There are two magnificent and well-preserved courtyard house settlements in West Penwith: Carn Euny and Chysauster. Courtyard houses are only found in this area and the Isles of Scilly and are notable for their arrangements of multiple rooms (originally with thatched roofs) surrounding a central courtyard. The houses lined streets – at Chysauster nine housesContinue reading “Chysauster”
Category Archives: History
Caer Bran to Sancreed
Another section of the family tour of ancient sites in West Penwith. It’s an easy walk from the road by Grumbla up to the Iron Age (800 BC – 410 AD) hill fort of Caer Bran. It’s not as easy making out the described two concentric lines of ramparts and their ditches and the interiorContinue reading “Caer Bran to Sancreed”
Boscawen-ûn Stone Circle
One of Cornwall’s finest stone circles, the ‘Nine Maidens’ site dates from late Neolithic-early Bronze Age (2500-1500 BC). Nineteen upright stones form an ellipse, with a leaning central stone about 8 feet high. All of the stones are granite except one pure quartz stone – quartz is believed to have had healing significance for theContinue reading “Boscawen-ûn Stone Circle”
Isles of Scilly
The archipelago of the roughly 150 isles (and islets) of Scilly lies about 25 miles south-west of Cornwall. When the oceans were lower they were a single land mass called Ennor, flooded as recently as c. 400 AD and perhaps part of the source of the myth of the drowned lands of Lyonnesse. Five ofContinue reading “Isles of Scilly”
Penwith Landscape Partnership
Whenever I have found a way to give some of my time and energy, it has always broken the laws of physics and given me back more. The Penwith Landscape Partnership is a collaboration of multiple groups and agencies in West Penwith focused on the incredible environment and history of this land. I had theContinue reading “Penwith Landscape Partnership”
Eight and a Half
I set off walking on a glorious Saturday morning through the village of Tregeseal in the Kenidjack valley and then up to Hailglower Farm and the moorland beyond. Views of St. Just – the Medieval parish church tower stands on the left, and the Wesleyan Methodist chapel on the right. The ocean beyond. I loveContinue reading “Eight and a Half”
Poldark Country
We walked north and west of St. Just this time, up through Botallack to the coast path and then south again to the Kenidjack Valley. These clifftops hold tight to the ruins of the 19th century copper and tin mining industry, with chimneys and towers rising into the sky and mine shafts striking deep intoContinue reading “Poldark Country”
Tregeseal and Carn Kenidjack
More amazing weather, and me taking wrong turns on lanes into farmyards and alongside old streams. Bovine encounters. Ancient paths from St. Just down into the valley of Tregeseal, and then finally out onto the moor where gorse and heather and bracken lie below the scudding clouds. A kestrel hovering. The ancient stone circle, andContinue reading “Tregeseal and Carn Kenidjack”
Missed the Ordinalia
The first two weeks of September brought the three 14th century plays of the Ordinalia back to St. Just, on the Plein-an-Gwari. I had to watch it from afar, as the flat was in the midst of repairs. Hireth. Great documentary on it here.
Flat Two 