Midhurst Footpath Companions
Walking in Sussex, Hampshire and Surrey.

St Ives Holiday Mount St Michael trip 29th June 2022

This was theoretically a day off from walking and we instead went to Mount St Michael, near to Penzance. Lovely gardens and a spectacularly sited house, reached by a causeway, as long as the timing is right! St Michael's Mount probably had monastics buildings from the 8th to the 11th Century and the earliest existing buildings date from the 12th Century. After many changes of ownership, the St Aubyn family purchased it in 1659 and descendants of that family still live there. The buildings were used as the home of Frankenstein in the 1979 film Dracula. The National Trust now own and manage most of the Mount, but the family have a 999 year lease.

Ready to walk the causeway to St Michael's Mount

As well as the castle, the Mount also once had a large population which peaked at 221 in 1811. The population in 2011 was 35

Around the garden are many lovely gardens, tended by the National Trust

Main entrance. There is a small tunnel from the harbour built by miners which carries a narrow gauge railway, but is only used for goods, not people. 

Inside the chapel at the top of the castle

Plenty of reading matter if there's no-one to play draughts with.

The present Lady St Aubyn, busy knocking up some doilies to make ends meet.

This is Lettice Knollys, first cousin once removed to Elizabeth I. The 3rd of 16 children she married the Earl of Leicester and was then banished from the royal court as Elizabeth I was also charmed by the Earl. Married 3 times, lived to 91. No connection with St Michael's Mount, just  somewhere for the National Trust to store the portrait.

Causeway, before the tides comes in

The Earl of Oxford captured it and then held if for 23 weeks during  a siege by Edward IV troops in 1473/4

We managed to leave the Mount well before the tide covered the causeway

Recent galleries

History

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