Cornish Stiles a Ramble Through Hidden History
- ronniesramblings
- 19 minutes ago
- 4 min read
We stumbled across yet another of Ronnie’s Ramblings. This one was a delightful jumble of notes, scribbles and half finished sentences all about Cornish stiles.
So, we gathered the fragments, dusted them off and began piecing together a brand new blog celebrating these quirky, characterful crossings of the Cornish countryside. In her scribblings, Ronnie hints at some notable Cornish stiles and even nudges us toward her journal from walking the Cornish Coast Path, all 261 miles of it, tackled the “wrong” way round and told with that unmistakable Cornish humour. But that adventure is for another day!
Cornwall has a habit of keeping its secrets tucked away in hedgerows, buried beneath brambles, or disguised as something entirely ordinary. And sometimes, all it takes is a curious eye or a community project to bring those secrets back into the light.
One of the most talked about stiles in recent years is the so called “lost stile” of Cornwall. Uncovered by someone who simply wondered why a stile existed where no path seemed to lead. To me, this is no surprise. Cornwall is full of forgotten routes, half remembered tracks, and saints’ ways that never made it onto modern maps.
A Recession and an Unexpected Discovery
Back in the 1980s, during a nationwide recession, the Manpower Services Commission was created to help young people into work and training. Across Cornwall, teams were set to work improving footpaths, including stretches of the Cornish Coast Path, while others focused on tidying and restoring their local villages.
Luxulyan was one such village. As hedgerows were being cleared and paths reopened, something unusual emerged from a thicket on the village edge. A stone stile! No one could remember a footpath ever running through that spot!
Two local men, Cliff Towers and Alf Fooks, were intrigued. Their curiosity led them to uncover several more stone stiles, each one standing where no one in living memory recalled a route. What they had stumbled upon was far older than any modern footpath. They had rediscovered part of an ancient monks’ route, one of Cornwall’s many Saints’ Ways.
And that, as they say, was the beginning of a much bigger story.
Footsteps of the Saints
Echoes from Early Cornwall
Cornwall is threaded with old tracks, monks’ ways, saints’ paths and trods worn into the landscape, long before maps tried to make sense of them.
One such story appears in the Life of Samson. It tells how St Samson, travelling from Wales to Brittany, landed on Cornwall’s north east coast and made his way to a monastery called Docco. This site is believed to be Lanow near St Kew. The monks there refused to receive him, so Samson continued on, visiting another part of the district.
Little is known about St Kew (or Kewe) herself. One legend says her brother, the saintly priest Docco, lived as a hermit in what is now the modern parish. When she visited him, he refused to see her until she had demonstrated her holiness by commanding a wild boar to obey her.
As legends go, it’s wonderfully Cornish, equal parts mystical and matter of fact.
Stones That Speak
Crosses, Boundaries, and Hidden Markers
Cornwall’s landscape is dotted with standing stones, many of which once served as waymarkers. Some marked boundaries, others commemorated the dead and many were later carved into crosses by early Christians.
At Trequite, the small, quiet hamlet where Ronnie grew up, Fred Grylls discovered a stone cross while modernising a cow byre. It had been used as a step for years. The cross was later erected on the village green in 1947. Nearby, a building long known as Docco’s Chapel hints again at the deep monastic roots of the area.
If you know anything about the origins of the stone cross, or have stories passed down through your own family, we would love to hear them.
The Style of Stiles
A Cornish Signature
Cornish stiles have a character all their own. Many are topped with granite columns laid sideways, once the rollers used to flatten fields. Marshall Cavendish, writing about a walk around Dodman and Gorran Haven, noted that the abundance of these granite topped stiles suggested the fields must once have been “bowling‑green smooth”.
Between Zennor and St Ives, the stiles are particularly striking. One even incorporates an early version of a cattle grid, proof that Cornish ingenuity is nothing new!
Ronnie’s journals frequently speak to one another, with notes leading to other books she wrote. This particular piece referenced her walk around the Cornish Coast Path, and we’ve shared that section here too.
In Cornwall, you can stumble across an ancient stile almost anywhere…and each one has a story.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this piece as much as we enjoyed completing the jigsaw and bringing it all together. If you’d like to share any photos or comments, we’d love to hear from you
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