St Nectan's Kieve

Saint Nectan’s Kieve lies in Saint Nectan’s Glen, a steep wooded valley two miles east of Tintagel on Cornwall’s north coast. The Trevillet River drops sixty feet over Devonian slate to form a deep plunge pool before emerging through a natural rock arch and falling another ten feet to a wide shallow basin. The glen’s walls show older kieves cut by earlier waterfalls, and the current basin is about twelve feet deep. A footbridge spans the lower falls, giving views of the arch and the wide pool below. The site is reached by a woodland path that climbs from the car park through ferns and oak. The falls are linked to a sixth-century saint by a poem written in 1846 by Reverend R. S. Hawker, but no evidence places Nectan here. Local tradition names the pool after a man called Nathan who lived in the late 18th century. Nineteenth-century farmer William Goard led parties to the falls and embellished the stories, turning a summerhouse into a hermitage. Letitia Landon and Wilkie Collins both wrote of the glen, adding to its literary fame. Visitors walk the new woodland walkway opened in 2016 to see the falls from above. Ribbons, crystals and small stone cairns mark the rocks where people leave devotions. The lower path leads to the footbridge and the wide pool, while the upper path passes the ruined chapel and the summerhouse site. Tea gardens in the Hermitage grounds serve drinks between April and October, and the glen remains a quiet place of water, stone and woodland.