in charge, about 1883. The 

 cross had been deliberately broken up, but after a careful search five pieces of the shaft and 

 most of the head were found. All were matched, and the whole, with bolts and cement, 

 was once more erected. 



It is much to be deplored that such a praiseworthy example is not more often followed, 

 especially since the expense attached is not very considerable, and there is plenty of this good 

 work to be done. 



The importance of insisting on the necessity of protecting ornate monuments from the 

 weather cannot be too strongly urged, as from experience we have found that by simply 

 rubbing the hand over the surface of such a stone the small particles of which the granite is 

 formed can be heard falling on the base. This is due to what is known as ' bruising,' which 

 means that every blow necessary for cutting the ornament bruises the face of the stone, and 

 thus loosens the particles, and the weather does the rest. So destructive does this become in 

 time, that in pulling out a small piece of the tough lichen that grows on the crosses, a little 

 root, so to speak, of granite comes away with it. As with the perishable nature of the 



1 Old Cornish Crosses, ^^. ' Reliquary and Illustrated Archacokgist, viii (1902), 50. 



1 Old Cornish Crosses, 173. 4 PI. I, fig. 4. 



1 Reliquary and Illustrated Archaeologist, vii (1901), 130. 



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