14 quirky facts you probably didn’t know about these places in Cornwall
PUBLISHED: 15:20 18 January 2019 | UPDATED: 16:34 18 January 2019

Merry Maidens. Photo credit: Roger Driscoll, Getty Images/iStockphoto
Archant
We share 14 quirky facts about these places in Cornwall you probably didn’t know about
1. Were you aware that the only Cornish town to be recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086 was Bodmin?

2. Cornwall has always been a favourite of the camera with its brilliant lighting and stunning vistas, however were you aware that Newquay has appeared in Pirates of the Carribean and Holywell Bay played the part of the ‘Korean beach in James Bond film, Die Another Day?

3. Amazingly the Rainforest Biome at the Eden Project is fifty metres tall and required more than two hundred and thirty miles of scaffolding.

4. Merry Maidens, a prehistoric stone monument to rival Stonehenge is possibly the only one of its kind to have its very own bus service?

5. Dating back to the 1312 and boasting classical Cornwall views, the Sloop Inn is one of the county’s oldest pubs.

6. Built by Henry VIII to defend against a potential Catholic invasion, Pendennis would later be the scene of a siege in the Civil War in which 1,000 people were kept safe.

7. Helford, one of Cornwall’s prettiest villages, was once the scene of a fearsome event in which thirty men broke into the Custom House and stole 126 kegs of contraband brandy!

8. The famous Logan Rock was once displaced by an over-enthusiastic naval officer determined to prove local law saying it was impossible to move wrong!
9. Apparently, there are seven quadrillion grains of sand on Perranporth Beach!

10. Apparently unique to Cornwall are the mysterious networks of tunnels known as ‘fogous’ and remain a puzzle to experts. The largest known and best preserved is thought to date back to the Iron Age.

11. Lizard lighthouse was first built in 1619 and the current structure dates back to 1751.

12. First granted a charter in 1257 by Henry III, Marazion is one of Cornwall’s oldest chartered settlements.

13. Did you know that the first pier in Mevagissey was built in 1430?

14. Did you know that Penzance was the birthplace of Sir Humphry Davy who discovered alkali and helped to discover the natures of chlorine and iodine?