e village is a pretty one
that lies in the centre of the beautiful Vale of Mawgan, or Lanherne,
which stretches from St. Columb to the porth, or cove on the coast.
Mawgan possesses an ancient parish church and a Roman Catholic convent
and chapel. The church is a very fine Perpendicular building with a
tower 70 feet in height. The building was restored by Butterfield, but
contains some interesting old screenwork and a number of well-carved
bench ends. The brasses include that of a priest, _circa_ 1420; Cecily
Arundell, 1578; a civilian, _circa_ 1580; and Jane, daughter of Sir John
Arundell, _circa_ 1580. This last is a palimpsest, made up of portions
of two Flemish brasses, _circa_ 1375. The churchyard contains a
beautifully sculptured fourteenth-century lantern cross, of mediaeval
date, in the form of an octagonal shaft. Under four niches at the summit
are sculptured representations of: God the Father with the Dove bearing
a crucifix; an Abbot; an Abbess; and a King and Queen. The height of
the cross is 5 feet 2 inches, the breadth of the head being 1 foot 1
inch.

The convent, the "lone manse" of Lanherne, was originally the manor
house of the Arundells, which was, in the last years of the eighteenth
century, presented by a Lord Arundell of Wardour to a sisterhood of
Carmelite nuns who had fled from Antwerp in 1794. One or two of the
pictures in the convent chapel are attributed to Rubens. Strangers may
attend service in the chapel, but the nuns, like those of the order of
St. Bridget at Syon Abbey, Chudleigh, are recluses of the strictest
kind.

While at Mawgan a stroll should be taken through the groves of
Carnanton, the old-time abode of William Noye, the "crabbed"
Attorney-General to Charles I, whose heart, we are told by his
biographers, was found at his death to have become shrivelled up into
the form of a leather purse.

A mile beyond Mawgan Porth are the far-famed Bedruthan Steps seven miles
from Newquay. Here the visitor will find a fine stretch of cliff
scenery, with a succession of sandy beaches strewn with confused and
broken masses of rock, and some large caverns that are well worth
exploring should the state of the tide permit. The largest of these
caverns is of vast extent and is said to be unrivalled in this respect
along the whole of the Cornish seaboard. At low tide the great spurs of
rock embedded in the sand have a fantastic beauty, while one of the
largest of them bears a more than fancied rese