Description
Situated near to the cliff face at Treen Cove on the
mainland by the coastal footpath, 300 yards south-east of the cliff castle at Gurnard's Head, lie the remains of a small rectangular structure called "Chapel Jane".
On the cliff slopes north-west of the site are the ephemeral outlines of a number of subcircular hollows dug into the hillslope; superficially they appear to be a series of artificial habitation terraces associated with this site, though when some of them were investigated by Guthrie in 1968, they revealed no traces of occupation and they were thus considered to be natural features (Russell & Pool 1968, 44).
Pool (1959, 189) writes that the earliest reference to a chapel in this vicinity is mentioned in the Penheleg manuscript of 1580, which records evidence given in 1565 concerning a wreck in 1531, `at Senmar Clyffe by Innyall Chappell within Reskymer's Manor named Trethein' (Treen). He concludes that the adjective `Innyall', the Cornish Ynyall, meaning wild and desolate, was probably referring to Gurnard's Head itself rather than the chapel (Pool and Russell 1968, 44). The next documentary reference to the site was in Gilbert's transcription of the History of Cornwall by William Hals (1655 - 1737), first printed in 1836, where Hals had noted, `In this parish (Zennor) are the ruins of an old free chapel' (Gilbert 1838, IV, 164). Pool however, felt that Gilbert had confused Hals' reference to this site with another chapel at Sennen Cove called Chapel Idne, and although the site became known as it is today, as Chapel Jane, this may not have been its original name (Pool & Russell 1968, 46).
An early 1824 survey of Gurnard's Head makes no mention of the site by name or location, though the accuracy of this land survey is questionable, as on the 1840 Tithe Map too, a roofed building is shown at the location of the site, though it is not called a chapel.
The characteristics of the chapel were first described by Crozier in the 1840-1850 period, whose notes were later transcribed by Blight (Penzance Misc.44 no:10). These read, "remains of the foundations of the wall and the chapel, exterior measurements 28ft by 13ft. The wall 2 1/2ft thick. In the NW angle, there an altar stone lies measuring 4ft 4ins by 2ft 4ins. The well is about 20ft distant under the edge of the cliff." This appears to be the earliest reference in the literature to there being a well near the chapel, and it is interesting as many early chapels in Cornwall are associated with holy wells, and often this is often an indication of their extreme antiquity. When the Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society visited the site in 1865 (Penzance, Rep. 1862-5, 43), the site was well overgrown, "with sward" and the well was, "nothing more than a resting place for the rivulet which, just east of the chapel, trickles down the face of the cliff". In 1876 Blight notes that by Gurnard's Head, "are the remains of a small chapel" and that "the altar stone, a flat slab of granite is still entire". He also writes that, "there is a holy well close by", but he does not name or describe where the well was (1876, 187). The chapel appears to have been much visited by writers and antiquarians in the late 19th century (see for example Hope Moncrieff 1898, 151) and it was clearly visible despite encroaching vegetation. It was indeed clearly visible and in a good state of preservation in 1892 when Hobson Matthews wrote that one could still see its "altar-stone" under which, "according to tradition, certain drowned mariners lie buried" (1892, 38). The site was popular too in local mythology and memory at the beginning of the 20th century, when Matthews wrote that, "it was still the custom to make a pilgrimage to the spot on the parochial feast-day". Early guide books describing the area, briefly refer to the site in passing, but none offer any description of the chapel (see for example, Daniells, 1906, Vol.2, 444; Folliott-Stokes 1908, 95; Cornish and Bridger 1915, 64).
The exact location of the holy well mentioned by Blight and Crozier (see above) was not found by Quiller-Couch when he visited the site in 1894 and wrote that, "nothing now remains of the well" (1894, 21). Later writers, (for example, A Lane Davies 1970, 92 and Meyrick 1982, 144-145) claim to have found the exact location of the holy well, though there are no surface traces of it today, and it seems that an adjoining spring to the north-east of the chapel, appears to have been regarded, both in documentary sources and traditionally, as the holy well at Chapel Jane.
As Pool has noted, the site received little attention until its excavated in 1964 and 1966, though F C Hirst made a note of it in his antiquarian survey of Zennor (Ms. Wayside Museum, Zennor), and it has appeared as a landmark on later editions of the Ordnance Survey maps (1968, 46).
In 1964, P A S Pool and V Russell undertook the first archaeological excavation of the chapel site in order to verify its ecclesiastical nature and to date it. (1968, 43-60). These excavations were carried out intermittently over a period of two years. Before excavation the site was covered by a thick growth of blackthorn. The entire site was investigated by open-plan excavation which immediately revealed a substantial rectangular stone building measuring 22ft (6.7 m) by 9ft (2.7 m) which had been built on a levelled natural hollow. The excavation revealed that the building had two significant phases of construction, with the original chapel measuring 16ft (4.9 m) long and 8ft (2.4 m) wide, and this had been altered at a later date by being extended 6ft (1.8 m) westwards to a width of 9ft (2.7 m). The structure was aligned west-east. The walls were up to 2ft (0.6 m) thick and survived intact up to 3.8ft (0.9 m) high in places. The building stone used in the first phase was mainly of killas, with larger corner blocks being carefully and deliberately fashioned. The south wall was apparently set onto levelled ground without foundations, but the east and north walls were built into dug out foundation trenches. A pair of vertical breaks 4ft (1.21 m) apart in the southern wall were discovered revealing the original doorway to the building, this was later blocked. During the structural alteration of the building, in its second phase of use, a doorway 3ft wide (0.91 m) was built into the western wall of the building. The walls belonging to this second phase share the general mode of construction as the older walls, but they become slightly wider and show a greater use of granite and also the practise of using slate inserted horizontally to level coarsed stones. The excavation plan clearly shows the altered width at the western end of the chapel.
Chapel Jane was clearly a small ecclesiastical building of simple architectural design. Fragments of chamfered stones were found in rubble debris close to the western doorway and also found in the same area were three fragments of a granite arch; one with a chamfer on one side. A fragment of a window mullion of weathered greenstone, was discovered in the topsoil outside
the building near the south-east corner and this piece dated by Radford to the 16th century. (This find is in the Wayside Museum today). The grooves found on each side of this fragment showed that this window held at least two lights, though no window glass was during excavation.
The interior of the building was completely excavated and a mortar floor was found overlying a silt layer above an earlier seemingly "natural," beaten sandy silt floor level. In places this mortared level had been repaired either by remortaring or extensively patched up with slates. This was evidently contemporary with a mortar rendering of the inside walls. This mortar floor lay under a great depth of stone, slate and soil rubble; presumably as a result of building collapse when it was finally abandoned. Finds of 18th to 19th centuries were found in this upper layer indicating post-occupational disturbance of the site.
Other features found on the site were a series of granite covered shallow channels interpreted as drains. These lie mainly outside the southern walls of the chapel, where one channel clearly acted as a water channel which was fed by the drains, ensuring that the site wasn't threatened by flooding from heavy hillslope wash. Along the northern wall the outline of a stone bench or pew, 10ft 9ins long (3.32 m), 1ft 5ins wide (0.45 m) and standing up to 1ft 6ins high (0.48 m) was unearthed. No seat stones survived from the top of this feature in situ. A large slab (the Altar Mensa) of carefully cut coarse-grained granite measuring 4ft 4ins (1.34 m), 2ft 8ins long (0.85 m) and 8ins thick (0.24 m) was found, apparently displaced, in the north-west corner of the chapel. It bears no marking on its topside though its lower side was carefully worked and chamfered in places. It has been assigned to the first phase of occupation of the site. Pool writes that, "the absence of consecration crosses on the mensa indicates that the chapel was not formally consecrated", and that any mass celebrated here would have been done so with "a small portable altar" placed on top of the slab. (1969, 50).
A sub-rectangular pit 7ft long (2.13 m) by 2ft wide (0.60 m) and 1ft deep (0.30 m) dug into the eastern end of the building was interpreted as a possible "grave", despite its lack of a body, since it was probably beneath the presumed site of an altar at this end of the building; as is common practise in small chapels such as these. The stratigraphic evidence assigns this "grave" to an intermediate date between the two phases of occupation on the site.
Only one post-hole was found dug into the mortar floor - 8ins (0.24 m) in diameter and 1ft deep (0.30 m) - in the north-eastern area within the building. Packed with clayey soil and surrounded by packing stones, it was the only post-hole found and may indicate that a screen dividing the eastern end of the chapel from the rest once existed.
Pottery found during the excavation showed that the chapel was in use by at least the 12th century and subsequently reused in the 15th century.