St Michael's Mount at hightide, showing the flooded causeway, the castle atop the Mount and the village below. The tiny harbour is on the right. [4433]
Mid-tide shows the partially flooded granite causeway. [4447]
The unpronouceable Cornish name for St Michael's Mount means "hoar rock in woodland" which makes you think that it wasn't always a tidal island, but nowadays, at high tides, you need a boat to get to it, and at low tides, there is a granite causeway allowing access on foot. The tides here are around 4m, so it was fascinating to watch how the water rushed in and out every day, alternately flooding and drying the causeway.
The Mount illuminated in purple for a special National Trust event. The castle is normally only illuminated on Saturday nights, in an amber colour. For the coronation, it was red, white and blue, of course! [4463]
Visitors monitor the tides and visit the Mount en masse when they can use the dry causeway. [4519]
Beached boats in the Mount's tiny harbour. [4556]
View from the village to the castle on St Michael's Mount. [4559]
The older section of St Michael's Mount village cemetery. [4573]
We speculated on the presence and absence of the flag atop the castle, that it may signify whether the St Aubyn's were at home. [4577]
The Mount was a monastery from the 8th century, and the oldest current buildings, including the castle on top, are dated in the 1100's. In about 1600AD, the church abandoned the Mount which reverted to the Crown in about 1640 it was sold to the St Aubyn family who have lived here ever since! In 1954, the family gifted the Mount to the National Trust as well as funding its ongoing maintenance. The St Aubyn's still live in private quarters in the castle, but the bulk of the island is available for public visitation, so we did!
The Great Hall of the castle is named Chevy Chase, a term used in medieval times to describe the horseback raids made into disputed borderlands against the French. [4626]
A view of the Mount's gardens as seen from high on the parapets of the castle. [4637]
Inside the chapel of the castle. Sadly, the bells are now electronic. [4660]
Made from champagne corks by a family butler, a quite accurate model of the castle. [4670]
Castle battlements: that flag is not the Scottish Saltire, so not sure what it repesents. [4674]
Archaelogists in the castle's grounds looking for evidence of ancient civilisations. [4687]
In the castle garden. [4695]
Visitors boarding the boat in the Mount's harbour back to Marazion. [4704]
Directly opposite St Michael's Mount is the "ancient market village" of Marazion. We got there by a fast Great Western Railway (GWR) train from London Paddington to Penzance (no pirates in sight), a 500km journey which takes over 5 hours, an express to Plymouth, then stopping everywhere. Marazion is only 3km from Penzance. The scenery was fascinating, and both train journeys were very comfortable with trolley service for catering, and staff who went out of their way to be helpful. Our seats had power outlets and free WiFi, and indeed, our London Musings blog was finalised and published from the train. GWR offered compensation to passengers on the return journey because the arrival at Paddington was 16 minutes late! Imagine that level of customer service in Australia!
The GWR express to Paddington, awaiting us at Penzance station. [4820]
Marazion is a classic Cornish coastal town sharing the coast of Mount's Bay with the much bigger city of Penzance. At low tide, the water disappears from view leaving boats in harbours high and dry. In the village the streets are narrow and twisty (but the 20mph posted speed limit is obviously only for tourists) and the houses and shops are old and quaint and picturesque. Marazion's history is a little vague and maybe the subject of some mythology. The name implies a marketplace and Jewish origins. Evidence of ancient tin mining exists, but the town was not listed in the "great survey of much of England, the Domesday Book of 1088, and it was only chartered in the 1600's.
The boats are running but the causeway is only just flooded and many people are happy to get their feet wet. [4645]
The 1883 Marazion Institute, one of the town's notable civic buildings, with a general store next door. [4456]
Marazion's Town Hall - the clock can be seen and heard from Mount's Bay. [4506]
Traffic in Marazion, and the Chapel Rock Cafe at which we enjoyed Cornish Pasties. [4525]
The Cutty Sark is a popular restaurant, attached to a pub, in Marazion. [4723]
The state of the tide determines where the boats load and unload Mount visitors. This is the "mid-tide" loading point. [4727]
The Morazion cemetery. The leaning gravestones mostly date in the mid 1800's. [4734]
Colorful decoration in a tiny front yard of a house in Marazion. [4738]
The Kings Arms hotel in Marazion was the venue of one of our dinners. [4777]
Someone's folly maybe, a castle on a point of private land in Mount's Bay. [4783]
Union Jacks in Marazion's main street celebrate King Charles' recent coronation. [4789]
A painted rock, a modest celebration of the Coronation of King Charles III. [4798]
The Marazion town well, in use until 1870 when town water arrived. [4799]
We stayed three nights in the Godolphin hotel, easily the best located in Marazion, being closest to the Mount. The staff here were exceptional and, more than anything else, contributed to us having a most enjoyable time. The weather was equally exceptional: cold mornings were followed by warm and windless sunny days which tempted many of the rejoicing Brits to take to the high tide waters of Mount's Bay. We were tempted too, but the water itself was only 11C which is particularly character building during immersion! Also at high tide, trailer-sailer yachts take to the bay as well as kayakers, stand-up paddle-boarders etc.
Our hotel, the Godolphin, is in the peak position for viewing St Michael's Mount. [4484]
The Godolphin hotel from the beach. Craby's is the open air beer-garden, and Shuuters restaurant is upstairs. [4762]
After a most pleasant time in Marazion and Saint Michael's Mount, we taxied back to Penzance for our return to London on the GWR express train. Time allowed a brief walk around Penzance's busy High Street shopping strip.
The high street of Penzance, with Lloyd's Bank and dome on the left. [4818]
As seen from the speeding GWR train, the sprawl of housing that makes up Plymouth, the city from which Captain James Cook set out. [0427]
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