Weekly Photo Challenge: Peaceful


Rocky Valley is a small valley with spectacular scenery in north Cornwall, United Kingdom (in the parish of Tintagel).

The valley is carved by the Trevillet River in Trethevy around one mile east of Tintagel.

Trevillet River running through Rocky Valley Tintagel At their highest point the slate canyon walls tower over seventy feet above the river below. Rocky Valley was mentioned in travel books as a place of exceptional beauty as early as 1897. The valley is owned by the National Trust and is home to 161 different species of moss.

Rocky Valley Tintagel

The South West Coast Path descends into and out of the valley a little way inland due to the sheer cliffs on the coast; the rocks at the seaward end of the valley are dangerous and people have been swept off by freak waves. If you do visit these cliffs beware!

Spray from the crashing waves make the rocks extremely slippery. The whole time I was there taking photographs I was extremely careful. It’s all too easy to get caught up in getting the photographs just right that you forget about your personal safety. 

Dangerous Cliffs at Rocky Valley, Tintagel

Now this is where we get to the peaceful bit. In 2007 some of the bridges over the Trevillet River were washed away during flash floods caused by heavy rains. These have since been replaced and I’m glad they have. You need the bridge to cross over to the site of the now ruined and abandoned Trevethy Mill.

Bridge over the Trevillet River to the Trevethy Mill

Rocky Valley is home to two mills. Trevillet Mill is now a private residence and was made famous by an 1851 painting by Thomas Creswick. The second, Trethevy Mill, is derelict and was used in the eighteenth century to manufacture woollen textiles.

Trethevy Mill on Rocky Valley, Tintagel

There are a number of dates carved into the stonework of the derelict Trethevy Mill

  • W. T. 1779 – William Taylor; the earliest date identified so far.
  • D. R. 1794 – D. Rogers.
  • T. B. 1797 – Thomas Brown.
  • G. B. 1813 – G. Blewett; this date marks the extension of the mill.

Rock carvings discovered in 1948 are believed by some to be from the early Bronze Age (1800-1400 BC). The two carvings take the form of circular labyrinths and you can see them in the bottom right of the image below. Modern scholars believe that, as the labyrinths were carved on a quarried wall with a metal tool, they are likely to be less than three hundred years old. In 2005 it was claimed that another carving can be seen, much fainter than the first two, leading to speculation that the two well-defined carvings are copies of ones that are much earlier: this has yet to be proved.

Rock Carvings at Trevethy Mill near Tintagel

The area around these carvings has become somewhat of a focus for Neopaganism and new agers

All HDR images in this post were processed with Machinery HDR Effects 2.1. Want to know more? Visit the web-site of Machinery 2 here

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34 replies to “Weekly Photo Challenge: Peaceful”

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  25. Please bring me here, Mike!!! I was kidding of course. I’m from the far east so that’s not supposedly possible. However, with these vivid photos of yours, it feels as if I’m in a movie or I was actually at this beautiful, peaceful place. Safe to say, “it’s my most favorite for this week’s photo challenge”.

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  26. Whew, I felt like I was transported to another place of wonder, beauty and bliss. Each photo, just beautiful beyond words. A true treasure of mother nature. Thanks for today’s inspiration.

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