St Buryan - Eglosborrie

St Buryan (Eglosborrie) is on the B3283 north of the Merry Maidens circle and about five miles west of Penzance towards Landsend. It is situated in an area with a history of settlement stretching back to the Neolithic period where stone circles and standing stones remain. Other sites relate to the Bronze, Iron Ages and through to the Middle Ages. The parish named after the Irish Saint Buriana and the village has a number of listed buildings. A church dedicated to the Saint has been on the site since 930 AD which has been enlarged and added to over the centuries. The tower was built by 1501 and the main part of the current church having been built in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Our visit

There was quite a wind building when we visited St Buryan on this cloudy March day. The church is dedicated to the Irish Saint Buriana and there has been a church on this site since the early tenth century. It is said that Buriana came to Cornwall from Ireland in the 6th century AD and she was said to preach from a chapel on the site of this church. It is also said that she was an Irish princess who travelled to Cornwall with St Piran (most popular of the saints of Cornwall). Buriana is linked to King Gerren of Dumnonia (a Brythonic Celtic Kingdom that included Cornwall) and is said to have cured his son.