Carn Euny, Cornwall: The baffling ruin with a tunnel dating back to the Iron Age

Annie Elwes investigates the ruins of Carn Euny.

Carn Euny's ancient village near Sancreed, West Cornwall.
Carn Euny's ancient village near Sancreed, West Cornwall.
(Image credit: Alamy Stock Photo)

This is a strange place, particularly when viewed from the air, because we’re so used to seeing ruins in squares or rectangles, but ancient man had no such love of angles.

Higgledy-piggledy foundations of 2nd- to 4th-century stone huts can be seen at Carn Euny, near Sancreed on the Penwith peninsula, abandoned in the late-Roman period.

Carn Euny pictured from the air by a Historic England Staff Photographer.

The settlement boasts an Iron Age underground tunnel, 65ft long, called a ‘fogou’ and particular to far-west Cornwall.

Above all, Carn Euny is a mystery. No one knows what it was for, but the care that went into its construction reveals its importance.

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Annunciata is director of contemporary art gallery TIN MAN ART and an award-winning journalist specialising in art, culture and property. Previously, she was Country Life’s News & Property Editor. Before that, she worked at The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, researched for a historical biographer and co-founded a literary, art and music festival in Oxfordshire. Lancashire-born, she lives in Hampshire with a husband, two daughters and a mischievous pug.