Who knows not Migell’s Mount and chair,
The pilgrim’s holy vaunt;
Both land and island twice a day,
Both fort and port of haunt.
For to this Mount and chapel of St. Michael devout Christians in former ages came as pilgrims from the furthest part of this land, with rich offerings and oblations to St. Michael’s altar, Abbat, or Prior; also tradition tells us that in former ages this mount was parcel of the solid lands of this parish of St. Hilary, and severed or disjointed from it by some earthquake, terrestrial concussion, or inundation of the sea; and to prove this, it is alleged that in the Mount’s Bay, after some great tempests, the bodies and roots of oak-trees have been discovered in the sand, broken up by the surges of the sea; the like observation is made by Camden and Lhuyd on the sea shores of Pembrokeshire, and I myself, and many others, in the moors of Calestock Veor, Calestock Rule, Rheese, and Polgoda in Peransand, have seen and found, deep under ground, far from the sea, in the fens and turf lands, the bodies and roots of several oak trees, the hearts whereof were firm and solid. But whether those seas were formerly dry land, and the fens aforesaid the places where these trees grew (none in those parts being now to be seen there), let others resolve; or rather whether they are not subterraneous trees, that grew or are generated there, as some philosophers hold and teach, under the earth.
From the foot of Mount St. Michael you ascend the hill or rock through a narrow, crooked, craggy path to the outer portal or gate; a considerable height on the one side, by the way in the rock, is a small spring of water, that falls into pits made in the stones to lodge the same, for the lower or bottom inhabitants’ use; which water never intermits its currrent. Above the second gate there is another
spring of water issuing out of the rocks, that makes a pretty confluence for six or seven winter months, and then intermits, which renders the portage of it upwards much the easier for the inhabitants’ use in that season. After you pass through this second gate, betwixt a winding and crooked path, artificially cut in the rocks on the north side thereof, and follow the same, you arrive to the top of this Mount, where towards the north-west is a kind of level plain, about four or six land-yards, which gives a full prospect of the Mount’s Bay, the British Ocean, Penzance town, Newlyn, Moushole, Gulvall, Maddarn, Paul, and other parishes, over a downright precipice of rocks towards the sea, at least twenty fathoms high. From this little square or plain, there is an artificial kind of ascent also going towards the east, which offers you a full sight of the outer walls of the castle, and brings you to Porth-Horne, (i. e. the Iron Gate) part of which is yet to be seen. This little fortress comprehendeth sufficient rooms and lodgings for the captain or governor and his soldiers to reside in, to which adjoining are several other houses or cells, heretofore pertaining to the monks that dwelt here; all admirable for their strength, buildings, and contrivance, on the top of a rock naturally fortified: so that a small number of soldiers, having provision and ammunition, might defend themselves against the greatest armies in former ages, though I confess now, since the art of war is grown to greater perfection in mischief and destruction, a few cannon or bombs from the opposite hills would soon shatter it to pieces.
On this Mount, King Edward the Confessor, anno Dom. 1044, founded and endowed an Abbey or Priory of Benedictine Monks, that is to say Augustines reformed, with a little chapel yet standing, and dedicated the same to the Archangel St. Michael, part whereof is now converted to a dwelling house, in which there is yet to be seen cut in stone three or four coats of arms, one of which was, as I remember, a Chevron between three fleurs-de-lis.
That it had at that time considerable revenues belonging to it I make no question, since in the Domesday Book, 20 William I. 1087, Lan-migell was then taxed, that is to say Michael’s church or Temple, as aforesaid. But that which renders this place most famous is the present church or chapel and tower, cemetery, and cells cut in the rocks for hermetical monks of the order aforesaid; built and further endowed by William Earl of Morton and Cornwall, yet extant and kept in good repair, with pews; to whose father, Robert Earl of Morton, King William the Conqueror had given the lands of many rebels in those parts, and in particular this Mount, with its appurtenances, (dedicated as aforesaid) and created him Earl of Cornwall, whose successors held the same by tenure of Knight Service till temp. Charles II. Of which sort of tenures there were lately extant, in the hundred of Penwith, thirteen knight’s fees.—Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, p. 39. And in other hundreds three hundred more in Cornwall.
Upon the tower of this church or chapel, for it is bigger than many other Cornish parish churches, is that celebrated place called Kader Migell, i. e. Michael’s Chair, viz. a kind of seat artificially made or cut in the stones on the top of its tower, very dangerous in the access and tremendous to behold.