At South Milton in the church is an interesting rood-screen, with paintings of saints on the panels. Screens are, indeed, numerous in this district, some very fine. Crass stupidity has occasioned the destruction of those of Malborough and West Alvington. The clergy should be the guardians, not the ravagers, of their churches, but quis custodiet custodes?
A delightful row down the estuary will take to Salcombe, a modern place. Opposite, up a tremendous scramble, is Portlemouth, a settlement of S. Winwaloe, the great Brittany saint. He is locally called Onolaus or Onslow. Winwaloe was the son of Gwen of the Three Breasts, and her husband, Fragan or Brechan, cousin of Cado, Duke of Cornwall. Although Gwen is represented on monuments in Brittany as a woman with three breasts, yet in Celtic the epithet means no more than that she was twice married, and had children by both husbands. Winwaloe was educated by S. Budoc, and founded Landevenec in Finisterre. At one time, fired with enthusiasm at what he had heard of the achievements of S. Patrick in Ireland, he desired to go there, but was advised to remain and devote himself to the education of his own people. He accordingly gave up his life to ministering to the spiritual necessities of the Britons who came to Armorica, either as a place for expansion, finding Britain too strait for them, or driven there by dynastic revolutions.
Whether Winwaloe ever came into Devon and Cornwall we are not told in his Life, but it is not improbable, as he was closely related to the reigning princes.
His biographer gives us a somewhat minute account of his personal appearance and habits. He was of a moderate height, with a bright, smiling countenance; he was very patient with the perverse, and gentle in his dealings with all men. He was usually clothed in a goat's skin. He never seated himself in church, but always stood or knelt.
He died about 532. In Portlemouth Church, which has been barbarously "restored," he is represented on the screen holding the church in his hand. He is the third figure from the north. The first is partly effaced; the second is probably his sister, Creirwy; the sixth is Sir John Schorne, a Buckinghamshire rector, who died in 1308, and was supposed to have conjured the devil into a boot. He was venerated greatly as a patron against ague and the gout. There is a jingle relative to him:—
"To Maister John Schorne, that blessed man born,
For the ague to him we apply,
Which judgeth with a bote; I beshrew his heart's rote
That will trust him, and it be I."
His shrine was at North Marston in Bucks, and was a great resort up to the time of the Reformation. At one time the monks of Windsor contrived to get his body removed to their church, but though they advertised him well he did not "take on" in that quarter, and they returned the body to North Marston. There are representations of him on the screens of Wolborough and Alphington, and one or two in Norfolk. The screen at Portlemouth is of a richer and better design than is general in the county. In the "restoration" of the church the level of the chancel has been raised to an excessive height, so as to give a ludicrous appearance to those occupying the stalls. But altogether the restoration has been a piece of wanton barbarity. The carving of the screen is of a high quality. At South Huish was another beautiful little screen. This has been saved from the hand of desecration by being removed to the Chapel of Bowringslea, a grand old Tudor mansion that has been carefully and conscientiously restored by Mr. Ilbert, the proprietor.
At South Pool is a screen with arabesques on it, well restored; also an Easter sepulchre.