Wow........ an exquisite site. The fact that I couldn't make out much of the promontory defences didn't matter a... er, sausage. To be here.... and taste and smell the salt air after a day seeking megaliths inland is everything.
Not sure that I could actually envisage people living on here, but then - of course - they were much harder than us 21st Century softies, weren't they? Then again, perhaps this was just a place of refuge to run to when the look-outs gave warning?
The Cornish coast is something really special and on a day like today when the sun shines and the sea reflects the blue sky, is there a better place to be than here? Right on!
This is a stunning place for the views alone on a beautiful sunny day in June, I'm not sure how I would feel about being here in a howling gale in mid winter though. The perfect place to defend, the cliffs either side of the narrowest point are at least 100 feet in height. It's a bit hard to see but there are the remains of walls and at least one entrance.
It's name in the Cornish language is Ynyal which means desolate.
Wait for low tide and walk round the headland itself for an adventure. Sit at the sea's edge and lose yourself to the mermaids... wonderful place to meditate.
Also any dowsers would love the 'hotspot' that occurs alongside the pathway towards the headland. Take the right hand path at the fork... very over powering! Get yer copper rods out! Not that youll need them mind ;)
The Gurnard's Head Inn has always been a fave spot to stop and take on liquid. It has been tarted up a bit in the last few years (ie there is now a seperate restaurant) but the food and drink is still good.
I reccomend the fish soup and Cornish Orchards apple juice and cider (brewed just down the road from the Duloe Stone Circle).
Mentioned by Craig Weatherhill, in "Cornovia: Ancient Sites of Cornwall & Scilly" (Cornwall Books - 1985, revised 1997 & 2000) - "Two dilapidated stone ramparts 60m long, with outer ditches, cross the high, narrow neck of this rugged headland, defending an area of 3 ha. The inner bank, 3.0m thick, reaches a height of 1.8m; the outer rampart is now no more than 1.2m high. The two halves of each rampart are slightly out of alignment, forming staggered entries that are now difficult to see. 10m south of these defences is a short length of ditch above the eastern cliff, apparently an unfinished outer defence. Excavation in 1939 showed that the back of the inner rampart had been fashioned into three steps, providing a stance for slingers, as in some Breton cliff castles. Within the ramparts, on the lower eastern side of the headland, are sixteen round houses averaging 6.0m in diameter. They and the ramparts are second century BC."
Just off the coastal footpath, on National Trust openland.
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