A HISTORY OF CORNWALL 



Agnus Dei, one of whose legs is missing. Above the head is a rectangular object, cut rather 

 on the slope, and probably intended for a book. 



St. Michael, Caerhays. In shape the tympanum is elliptical, Plate XIX, fig. 2, the curved 

 portion having a quaintly moulded border projecting about a couple of inches beyond the recessed 

 face within ; including the border it is 3 feet 4 inches wide and i foot 5 inches high. On 

 the recessed face is an Agnus Dei ; this subject on a north doorway is of very rare occurrence. 



Perranarworthal. This tympanum, Plate XIX, fig. 3, was discovered during the 

 renovation of the church in 1 884 5, and is now built into the wall over the south doorway. It 

 is 3 feet wide and I foot 5 inches high. The subject is an Agnus Dei, in a border formed by an 

 undulating stem, the spandrels being filled with late Romanesque leaf-work, very similar to the 

 enriched band on the lower portion of the font bowl in the church of St. Stephen ! by 

 Launceston. 



St. Thomas, Launceston. Built in the wall of the south porch of the church, east of the 

 doorway, immediately above the plinth, is the greater part of a tympanum, Plate XIX, fig. 4, 

 having an average thickness of 8 inches. It had evidently been cut up to fill the space it now 

 occupies, extending from the moulded jamb of the doorway to the south-east angle of the 

 porch, being further mutilated at the top to form a better joint with the adjacent stones. The 

 original dimensions would have been 5 feet wide by 2 feet 6 inches high, and it was therefore 

 the largest in Cornwall, exceeding that at Mylor, No. i, by 3 inches. 



Within a moulded border are two large circles, that on the left containing a curiously 

 shaped equal-limbed cross, and that on the right a wheel-like design, consisting of eight 

 radiating bars of equal width, square at their ends, and mitred at the centre. Above the 

 circles is an Agnus Dei in a somewhat contorted position. 



To what building this stone originally belonged is not known, while a like mystery is 

 attached to the beautiful twelfth-century doorway which now forms the principal entrance to 

 the White Hart Hotel in Launceston. The doorway and tympanum are of the same 

 material, from the once famous quarry at Hurdwick, near Tavistock, but there may be no 

 further connexion between the two. 



In addition to the four instances of the Agnus Dei already described there is one other 

 contemporary example (fig. n)on the inner order of the Norman south doorway of the 

 church of St. Anthony in Roseland, near Falmouth. 



In this example the primitive method of indicating the wool by means of incised zig-zag 

 lines should be noticed, and the incised cross cut at the intersection of the arms of that borne 

 by the Lamb. 



Treneglos. This (Plate XIX, fig. 5) is now built into the south wall of the church, 

 directly over the label of the doorway. The material from which it is made is a bad piece of 

 ' ventergan,' a kind of local green slate, and the stone being face-bedded is flaking badly. It 

 is 4 feet 3 inches wide, 2 feet 5 inches high. 



The subject illustrated is composed of a central tree having an undulating trunk with 

 three leaves in the spaces thus formed, from the top of which spring two curved branches right 

 and left having foliated terminations, while on the top is a fan-shaped piece of foliage. It is 

 probably intended to represent ' The Tree of Life,' so often found in this style of work. 

 Beneath are two beasts, one on either side of the trunk, placed symmetrically and facing each 

 other, their tails bent round between the hind legs, carried upwards to the top of the heads, and 

 finished with a leaf-shaped end. 



Egloskerry, No. 2. The doorway of which this tympanum, Plate XIX, fig. 6, forms a 

 part is situated on the north side of the church, and although now built up is intact both 

 inside and outside. It is 3 feet i inches wide, and i foot 8 inches high at the apex, and is 

 made of the same stone as the other in this church. The subject is a dragon. 



Tremalne. On the north side of the church is a doorway; formerly built up, but 

 reopened in 1903. It is made of one of those numerous varieties of green slate which 

 abound in this part of the county, and has a tympanum 3 feet 6 inches wide, and I foot 

 8 inches high. 



Amongst the writers who mention the existence of sculpture on this stone is Polsue, 3 

 who says in his remarks on this church, ' a blocked north doorway has a tympanum ... on 

 which is rudely carved a dragon,' but the whole of it has been ruthlessly hacked off, probably 

 at the time when the circular hole was cut through the stone for the passage of a flue pipe. 



1 Illustrated in Arch. Camb. 5th Ser. xiii, 348. 



1 A Complete Parochial History of the County of Cornwall, vol. iv (1872). 



448 



