This site has uneven ground and slopes. Please wear sensible footwear and appropriate clothing when visiting.
This great granite hill overlooking Mount’s Bay has a diverse archaeological landscape with monuments dating back to the Bronze Age and is known as the birthplace of the British china clay industry. Much of the site is designated a Scheduled Monument and all of it is within the Cornish Mining Landscape World Heritage Site.
The site has a multi-period archaeological landscape which includes a wide range of historic monuments, while the summit of the hill is crowned spectacularly by the hillfort known in legend as Castle Pencair.
The landscape also contains barrows; two rounds (later prehistoric enclosed hamlets); a very well-preserved medieval strip field system; extensive mineral working and prospecting pits; and part of a china clay works notable for being the place where William Cookworthy discovered china clay. It is even believed that John Wesley preached at the site.
The hillfort on Tregonning Hill was first described in detail in 1851 by Richard Thomas, who also noted that it was traditionally ‘the home of giants’.
It is also home to a tall granite cross, the memorial to those brave men of Germoe who died in the First and Second World Wars, and a Bristol Beaufort bomber crashed into the hill in 1941, killing all four on board.
The 70-acre site was acquired by Cornwall Heritage Trust in October 2023 to safeguard its future and ensure that it remains free to visit for people 365 days of the year. It is currently on the Heritage at Risk Register.
The purchase of Tregonning Hill was made possible by a generous donation from Simon and Barbara Maddison.
