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cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/19673493

An enigmatic stone and turf structure on Bodmin Moor that was previously thought to be a medieval animal pen has been found to be 4,000 years older – and unique in Europe.

The rectangular monument was built not in the early medieval period to corral livestock, as recorded by Historic England, but rather in the middle Neolithic, between 5,000 and 5,500 years ago, archaeologists have discovered.

Nothing like it is known in Britain or farther afield, according to experts, meaning that the original purpose of the monument known as King Arthur’s Hall is a mystery.

“There isn’t another one of these anywhere,” said the lead archaeologist, James Gossip. “There is nothing built at that time or subsequently in prehistory that is a rectangular earth and stone bank with a setting of stone orthostats around the interior. There is no other parallel.”

The so-called “hall”, which sits on the western side of Bodmin Moor near Helstone in Cornwall, consists of a banked enclosure measuring 49 metres by 21 metres, lined on the inside with 56 standing stones up to 1.8 metres tall.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/17533303

Two friends are causing a stir completing a six-day tandem bike ride completely naked. Neil Cox, 36, and his friend, J Antic, 25, set off on Saturday on a naked 260-mile journey from Gloucester to Land's End, Cornwall.

The pair are both naturists - meaning they like to spend time in the nude - and wanted to see some natural beauty across the south west of England. Neil and J have cycled naked through Gloucester to Bristol, taken a trip to the Mendips and stopped off in Glastonbury.

The pair have spent some nights camping and others in hotels or B&Bs, and even took some nude trips out shopping or to drink in bars while on their journey. Now in Cornwall, they're on the last leg of their cycle - and say the response to them so far has been "overwhelmingly positive".

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"People on social media always have opinions - but we haven't had many negative reactions. People in Glastonbury were overwhelmingly positive, it was a bit overwhelming. In Bristol people had a casual indifference, but that's what we want to be the case really.

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"Wherever we go, people do look over - I think some are just bemused about seeing two people on a tandem. So they find it even funnier to see two naked people on a tandem."

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/15979945

A fisherman from Devon has landed the first shark of its kind - one made of Lego lost at sea off a cargo ship 27 years ago.

Richard West, a 35-year-old fisherman living in Plymouth, found the plastic toy on the top of his fishing nets 20 miles (32km) south of Penzance on Tuesday.

He contacted the project Lego Lost at Sea, whose founder Tracey Williams confirmed the piece to be the first-ever reported shark from the 51,800 Lego sharks lost off the Tokio Express cargo ship on 13 February 1997.

A freak wave in a severe gale swept 62 shipping containers into the sea 20 miles (32km) off Land's End, one of which held 4,756,940 pieces of Lego, much of it sea-themed.

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Mr West said: "I was so excited. I was more happy about finding the shark that anything else I caught this week.

"It's priceless - it's treasure!"

Ms Williams said: "This Lego shark is one of 51,800 lost overboard from the Tokio Express and the only one we’ve ever seen.

"Richard and I now have joint custody of the shark."

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Recently Lego from the container lost overboard has been found not just in Cornwall but in the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, Wales and Ireland, she added.

Previously: Boy, 13, finds 'holy grail' Lego octopus piece from sea spillage in 1997

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/14408193

A Coastguard Rescue Team and RNLI lifeguards were called to a north Cornwall beach yesterday evening to check on the safety of a van driver - after an ice-cream van was dramatically swept out to sea by rough waves. The vehicle was dragged out at high tide yesterday afternoon (Sunday, July 7), and quickly filled with seawater as waves broke over it.

Crowds of people even rushed into the sea, wading waist-deep into the water at Harlyn Bay, near Padstow, in efforts to stop the ice-cream van from being washed away completely. And as a result, the Coastguard and lifeguards were called, and confirmed they attended the scene in order to check on those involved.

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"The driver was safe and well and not in the vehicle. The owner arranged a recovery vehicle which recovered the van at around 9:45pm when tide receded enough for it to be safe to do so. Coastguard rescue officers left once the vehicle was recovered and in a safe location."

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One eyewitness reported that the driver of the van left the scene, leaving their van to be swept out to sea. Footage captured from the beach shows the ice cream van being thrown around the bay, with huge waves flooding the inside of the van and crashing over the freezers inside.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/11431554

One of the UK's oldest surviving festivals has taken place in Cornwall.

May Day in Padstow is a celebration of the Celtic feast of Beltane, which pays tribute to the fast approach of summer.

Padstow's narrow streets were at the heart of the party.

There was a procession with dancers, drums, and music makers and the celebrations went on until midnight.

Padstow's two 'Obby 'Oss - wooden hobby horse costumes - are paraded through the town for the celebrations every year.

The ancient tradition has brought thousands of people to the streets of the town, cheering for either the blue or red ribbon hobby horses.

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The exact origin of the centuries-old 'Obby 'Oss celebration is unknown, however it is thought it could be linked to the ancient Celtic festival of Beltane.

It sees the 'Obby 'Oss dance through the streets of Padstow to welcome the coming of summer.

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In 2019, a woman died after being struck by one of the wooden costumes.

Laura Smallwood, 34, was hit by the blue-ribboned 'Oss.

She died at Derriford Hospital three days after the Padstow celebration.

An inquest recorded a conclusion of accidental death.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/11095756

A rare Lego piece that fell into the sea in 1997 has been found by a 13-year-old boy in Cornwall.

Liutauras Cemolonskas had been hoping to find a "holy grail" plastic octopus for two years in his hunt for pieces of Lego that famously fell into the sea in 1997 when a cargo ship encountered a storm.

Among the Lego pieces that fell into the sea were 352,000 pairs of flippers, 97,500 scuba tanks, and 92,400 swords - but octopuses are the most prized objects as only 4,200 were onboard.

Liutauras, who found it on a beach in Marazion, regularly goes down to the local beaches with his parents and has amassed 789 Lego pieces over the course of two years, as well as numerous fossils.

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Beachcomber Tracey Williams is behind the Lego Lost At Sea project, which has spent years finding the plastic pieces since they spilled into the ocean.

She said she found one octopus in 1997 and didn't recover another one for 18 years.

"I think there's something quite magical about the octopuses," she said. "They're often seen as the holy grail of finds from that shipping container."

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/10331121

Bones found after being unveiled by coastal erosion on the Cornish coast were probably from a shipwrecked sailor, say archaeologists.

Analysis of the the bones found near Trevone in 2022 suggest the body was from the 18th Century, the Cornwall Archaeological Unit (CAU) said.

The unit also said a skull found during a beach clean at Sennen in Cornwall in 2023 was about 3,300 years old.

The discoveries are the latest human remains found on the coast.

The lowest tide of the year has uncovered tree trunks, stumps and roots from an ancient forest thought to be 4,000 to 6,000 years old at a beach in Cornwall. Following winter storms that have shifted sands in Mount's Bay, remnants of the prehistoric landscape could be seen as the tide dropped lower than usual this week.

The submerged forest in Mount’s Bay has been known about for centuries, with St Michael’s Mount’s original name in Cornish being ‘Karrek Loos yn Koos’, meaning ‘Grey Rock in the Wood.’ However, the peat beds that contain the remnants of the ancient forest floor are only revealed every so often during extremely low tides depending on the shifting sands.

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Using radiocarbon dating on the peat beds at the time, geologists concluded that extensive forests extended across Mount’s Bay between 4,000 and 6,000 years ago. According to Cornwall Geoconservation Group, who monitor the state of the ancient submerged forest in Mount's Bay, there are a number of similar submerged forests around Cornwall that are occassionally revealed from under the sand, including at Bude, Daymer Bay, Portreath and Pendower.

So how was Saint Piran, an Irishman known for his indulgence, adopted as the figurehead for Cornwall? Writer and blogger on the subject of Cornish history, Elizabeth Dale, explains all.

The first thing to know about St Piran is he was something of an enigma. Having lived more than 1,000 years ago, records for the period are understandably scant to non-existent.

It is therefore very difficult to actually pin the real man down, to separate fact from legend, but in a way that seems only fitting. After all, saints were no ordinary beings, they did not lead ordinary lives - they were miraculous.

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It is the circumstances of St Piran's journey to Cornwall that is perhaps the most famous miracle attributed to him.

It is said when he was expelled from Ireland by an angry king he had been trying to convert to Christianity, St Piran was tied to a millstone and thrown into the sea.

However, rather than drown, he and the stone floated.

Legend has it he floated all the way from Ireland to the sands of what is now known as Perranporth on Cornwall's north coast.

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During his long life in Cornwall (some say he lived 200 years) St Piran became very popular with the locals.

Besides converting many of them to Christianity, he also had a reputation for celebrating his faith with feasting and merriment. But, perhaps most significantly for the Cornish people, legend has it that it was St Piran who showed them how to smelt tin.

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St Piran is still considered the patron saint of tin miners and the conversion of the raw black ore to the white liquid tin also inspired the colours of Cornwall's national flag, adopted circa 1838.

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The story of St Piran's death has cemented his reputation as something of a merrymaker, earning him a permanent place in the hearts and minds of the Cornish people.

One story has it that the saint was executed by Teudar (or Tador), a king of Cornwall, in 480.

However, the more popular version is that the rather ancient saint tripped and fell into a well after drinking one too many ales.

The supposed day of his death, 5 March, became Saint Piran's Feast Day and was observed as a holiday in Cornwall well into the mid-18th Century.

An earthquake has struck Cornwall, described by one local as hitting their house “like a juggernaut”.

Residents in Helston, Penzance and Camborne were among those to report the quake, which struck shortly before 1am on Sunday in Mount’s Bay, close to The Lizard peninsula.

The epicentre was at a depth of 13km, with a magnitude of 2.7 on the Richter Scale, according to preliminary information, said the British Geological Survey (BGS).

A model used to gauge seismic intensity suggested the quake would cause nearby residents to feel swaying or light trembling, with the noticeable shaking of many objects.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/2194511

Cornwall is the English county famed for its stunning coastal beauty and historic villages which have turned it into a sought-after destination. However, more recently it may be recognized as being the home of innovative, startling, and vaguely unsettling cinema. Mark Jenkin is the one to thank for the bold new addition to cinema, as the inventive director hailing from Cornwall who also fits the description of a skillful screenwriter, cinematographer, and producer. He won the 2020 BAFTA award for Outstanding British Debut with his first feature film Bait (2019) and followed it up a few years later with Enys Men (2022), both of which he also wrote. Both features establish Cornwall as their setting, theme, plot, and arguably, as their main character. Bait and Enys Men could also reasonably be categorized as two of the freshest entries into horror of the last few years - especially Enys Men - but the haunting films also seem to create a wholly new genre of their own, blending drama, folk, and at times, thriller. With these films, Jenkin triumphantly puts Cornish cinema on the map.

Abstract: At the beginning of the 8th Century an entry in the Welsh Annals records three victories of the Britons over Anglo-Saxon invaders: “And the battle of Hehil among the Cornish, the battle of Garth Maelog, the battle of Pencon among the south Britons, and the Britons were the victors in those three battles.”

This remarkable entry is the first time the Cornish are listed as their own people, separate to an overriding SW Kingdom of Dumnonia. But how did this identity emerge? What happened to Dumnonia? And how did the fledgling Cornish survive the eventual rise of England to preserve their own identity, language and culture into the modern era? John Fletcher, author of The Western Kingdom: The Birth of Cornwall will aim to answer these questions and paint a picture of a vibrant, outward looking and thriving kingdom and culture located in the far SW of Britain.

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