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St Nectan's Glen


Coordinates: 50°39′53″N 4°43′09″W / 50.6648°N 4.7192°W / 50.6648; -4.7192

Saint Nectan's Glen (Cornish: Glynn Nathan, meaning deep wooded valley of Nathan) is an area of woodland in Trethevy near Tintagel, north Cornwall stretching for around one mile along both banks of the Trevillet River. The glen's most prominent feature is St Nectan's Kieve, a spectacular sixty foot waterfall through a hole in the rocks. The site attracts tourists who believe it to be "one of the UK's most spiritual sites," and tie or place ribbons, crystals, photographs, small piles of flat stones and other materials near the waterfall.

It is believed locally that, in the sixth century, Saint Nectan had a hermitage above the waterfall, and rang a silver bell to warn ships of the dangers of offshore rocks at the mouth of the Rocky Valley during storms. The site was known as Nathan's Cave in 1799, named after a local character, either Nathan Williams or Nathan Cock. There is a late nineteenth or early twentieth century half-timbered private residence known as The Hermitage, supposedly constructed on the remains of a Celtic chapel. Further downstream are the brick remains of St Gerwyn, a house which was destroyed in a fire in the mid-twentieth century. The supposed connection with St Nectan is a Victorian invention and the current use of the site as a place for depositing "sacred offerings" is an even more recent invention.


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