Locations | Dark Cornwall

Dive into the rich landscapes that shaped Cornwall’s folklore. From ancient sites steeped in mystery to dramatic coastlines whispered about in legends, our locations map brings these stories to life, connecting you to the heart of Cornwall’s enchanted past.

The Battle of Hingston Down

The Battle of Hingston Down took place in 838, probably at Hingston Down in Cornwall, between a combined force of Cornish and Vikings on one side and the West Saxons led by King Ecgberht on the other. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle, which refers to the Cornish as the West Welsh, records that a great naval force arrived among the West Welsh, that they combined with them, and that Ecgberht then advanced to fight them at Hengestdune, putting both the Welsh and the Danes to flight. Most historians identify the battlefield as Hingston Down north east of Callington in Cornwall, though a minority favour sites on Dartmoor at Moretonhampstead or Down Tor. Yet the simplest reading of the Chronicle, coupled with geography and tradition, continues to favour the Cornish location.

Hingston Down itself is a commanding granite ridge, a ‘boss’ on the great batholith that underlies much of Devon and Cornwall. Rising above the Tamar Valley, it gives sweeping views across both counties and would have served as a natural stronghold for any army watching movements along the river corridor. The ridge later yielded rich seams of copper, and Hingston Down Mine, worked from at least the seventeenth century, had by 1882 produced more than sixty four thousand tons of ore, all sent to Calstock Quay and shipped to South Wales for smelting. A map by the old engine house still shows the original mine’s spread, now cloaked in rough vegetation. The same hill supported the Phoenix Brickworks in the 1870s, employing four hundred men and exporting bricks as far as the dockyards of St Petersburg before its demolition in 1968. These later industries underline how the hill has long drawn human enterprise, from warfare to mining to manufacture.

That long continuity makes Hingston Down a fitting stage for the struggle recorded in 838. A fleet arriving “among the West Welsh” fits naturally with the Tamar and Lynher estuaries, where Cornish and Viking forces could gather near secure moorings before challenging West Saxon authority east of the river. The hill’s height and proximity to the crossings near Calstock make it an ideal position for the allies to meet Ecgberht’s counter march. Local memory lingers in the tale of Dupath Well, close to Callington, where a fight between Saxons and a Cornishman named Colan is said to have created the spring, as well as in the persistence of the Hingston family name in the area. Such folklore, while not evidence in itself, shows that the memory of battle and loss endured in this landscape.

The broader context was the steady contraction of the British kingdom of Dumnonia, which once covered Devon and Cornwall. Eastern Devon fell to Wessex in the early eighth century, and in 815 Ecgberht raided Cornwall from east to west, likely marking the conquest of the remaining western parts of Devon. The battles of Gafulford and Hingston Down show that Cornwall, though pressured, was still able to muster armies and even forge alliances with seaborne Vikings. Hingston was the last recorded clash between Cornish and West Saxons, closing a century of conflict that began with the fight at Llongborth around 710. Cornwall’s political independence faded over the following decades, but the presence of later kings such as Dungarth, who died in 875, suggests that local rule persisted under West Saxon oversight rather than ending outright at Hingston.

Around this frontier, religion and landholding were also in flux. In 830 Ecgberht granted Landwithan and nearby estates, including Lezant, to the Bishop of Sherborne to support missions against the Celtic Church. Lezant’s dedication to St Briochus and its name from lan, place, and sant, holy, mark a deep-rooted sacred landscape that survived long after the wars. Later claims that Ecgberht granted Kilkhampton, Ros and Maker to Sherborne rely on much later monastic lists and are contradicted by earlier evidence, so they likely reflect later ambition rather than ninth century control.

Taken together, the evidence of geography, tradition, and text supports Hingston Down in Cornwall as the true site of the 838 battle. The hill’s position above the Tamar, its commanding views, its enduring folklore and later industry all root it firmly in the Cornish story. Here the Cornish and their Viking allies faced Ecgberht’s army in what proved to be the final great act of open resistance, an event that closed one chapter of independence but left a landscape whose granite backbone, mined and fought over for centuries, still carries the memory of that day.

The Trewhiddle Hoard

On 8 November 1774, tin miners working a stream near Trewhiddle, St Austell, uncovered one of Cornwall’s most remarkable archaeological finds: a hoard of 114 Anglo-Saxon coins together with a silver chalice and other gold and silver objects. The discovery was made some seventeen feet beneath the surface, in a heap of loose stones thought to be part of an old mine working. When found, several items were coated in copper from a local vein, suggesting they had lain undisturbed for centuries. The find was first collected and recorded by the antiquarian Philip Rashleigh of Menabilly, though the recovery was haphazard, and some pieces were lost before he could assemble the collection. Many fragments of the silver chalice, for example, had disappeared by the time his description appeared in print. Most of the surviving artefacts were later presented to the British Museum.

The hoard consisted of over a hundred silver pennies, mostly from the kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex, indicating that the objects were concealed around 868 AD. Alongside the coins were a range of ecclesiastical and secular items: silver mounts and strap-ends, a small chalice, pins, and fragments of other ornate metalwork. Many were decorated with niello inlay forming stylised animal and interlace designs. These decorative features became recognised as the hallmark of the “Trewhiddle style” of Anglo-Saxon art, later seen in objects across England. The craftsmanship suggests connections to monastic workshops or high-status patrons, marking the hoard as one of the most significant groups of Christian Saxon metalwork ever found.

Jonathan Rashleigh’s later 1868 paper in the Numismatic Chronicle provided the first systematic study of the Trewhiddle find, describing the coins, their distribution between Mercian and West Saxon mints, and their bearing on the political geography of late ninth-century Britain. He interpreted the hoard as property hidden for safekeeping, possibly to protect it from Viking raids, which were then devastating much of the English coast. Rashleigh compared the Trewhiddle assemblage with other Anglo-Saxon hoards from southern England, noting similarities in form and technique that reflected a wide network of trade and cultural contact across the British Isles.

Recent scholarship, however, has re-examined this traditional assumption. While it has long been supposed that the hoard was hidden to escape Viking plunder, there is no direct evidence that Viking forces raided Cornwall during the 860s or 870s. Instead, new interpretations propose that the deposit might have been buried by Vikings themselves. The mixture of Christian liturgical and secular objects parallels certain Scandinavian hoards of the same period, and it is now suggested that Trewhiddle may reflect not merely defensive concealment but also military or trading activity between Viking groups and Cornish communities.

Whether concealed by a local cleric, an Anglo-Saxon traveller, or a Scandinavian settler, the Trewhiddle hoard remains a pivotal discovery for understanding Cornwall’s place within the shifting world of the ninth century. It bridges art, economy, and belief at a time of great political transformation, when Wessex was consolidating power and external pressures were reshaping Britain’s cultural landscape. The survival of its intricately decorated metalwork has ensured that “Trewhiddle” endures not only as a place name but as a defining term in the study of Anglo-Saxon art and archaeology.

Carn Kenidjack Holed Stones

Perched on Kenidjack Common near St Just in Cornwall, the Kenidjack holed stones form a fascinating grouping of prehistoric megaliths with circular apertures cut into them. The main cluster comprises four large granite slabs aligned roughly east-northeast to west-southwest, while a smaller outlier lies a few metres to the northwest. Their collective arrangement is unusual in Cornwall, where single holed stones are sometimes found, but rarely in deliberate groups. Over the centuries, these stones have likely been disturbed, re-erected, or shifted, meaning their current positions may not reflect the precise arrangement intended by their prehistoric builders.

Archaeological investigations in 2023 explored whether any evidence remained of the stones’ original settings in the earth. Excavations beneath one of the main stones revealed traces of a possible pit or hollow and a burnt flint flake, suggesting ancient activity, although dating the find proved difficult. Another of the stones showed no clear sign of disturbance, leaving open the question of whether all five were once part of a unified monument. The investigation also confirmed that later movement of the stones may have altered their alignment, complicating any effort to determine their original astronomical or ritual purpose.

One of the most compelling theories is that the Kenidjack holed stones were used for observing the sun. The low positioning of the holes makes it unlikely they were meant for direct viewing, as looking through them toward the rising sun would be both awkward and dangerous. Instead, the idea is that the holes allowed the first light of sunrise to pass through and project a small circular beam of sunlight onto the ground behind the stone. Calculations suggest the current orientation of several of the stones corresponds with the rising sun around late November through December, particularly during the winter solstice period, when sunlight would have shone through the apertures in a striking display.

Some have speculated about potential stellar alignments, but this remains less convincing. The narrow horizon view and atmospheric distortion would have made it difficult to use the holes to track the first appearance of bright stars. Only a few, such as Sirius or Rigel, could have been visible in the relevant sky window. Given these limitations, the solar alignment theory remains the most plausible explanation for the stones’ design and placement.

Beyond their function, the Kenidjack holed stones occupy a landscape steeped in symbolism and prehistoric ritual. They lie close to the Tregeseal stone circles and other ancient monuments known for their solar connections, particularly with the winter solstice sunrise. The outlier stone’s placement, seemingly oriented toward the outcrop of Carn Kenidjack itself, may indicate a deliberate visual or ceremonial link with the hill.

Parc an Creeg Barrow

In the quiet cul de sac of Parkencreeg in Carnon Downs lies an extraordinary piece of Cornwall’s ancient past. Beneath a small grassy plot rests a Bronze Age barrow, a burial mound more than 3,500 years old. Positioned high on the ridge above the Carnon Valley, it forms part of a wider network of prehistoric sites that once marked the landscape with ceremony and meaning.

Across Cornwall, over three thousand such barrows still survive, scattered across moors, fields, and coastal hills. While many are associated with burials, not all contained human remains. Some may have served as ritual or ceremonial centres, where communities gathered to mark seasonal events, honour ancestors, or connect with the spiritual world. These mounds were more than resting places for the dead; they were focal points for the living.

Today, one of the Carnon Downs barrows rests quietly among homes in Parkencreeg, its Cornish name meaning “Field of the Barrow.” It stands as a subtle reminder of the depth of history that underlies Cornwall’s modern communities, where ancient landscapes and daily life continue to share the same ground.

Penventinnie Round

Over 750 rounds are recorded in the British Isles, particularly around the Irish Sea. In England, they are mostly confined to south-west Devon and Cornwall, where many more examples may yet be discovered. Typically sited on hillslopes and spurs, rounds are a major source of evidence for understanding settlement and social organisation during the Iron Age and Roman periods in south-west England. Because of this significance, those with substantial surviving remains are often considered to be of national importance.

The round north-west of Penventinnie is a well-preserved example and is expected to retain valuable archaeological evidence. This includes details about the construction of the monument, the lives of its former inhabitants, and the wider landscape in which they lived. Its survival makes it an important site for interpreting Cornwall’s later prehistoric and Romano-British past.

The monument itself is a near-circular defended enclosure with an inner bank and outer ditch, positioned just below the summit of a north-facing spur. The enclosure measures about 85m by 60m, defined by a single earthen rampart up to 8m wide and 2m high, except where entrances occur. The original entrance lies on the north-east side, with a more recent break on the south-west. The surrounding ditch, especially clear to the north, is less distinct to the south, likely due to natural deposits filling it. The site benefits from natural defences, with the Kenwyn River and its tributaries enclosing three sides. Several contemporary settlements lie nearby, including rounds at Threemilestone, Higher Besore, Polstain, and Carvinack, as well as the larger hillfort at Bosvisack.

Today, Penventinnie Round sits close to the rapidly expanding Langarth Garden Village development on the edge of Truro. Planned to house up to 10,000 residents, this project places the ancient monument in stark contrast with the modern growth of the city. Despite the pressure of development, the round remains a visible reminder of Cornwall’s deep past, set within a changing landscape.

The round has been recorded and referenced for centuries. It appeared on the tithe map of around 1840, marked as ‘Ancient Fort’, and was later noted by antiquarians such as MacLaughlan in 1847 and Thomas in 1851. Henderson, writing in the early 20th century, described it as a “very perfect round” with a thick earth rampart and a well-defined ditch, though already showing some wear. Surveyed again by the Ordnance Survey in 1965, the ditch had by then been partially ploughed in, with a new gap opened on the south-west. The monument was scheduled in 1975, with its designation updated in 1997. Aerial photographs continue to show the round clearly as a ring of trees, a striking feature that has endured through centuries of record and observation.

Nanstallon Roman Fort

The Roman fort at Nanstallon, located on the south-western edge of Bodmin Moor, overlooks the River Camel from the south, opposite Boscarne, about two and a half miles west of Bodmin. It is both the most southern and most western of all known Roman stations in the British Isles. Built during the reign of Nero, the fort is thought to have been occupied from around AD 65 to 79, and today survives only as earthworks. Its position was strategically chosen, controlling one of the lowest fords across the River Camel, while also monitoring movement inland between the Camel and the River Fowey.

Excavations carried out between 1966 and 1969 revealed much about the structure and use of the site. The ramparts were formed from clay thrown up between turf revetments, enclosing a fort that measured 290 feet east–west by 330 feet north–south, covering just over two acres. The defences included six-posted timber gateways and towers, with rare double-portal gates comparable to those found only at Baginton and Brough on Humber. Inside, evidence was found for barrack blocks, a principia of unusual wide design, the praetorium, and an ablutions block near the south-east gateway. Finds included coins from the late Republic through to Vespasian, samian ware pottery dating from AD 50–80, and signs of silver-working.

The fort was too small to house a full auxiliary unit, suggesting that a detachment was stationed here, possibly tasked with overseeing lead and silver extraction in the surrounding area. The barracks were rectangular with no projecting officers’ quarters, though larger rooms were provided at their ends. The principia stood out for its wide proportions, containing long halls on either side of its courtyard, a recessed entrance and a portico. Excavations also uncovered trenches, hearths, and crucibles beneath one of the barrack rooms, confirming metalworking activity on site.

Nanstallon may also have had a wider role in the Roman control of the Cornish peninsula. While it directly overlooked the Camel crossing, the fort could not see the Fowey crossing to the south. It is possible that a signal station on nearby Bodmin Beacon allowed communication between the two rivers, creating a surveillance system across a key movement corridor. A 7th-century document known as the Ravenna Cosmography may refer to Nanstallon under the name Statio Deventiasteno, translated as “The Station at the Narrows of Deventia,” a title that fits its strategic location on the peninsula.

Though occupation of Nanstallon was relatively short, ending around AD 79 or soon after, the fort has produced an important body of archaeological evidence. Finds point to careful dismantling rather than violent abandonment, and flint tools from earlier periods show that the site was part of a much older landscape of human activity. Today, Nanstallon remains a rare example of Roman military presence in Cornwall, its earthworks and buried remains providing a crucial insight into Rome’s reach into Britain’s far south-west.

The Trenoweth Collar

West Cornwall is not especially rich in fine metalwork of the later Iron Age. Castle Gotha near St Austell, a hillfort occupied mainly in the first two centuries AD, has evidence for local bronze working and even a stone mould for casting penannular armlets. Aside from coins, Sir Cyril Fox could list only a handful of Cornish pieces with real artistic merit. Among them is a bronze collar about 15.2 centimetres in diameter, made on a lead core and set with clear and brown glass. First published in 1807 as a find from Trenoweth near Lelant, it was described in a letter from Reginald Pole Carew to Samuel Lysons, illustrated with a drawing by Frederick Nash.

Later research refined the find spot. In 1966 a Borlase manuscript in Truro came to light with a watercolour of the same collar and a note stating it was dug up in 1793 while streaming for tin at Trenoweth in St Stephen in Brannell. The piece was shown to the Society of Antiquaries in 1807, exhibited in Paris in 1867, and in Truro in 1868 by permission of its then owner, the Reverend Edward Duke, who had inherited it from Philip Rashleigh. The British Museum purchased it at Sotheby’s in 1895, but today the collar is back in Cornwall and forms part of the collection of the Royal Cornwall Museum & Art Gallery in Truro.

Laboratory analysis has shown its composite construction. The back plate is a tin bronze, the front plate a brass with zinc, lead and some tin, joined together with lead tin solder. There is no evidence of earlier gilding. The use of true brass with high zinc content points to technology available only after the Roman conquest. Decoration consists of four balanced panels of freehand incision and punching, each a palmette built from branching comma motifs with glass settings at their centres, and a ring of pendant triangles around the edge. Comparisons have been drawn with early Roman western pieces such as the bronze neck ring from Portland in Dorset and the hinged collar from Wraxall in Somerset.

Motifs on the Cornwall collar place it in a wider regional vocabulary. The pendant triangles echo the edge of the mirror from the female grave at Trelan Bahow, St Keverne. Pelta forms seen on the Portland ring recall decoration on mirrors from St Keverne and from Stamford Hill, Plymouth, which may reflect Augustan classical symmetry. Trumpet spirals, central to the design of all three south western rings, are related to the plastic versions seen on the Llyn Cerrig plaque. Though not a masterpiece, the Trenoweth collar shows the conservatism of later Celtic motifs in peripheral areas, what Hodson called “peripheral archaism,” and it fits an area of mineral wealth and skilled metalworkers.

A second Cornish neck ring underlines the point. In 2007 a public open day brought to light a neck ring and a small stone bowl found a decade earlier by Mike Salter at Pentire, Newquay, and donated to the Newquay Old Cornwall Society. British Museum specialists confirmed the piece as later Iron Age. Complete and fresh in condition, it is oval, made of two separately cast sections of leaded bronze joined by a rear hinge and a front push fit catch, and weighs about 540 grams. Its decorated terminals with criss cross and herringbone motifs, and a mortise and tenon hinge pinned with iron, place it firmly within a western tradition that favoured robust construction and conservative design.

The Harlyn Bay Iron Age Cemetary

Tucked behind the beach at Harlyn Bay lies one of Cornwall’s most remarkable and overlooked archaeological sites. Today it’s all surfboards and summer trade, but beneath the holiday buzz is a burial ground stretching back to the Iron Age, with finds that still shape our understanding of life and death on this coast. What began as a house foundation dig at the turn of the 20th century quickly turned into something far greater.

In 1900, a man named Reddie Mallett was digging behind the beach when he uncovered a stone lined grave containing human remains. The discovery drew the attention of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, who appointed a committee to oversee further work. Among them was the folklorist and clergyman Rev Sabine Baring Gould. Over the next five years, Mallett and local scholars excavated around 130 graves. A museum was built on the site and some of the artefacts were placed on display. Though the museum eventually closed in 1976, many of those remains and finds are now held by the Royal Cornwall Museum.

The discoveries included brooches, daggers, pins, loom weights and slate tools, but also more curious objects like a holed serpentine amulet. Two gold lunulae now in the Royal Cornwall Museum are thought to have come from this same site, though they were first unearthed back in 1866 when a workman, not knowing their significance, used them to tie up his trousers. They were later declared Treasure Trove by the Duke of Cornwall and handed to the museum “for the permanent gratification of public curiosity.” Later investigations also revealed a circular stone structure beneath the cemetery, thought to be a mortuary house or shrine, with a foundation burial nearby.

The story might have ended there, but thanks to a few surviving documents, especially a booklet written by Rev Robert Ashington Bullen, interest in the Harlyn cemetery endured into the 20th century. Copies of Bullen’s booklets were sold to visitors in the 1920s and 1930s, containing photos and diagrams of the skulls and graves. In recent years, researcher Alexis Jordan from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee has taken this material and revisited the evidence using modern scientific techniques. With help from the Cornwall Archaeological Society, she arranged for radiocarbon dating on two skulls now housed in Padstow Museum.

Jordan’s research confirmed that one skull, labelled TRURI: 2019.17, came from the Iron Age cemetery and dates to the 1st century BCE to 1st century CE. The other, TRURI: 2019.18, was recovered from a midden near Constantine Church and dates to the 5th to 7th centuries CE. Both belonged to women aged between 35 and 50 years old. These new findings show just how much there is still to learn. Over a century after Mallett’s first discovery, Harlyn Bay continues to offer fresh insights, not only into ancient Cornwall, but into the evolving story of how we interpret the past.

The Wreck of the Schiedam

The wreck of the Schiedam lies just off Dollar Cove, on Cornwall’s storm-lashed Lizard Peninsula. Once a Dutch cargo ship or fluyt, she had an extraordinary career before meeting her end in 1684. Captured by Barbary pirates, then seized back by the Royal Navy, she became the Schiedam Prize and was pressed into service as a transport ship. Laden with people, horses, cannon and military stores from Tangier, she was separated from her convoy in a gale and driven onto the rocks at Gunwalloe Cove.

For more than 300 years the wreck remained hidden beneath sand and surf. It was first identified in 1971, when diver Anthony Randall located the site and began decades of archaeological work. Since then, over 150 artefacts have been recovered, many now housed at the Charlestown Shipwreck & Heritage Centre. More recently, divers Mark Milburn and David Gibbins of Cornwall Maritime Archaeology have revisited the site on behalf of Historic England, recording objects and assessing the wreck’s condition.

Among the most striking finds are hand grenades, cannons, and fragments of gun carriages, remnants of the military cargo Schiedam carried on her final voyage. Historian Robert Felce, who lives near Dollar Cove, has even discovered grenades washed ashore centuries later. At first glance, these encrusted relics looked like ordinary stones, until they broke open to reveal their explosive interiors. Safely defused by the British Army, they are a vivid reminder of the ship’s role in transporting war material.

The Schiedam site today is fragile and shifting. Much of the ship’s wooden structure has long since rotted away, but storms occasionally strip back the sand to expose cannons, iron fittings and other debris before burying them once more. Each new storm brings the chance of discovery, but also further damage. This cycle of exposure and erosion makes the wreck both a resource for archaeologists and a vulnerable piece of maritime heritage.

Historic England now protects the Schiedam as a designated wreck site, recognising its unusual history and importance. It tells not just the story of one shipwreck, but of the Tangier garrison’s return, of piracy and naval warfare, and of the perils of Cornwall’s Atlantic coast. From treasure seekers to television crews filming Poldark, the Schiedam continues to capture imaginations.

The Giant's Hedge

The Giant’s Hedge is a vast earthwork that stretches for nearly ten miles between Looe and Lerryn in southeast Cornwall. In places it still rises to twelve feet, though records from Victorian times suggest it once stood as high as sixteen feet. Where best preserved, the Hedge is faced with stone and bordered by a ditch. It is thought to have marked and defended the boundary of a Cornish kingdom, its line running between the waters of the River Fowey and the West Looe River, protecting the land in between.

Folklore, as always in Cornwall, has its own account. A fragment of an old rhyme survives, telling us: “Jack the Giant having nothing to do, built a hedge from Lerryn to Looe.” No one remembers Jack now, nor why he built it, but the tale lingers in the trees and hedgerows. Some say if you sit quietly by the Fowey at Lerryn, and listen with an open heart, the trees may whisper their own stories—of love, of long-forgotten lives, sheltered beneath their ancient canopy.

Historically, the monument falls into seven separate areas, covering about fifteen kilometres in total length. Around three kilometres have been lost, with 2.8 kilometres protected in varying degrees. In some places it survives as a ditch with a bank to the south; elsewhere only as a scarp, its ditch filled in. At its best, the bank measures 3.5 metres wide and two metres high, with the ditch alongside up to three metres across and nearly a metre deep. The course winds below hill crests, through four parishes, and was long thought by some antiquarians, like Borlase, to be a Roman road. Today, however, it is considered a pre-Norman boundary. A variant of the local rhyme even credits the Devil himself: “One day, the Devil, having nothing to do, built a great hedge from Lerryn to Looe.”

The route has also been called Cornwall’s oldest road, perhaps as much as four thousand years old. In places it cuts so deeply into the earth that bedrock is exposed, worn into channels by centuries of water flow. Fields sit high above its banks, making the term “hedge” seem almost misleading—these are earthworks of giant scale. This depth and scale is what inspired its name. Its presence also recalls other discoveries, such as the ancient cobbled track uncovered in 2013 near the Hurlers stone circles on Bodmin Moor, described at the time as Britain’s oldest pavement. The Giant’s Hedge, marked on Ordnance Survey maps, is no less remarkable, though parts of it remain hidden, far from paths and only witnessed by sheep and the occasional wanderer.

For archaeologists, the significance of the Giant’s Hedge lies not in folklore but in its connection to prehistoric landscapes. English Heritage note that the earthwork follows the line of an ancient track, running past Bronze Age barrows, suggesting it may have originated in that period. Over the centuries, sections have disappeared, while others have been absorbed into lanes and field boundaries. Yet where it survives, the Hedge still carves its course across the land, a visible reminder of Cornwall’s deep past. Whether seen as a kingdom’s defence, a Bronze Age track, or the work of a bored giant, the Giant’s Hedge remains one of the great mysteries stitched into Cornwall’s landscape.

Looe Island/Lammana

Looe Island is a nine hectare marine nature reserve off the Cornish coast, managed by Cornwall Wildlife Trust since 2004. It provides a sanctuary for a wide range of wildlife, including seals, dolphins, and seabirds, across its diverse habitats of woodland, grassland, and rocky reefs. Access is carefully managed to protect its fragile environment, with visitors only able to land via organised boat trips from spring to autumn, climbing from the boat onto a portable trolley to reach the shore. Beyond its natural beauty, the island holds a rich history that stretches back through centuries of legend, trade, and faith.

On the northern side of the island stands a solitary stone, believed by some to date from prehistoric times. Archaeological discoveries in the surrounding waters and on the land have added weight to the island’s ancient significance. A large bronze ingot was recovered by divers south of the island, leading some to suggest that Looe Island could have been the fabled Ictis, the tin trading centre described by Pytheas in the fourth century BC and later by Diodorus Siculus. While most scholars believe Ictis refers to St Michael’s Mount, the finds near Looe show it was certainly connected to trade in late prehistoric and Romano British times.

Classical accounts describe how the people of Belerion worked the rocky ground to extract and smelt tin, casting it into ingots shaped like knucklebones before transporting them by wagon across dry ground at low tide to Ictis. Merchants from distant lands would then purchase the metal. Whether or not Looe Island was Ictis, the discovery of tin ingots and imported amphora fragments from the Aegean link the island firmly to long distance trade in both the late Roman and post Roman periods. Its later name, Lammana, contains Cornish place name elements meaning an early Christian enclosure or monastery, marking the island’s shift from commerce to faith.

The first firm record of Lammana dates to 1144, when Pope Lucius II confirmed it as belonging to Glastonbury Abbey, a right reaffirmed in 1163 by Pope Alexander III. By around 1200, a small priory stood on the island, home to two monks. Their chapel was dedicated to St Michael and served both as a place of worship and as a site of pilgrimage. Glastonbury monks held small properties on the mainland and carried out baptisms and other religious duties for the people of Portlooe, despite such pastoral work being unusual for Benedictines. At some point, the chapel was transferred to the mainland, partly due to the dangers faced by pilgrims attempting the crossing on stormy seas.

By 1289 Glastonbury had withdrawn entirely, selling the island’s chapel and its holdings to Walter of Treverbyn, lord of Portlooe. From then, Lammana became a secular benefice under the parish of Talland. The chapel continued in use into the sixteenth century, though its income was modest and services were limited. By 1546 records note that worship on the island had ceased, and in 1548 the Crown dissolved the benefice and sold the island and its chapel into private hands. Later travellers such as John Leland made no mention of a chapel, marking the end of Lammana’s long role as a religious centre. What remains today is a place where nature thrives, layered with echoes of trade, devotion, and legend.

Gwallon Menhir

The Gwallon Longstone, rumoured to be the tallest in Cornwall outside of Penwith, stands within the grounds of Penrice Community College on Porthpean Road, close to the centre of St Austell. Despite its location in the midst of the town’s expansion, this granite monolith has endured as a striking relic of the ancient landscape.

At around 12 feet tall, the stone is an imposing survivor, remarkable for its preservation given its position amid modern development. Once associated with a now vanished barrow cemetery, the longstone is best visited during school holidays or by prior arrangement. Access is possible via a footpath leading from Porthpean Road.

Known also as the Giant’s Staff, the longstone has long inspired local legend. It is said to be the lost walking stick of the fearsome Tregeagle, a tale that was noted by John Murray in his Handbook for Travellers in Devon and Cornwall (1865). This blending of folklore with physical monument reflects the way such stones have captured the imagination across centuries.

Beyond the legend, the stone is often referred to as Gwallon Menhir. Canon Hammond once described it as a ‘rude obelisk’ and suggested it may have marked the site of a battle or burial. He also noted the frequent mention of ‘Wallen’ in early records, identifying the area as comprising 46 acres of waste during the reign of Edward I, further rooting the stone within the historical fabric of the land.

The Armed Knight

The rocks known as the Armed Knight rise from the blue-green waters off the Cornish coast at Land’s End, standing sentinel against the restless Atlantic. Looking outward from Carn Greeb, the formation points the eye toward Longships Lighthouse and the horizon beyond, a place where myth, memory, and sea blend together. Today, visitors see only the jagged islet, but four centuries ago the westernmost tip of this headland was marked by another striking feature, a natural tower known as Spire Rock, or in Cornish, Careg an Pell – the distant rock.

Careg an Pell was no ordinary landmark. According to local tradition, it stood tall and formidable until 1648, when a great storm thundered in from the Atlantic and shattered it into the sea. The collapse of this spire was seen by many as a portent, and when King Charles I was executed the following year, the destruction of the rock was remembered as a sign of calamity foretold. The very name “The Peal,” still used in later times, may well echo this lost pinnacle.

Legends grew around the Spire Rock. Some said it had once been crowned with an iron rod or spire, placed there by the Romans or even by King Athelstan himself. Though the truth of such claims is doubtful, the associations with conquest and guardianship seem to have shaped the name “Armed Knight.” When the Spire Rock finally fell, the title was transferred to the rocky island just offshore – the formation that still bears the name today, jutting from the sea like a knight in armour holding fast against the waves.

The antiquarian William Camden, writing in the 16th century, described a watchtower at Land’s End, used by mariners as a guide. Whether this referred to the Spire Rock or another structure is uncertain, but his words preserve an image of the headland as a place of both warning and welcome, where land met ocean in stark drama. Camden also suggested that this western promontory had once extended much farther out, hinting at land now lost beneath the waves.

Here we meet the legend of Lyonesse, the drowned land said to lie beneath the seas between Land’s End and the Isles of Scilly. The story tells of churches whose bells still toll beneath the surf, and of fertile fields swept away by a sudden flood. Spire Rock and the Armed Knight, with their tales of collapse and survival, echo this deeper mythology of loss and warning. To stand on the cliffs at Land’s End and gaze out across the waters is to look upon not just sea and stone, but the layered history of Cornwall’s edge, where storm, legend, and memory converge.

Giant’s Holt Fogou

The settlement at Higher Bodinnar, near Sancreed, preserves the fragmentary but evocative remains of a once substantial Iron Age and Romano British community. Scattered across the south facing slopes, between 180m and 205m above sea level, are the ruined traces of courtyard houses, hut circles, a fogou, and a field system that once extended across at least 12 hectares. Antiquarians such as Thomas Tonkin and William Borlase recorded the site in the eighteenth century, noting the presence of at least three major courtyard houses, one of which appeared to incorporate a fogou. By the nineteenth century the settlement, known locally as “The Crellar,” had fallen into ruin, though Borlase’s 1872 sketch plan was pioneering in placing the surviving structures within their broader landscape setting.

The fogou, remembered in tradition as the “Giant’s Holt,” once formed a striking feature of the site. Borlase described entering the underground passage in 1738, noting its stone lined walls, capstones, and branching side passage, though already collapsed in places. By the mid nineteenth century the fogou had largely been destroyed, its stones carried away for hedge building, leaving only a shallow depression visible today. Local folklore tells that the Giant’s Holt was dreaded as the abode of spriggans who guarded hidden treasure, and that its dark passages were used to frighten unruly children into good behaviour. Such stories reflect both the mysterious presence of subterranean structures in the Cornish landscape and the lasting cultural memory of fogous as liminal, uncanny places.

Several rounds and enclosures also survive around Higher Bodinnar, visible as curving earthworks in the fields and captured more clearly through aerial photography and Lidar survey. At SW41503220, a substantial curvilinear boundary 2.2m high is likely the trace of a round, while at SW41663231 a 43m wide enclosure, partly fossilised into later field boundaries, suggests another Iron Age or Romano British round. A further enclosure, at SW41663205, measures 31 by 38m with an entrance facing south, and is again likely to have been part of the settlement complex. Together, these enclosures reveal a clustered community, set within a wider agricultural system of fields and trackways, typical of Cornish upland settlement during the later prehistoric and Roman periods.

Chance finds over the centuries have reinforced the impression that Higher Bodinnar was a site of long and important occupation. Roman coins, pottery, a mortarium, a socketed stone, and a quern have all been unearthed here between the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The recovery of two Roman coin hoards in particular suggests a settlement not only of local subsistence but of wider economic connections during the Roman period. Earlier still, the landscape preserves the remains of at least two Bronze Age cists, one uncovered in the 1830s when a mound of stones was removed to reveal concentric stone walls and deposits of ash. These earlier burials emphasise the longevity of the site as a focus of human activity, long before the courtyard houses were constructed.

Although today the remains are slight, low earthworks, overgrown stone spreads, and faint depressions, the combination of rounds, enclosures, courtyard houses, fogou, cists, and a field system mark Higher Bodinnar as a significant node of settlement in the prehistoric and Romano British landscape of West Cornwall. The work of antiquarians, surveyors, and modern aerial and Lidar recording allows us to piece together its former scale and complexity, even as the material traces fade back into the fields. Folklore, too, plays its part, preserving the memory of the Giant’s Holt and its guardian spriggans, a reminder that archaeology and oral tradition together shape our understanding of Cornwall’s ancient sites.Giant’s Holt

Treveneague Fogou

In 1866, the ploughing of a field at Treveneague revealed the entrance to a fogou that opened into the eastern ditch of what is now recognised as a round. The ditch itself was some nine feet deep and could be traced on three sides, with the northern edge destroyed by earlier quarrying and the bank levelled before discovery. The structure was first excavated soon after its uncovering, but it was Henderson’s investigations between 1914 and 1917 that provided the most detailed account of its position and condition. He recorded the blocked-up entrance at about SW 54783301, forty yards from the southern and eastern hedges of the field, and noted that the division of the land had changed since the time of earlier attempts to locate the site.

Architecturally, the fogou shared features with those at Chapel Euny and Pendeen Vau, particularly the presence of an arched chamber rather than a corbelled construction. This chamber had been cut directly into solid clay, making it a robust subterranean feature. The passage floor contained a thick, greasy layer of mould in which numerous finds were made, including charcoal, animal and bird bones, a granite saddle quern, and an iron bill-hook of La Tène type. There was also mention of possible human remains within this layer, though the evidence was never conclusive.

Pottery finds added to the significance of the site. A bowl of black polished ware was reconstructed from sherds recovered within the fogou, its style bearing close resemblance to Glastonbury ware of the Iron Age. Similar sherds were also discovered in the surrounding ditch. Henderson’s excavation yielded seventeen different pottery types alongside flint implements, two querns, and further pieces of iron. Intriguingly, later disturbance of the site also produced fragments of medieval pottery, indicating re-use or continued activity in the area long after the fogou’s original construction.

The site attracted renewed archaeological interest in 1995, when the Channel 4 programme Time Team carried out a geophysical survey and excavation under the direction of Tim Taylor. Their work successfully relocated the fogou, confirming it as an Iron Age feature. Initial gradiometry had failed to pick up clear responses, but a second survey detected anomalies that matched the expected size and orientation of the fogou described in earlier records. Surprisingly, it was found to lie about 160 metres southwest of its previously documented position, underscoring the difficulty of reconciling antiquarian reports with modern survey techniques.

The surveys also revealed broader landscape features associated with the fogou. A curving ditch anomaly suggested that the fogou lay within part of a larger enclosure, consistent with other Cornish rounds. In addition, unusual anomalies adjoining the main ditch corresponded closely with the form and orientation of the fogou itself. While some weaker signals detected may have been of natural origin, the main results align strongly with Henderson’s early 20th century account. Taken together, the findings at Treveneague present an important case study of how fogous were situated within wider settlement landscapes and how archaeological interpretation has shifted from antiquarian excavation to modern geophysical science.