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PERRANZABULOE
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bodies interred both in the chancel and nave of the church is an unquestionable fact. Several skeletons have been found deposited about 2 feet below the floor. Three were discovered with their feet lying under the altar, one of them of gigantic dimensions, measuring about 7 ft. 6 in. . . . Their heads, which appeared to be almost cemented together, lay between the knees of the skeleton deposited nearest to the south wall.
"On the southern and western sides of this venerable ruin is the ancient burying-ground, strewed over tens of thousands of human bones and teeth as white as snow; and, strange as it may seem, the showers of sand which fall all around hardly ever remain on these melancholy relics of mortality."[1]

Unhappily nothing was done to preserve this little church after it had been excavated from the sand. The three heads from the doorway were carried off for Truro Museum; visitors pulled out stones, boys tore down the walls, and now little more than a gable remains. But to this was added the mischievous meddlesomeness of the curate-in-charge, the Rev. William Haslam, who turned the altar-stones about, as he had got a theory into his head that they had formed a tomb, and rebuilt them in this fashion, pointing east and west, and cut upon the altar-slab the words "S. Piranus." It is purposed to undo Mr. Haslam's work, and replace the altar as originally found. More should be done. Cement should be run along the top of such wall as remains to save it from falling.

  1. Reprinted in Preb. Hingeston-Randolph's Registers of Bishop Grandisson, Exeter, 1897, p. 608.