Perranzabuloe (/ˌpɛrənˈzæbjəloʊ/; Cornish Standard Written Form: Peran yn Treth[2]) is a coastal civil parish and a hamlet in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom.

[8] The name of the parish derives from the medieval Latin Perranus in Sabulo meaning Piran in the sand.

[10][11] Legend has it that St Piran landed on Perran beach from his native Ireland and built the oratory in the Irish style.

The interior was lit only by a small opening 8 inches above the stone altar where a headless skeleton was found, believed to be the saint himself.

Three carved stone 'Celtic' heads, of a man, woman, and cat that originally surrounded the points of the cable-framed, decorated, round-headed lofty portal arch[12][13] are in the care of the Royal Cornwall Museum following nineteenth-century vandalism.

The interior was apparently almost entirely unlit apart from two tiny penetrations, and the absence of timber finds on the waterlogged site[14] suggest the roof may have been constructed as a drystone corbelled vault in the early western-Atlantic ecclesiastical tradition found from Ireland to Brittany – see for example the better preserved Gallarus Oratory in Ireland or the late medieval Dupath Well.

The noted 17th-century antiquary Richard Carew wrote: St Piran too well brooketh his name in Sabuloe: for the sand carried up by the north wind from the seashore daily continueth covering and marring the land adjoinant, so as the distress of this deluge drove the inhabitants to remove their church.

It was in consequence of this notion that the inhabitants, thinking such situation secure, removed their church only about 300 yards, it being on the opposite side of the brook.

[22] In Norman times there was also a monastery (known as Lanpiran or Lamberran) near the oratory site but it was disendowed c1085 by Robert of Mortain.

The relics are recorded in an inventory made in 1281 and were still venerated in the reign of Queen Mary I according to Nicholas Roscarrock's account.

[7] On 5 August 1878 there was a service by the Bishop of Truro, to re-open the church following a renovation with new pews and a ″wagon-headed″ roof for the chancel, to divide it from the nave.

In October every year Perranporth hosts the annual inter-Celtic festival of 'Lowender Peran' which is also named in honour of St Piran.