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Lots of stones!

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About halfway between Penzance and Land’s End by bus, you’ll find this lovely stone circle in a field.

This late Stone/early Bronze Age (2500-1500BC) stone circle is renowned for both its beauty and the stories connected to it. . . . The regularity of spacing between stones and its truly circular form make the Boleigh Merry Maidens unusual in Cornwall, however restorations in the C19th (on the orders of the land owner Lord Falmouth who wanted to avoid the fate which had befallen other nearby circles and stones, namely field clearance and their use in construction) led to some stones being put back slightly skewed. There are 19 stones in all, with a gap in the eastern section which is common to almost all British stone circles. In addition to the regular spacing, the stones were also obviously carefully chosen and positioned as they gradually diminish in size from the southwest to the northeast; this waxing and waning in size believed to mirror the cycle of the moon.
Cornwall Guide

As you can see it’s early in the morning. There’s just me and nineteen stones in a perfect circle.

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The Mine of Botallack

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Yesterday the forecast was overcast in the morning with heavy rain starting around noon. I had my doubts about going all the way to the other coast to check out Botallack. Even if it wasn’t going to be raining in the morning, overcast and grey wasn’t going to be good for the photos I wanted to take. Maybe it could wait until the next day. Which seemed  a waste of my second last day here.

But “the other coast” is only 25 minutes away by bus, so I could go for a look and if necessary, come back!

It is rather cool to be sitting on a bus, doing a bit of reading, checking the map, then to look out and see these odd shaped ruins.

They don’t know when mining first started in this area. Maybe not long after people first looked at rocks and thought they could do something more useful than just banging them together, which lead to the Bronze Age. (Do you ever wonder how someone came up with the idea of melting stone to make weapons and other cool stuff? And did they call it melted stone at first?)

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St Michael’s Mount

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This is the island you can see from Penzance. It’s about 5 miles around the coast and it’s a tidal island. (Yes, another.)

So it’s accessed by a causeway. I arrived early because I wanted to watch the causeway uncover. Which is really cool to watch.  You see it appearing ahead through the water, then the water pulls back and you can walk along. Then you stop and wait for more to appear.

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Mousehole

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If you look at lists of thigs to do in Cornwall, they’re usually full of shops, beaches and quaint harbour towns with narrow streets and interesting little shops. So Mousehole….

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Chysauster Village & Castle an Dinas

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This is Chysauster Village. It’s an Iron Age village. In fact, it’s a Romano-British village from the late first to third centuries. That is a settlement of native Britons (Celts if you want) during the time of the Roman occupation of the islands.

Their village is about ten houses, arranged along a long central space not unlike a street. The houses themselves are built with a central courtyard.

Look at the fog. It’s not just surrounding the site but drifting through it. Like being away in another world.

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Three interesting things about York Minster

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(I almost called this “You won’t believe what they found under York Minster.”)

Minster is Old English/Anglo-Saxon term, used for an important church, and cathedral is a new-fangled term the base for an archbishop.  A church can be either or, as with York Minster, both. It’s been built, (partially) destroyed and rebuilt many times since the 8th century, so I’m not going into that. (If you’re interested.) Instead, just three interesting things:

Interesting thing 1: The Minster is inhabited by teeny, tiny people. (Some are so small you might need to click on a picture to get a bigger version so you can see them.)

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Going Roman at the Yorkshire Museum.

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The Yorkshire Museum in York has a lot of Roman artefacts (for reasons mnetioned below). Like any sensible museum, they are displayed in different rooms with themes (e.g People of York) but I’ve just pulled out some interesting ones to share. Unfortunately, like any sensible museum, the lighting is low so my selection of objects is further reduced by the those that photagraphed reasonably well. Text is italics is from the panels accompanying the objects.

Catimandua was queen of an Iron Age tribe called the Brigantes. Her tribal territory, which extended across the northern Britain, formed a buffer zone for the Roman Empire with the Picts to the north in Scotland. Her position was threatened by an open revolt led by her husband Venutius. The imperial authorities were forced to intervene. The Ninth Legion was sent north from Lincoln to quell the revolt. They constructed a permanent fortress at the confluence of two rivers and prehistoric route way. This fortress became Eboracum.

This aerial photo shows the location of the fortress overlaid on modern York, to give an idea of the size. The red square on the right marks the location of the fortress, now under the central city area. The “You Are Here” at the very top is the museum. On the left side of the river was the (civilian) town. Just above that is now the railway station. If I remember correctly, it was the site of a cemetery.

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We go back to the Ice Age

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This is Creswell Crags, a gorge full of magnesian limestone caves, that were occupied during the Ice Age.

According to the guide, about 60,000 years ago (about the time modern humans were arriving in Australia), there were Neandertals living here, along with hyenas, mammoths and reindeer. Then it became too cold until about 15,000 years ago when modern humans took up residence.

This is the largest of the caves. The entrances we went into, complete with our hats with torches on them, is along a bit futher.

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St Aidan’s, Bamburgh.

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Can you see the railing and sign on the far right side of the building? Guess what’s down there.

There’s a crypt, there’s a crypt with an ossuary and a video presentation about the inhabitants of the ossuary.

Basically, they discovered a 7-8th century graveyard in the dunes surrounding the castle. From the remains, archaeologists were able to determine things about their daily life, and then they were placed into boxes and put into the crypt.

The church is quite interesting inside too. (There’s a guided walk leaflet.) It does back to the 12th cenury, but there’s not much left of that building except for bits like the right hand window (the shape is different to the others).

Originally, St Aidan (remember him from Holy Island) erected a wooden church here. The story goes that he was leaning against a wall beam when he died. After that, the beam survived two fires and it’s considered miraculous. Now it is in the roof of the current church.

There is an effigy of Grace Darling (of the lighthouse resece) which used to out in the grave yard but has been replaced by a newer one. Across the road from the church is a Grace Darling museum.

And a unknown knight effigy.