Cornwall's Hidden History Blog
How important is public art to community and society? What is it worth and can we really put a price on it? Should we be measuring the value of art in pounds or is its worth something unquantifiable? These seem to have been the sort of questions that were being asked back in 1965 when […]
Read More
In the dark depths of the winter of 1870 the tiny Cornish fishing village of Cadgwith made the national newspapers when it became unwittingly embroiled in the ongoing Franco-Prussian war. The strange story of the lost balloon post brings to life a forgotten period of history, a time when the postal service (and a speedy […]
Read More
Ann Boswell, better known as Granny Boswell, is one of Cornwall’s best known characters and an important figure for many in the gypsy community but who was the real woman who has inspired so much affection, so many stories and has even been depicted in one of the biggest TV shows of the past decade?! […]
Read More
In September 1937 workmen digging the foundations of Truro’s new Telephone Exchange unearthed human bones. This macabre discovery in the heart of the city surprised everyone and would lead to rumours of a forgotten burial ground, while a curious carved head found nearby would give rise to tales of an ancient curse. Why those bodies […]
Read More
A year or so ago an old Porthlevener asked me if I knew about the Moonstone. (I think that he might even have called it an asteroid at the time.) When I said I hadn’t he told me I couldn’t miss it, this rock that had supposedly fallen from space, if I went to cliffs […]
Read More
In the 1920s Cornwall adopted Frederick Albert Mitchell-Hedges as one of their own and he in turn returned here again and again to relax, to write and to give lectures to rapt audiences. Always a controversial figure, Mitchell-Hedges was a traveller, an adventurer, a hunter of sea-monsters and is believed by many to have been […]
Read More
I have always been fascinated by the odd and the obscure. And most especially the lost and forgotten. So when I learnt that there was a very unusual relic from the past hiding on the grounds of Falmouth Hospital I was determined to find out more. I first came across the Meridian Stone in a […]
Read More
The narrow headland of Sharrow Point juts out into the waves that wash into Whitsand Bay on Cornwall’s far eastern coast. At first glance the most remarkable thing about the little promontory is the breath-taking views it affords, stretching from Rame Head to Dodman Point but this rocky outcrop also hides an unusual relic from […]
Read More
There are certain members of our community who are supposed to be beyond reproach. Individuals that we hold in higher esteem, who are meant to set the standard for the rest of us – the village constable or doctor perhaps and of course, the local vicar. But experience should have taught us that these individuals […]
Read More
In the spring of 1909 a series of startling events in Cornwall became front page news across the British Isles. The newspapers reported that a ‘madman’ had shot four people and had barricaded himself into his home in the small rural town of St Blazey. Cecil Dench was quoted as saying that his home was […]
Read More