peesident's addeess. 129 



Foiirthly, tlie fine massive towers of three or four stages, 

 and the infrequency of spires. The beautiful spire of Lostwithiel, 

 with its open arcade, stands alone in point of beauty in the county. 

 The lofty spire of Bodmin was struck down by lightning in 1699. 



In examining the churches, in order to trace the derivation of 

 the typical form of three even roofs, we are met at once by the fact 

 that many show the form of two even roofs with a north or south 

 transept. In the alteration made by the taking down of one of 

 the transepts and putting an aisle in its place, probably the wall 

 most decayed was removed. The later typical form required that 

 both transepts should be removed, and north and south aisles 

 added. I find there are about 37 retaining the north transept, and 

 about 22 the south transept ; of those showing the typical form 

 there are 80, only a few retain the cruciform shape. On first 

 entering the church of Manaccan I was struck with the fact 

 that the north side of the roof of the Early English chancel 

 was carried on granite corbels, not on the arcade separating the 

 chancel from the north aisle, and I was much interested in 

 making out the cause to be, as Blight has shewn, that when the 

 north wall of nave and chancel were taken down, and an arcade 

 took its place on the line of the north nave wall and continued 

 parallel with the chancel, the arcade would not carry the roof of 

 the chancel, as the nave was wider than the chancel. To obviate 

 this, granite corbels were put on the arcade to carry the roof 

 timbers, thus pointing to a time when the church was 

 cruciform. The church at Zennor is also of this form.* 



* I have to thank the Rev. Preb. F. C. Hingeston-Erandolph for the following : 

 " There are some curious cases in Cornwall of the substitution of aisle for transept 

 having been begun and then abandoned, Zennor for instance, St. Levan, and 

 St. Eval. These cases show the modus operandi exactly. The first thing done 

 was, before any unroofing or removal of the transept, to build two arches of the 

 intended new arcade across the opening into the transept. The width of the opening 

 was always insufficient, and the builders used to dig into the nave wall, by way of 

 making the opening wide enough to admit two arches corresponding exactly with 

 the two opposite ones in the completed arcade. This saved the necessity of 

 throwing open the church to the weather up to the last possible moment. 

 At Zennor, the north aisle is complete. 



„ the south aisle incipient. 

 At St. Levan, the south aisle complete. 



„ the north incipient. (See Blight's " West 



Cornwall Churches," for a drawing of this, 

 p. 13, 1st edition). 

 St. Eval do. do. 



St. Mawgan-in-Meneage, " 



