St Michael's Mount
St Michael's Mount is a tidal island in Mount's Bay off the Cornish coast near Marazion, a rocky granite outcrop crowned by a medieval castle and priory that is accessible on foot across a granite causeway at low tide and by boat when the tide covers the crossing. The combination of the dramatic island setting, the castle architecture rising above the harbour village at the base of the rock, and the extraordinary views across Mount's Bay toward the Penwith Peninsula and the open sea makes St Michael's Mount one of the most romantic and most visited historic sites in Cornwall.
The island has been a place of Christian pilgrimage since at least the twelfth century when a Benedictine priory was established on the summit, a daughter house of the great Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy to which the island bears obvious geographical resemblance. The priory buildings were converted into a castle and residence after the Dissolution and the island passed through various hands before coming into the possession of the St Aubyn family in 1659, whose descendants still occupy part of the castle and have managed the island in partnership with the National Trust since 1954.
The castle and its contents reflect five centuries of St Aubyn family occupation, the rooms containing furniture, portraits, armour and decorative objects accumulated across many generations in a setting of extraordinary character. The views from the castle's higher levels across the bay and toward the headlands of the Lizard and Penwith are exceptional, and the terraced subtropical gardens on the rock face below the castle are one of the most dramatically positioned gardens in Britain.
The village of Marazion on the mainland shore provides the starting point for the causeway crossing and facilities for visitors, and the expanse of the bay visible from the causeway and the village front provides some of the finest views of the Mount.