According
to legend, St. Nonna was the mother of St. David of Wales, and the
church dedicated to her here
(shown left, from the southeast)
is a substantial one which, like many in Cornwall, looks rather more
impressive from a short distance, before the intractability of the stone
is betrayed by the rough masonry and the poor definition of the window
tracery in particular. The building is formed of a W. tower, a
structurally undivided nave and chancel with the addition of a S. porch,
transept and vestry, and an independently-gabled and structurally
undivided N. aisle and chapel beginning some twelve feet (4 m.) east of
the nave/tower junction but ending in line with the chancel E. wall.
Of these various parts, the tower, nave and chancel are manifestly
Perpendicular, but whether the same is true of the aisle and chapel - as
Pevsner and the church guide declare - is altogether less clear,
for while the four N. windows have supermullioned tracery, they are set
within in the widest of oval splays, in keeping in their form with the
eighteenth century aisle arcade which Pevsner dated c. 1680. It
thus seems rather more likely that both these and the chapel E. window
are the former N. windows of the nave and chancel, re-set. The
arcade
(illustrated below, looking northwest from
the sanctuary)
is constructed in four wide bays, of elliptical arches with shallow
keystones, and circular piers with wide, square, shallow capitals which
Pevsner - with as much licence as accuracy - described as “Tuscan
Doric”.
Returning to the tower, however, this is very similar to that at
neighbouring
Lansallos, rising in
three stages to battlements and oddly-shaped, slightly swollen
pinnacles, supported by diagonal buttresses. The three-light
bell-openings have uncusped, crudely cut straightened reticulation units
in the heads and the W. wall features a round-arched doorway with
amorphous Perpendicular mouldings and a W. window above in the style of
the bell-openings.

There are no windows lighting the nave directly today, and only the
three-light supermullioned E. window lighting the chancel. The
church guide declares the deep S. transept to have been completed in its
present form in 1833, but the lean-to vestry and very broad porch seem
likely to have been added later.
The church contains no old woodwork or other furnishings but there are
several slate wall monuments of interest in the chancel and transept, of
which the foremost, complete with tomb-chest below, is set against the
sanctuary N. wall.
(See the photograph, left.)
This commemorates the lives of Francis Buller (d. 1615) and his wife,
whose profiles, shown facing southeast, are portrayed in bas-relief,
supported below by their four sons and eight daughters, all kneeling in
supplication. There are two monuments on the S. wall of the
sanctuary, immediately opposite, of which one
(shown in the thumbnail, below right)
is a square panel dedicated to the memory of Edward Trelawnye (d. 1630).
Signed by one, Robert Wills, it is accompanied by an inscription, part
of which reads,
“Heere lyes an honest
lawyer, wot you what
A thing for all the world
to wonder at”.
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Next to it on the right, a bas-relief from a dismantled tomb-chest,
portrays William Achyn (d. 1589), who is shown “in armour and puffed
breeches, with his ruff, dagger and sword. The carving of the face
is curious, and is said to show that Achyn died of a stroke”
(church guide).