West Penwith: A Dark Sky Park at the End of Cornwall

In December 2021 West Penwith, the far western end of Cornwall, was designated an International Dark Sky Park — the seventh in the UK and the second in Cornwall after Bodmin Moor — covering the coast from the edge of St Ives round by St Just, Sennen and Land's End to Mousehole, and inland to Sancreed and New Mill. Penwith holds a great concentration of prehistoric and early British remains: the Merry Maidens, Lanyon Quoit, Chûn Quoit, the Iron Age village at Chysauster, and Men-an-Tol, 'the stone of the hole', with its circular opening through the granite. Cape Cornwall, four miles north of Land's End, was believed to be the westernmost point in Cornwall until the first Ordnance Survey in the early 19th century.