St Michael's Mount.
St Michael's Mount (Cornish: Karrek Loos yn Koos, meaning "hoar rock in woodland") is a small tidal island in Mount's Bay, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The island is a civil parish and is linked to the town of Marazion by a man-made causeway of granite setts, passable between mid-tide and low water. The population of this parish in 2011 was 35. It is managed by the National Trust, and the castle and chapel have been the home of the St Aubyn family since approximately 1650. The earliest buildings, on the summit, date to the 12th century.
Its Cornish language name – literally, "the grey rock in a wood" – may represent a folk memory of a time before Mount's Bay was flooded, indicating a description of the mount set in woodland. Remains of trees have been seen at low tides following storms on the beach at Perranuthnoe. Radiocarbon dating established the submerging of the hazel wood at about 1700 BC.
Historically, St Michael's Mount was a Cornish counterpart of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, France (with which it shares the same tidal island characteristics and the same conical shape, in spite of being much smaller), when it was given to the Benedictine religious order of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy by Edward the Confessor in the 11th century. In the 12th century it was their hands that built the church and priory that still lie at the heart of the castle today.
From 1193 when the Mount was seized by Henry La Pomeray who disguised his men as pilgrims, through the Wars of the Roses in 1473 when the Mount was held by the Earl of Oxford, to the Civil War, when Royalists valiantly held back the forces of Oliver Cromwell – the Mount has weathered many times of battle. Visitors can gaze out across the rows of cannons which once drove a Napoleonic ship to its capture on Marazion beach or peer up to the top of the church tower where the first beacon was lit of the series that warned London of the approach of the Spanish Armada.
St Michael's Mount.
St Michael's Mount (Cornish: Karrek Loos yn Koos, meaning "hoar rock in woodland") is a small tidal island in Mount's Bay, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The island is a civil parish and is linked to the town of Marazion by a man-made causeway of granite setts, passable between mid-tide and low water. The population of this parish in 2011 was 35. It is managed by the National Trust, and the castle and chapel have been the home of the St Aubyn family since approximately 1650. The earliest buildings, on the summit, date to the 12th century.
Its Cornish language name – literally, "the grey rock in a wood" – may represent a folk memory of a time before Mount's Bay was flooded, indicating a description of the mount set in woodland. Remains of trees have been seen at low tides following storms on the beach at Perranuthnoe. Radiocarbon dating established the submerging of the hazel wood at about 1700 BC.
Historically, St Michael's Mount was a Cornish counterpart of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, France (with which it shares the same tidal island characteristics and the same conical shape, in spite of being much smaller), when it was given to the Benedictine religious order of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy by Edward the Confessor in the 11th century. In the 12th century it was their hands that built the church and priory that still lie at the heart of the castle today.
From 1193 when the Mount was seized by Henry La Pomeray who disguised his men as pilgrims, through the Wars of the Roses in 1473 when the Mount was held by the Earl of Oxford, to the Civil War, when Royalists valiantly held back the forces of Oliver Cromwell – the Mount has weathered many times of battle. Visitors can gaze out across the rows of cannons which once drove a Napoleonic ship to its capture on Marazion beach or peer up to the top of the church tower where the first beacon was lit of the series that warned London of the approach of the Spanish Armada.