St Glen's Waterfall Walk Cornwall

A day out in Cornwall visiting St. Glens Waterfall.
About the area:
Saint Nectan's Glen (Cornish: Glynn Nathan, meaning deep wooded valley of Nathan/Nectan) 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.
History :
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. However, this is myth concocted by Victorian romanticists such as R. S. Hawker and the valley has no religious connections save the remains of a monastery and a small chapel in nearby Trethevy dedicated to St Piran. 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, constructed on the remains of an eighteenth century summer house or folly. 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 a more recent invention. The even more recent fashion for calling the waterfall Merlin's Well has no basis in any local tradition. June 17 is the feast day of St Nectan.
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