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

Annie Elwes investigates the ruins of Carn Euny.

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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 Elwes
Annunciata Elwes

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.