The light fades quickly as I stand within the Tregeseal stone circle. The ancient pillars seem to shine in this melancholy terrain, like pale, inquisitive ghosts assembled about to see our actions. Overhead, a expanse of withered bracken and gorse rises toward Carn Kenidjack, the foreboding granite tor that commands the naked skyline. At night, this moorland is believed to be frequented by pixies and demons, and on occasion Old Nick emerges seeking the departed.
Unconcerned by any supernatural threat, we look westward, at the smudges on the horizon that are the far-off Isles of Scilly. The overcast part and a wave of amber rays washes over the islands. My guide, researcher an authority on prehistoric astronomy, and I exclaim. It is marvellous natural theatre which may have been enjoyed by the individuals who built this circle 4,000 years ago.
A Prehistoric Midwinter Vista
We have gathered at Tregeseal to discuss the midwinter. Her research investigates the relationship of Neolithic Cornwall with the heavens, and she characterizes the entire westernmost tip of Cornwall as an ancient midwinter ceremonial ground. This, she notes, is because of the spine of Cornish stone that extends toward the southwest along the peninsula, toward the midwinter sunset. If, for example, you stand at the solstice by Chûn Quoit – the mushroom-shaped grave high on the moors south of Morvah – you will see the sun descend over Carn Kenidjack on the western horizon. And probably this is exactly as Chûn Quoit’s Neolithic builders envisioned.
"Where better to honor the rebirth of the light than on the western tip, which points in the direction of the setting point of the sun on the winter solstice?"
The theory posits that the stone ring was deliberately sited to allow people to watch the solstice sun setting behind the Isles of Scilly. “Observed from here, Scilly is a liminal space. On a sunny day with fair conditions, the isles look accessible and just appear vividly. On cloudier occasions, they’re entirely absent. The ancient people could have perceived Scilly as an otherworldly place, maybe a land of ancestors, associated with the winter solstice and the renewal of the light.”
Enigmatic Stones and Light Beams
We weave through the darkening brown moor past Bronze Age barrows and heaps of mining slag to a enigmatic structure, which may be the UK’s only Neolithic line of stones with holes. In contrast to the stone at the famous holed stone a few miles away, it’s not feasible to crawl through the perforated monoliths; these openings are scarcely big enough to fit my hand through and right down to the ground. Researchers remain perplexed.
A proposed explanation is that the row might have operated as a kind of solar event marker, with the rising sun illuminating through the holes from late October until December and casting different rays of sunlight in the stones’ shadows. “Feeling the heat of that ray of sunlight in the frosty, dim moor gave me a profound understanding of how prehistoric people might have marked winter solstice,” she says.
A great number of ancient sites are positioned to the sunrise or sunset of the sun at the solstices for it to be a chance. It stands to reason that Stone Age agriculturalists, who depended on the sun for light, heat and the growth of crops, would want to monitor the sun’s journey. But in the 21st century, the short days of this time of year still weighs on our spirits, and so we welcome the midwinter, that most shadowy day of all before the sunlit time begin to increase again.
Enduring Monoliths and Contemporary Celebrations
A bitter easterly is blowing, and strange low sounds come from hidden cows as I tramp through soggy clover to pay a visit the ancient standing stone, keeping watch as it has done for millennia above the peninsula’s south coast. It is just one of dozens of standing stones that stand alone or in pairs or circles all over the peninsula; less than a mile away are the well-known petrified dancers, dancers turned to stone for disobeying the Sabbath. I think about how for ages the stone has endured here, taking in its panorama of the coastal waters: where once small craft would have sailed, now freighters and the Scilly ferry travel through.
"This midwinter event brings back the old Cornish custom of disguised performance, with its detailed outfits, seasonal songs and music of traditional instruments."
Christopher Morris’s mesmerising film, that follows 12 months in the presence of this stone, draws attention to the impact of its unmoving and mute existence in the ever-changing landscape. “And I deliberately started and ended the film with midwinter,” he explains, “because it is a point of sheer anticipation – the promise of the passing of darkness and a promising new year ahead.”
On the shortest day, all over West Penwith, people will be celebrating the solstice by walking to monuments, sacred springs, Iron Age sites and heritage sites. Guided walks will be led to observe the sunset. Many will make their way to standing stones in a form of ceremony of reflection and renewal. Later, many people will congregate into Penzance for the midwinter event, a solstice gathering that {dates only to|was established in|originated in
