Cornwall: 3 Places That are Unique In Their Own Way
Three places in Cornwall that have stayed with me. By Mrs Mossie Wagtail.
I went to Cornwall last year having not visited for many many years.
I was very excited to go back to visit some unique places, some famous, some not, but all with their own story to tell.
I stood on cliff edges, in the middle of fields, and at the top of a very windy hill, looking at things that had no business still being there — and yet were.
These are the three places that stayed with me.
Tintagel: A Place With A Story To Remember
Tintagel is not a practical place.
The ruined castle sits on a headland so narrow and exposed that getting anything up there — supplies, timber, the enemy — would have been extremely difficult. There are steep paths, exposed ground and a big bridge to deal with. It is not the sort of location anyone would choose for comfort or efficiency, which makes the decision to build there more interesting.
The castle visible today dates from the 13th century, when Richard, Earl of Cornwall, chose this dramatic site for a new fortress. By that time, Tintagel was already strongly associated with the legend of King Arthur. Rather than selecting a convenient position, he chose one that carried symbolic weight.
As a result, the castle feels less like a purely defensive structure and more like a statement. Whatever its military usefulness, the connection to Arthurian tradition appears to have mattered more. The site was never a major stronghold and fell out of use relatively quickly.
Long before the medieval castle, however, the headland was already important. Archaeological evidence shows that during the centuries after the Romans left Britain, Tintagel was a high-status settlement connected to long-distance trade. Imported pottery and glass from the Mediterranean suggest that influential people once lived on this exposed edge of land.
It declined fairly quickly and was largely abandoned by the late Middle Ages. That could well have been partly because of its location, and that parts of it may have been eroded by the sea and the wind over the years.
I stood there longer than I planned to. Just because I could.
Carwynnen Quoit — A Monument Without Instructions
This is very different to Tintagel, in size, location and use.
Carwynnen Quoit is in the middle of a field.
Not dramatically positioned on a hill. Not beside a river or at the edge of something significant. Just — a field. Three upright stones holding up a massive capstone, sitting there as if waiting for someone to come back and explain what happens next.
It's a Neolithic burial chamber, thousands of years old. It would originally have been covered by an earthen mound, which has long since gone. What remains is the structure itself — simple, enormous, and completely impossible to ignore.
Nobody knows who built it. Nobody knows why this particular field. Nobody knows what was said there, or thought there, or remembered there.
I found this both unsettling and oddly comforting. The not-knowing feels important somehow. It survived because the stones were too heavy to move — several tons of inconvenience that outlasted everything around it.
I stood under the capstone for a while. It was eerily quiet, but not in a strange way. She could hear the noises of the farm in the next field. Birds came and sat nearby, adding to the atmosphere.
Carn Brea — One Hill, Many Conversations
Now Carn Brea is another place that is steeped in history, but it cannot make up its mind about what it is.
A prehistoric settlement at the base. Medieval fortifications on the slopes. A 19th century granite monument at the summit. Scattered remains of occupation going back thousands of years, all layered onto the same rocky outcrop as if the hill kept being interesting to people and nobody could quite bring themselves to leave it alone. Mossie understood. She didn't want to leave it either.
High ground does something to you. It offers visibility and a sense of standing apart from ordinary things. It shows that being up high, looking down, gives you a sense of reality. It certainly did for me.
Carn Brea doesn't tell one story. It tells many stories sharing the same hill.
Why These Places Have Stayed In My Memory
To me, all these places had the feeling of something unique. People had used them, had felt drawn to them. The effort involved in building, returning, remembering, was still somehow visible in the stones.
Sometimes a place holds its meaning even after the explanation has gone.
I doesn't always remember things so I always take photos. Then I just need to remember the things behind the photo, but they are memories for my children, and then their future families.
