Wednesday 23 October 2019

St Germans, Cornwall

St Germanus, open [3* Jenkins rating], is essentially a Norman building although you are hard pressed to tell externally until you reach the splendid west door. The interior is, or was when we visited, gloomy, dank, atmospheric and reveals its Norman heritage. Unfortunately the combination of an overcast late afternoon and its position in a semi hollow meant my photographs of the Burne Jones east window all failed.

Processing my photographs showed what a complex building this is - more of a priory church than your run of the mill parish church. The highlights are the aforesaid chancel window, an early Rysbrack monument, an interesting font, the atmospheric interior and the west doorway and its fish handle.

St Germans with the adjoining Port Eliot is of outstanding interest in its architectural, historical, and picturesque aspects. The visitor to the church can appreciate only the first two of them; to appreciate the third would mean access to the private grounds of Port Eliot. The house stands on part of the site of the priory, separated from and further N than the church; in the Middle Ages the whole was one group. For the house, see Port Eliot.

ST GERMANUS. The church was the cathedral of Cornwall in Anglo-Saxon times. Bishops are known between 931 and c.1040, but no architectural fragments remain. In 1050 the bishopric, with that of Crediton, was merged in a new diocese, with its see at Exeter. Between 1161 and 1184 Bishop Bartholomew reorganized St Germans as a priory of Augustinian canons. Of this building, finally consecrated only in 1261, so much is still in existence that no other church in Cornwall can vie with it as an example of Norman planning. The Norman building had two W towers, a nave of 102 ft, two narrow aisles with lean-to roofs, and probably a chancel, but no transept and no crossing tower. Of the E part nothing is left. The W front, however, stands complete up to roof height. The aisle width and height can be read from traces against the E walls of the S tower inside and the N tower outside. Of the nave the first two s bays survive. It had a clerestory with windows in line with the spandrels, not, as usual, with the apexes of the arches (cf. the upper N wall of the S aisle), a motif which such Gothic churches as Fowey, Lostwithiel, and Callington in Cornwall, and North Petherwin in Devon took up.

The W front is uncommonly plain and powerful for its date. With the wide flat buttresses of the two towers it is more reminiscent of Franco-Norman work of a hundred years earlier (say St Etienne at Caen) than of the livelier Transitional which more central parts of England practised towards the end of the C12. Between the towers is on the ground floor a porch under a gable (with the rare feature of a cross), and on the upper floor three round-headed windows with the centre one higher than the others. These windows are provided with nook-shafts. Higher up the S tower has four small Norman windows towards W and E and otherwise Perp work. The N tower turns into octagonal shape on the second storey (cf. Jumiéges) and ends in a C13 octagon. The W portal under the gable is unrivalled in Cornwall. It is of seven orders, built of elvan from Tartan Down near Landrake. Three of the orders and voussoirs have uncommonly vivid zigzag; whether the innermost order possessed different ornaments cannot now be said, as the material has weathered very badly. The hood mould of the outer arch exhibits foliage decoration.

Inside, the ground floors of the towers were open to nave and aisles by transitional pointed arches of simplest design: two steps with an inserted roll moulding (cf. Morwenstow). The capitals of the clustered wall-shafts are mostly scalloped, but some also of a very primitive ‘Ionic’ kind. On the first floor the towers were connected by a gallery, as indicated by the two remaining doors. The staircase of the S tower is the only Cornish staircase of Norman date. In the nave, the two bays which are preserved have thick, short, circular piers, with square scalloped capitals and pointed arches of plain two-step moulding. The clerestory windows, which were discovered in 1904, have rich zigzag ornament.

With no more than these bays (and what has been re-used of Norman fragments in the other S bays after the collapse of the chancel in 1592) belonging to the original building of the C12 and C13, the interior of St Germans is now more interesting than inspiring. It is dominated by the late Middle Ages and the C19. The proportions, with the aisle 6 ft wider than the nave, are unhappy, the C13 chancel (consecrated 1261) went 55 ft beyond the present E wall, and the C19 roofs are disappointing. The N transept was built in 1803 for the Port Eliot pew. (But the transept arch has re-used Norman fragments.) The S aisle is a mixture of four styles: the Norman of the first bays, the interesting imitation-Norman of probably after 1592, the Dec of the E end, and the early C15 Perp of the rest. The E end must originally have been an E chapel attached to the narrow Norman aisle. It is of high aesthetic quality, derived in style from Exeter Cathedral. To get an impression of its pristine finesse of detail St Ive near Liskeard, consecrated in 1338, may be compared. It seems difficult therefore to connect the chapel with the transfer of relics of St German in 1358. The E wall of the chapel has two three-light windows with a niche for an image between (cf. the niches of St Ive). In the S wall are one original window and a recess with an ogee canopy. The S aisle itself can be dated by the arms of Bishop Lacy (1420-50) amongst the shields on the hood moulds of one of the windows. There are four such windows, all of four lights, three clearly Perp, the fourth (on the W) still reticulated, that is Dec. The aisle is battlemented outside (like the S tower) and has a handsome and original S porch with two entrance arches close to each other to W and S and a depressed tunnel-vault with a grid of thick granite ribs. Perp also the five-light chancel E window, which must have been put into the present E wall when the chancel was taken down. - FONT. Of Purbeck marble, c.1200; badly preserved. - WOODWORK. Only minor remains: one choir stall (misericord with a man called Dando, punished for hunting on Sunday), c.1375-1400; fragment of the rood screen; figure of St Anthony, indifferent, c.1500, brought over from Port Eliot. - STAINED GLASS. E window by Burne Jones, 1896. To see such work executed by Morris and Co. after the many other Victorian windows in Cornish churches brings home most forcibly the value of William Morris’s reform. Here are clear outlines, pleasing patterns, and simple colours in sufficiently large expanses to be taken in individually. No overcrowding, no competing with the art of painting, and yet a sentiment that is wholly of the C19. - Coloured wooden STATUE of St Nicholas. - MONUMENTS. John Moyle d. 1661. Large tomb-chest (in the vestry) with a heraldic device in bas-relief on a black marble slab (G. W. Copeland). – Edward Eliot, 1722 by Rysbrack, reclining on a sarcophagus, in Roman costume, with an allegorical figure on his l., mourning. Short pyramid in relief and putti in the background: a first-rate example of Rysbrack’s art and the most ambitious C18 monument in Cornwall. - First Earl of St Germans d. 1823, by R. Westmacott, a sad maiden seated by a tall pillar with an urn.


Edward Eliot 1722 by Rysbrack (1)

Fish handle (2)

W door (1)

ST GERMANS. Its houses of golden-tinted stone climb the lovely wooded hillside by a creek of the Lynher. At one end is a quaint block of almshouses with six gables, an open balcony with gay flower-boxes along each of the two storeys, and an outside flight of steps to the upper floor. A little farther up the hill, in a bay of the road, by the lychgate, is a noble 19th-century gatehouse with oriel windows, pointing the way to a great house and a church side by side deep down below. With the fine park of 500 acres, it is a serenely beautiful situation for the fine home of the Earl of St Germans, and Cornwall’s rarest old church, the richest in the county for historical interest and Norman remains. Over the hill is the quay down by the tidal creek where boats come in to load stone. A great viaduct of 13 arches crosses the creek, and all round are the wooded hills.

Such is the 20th-century picture of a cathedral city of 1000 years ago, whose story and name go back to the 5th century, when St Germanus came to Britain to combat the heresy of the Pelagians and the Picts, landing at the creek here and making this the centre of his west country mission. The church and its monastery, and the early prosperity of the place, owe their foundation to this visit. It was the cathedral seat of the first bishops of Cornwall till the 11th century. At the time of Domesday Book half the parish was held by a body of canons, but of the church they served there are no certain remains, save perhaps here and there in stones. About 1185 these canons were suppressed for their worldiness, and most of the fine 12th-century work we see today comes from the Austin canons who took their place.

The massive west front (about 70 feet wide) is flanked by two towers, each Norman in its lower stages. The north-west tower has a 13th-century octagonal top with later battlements; its companion has a square top perhaps of the 15th century. The great spectacle of the church is between these towers, the wonderful weatherworn west doorway of the Normans, deeply recessed in a gabled projection; its arch is of seven orders, four of them zigzag, and there is zigzag between the groups of shafts at each side. The hood is enriched with carving, and round the doorway are five Norman windows. The door it frames is richly adorned with copper in the shape of hinges and a cross, all patterned with vine and grape, the fine work of a modern craftsman.

The rest of the building is a mixture of styles. The two western bays of the arcade halving the lofty and light interior are Norman with their plain massive arches pointed, the work of the time when the old style was merging into the new. The similar arches of the towers rest on fine clusters of stout shafts. Over the western arches is a fragment of the 12th century clerestory.

In the 14th century Sir Nicholas Tamorze brought back from Auxerre Abbey some relics of Germanus (a small bone and part of his shroud) and to enshrine these the eastern end of the Norman south aisle was pulled down and a beautiful chapel built. Between its two lower east windows, with fine tracery, is a big canopied niche now filled with a statue of -the Good Shepherd. There is also a fine stone seat, and another canopied recess which doubtless held the saint’s relics in a silver reliquary. In the 15th century the west end of this chapel and the rest of the Norman aisle was taken down, the wide south aisle being then built. At the same time the south porch was built against a wall of the south-west tower; it has three open arches, star-patterned bosses in its round vaulted roof, and steps leading to the south aisle which is entered by a simple 12th-century doorway. In the porch is an old stone coffin.
After the Dissolution the 13th-century chancel became ruinous, the Champernownes using much of the walls in turning the priory into a private house, and building a brewhouse on the site of the high altar. The villagers made part of the nave into a chancel by building a new east wall, and luckily inserted the fine 14th-century window from the old chancel. About 20 feet wide and nearly twice as high, this transomed window wears its tracery like a crown. In 1592 a great part of the people’s chancel fell down, and in the re-building most of the Norman south arcade was replaced. Early in the 19th century the Norman north aisle was destroyed and a transept built.

The Norman font of Purbeck marble was restored a century ago, after having been broken up 50 years earlier. There is a battered niche by the side of a piscina niche, which has a rich arch on clustered shafts. In a collection of old relics are two querns, three old books, an old door ring, and some keys. Among old fragments of carved wood is a miserere showing a hunter carrying a hare on a stick over his shoulder, with six dogs in front of him and two on a lead behind. In the south aisle is an old wooden statue of St Anthony. The reredos is a carving of the Last Supper, with Judas holding the bag as he strokes his beard.

Carved on the ends of the modern stalls are scenes from the life of the patron saint. One shows him as a monk with his club with dead animals at his feet, reminding us that he was a great hunter. On another he is an old man on an ass, taking the reins of a warrior’s horse; it is said that when King Eocaric would have destroyed the Bretons, the saint met him and turned him back. In a third scene Roman soldiers are offering him a silver chalice sent by an Empress; in a fourth he is by the ass which, according to legend, he restored to life.

In rich Burne-Jones glass shining in the east window we see Christ holding the cross, with the Centurion, two Marys, the Four Evangelists, Paul, and Stephen. The Burne-Jones glass in a south window shows six Virtues: Faith, Justice, Hope, Charity, Praise, Joy. In old glass there is a 15th-century shield.

One of many memorials to the Earls of St Germans is a ponderous marble monument by Rysbrack to Edward Eliot of 1722 and his two wives, showing him in Roman dress reclining on a couch, one wife sitting by him with a book, and cherubs holding a medallion of the other. An inscription tells of Captain Granville Eliot who fell at Inkerman in 1854.

Port Eliot, their splendid embattled house with corner turrets, stands on the site of the 12th-century priory, which, with its grounds, passed to the Champernownes on the Dissolution, and in 1565 to the Eliots. It has been theirs ever since. The few scanty remains of the priory include some medieval windows, the house and the estate as we see it now being largely due to the first Lord Eliot, a patron of Reynolds and a friend of Dr Johnson. Some of his sayings are reported in Boswell. He once brought a book to the notice of Dr Johnson, who said: “I did not think a young lord could have mentioned a book on English history that was not known to me." Bentham said he was modest about his politics, but desponding; “he says he scarce ever looks into a paper, nor does he, for fear of ill news.”

Two men who were to win fame were bom at St Germans in 1592, Sir John Eliot and John Moyle. When at Oxford Moyle wrote to Eliot’s father telling him of his son’s extravagance, whereupon Sir John drew his sword and wounded Moyle in the side. Out of this unhappy incident grew a staunch friendship lasting for life.

The Immortal Martyr of the People

One of the greatest of all our Parliamentarians, Sir John Eliot stood shocked and anguished to see the execution of Sir Walter Raleigh. He had in him much of that courage by which Devon men made England mistress of the seas, though he spent it, not on the waters, but in public life at home. It was when he saw an expedition leave for Cadiz with rotten ships, bad food, tackle which had been used 40 years before against the Armada, and with men left to starve, rob, and murder in the ports, that he resolved to bend his energies to reform, and became a foremost voice in impeaching the incompetent and worthless favourite Buckingham.

As a young man in Parliament he stepped into the place vacated by the great Coke as champion of constitutional rights, and, having incurred the enmity of James, he incurred still further the wrath of Charles when he likened Buckingham to the infamous Sejanus. “He must, then, intend me for Tiberius,” said the King, and sent him to the Tower.

With the new Parliament Eliot was released, and manfully opposed forced loans. “Upon this dispute,” he said, “not alone our lands and goods are engaged, but all that we call ours. These rights, these privileges, which made our fathers freemen are in question. If they be not more carefully preserved they will render us to posterity less free, less worthy than our fathers.”

Again he was imprisoned and again released. After the King’s imposition of Tonnage and Poundage Eliot proposed the Remonstrance, which the Speaker refused to have read; but members held the Speaker down in the chair while the Commons passed the resolutions that “Whoever raises tax by tonnage and poundage shall be deemed a capital enemy to this Commonwealth; whoever pays such a tax shall be deemed a betrayer of liberty and an enemy of the Commonwealth.”

The whole mercantile community went on strike for six months, but Eliot, imprisoned in the Tower, was to suffer a four years martyrdom, the pitiless king keeping him there till consumption carried the captive to the grave. His son begged for leave to move the body down to Cornwall to be buried in his native village, but he begged in vain. “Let him be buried where he died,” said the King, and so to this day the bones of this patriot rest in the precincts of the Tower, one more great Englishman sacrificed for the Stuarts.


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