St Michael's Mount

St Michael's Mount (Cornish: Karrek Loos yn Koos, meaning "hoar rock in woodland") is a tidal island in Mount's Bay near Penzance, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The island is a civil parish and is linked to the town of Marazion by a causeway of granite setts, passable (as is the beach) between mid-tide and low water. It is managed by the National Trust, and the castle and chapel have been the home of the St Aubyn family since around 1650.

Historically, St Michael's Mount was an English counterpart of Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy, France, which is also a tidal island, and has a similar conical shape, though Mont-Saint-Michel is much taller.

St Michael's Mount is one of 43 unbridged tidal islands accessible by foot from mainland Britain. Part of the island was designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1995 for its geology. Sea height can vary by up to around 5 metres (16 ft) between low and high tide.

Its Cornish language name—literally, "the grey rock in a wood"—may represent a folk memory of a time before Mount's Bay was flooded, indicating a description of the mount set in woodland. Remains of ancient trees uncovered by storms have been seen at low tides in Mount's Bay which was submerged in 1700 BC.

There is evidence of people living in the area during the Neolithic between around 4000 and 2500 BC. The key discovery was of a leaf-shaped flint arrowhead in a shallow pit on the lower eastern slope, now part of the gardens. Other pieces of flint have been found, and at least two could be Mesolithic (about 8000 to 4000 BC). During the early Mesolithic, Britain was still attached to mainland Europe across the southern North Sea between Kent and East Yorkshire (see Doggerland) but by the Neolithic, because of rising sea level, had become an island. Archaeologist and prehistorian Caroline Malone has noted that during the Late Mesolithic the British Isles were something of a "technological backwater" in European terms, still living as a hunter-gatherer society whilst most of southern Europe had already taken up agriculture and sedentary living. The mount was then probably an area of dry ground surrounded by a marshy forest. Any Neolithic or Mesolithic camps are likely to have been destroyed by the later extensive building operations, but it is reasonable to expect the mount to have supported a seasonal or short-term camp.

None of the flints so far recovered can be positively dated to the Bronze Age (c. 2500 to 800 BC), although any summit cairns would have most likely been destroyed when the castle was built. Radiocarbon dating established the submerging of the hazel wood at about 1700 BC. A hoard of copper weapons, once thought to have been found on the mount, are now thought to have been found on nearby Marazion Marsh. Defensive stony banks on the north-eastern slopes are likely to date to the early 1st millennium BC, and are considered to be a cliff castle. The mount is one of several candidates for the island of Ictis, described as a tin trading centre in the Bibliotheca historica of the Sicilian-Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, writing in the first century BC.

St Michael's Mount may have been the site of a monastery from the 8th to the early 11th centuries. Edward the Confessor gave the site to the Benedictine order of Mont-Saint-Michel. In 967 AD King Edgar granted to Wulfnoth Rumuncant land in the Charter of Lesneague and Pennarth. Lesneague, together with Traboe, was later granted to the Benedictine monks of St Michael's Mount by Robert Count of Mortain. It was a priory of that Mont-Saint-Michel until the dissolution of the alien houses as a side-effect of the war in France by Henry V. Subsequently, it ceased to be a priory, but was reduced to being a secular chapel which was given to the Abbess and Convent of Syon at Isleworth, Middlesex, in 1424. Thus ended its association with Mont-Saint-Michel, and any connection with Looe Island (dedicated to the Archangel Michael). It was a destination for pilgrims, whose devotions were encouraged by an indulgence granted by Pope Gregory VII in the 11th century. The earliest buildings on the summit, including a castle, date to the 12th century.

Sir Henry de la Pomeroy captured the Mount in 1193, on behalf of Prince John, in the reign of Richard I, the leader of the previous occupants having 'died of fright' upon learning rumours of Richard's release from captivity. The monastic buildings were built during the 12th century. Various sources state that the earthquake of 1275 destroyed the original Priory church, although this may be a misunderstanding of the term "St Michael's on the Mount" which referred to the church of St Michael atop Glastonbury Tor. Syon Abbey, a monastery of the Bridgettine Order, acquired the Mount in 1424. Some 20 years later the Mount was granted by Henry VI to King's College, Cambridge on its foundation. However, when Edward IV took the throne during the Wars of the Roses, the Mount was returned to the Syon Abbey in 1462.