St Michaels Mount, Cornwall - a photo on Flickriver

            St Michaels Mount, Marazion
Photo taken on 8th October 2012

The weather closes in over St Michaels Mount, Cornwall. 
Taken at the extremities of my Canon 40D kit lens, this picture was taken from Newlyn, looking back towards Marazion, near Penzance. 
As the evening light fades on a grey day, the mist descends and envelopes the historic landmark.

Originally the site of a Benedictine Chapel, the spectacular castle on the rock dates from the 14th Century. Now in the care of the National Trust, access is on foot across the causeway at low tide or by short ferry crossing at high tide.

St Michaels Mount - perched on top of a great granite crag - has a fascinating history, and according to cornwall-online is steeped in both legend and folklore.

The mount is dedicated to St. Michael, whom in Cornish Legend; appeared to a group of Cornish fishermen in 495 AD. This is The Great Vision of the Guarded Mount from Milton's Lycidas (A lament for a friend drowned during a passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637).

St Michaels Mount is believed to have been a trading post from the earliest times, becoming an important port by the Iron Age. It is generally believed the St Michaels Mount was the island of 'Ictis' where the Greeks traded for Cornish tin.
 
Edward the Confessor founded a chapel on the Mount in 1044 in a grant to the Benedictine Abbey of Mont Saint Michael in Brittany. Edward did spend much of his youth in Normandy and was greatly influenced by the Norman monks and intrigued by the symbolic similarity between St. Michaels Mount and Mont Saint Michael. The first priory on the Mount was established in 1135 by Bernard of Le Bec.

The location of the St Michael's Mount makes it an ideal fortress. During the 12th century whilst King Richard I was on a Crusade in the Holy Land, the Mount was seized and held as a fortress by a group of his brother John's supporters. The buildings later returned to their monastic use, but they were to be used as fortresses in the Wars of the Roses and the Cornish Rebellion against Edward VI. The last occasion that the mount was used in a military role was in 1646 during the English Civil War. The Mount was held for a time by Royalist supporters, but was forced to capitulate to the Parliamentarians in 1646. The Mount was bought by Sir John St Aubyn during 1660, and since that time it has had a peaceful existence.

Taken in: United Kingdom / England / Newlyn (show map)

Taken on: October 16, 2012

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