12 December 2011 ST MICHAELS MOUNT Monday

Today's visit was also just a couple of miles from Penzance, but in the other direction to Marazion where we visited St Michaels Mount.  It is a castle built ontop of a small island to which there is walking access at low tide across a cobbled path.  It was quite a unique experience to be able to walk across a kind of natural moat.  For those interested, I have pasted a timeline of the castle's construction.
Tomorrow we leave for Okehampton near Dartmoor and we might not have wifi, therefore no blog, because we are staying on...............a working dairy farm in a cottage!!  I am soooo very very excited.

By the by - Hotel Penzance has a resident cat, Jerry, who very kindly escorted us up to our room today



From around 350 B.C. – The Mount was a key port for the trading of tin to the rest of Europe
495 A.D. – A vision of the Archangel of St Michael appeared on the Mount
Around 1070 – The Mount was granted to the Benedictine monks of Mont St Michel in France
1135 – The first stone church was built on the Mount by the French Abbot, Bernard le Bec, and later consecrated by Robert, Bishop of Exeter, in 1144
1193 – The Mount was seized by Henry de La Pomeray (on behalf of the Earl of Cornwall – later King John)
1473 – Mount seized by Earl of Oxford

1588 – Mount beacon lit to warn of the arrival of the Spanish Armada
1873-1878 – Victorian Wing of the castle built (where the family live now)
1954 – Gift of St Michael’s Mount with large endowment fund to the National Trust