St Buriana, St Buryan

The Church of Saint Buryan is a Grade I parish church in St Buryan, Cornwall, in the Diocese of Truro, a former collegiate church and Royal Peculiar whose granite tower dominates the village.

Overview

Historic England records the north wall of the chancel as twelfth century, the rest as fifteenth and possibly early sixteenth century, restored in 1814 and 1886. The fabric is granite ashlar and granite rubble, with dressed elvan to parts of the twelfth-century walls and dry Delabole slate roofs. The plan is nave and chancel under one roof, west tower, north aisle, south aisle and south porch. A tall fifteenth-century four-storey embattled tower has buttresses set back from the corners, an octagonal stair turret and corner pinnacles.

The listing notes late-medieval arcades and roof structures, six-bay arcades with standard Cornish piers, and a largely unaltered late-medieval exterior. Tradition holds that King Athelstan endowed a collegiate church here in the tenth century; Bishop William Brewer dedicated a church in 1238. The college was dissolved in 1548, but St Buryan remained a Royal Peculiar deanery until 1857. Cornwall Historic Churches Trust records a massive Grade I granite tower and an almost circular churchyard once a Romano-British enclosure.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1327526
• Parish website