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Unless otherwise stated, this image is the copyright of the submitter. Contact them for permission to reproduce it. |  | | Description | The chapel, built on the precipitous outcrop, ingeniously incorporates the bedrock in its structure. Built of large squared blocks of granite, probably quarried from the surrounding moor, its construction in this position must have been a masterpiece of mediæval engineering. It stands two storeys high with a lower room in which, according to tradition, lived a hermit attended by his daughter who fetched water for him from a hole in the rocks known as Gonetta’s Well. The room above served as the chapel. Although the west wall has all but disappeared, the east wall survives to almost its full original height, with a large arched window now missing its tracery. Old drawings of the rock hint at further buildings on top of the rock, but these have long disappeared, as has the chapel’s roof. Access to the chapel was originally by rock-cut steps but is now by an iron ladder (take care!).
The precise reason for building it is unclear. It may simply represent continuity of religious activity on a site long-venerated or may be a pious but very visible reminder of the importance of the person or group that funded its construction. One suggestion is that it could have stood as a light or beacon for guiding travellers across the moors; another that it was set up in imitation of the most famous place of pilgrimage of St Michael in Cornwall, St Michael’s Mount, perhaps even with the aim of attracting pilgrims en route for the Mount. |
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