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The island
A tidal island linked to Marazion by a granite causeway
St Michael's Mount is a tidal island in Mount's Bay, near Penzance, in Cornwall. A causeway of granite setts links it to the town of Marazion. Its Cornish name means grey rock in the woodland.
Mont-Saint-Michel
It was the English counterpart of Mont-Saint-Michel
Historically, St Michael's Mount was an English counterpart of Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy, which is also a tidal island. Edward the Confessor gave the site to the Benedictine order of Mont-Saint-Michel. The earliest buildings on the summit date to the 12th century.
The siege
The Earl of Oxford held the Mount for 23 weeks against 6,000 troops
John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, seized the Mount and held it through a siege of 23 weeks against 6,000 of Edward IV's troops in 1473 and 1474.
23 weeksof siege held by the Earl of Oxford
The railway
An underground railway built around 1900 carries goods to the castle
A short underground railway was built by miners around 1900. It brings goods up to the castle and takes away rubbish, and it replaced the pack horses used before. In 2018 it was reported as still in regular use, perhaps not every day.
The owners
The St Aubyn family has lived in the castle since around 1650
The Mount was sold in 1659 to Colonel John St Aubyn. In 1954 Francis Cecil St Aubyn, 3rd Baron St Levan, gave most of it to the National Trust. The family kept a 999-year lease to live in the castle.
Day 2, morning
It comes after Marazion Beach. Then Jubilee Pool.
More stories from this trip idea
The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article St Michael's Mount, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.