Visit Cornwall Places

Welcome to Visit Cornwall Places
The Walkfo guide to things to do & explore in Cornwall

  

Cornwall Places Overview: History, Culture & Facts about Cornwall

---

Cornwall history

---

Prehistory, Roman and post-Roman periods

The area now known as Cornwall was first inhabited in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods . It continued to be occupied by Neolithic and Bronze-Age people . During the British Iron Age, Cornwall was inhabited by a Celtic people known as the Britons . Tin, required for the production of bronze, was a relatively rare and precious commodity in the Bronze Age .

Conflict with Wessex

Battle of Deorham in 577 saw the separation of Dumnonia (and therefore Cornwall) from Wales, following which the Dumnonii often came into conflict with the expanding English kingdom of Wessex .

Breton–Norman period

By this time the native Cornish landowning class had been almost completely dispossessed and replaced by English landowners, particularly Harold Godwinson . Two leading Cornish figures nominally had Saxon names, but these were both glossed with Cornish names .

Later medieval administration and society

Stannary parliaments and stannary courts were legislative and legal institutions in Cornwall and in Devon (in the Dartmoor area) The Cornish language continued to be spoken and acquired a number of characteristics establishing its identity as a separate language from Breton . During the 17th and 18th centuries Cornwall was a major smuggling area .

Heraldry

The name appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 891 as On Corn walum . In the Domesday Book it was referred to as Cornualia and in 1198 as Cornwal . Other names for the county include a latinisation of the name as Cornubia .

Cornwall culture & places

Language

Cornish is a revived language that died out as a first language in the late 18th century . It is closely related to the other Brythonic languages, Breton and Welsh, and less so to the Goidelic languages . Cornish has no legal status in the UK and is a social networking community language .

Flag

The banner of Saint Piran is a white cross on a black background . It is regarded as the county flag by Cornwall Council . The Cornish flag is an exact reverse of the former Breton black cross national flag .

Arts

Since the 19th century, Cornwall has sustained a vibrant visual art scene of international renown . Artistic activity within Cornwall was initially centred on the art-colony of Newlyn . Modernist writers such as D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf lived in Cornwall between the wars .

Music

Cornwall has a folk music tradition that has survived into the present and is well known for its unusual folk survivals such as Mummers Plays, the Furry Dance in Helston played by the famous Helston Town Band . Newlyn is home to a food and music festival that hosts live music, cooking demonstrations and displays of locally caught fish .

Literature

Cornwall’s rich heritage and dramatic landscape have inspired numerous writers. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, author of many novels and works of literary criticism, lived in Fowey: his novels are mainly set in Cornwall. Daphne du Maurier lived at Menabilly near Fowey and many of her novels had Cornish settings, including Rebecca, Jamaica Inn, Frenchman’s Creek, My Cousin Rachel, and The House on the Strand. She is also noted for writing Vanishing Cornwall. Cornwall provided the inspiration for The Birds, one of her terrifying series of short stories, made famous as a film by Alfred Hitchcock. Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot featuring Sherlock Holmes is set in Cornwall. Winston Graham’s series Poldark, Kate Tremayne’s Adam Loveday series, Susan Cooper’s novels Over Sea, Under Stone and Greenwitch, and Mary Wesley’s The Camomile Lawn are all set in Cornwall. Writing under the pseudonym of Alexander Kent, Douglas Reeman sets parts of his Richard Bolitho and Adam Bolitho series in the Cornwall of the late 18th and the early 19th centuries, particularly in Falmouth. Gilbert K. Chesterton placed the action of many of his stories there. Medieval Cornwall is the setting of the trilogy by Monica Furlong, Wise Child, Juniper and Colman, as well as part of Charles Kingsley’s Hereward the Wake. Hammond Innes’s novel, The Killer Mine; Charles de Lint’s novel The Little Country; and Chapters 24-25 of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows take place in Cornwall (Shell Cottage, on the beach outside the fictional village of Tinworth). David Cornwell, who wrote espionage novels under the name John le Carré, lived and worked in Cornwall. Nobel Prize-winning novelist William Golding was born in St Columb Minor in 1911, and returned to live near Truro from 1985 until his death in 1993. D. H. Lawrence spent a short time living in Cornwall. Rosamunde Pilcher grew up in Cornwall, and several of her books take place there. The late Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman was famously fond of Cornwall and it featured prominently in his poetry. He is buried in the churchyard at St Enodoc’s Church, Trebetherick. Charles Causley, the poet, was born in Launceston and is perhaps the best known of Cornish poets. Jack Clemo and the scholar A. L. Rowse were also notable Cornishmen known for their poetry; The Rev. R. S. Hawker of Morwenstow wrote some poetry which was very popular in the Victorian period. The Scottish poet W. S. Graham lived in West Cornwall from 1944 until his death in 1986. The poet Laurence Binyon wrote “For the Fallen” (first published in 1914) while sitting on the cliffs between Pentire Point and The Rumps and a stone plaque was erected in 2001 to commemorate the fact. The plaque bears the inscription “FOR THE FALLEN / Composed on these cliffs, 1914”. The plaque also bears below this the fourth stanza (sometimes referred to as “The Ode”) of the poem: Cornwall produced a substantial number of passion plays such as the Ordinalia during the Middle Ages. Many are still extant, and provide valuable information about the Cornish language. See also Cornish literature Colin Wilson, a prolific writer who is best known for his debut work The Outsider (1956) and for The Mind Parasites (1967), lived in Gorran Haven, a small village on the southern Cornish coast. The writer D. M. Thomas was born in Redruth but lived and worked in Australia and the United States before returning to his native Cornwall. He has written novels, poetry, and other works, including translations from Russian. Thomas Hardy’s drama The Queen of Cornwall (1923) is a version of the Tristan story; the second act of Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde takes place in Cornwall, as do Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas The Pirates of Penzance and Ruddigore. Clara Vyvyan was the author of various books about many aspects of Cornish life such as Our Cornwall. She once wrote: “The Loneliness of Cornwall is a loneliness unchanged by the presence of men, its freedoms a freedom inexpressible by description or epitaph. Your cannot say Cornwall is this or that. Your cannot describe it in a word or visualise it in a second. You may know the country from east to west and sea to sea, but if you close your eyes and think about it no clear-cut image rises before you. In this quality of changefulness have we possibly surprised the secret of Cornwall’s wild spirit–in this intimacy the essence of its charm? Cornwall!”. A level of Tomb Raider: Legend, a game dealing with Arthurian Legend, takes place in Cornwall at a museum above King Arthur’s tomb. The adventure game The Lost Crown is set in the fictional town of Saxton, which uses the Cornish settlements of Polperro, Talland and Looe as its model. The fairy tale Jack the Giant Killer takes place in Cornwall.

Sports

The main sports played in Cornwall are rugby, football and cricket . Cornwall is one of the few places in England where shinty is played . Surfing is popular, particularly with tourists, and thousands of tourists take to the water throughout the summer months .

Cuisine

Cornish clotted cream has Protected Geographical Status under EU law, and cannot be made anywhere else . The wet climate and relatively poor soil of Cornwall make it unsuitable for growing many arable crops .

Cornwall economy & business

Tourism

Tourism is estimated to contribute up to 24% of Cornwall’s gross domestic product . In 2011 tourism brought £1.85 billion into the Cornish economy . Five million tourists visit Cornwall each year, mostly drawn from within the UK .

Fishing

Other industries include fishing, although this has been significantly re-structured by EU fishing policies . Southwest Handline Fishermen’s Association has started to revive fishing industry .

Agriculture

Agriculture, once an important part of the Cornish economy, has declined significantly relative to other industries . However, there is still a strong dairy industry, with products such as Cornish clotted cream .

Mining

Mining of tin and copper was also an industry, but today the derelict mine workings survive only as a World Heritage Site . Camborne School of Mines is still a world centre of excellence in the field of mining and applied geology . China clay extraction has also been an important industry in the St Austell area .

Internet

Cornwall is the landing point for twenty-two of the world’s fastest high-speed undersea and transatlantic fibre optic cables . 95% of Cornish homes and businesses are now connected to a fibre-based broadband network .

Aerospace

There are also plans to establish Spaceport Cornwall at Newquay, in partnership with Goonhilly satellite tracking station near Helston in south Cornwall .

You can visit Cornwall places with Walkfo Cornwall to hear history at Cornwall’s places whilst walking around using the free digital tour app. Walkfo Cornwall has 27 places to visit in our interactive Cornwall map, with amazing history, culture & travel facts you can explore the same way you would at a museum or art gallery with information audio headset. With Walkfo, you can travel by foot, bike or bus throughout Cornwall, being in the moment, without digital distraction or limits to a specific walking route. Our historic audio walks, National Trust interactive audio experiences, digital tour guides for English Heritage locations are available at Cornwall places, with a AI tour guide to help you get the best from a visit to Cornwall & the surrounding areas.

“Curated content for millions of locations across the UK, with 27 audio facts unique to Cornwall places in an interactive Cornwall map you can explore.”

Walkfo: Visit Cornwall Places Map
27 tourist, history, culture & geography spots

---

–

Cornwall historic spots	Cornwall tourist destinations	Cornwall plaques	Cornwall geographic features
Walkfo Cornwall tourism map key: places to see & visit like National Trust sites, Blue Plaques, English Heritage locations & top tourist destinations in Cornwall

  

Best Cornwall places to visit

---

Cornwall has places to explore by foot, bike or bus. Below are a selection of the varied Cornwall’s destinations you can visit with additional content available at the Walkfo Cornwall’s information audio spots:

St Dennis A.F.C. St Dennis Association Football Club is a football club based in St Dennis, Cornwall. They are currently members of the South West Peninsula League Premier Division West and play at Boscawen Park.

Visit Cornwall plaques