St Just-in-Penwith

The main centre at the peninsula’s western end, St Just was one of the copper and tin mining centres of Cornwall, and the area surrounding the town is littered with industrial remains. However, the mainly 15th century St Just’s Parish Church contains some fascinating early relics, including two heavily restored medieval wall paintings, and a 5th century burial stone on which is carved one of the earliest English Christian inscriptions. St Just, or Justus, was sent to England by Pope Gregory in AD 596, along with St Augustine, to convert the Saxons and Celts of the country. In AD 616 he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. Near the town’s clock tower, at the centre of St Just, is a shallow grassy amphitheatre that is known as Plen-an-Gwary, which means ‘playing place’. This was where medieval plays were performed up until the 17th century and which is now the setting for an annual. Event, the Lafrowda Festival. It is said to be the oldest still-working theatre in Britain, and it is here that the Ordinalia, a religious trilogy consisting of a Creation play, a Passion play and a Resurrection play in Cornish, are performed most years.

A narrow road leads from the town westwards to Cape Cornwall, the only cape in England and Wales, from where there are views of Land’s End and of the Longships Lighthouse. For years this headland – topped by the stack of the Cape Cornwall Mine – was thought to be England’s westernmost point, until more accurate means of measurement decided the contest in favour of Land’s End.

On the southern side of the headland lies Priest’s Cove, a quiet boulder strewn beach, and further along the South West Coast Path, which follows the clifftops, there is an unusual Bronze Age burial chamber, Ballowall Barrow. Cape Cornwall marks the supposed boundary between the English and St George’s channels.