Notes on Gurnard's Head

In a real old Cornish “mizzle” the other day I stopped at the old mine stacks west of Gurnard’s Head located under the great crag of Carn Galver which gives the tin-mine its name. 

Hikers at Gurnard’s Head

A path sets off toward the sea next to the ruins and if you walk down it you will find yourself peering into the depths of Porthmoina Cove. Look around you and you will get the feeling that there is something odd about the lay of the land around here. 

That is because mankind mucked about with the place for centuries extracting tin. Before they took to going deep underground to dig the stuff out, the tinners first used a process called ‘streaming’ which basically meant washing out the metal using water from the tiny runlets that pour off the hills. 

After that, they learned to dig ‘costeen’ pits in search of lodes or deposits of lumps of ore which had been separated out from the mother-lode by weathering. 

They wouldn’t have been given planning permission today – it was all fairly ruinous in landscape terms. But things soften with age and now the area seems to have been given an added sense of interest.

To one side of the cove looms the headland upon which once stood Bosigran Castle. This place may or may not link King Arthur to the area. His mother was called Y’gran – and the identical sounding suffix of Bosigran has been enough to convince many that she hailed from here. 

Nearby Gurnard’s Head is most famous nowadays for the excellent pub/hotel, but the actual headland is well worth a visit. Go there on a stormy day if you like watching the ocean at its most spectacular… 

In Cornish the place is called Trereen Dinas, which means the castle on the high place. And there was indeed a fortified cliff castle perched here, dating from the second century BC.