Not far from Tintagel is St Nectan’s Glen – a location arguably even more mystical than its better known Camelot counterpart.   Park at Trethevy on the B3263, walk past a holy well and the very old, tiny church of St Piran, admire far-reaching sea views then descend into the shade and shadow of the banks of the River Trevillet.  Awarded Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Special Scientific Interest status, stepping into this ancient wooded valley is like stepping back in

Overlooking Plymouth Sound, the only thing separating Kingsand from Cawsand is a small stream that these days goes virtually unnoticed. Insignificant as it might seem, however, that stretch of running water was, for centuries, the boundary between Devon and Cornwall.    You can still see what used to be the border on the front of one of the picturesque cottages today – set against a blue-painted wall, the old demarcation line is black and the house itself is appropriately nam

Thought to have been built in the Roman period between the first and third centuries AD, Chysauster is the site of an ancient hamlet in West Cornwall that comprised eight houses in a compact group of two rows of four each, with other outlying homes to the south west.  Each of the dwellings had the same kind of basic layout: an entrance leading to an open courtyard and a number of rooms (usually three) branching off it.  It’s thought that the people who lived there were farmer

When it comes to secrecy, Nancekuke can claim top billing.  Covering several hundred acres of land between Portreath and Porthtowan, few people in the 1950s and 60s had any idea that the former RAF station was playing a major role in Cold War politics by producing Sarin – a notoriously lethal nerve agent.  From 1954 until 1956, scientists were quietly going about their business there manufacturing tons of the odourless liquid that could, once inhaled, kill within minutes. Whe

It’s not hard to see why St Catherine’s Castle at the mouth of the Fowey estuary was built.  Positioned on a promontory looking out across the English Channel, it’s the perfect place to keep watch for enemy ships.  At the time of its constructionin the 1530s, Henry VIII had upset Rome and the Catholic world by insisting on divorce from Queen Catherine.  Invasion was a real possibility so the King ordered more coastal defences.  Local landowner Thomas Treffry, whose family had

Nanjizal Bay is near Land’s End and is not a place you stumble across unless you’re walking the South West coast path.   It’s a remote beach, framed by rugged, strangely-shaped cliffs – one of them a vertical chasm known as ‘Song of the Sea’ which, like the eye of a needle, provides compelling glimpses of the occasional crashing wave.  At the opposite end of the inlet is what is known as the ‘Diamond Horse’ – an equine-like rock formation whose veins of quartz glisten like je

Eliza Jane Hall was just 17 when she died in an horrific accident at Ding Dong Mine in West Cornwall.  As a bal maiden, she was one of the many young women in Cornwall who worked hard above ground in the mines.  Like her friend Alice Ann Stevens, she was employed in the stamp mill where small lumps of ore were crushed into sand-like material.  She had probably been labouring from the age of about ten and could have expected to stop when she got married.  Sadly, that was never