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Cornwall Art and Culture from Genius Loci
This page is dedicated to everyone who has a special memory of a specific place in Cornwall
Tintagel by Gareth (Australia)
Minack Theatre by Anna Corbett (UK)
Memories of Menabilly by Phil (UK)
A visit to the Merry Maidens by Karen Bergquist (USA)
The search for Boscawen-un Stone Circle by Penny Little (UK)
Cornwall - My County, my country by Clies Stevens (UK)
Tintagel by Gareth
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"I love anywhere along the north Cornwall coast, particularly Tintagel and Porth. When I was born my family lived in Crantock. I now live in Australia but was able to revisit Cornwall a few years ago. I made sure I paid a visit to Tintagel. Naturally ever since then I have developed a keen interest in all things Merlin and Arthur! The magic has been with me ever since! Peace and light....Gareth" |
Minack Theatre by Anna Corbett Willow Books
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The best place for me is the
Minack Theatre with its stunning views, wonderful backdrop and (usually)
brilliant plays. The Minack is the only place I've ever seen dolphins; about
three/four years ago there were a number of them quite near to the shore. It was
a blisteringly hot day with clear blue skies and these dolphins were prancing
around 2 canoes. It was an idyllic scene and always reminds me of why it
is so special to live in Cornwall. |
Menabilly by Phil
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A sacred site does not always have to mean a stone circle, it can be anywhere that makes you stop and realise the true meaning of life and what is important to you. The following is the story of such a place. In many ways I owe my love of Cornwall to my father. Year after year we would travel down for the annual family holiday. |
For my Dad, the goal was always to find a place where he could take us, without getting caught up in the endless traffic queues that you can sometimes find yourself in during Cornwall's high season.
One night after studying the ordinance survey map he came across the name Menabilly.
Menabilly is situated between Par Sands and Fowey. A narrow road (that can be easily missed) leads down to a field, followed by a leisurely walk that takes you down to the small beach. It had always been an ambition of mine to take my own family to this place that was so special to my father.
Sue was 30 on August 31st 1997, this seemed a fitting time to take her and our first son Daniel to Menabilly. The weather was not so good, with a strong wind blowing, and a fine rain beginning to fall. It did however fit the scene, as we carried the news that Princess Diana had been killed that day. We are not royal watchers, but everywhere we went that day, a cloud of melancholy seemed to hang over everyone and everything.
We climbed up from the beach and went through the small wood which takes you high over 'Gribbin Head'. Here the wind and the rain blew through our hair. I'm sure that the spirit of my father was near by as I looked at my own family and felt what he must have felt. I had come full circle, with perhaps a clearer understanding of life's joys and sorrows. We headed back to the car, promising we would return and continue with our dream of producing our Sacred Landscapes CD.
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We now have a
second son (Lee). Someday soon we will return to Menabilly, and hopefully he
will learn to love Cornwall as we do.
Phil Aston UK Reginald Aston 1929 -1985 |
Merry Maidens Karen Bergquist (USA)
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I am an American who lives in the suburbs of Chicago and I have been to England 3 times (with many more to come!). On my first trip over, I rented a car and drove out to Cornwall from Heathrow. My original intention was to visit the stone circles and other megalithic monuments which I had read about for many years. |
On my way out, I chanced to meet a very nice lady who recommended the book Sun and the Serpent to me. I picked up a copy at The Henge Shop in Avebury and almost without realizing it I had been, and was planning to follow the St Micheal/Mary line out to Land's End!
With a slightly more conscious attitude, I continued my trip out to Cornwall. My first evening in Penzance I fell in love with the area, the next day I went out to the Merry Maidens stone circle, It was to be my first real taste of old Cornwall.
| It was a cold (January) day with grey clouds solid in all directions. As I stood in the center of the circle, I noticed that to the south, out over the sea, the clouds were breaking up slightly and the sun was trying to break thru. As I watched, the clouds blew over the Merry Maidens, the sun broke thru and shone down right on me in the circle! The break in the clouds continued to move off to the north, closing as it went so that within a few seconds, it was closed and the sky was grey again, and remained so for the rest of the day. |  |
I took this as a special sign that I was in the place I was meant to be. I have loved Cornwall ever since and continue to feel called back to that very special place.
I was just over for a visit last month (February) and fell even further in love with beauty and wildness of the Cornish countryside. I only wish that it were possible for me to visit more often, but that whole Atlantic Ocean just gets in the way!
Karen Bergquist (USA) [Top of this page]
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Boscawen - Un Stone Circle Penny Little (UK) |
If anyone had told me 33
years ago, that I would still be with the same man, I may have doubted them. But
here we are and he's still the light of my life. Although he has a great love of
nature and all it's wonders and is pagan in everything but calling himself one,
my greatest wish is that one day we can *do* things together.
To practice with your partner must surely be the best feeling in the world, but
I think we're getting there as this little story shows.
I think that one day it will happen, with no asking or planning. I hope so
anyway.....
And so the quest for the stone circle called Boscawen-Un, in Cornwall, began. I knew it was near St. Buryan so we drove around there a bit first. Well, we drove quite a lot actually. I was looking for a sign or something, but found nothing.
Eventually, we drove back to the village and asked directions from an old man who was working in his shed. He told us that it was just along the road, and sounded surprised that we had missed it. I felt a bit confused when he asked John if I was the jealous type as "they were once beautiful young women." We found the circle easily enough. There was a signpost with a lay-by just next to it, but it wasn't the right circle. This site turned out to be the Merry Maidens, a nice enough circle, but not the one that I had traveled so far to find.
At least the old man’s question now made sense. Next we headed back to the village and the post office where I intended to ask the clerk about Boscawen. When I went inside, there were two ladies already waiting to be served. As I waited myself, I looked over at one of the women and thought that she looked…
Well, you know how people have "the look" as if they would know what you need to know? I just asked her if she could help me, and indeed, she did know and went to great lengths to explain exactly how to get there. It would not be easy she told me, but "when you see the kissing gate, you'll know that you're there." We were to climb over the gate and go straight ahead. Before we left, she put her arms around me and wished me good luck. And so, we found the spot!
The path had obviously not been walked in months. It was shoulder high in bracken and ankle tripping high in brambles, but on we traipsed. Then John told me to look in the ploughed field across the way where there was a sort of ring of stones, but all them were laying flat on the ground.. We climbed a barbed wire fence to go and look at them. I assumed that they were the stones, and that either the farmer had dug them up or that vandals had knocked them down or something. With disappointment written all over my face, we headed back to the van. I had to know if we had really seen them so we stopped at the nearest house where I asked a very nice couple if I had indeed seen Boscawen-Un. The man was all set to send us back to the Merry Maidens, but the woman knew better. She told us that we had been on the right track, but we had not walked far enough. Well, that was that, or so I thought. We had already been on this quest of mine about three hours, and I didn't think that John would drive down that road again. To my delight, he put the key in the ignition and swung the van round saying that people would be starting to wonder about the odd couple driving down the same road for the tenth time. From then on it was just a matter of "action re-play" but walking a lot further this time. After a while John hoisted me up onto a nearby bank and there before us was what is believed to be the first monument built by a band of druids who had come to Britain to preach an early form of Christianity.
It was made with stones of local granite with just one exception, a beautiful, large rounded block of quartz. And on this block lay a silver bracelet with two tokens placed inside. Maybe it was a call for love, or perhaps for a re-union. Only the one who placed it there truly knows.
Here was this beautiful circle in such natural surroundings, and not a single soul around us. We stood in the middle of that circle with our arms around each other, and for two pins I could have taken off all my clothes and made love to that wonderful man of mine! There was a passionate sort of energy there in that place of wonder, but I fear John would have thought I'd completely lost the plot! Or perhaps he wouldn’t have thought it, and I should have done. Penny Little
It has been said before, and it will be said again and again, the land of Cornwall is a land of contrast and mystery; not to mention legend and mythology.
If you have ever stood on the Zennor road and watched the changing light as it plays over the quilted patchwork of ancient fields below you, then you can with no effort at all see and feel the Bronze Age people who made it.
I have stood there often, with a patient hound for company and watched the almost mystical transformation below.
We, that is the hound and I have also been drenched with driving rain, stung with hail and blown along our feet hardly touching the turf! This was all on the same February day, and was just one of the unforgettable days we spent on the moors of Penwith.
Penwith, say it softly and it sounds like an incantation to an ancient God. Shout the word and it could be a curse but like it or loathe it this is the land I have been in love with since I was old enough to see the beauty of it all. Over the years I have traveled the world, like countless cousin Jacks before me.
I have worked the high Copper mines of Peru, and sweated the days away in the
south China sea; watched the sunset from
Country, a word that has inspired terrible violence and sweet poetry, art and feats of engineering that mankind will bear witness to forever. Yet to capture that essence that is Cornwall is not something to put on paper or canvass, because it will not be captured.
It is a freedom of the spirit; a sense of belonging like no other place can bring to you. The very smell of the land after a summer rain, or the nostril tickling ozone of the approaching storm with black clouds pregnant with nature’s violence.
Can a land inspire love? A thing of unforgiving nature if you do not pay heed to it, but it will caress you like a sweet lovers touch, soft and tender. Yes a land like my country does inspire love, a love that has been carried world wide and is still there today I believe; locked away in the genetic memory of all those who left to start anew in a foreign land.
In 1968 I found myself talking to a farmer in Tasmania that Island so like home in its moods. We were having a sociable beer in a small one bar one beer pub, no spirits sold here except for the one distilled from cider. (I think they have since sold the secret of the brew to NASA)
The farmer asked me did I know of a place called St. Just! I told him I did and suddenly found myself the centre of attention from all present. The farmer turned out to be called Tremayne, and he had his wife and five strapping sons with him.
I do not remember how that evening ended, the local brew triumphed in the end and I awoke to listen to the pub coming to life outside a back room I had been put in to sleep it all off. The one thing I can remember to this day was the fascination to hear of the ‘homeland’.
The original Tremayne had left St Just or Penzance in the 1880’s or so, but had given his children a sense of belonging to a culture that he considered older than the Romans. They passed it along and during W.W.1 family members visited the County it seems.
I have found place names beginning with the TRE-POL-PEN prefix in
WHEN I GO HOME MY CHEELD I SHALL TELL MOTHER ALL ABOUT IT.
ALFRED YOUR LOVING BROTHER.
When I found that epitaph I wept for all who had traveled here before me.
And now my country is found all about me, in a gulls cry and blackbird’s song; from the spring budding of the May bush and the golden acres of daffodils. The land of Scillonia is also the jewel in the crown of all who are Cornish, lying across the shipping lanes and water borne currents from all over the world. To see them on a clear spring day is like listening to a piece of classical music with new ears, the landscape here is beyond description.
My country is found in the soft landscape of the south coast, in the magnificent high cliffs of the North coast, to the poignant deserted mine chimneys of our industrial past, peopled now by the life force of wild nature.
Ever hear the keening cry of the buzzard? Or looked into those blazing yellow eyes as he sits on a fence post, majestically surveying his kingdom? There is something of the very heart of this land, this county, this country of mine In his stare.
So next time you sit and watch the sunlight chasing the shadow of the clouds over the landscape of my country Cornwall, relax and believe that if you are there to see it you are part of a land older then the Romans! [Top of this page]
Click here to listen to the music of Sue Aston
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