A HISTORY OF CORNWALL A short list will suffice to illustrate the principal points to be noted in connexion with the inscribed stones : (a) Ogam l inscriptions ; 2, both at Lewannick. (b) Inscriptions "written in horizontal lines, 3 ; Biscovey (now at Par), on both front and back, Hayle, and Lewannick No. i. (c) Inscriptions preceded or followed by a Cross. These are very rare on the monuments with debased Roman capitals only, an isolated example being found on the cross at Sancreed, No. i. The remarkable position of this portion of an inscription seems to suggest that the cross is a converted pillar stone. In inscriptions with mixed capitals and minuscules they are much more common, and occur at Biscovey (front and back), Boslow, Cardin- ham No. 2, Lanherne, Lanteglos by Camelford, Trevena, and on the Camborne altar slab, No. I. (d) Ornamented crosses, 6 ; Cardinham No. 2, Lanherne, Penzance, Sancreed Nos. i and 2, and Trevena. (e) Ornamented cross-shafts, 3 ; Biscovey, Gulval, and Waterpit Down. (f) Cross-bases, 2 ; Lanhadron and Redgate, the latter has Celtic ornament on its three other faces. (g) Altar slabs, 2 ; In Camborne Church, and at Pendarves ; both have key-pattern borders. (h) Stones with a cross in relief, 3 ; Castle Dor, St. Clement, and Doydon. (i) Shafts with a mortice at the top (as if for the reception of some terminal), 4; Biscovey, Castle D6r, Doydon, and Waterpit Down; the top of the rude pillar stone at Mawgan Cross appears to have been roughly shaped as a tenon. It would be interesting to know by what the stones at Castle Dor and Mawgan Cross were surmounted. The remainder would probably have had a cross-head. (j) With the Chi-Rho monogram, 5. The number of stones bearing this symbol, which is common in Italy and Gaul, is very small in Great Britain, only twelve examples being at present known to exist, or to have existed. Five of that number, in fact all in England, belong to Cornwall, 3 viz. : ENGLAND (CORNWALL) St. Endellion . . . On Doydon headland Phillack . . . .In gable of south porch of church St. Just in Penwith, No. I Found at St. Helen's Chapel, Cape Cornwall, now missing No. 2 In the church South Hill . In the rectory garden SCOTLAND (WIGTONSHIRE) Stoneykirk . . .In the old burying ground of Kirkmadrine (two). 3 'A drawing of a third stone (at Stoneykirk) has been preserved by Dr. Mitchell, in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, but the monument itself is unfortunately either lost or destroyed.' Whithorne . . . Now preserved in the ruined church of St. Ninian. 4 1 The Rev. W. Jago considers that the Worthyvale stone has Ogam characters upon it, but as they merely consist of some three or four doubtful notches, and the edge of the stone above and below them is quite clean, showing no further remains whatever, there does not seem to be very much foundation for this theory, more especially since such an authority as Professor Rhys has described it to me as ' a doubtful bit of Ogam.'
- Since the above was written the author has found a small incised Chi-Rho monogram 4^ inches
high, and of the later form. It is cut on a jamb stone on the Norman south doorway at the church of Lanteglos by Fowey.
- Proe. Soc. Antlq. Scot, ix, 586. Stuart, Sculptured Stones of Scotland, ii, pi. Ixxi.
- Proc. Soc. Anftq. Scot, ix, 578. Stuart, Sculptured Stones of Scotland, ii, pi. Ixxviii. See also J. R.
Allen, Early Christian Monuments of Scotland (1903), 495, figs. 532, 533, 534. 412
