What Makes West Cornwall Is the Perfect Place to Observe the Midwinter
Daylight dwindles quickly as I stand within the granite circle near St Just. The ancient pillars glow in this brooding landscape, like pale, inquisitive ghosts assembled around to observe our presence. Above us, a blanket of withered heathland plants climbs toward the rocky hill of Carn Kenidjack, the sinister granite tor that commands the naked horizon. After dark, this moorland is said to be frequented by pixies and demons, and on occasion the devil himself ventures forth to claim wayward spirits.
Unconcerned by any otherworldly danger, we look toward the ocean, at the hazy shapes on the horizon that are the remote Isles of Scilly. The sky crack open and a wave of sunlight washes over the islands. My companion, archaeoastronomer an authority on prehistoric astronomy, and I marvel. It is stunning an atmospheric display which may have been enjoyed by the community who erected this circle 4,000 years ago.
A Timeless Solstice Terrain
We have gathered at Tregeseal to discuss the winter solstice. Carolyn’s work centers on the connection of the region's ancient past with the cosmos, and she characterizes the entire westernmost tip of Cornwall as an prehistoric winter solstice landscape. This, she notes, is because of the spine of Cornish stone that runs south-west along the peninsula, toward the midwinter sunset. If, for example, you are located at the solstice by the mushroom-shaped quoit – the dolmen-like grave upon the moors south of Morvah – you will see the sun set over the distinctive tor on the southwestern horizon. And probably this is just as the tomb's ancient engineers intended.
"What superior place to honor the re-emergence of the sun than on the Penwith peninsula, which aims toward the vanishing spot of the sun on the day of least light?"
It is proposed that Tregeseal stone circle was carefully positioned to allow people to view the midwinter sun going down behind the Isles of Scilly. “Viewed from here, Scilly is a borderland. On a sunny day with fair conditions, the isles look nearby and just pop. On different days, they’re completely invisible. The ancient people could have regarded Scilly as an realm of spirits, maybe a place of the dead, associated with the darkest day and the return of the light.”
Enigmatic Stones and Light Beams
We weave through the dusk-filled brown moor past Bronze Age barrows and mounds of industrial waste to a curious formation, which may be the UK’s only Neolithic line of holed stones. In contrast to the stone at its more renowned counterpart a few miles away, it’s impossible to squeeze through the perforated monoliths; these holes are only just big enough to insert my hand through and extremely close to the ground. Researchers remain baffled.
A proposed explanation is that the row might have functioned as a kind of winter solstice countdown calendar, with the sun at dawn illuminating through the holes from late October until December and creating varying beams of light in the stones’ shadows. “Experiencing the heat of that golden beam of sunlight in the chilly, gloomy moor gave me a profound experience of how prehistoric people might have perceived the solstice,” she says.
A great number of ancient sites are aligned to the sunrise or sunset of the sun at the year's extremes for it to be a coincidence. It is logical that ancient cultivators, who needed the sun for illumination, warmth and the growth of crops, would want to track the sun’s journey. But in the present day, the darkness of this time of year still influences our spirits, and so we welcome the winter solstice, that day of least light of all before the hours of light begin to lengthen again.
Ancient Markers and New Traditions
A cutting east wind is gusting, and eerie low sounds come from unseen cows as I walk through damp clover to pay a visit the ancient standing stone, keeping watch as it has done for millennia above the peninsula’s south coast. It is just one of many of prehistoric stones that stand alone or in pairs or circles all over the peninsula; less than a mile away are the well-known Merry Maidens, dancers transformed into rock for violating the Sabbath. I think about how for ages the stone has persisted here, witnessing its view of the Celtic Sea and English Channel: where once Neolithic coracles would have floated, now freighters and the island boat pass by.
"Montol brings back the old Cornish custom of masked dancing, with its detailed outfits, seasonal songs and music of traditional instruments."
A filmmaker's hypnotic film, that follows 12 months in the existence of this stone, draws attention to the significance of its calm and quiet existence in the ever-changing landscape. “And I purposely started and ended the film with midwinter,” he explains, “because it is a time of unadulterated optimism – the pledge of the ending of the dark and a bright new year ahead.”
On the shortest day, all over the peninsula, people will be celebrating the solstice by hiking to stone circles, sacred springs, Iron Age sites and heritage sites. Excursions will be led to observe the sun setting. Many will walk to monoliths in a sort of ceremony of reflection and renewal. Later, many people will gather into the harbour town for the Montol festival, a solstice gathering that {dates only to|was established in|originated in
