Tim Gent treads a rich path through history

VICTORIAN mine engine houses, Iron Age promontory forts, Bronze Age burial cairns… and that’s just what’s visible from the car park.

Walk on Dartmoor, amongst the mining hotspots of Snowdonia or the Lake District, or out on the islands that fringe Scotland, and the evidence of past human activity is hard to miss.

I’m going to stick my neck out, though, and suggest that nowhere feels quite so monument-packed as this cliff-hung edge of Penwith. While some corners of Britain may possess even tighter concentrations of abandoned industry, and others might squeeze