THE CHAPEL ROCK, PERRAN-PORTH.
THIS is one of the rocks--of which many exist--around the Cornish
coast, upon which, at one time, there stood, in all probability, a small
chapel or oratory. This rock is left dry at every tide, but stands far out in
the sea at high-water. A curious fancy exists with respect to it. It is said
that this rock can be approached on dry sand every day at eleven o'clock
throughout the year. There is no truth in this statement, but strangers are
gravely assured that this is the fact. From this rock to the sandy peninsula
which runs out in the "porth," or port, is about five hundred yards--those,
it is said, were, at one time, connected by cultivated land. From the
circumstance that the evidences of a burial-place have been found on the
little peninsula, it appears highly probable that the island and it have been
closely connected as church and graveyard. Tradition refers the destruction of
the land to certain storms or convulsions which swept away the country, for a
mile or two out at sea, marked by a line drawn from the rocks off St Agnes,
known as "The Man and his Man," and "Carters' Rock," which is off Penhale
Point.