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Illumination wanes quickly as I position myself within the granite circle near St Just. The rock monoliths seem to shine in this melancholy landscape, akin to ethereal watchers gathered round to observe our presence. Overhead, a blanket of withered ferns and scrub rises toward the rocky hill of Carn Kenidjack, the imposing rock outcrop that commands the open horizon. After dark, this heath is said to be visited by pixies and demons, and reportedly a dark rider emerges in search of the departed.

Unafraid by superstitious otherworldly danger, we peer toward the ocean, at the smudges on the horizon that are the distant Isles of Scilly. The sky part and a cascade of golden light spills over the islands. My companion, archaeoastronomer Carolyn Kennett, and I exclaim. It is marvellous natural theatre which may have been experienced by the community who erected this circle in the Neolithic era.

An Ancient Winter Solstice Landscape

We have come together at Tregeseal to explore the midwinter. Carolyn’s work examines the interplay of Neolithic Cornwall with the heavens, and she describes the entire Penwith region as an age-old solstice-aligned terrain. This, she says, is because of the ridge of granite that runs south-west along the peninsula, pointing toward the December sunset. If, for example, you are located at winter solstice by the ancient burial chamber of Chûn Quoit – the dolmen-like burial chamber high on the moors south of Morvah – you will see the sun set over the rocky hill on the southwestern horizon. And probably this is just as Chûn Quoit’s Stone Age constructors planned.

"What superior place to mark the rebirth of the sun than on the western tip, which is oriented in the direction of the setting point of the sun on the day of least light?"

It is proposed that Tregeseal stone circle was deliberately sited to allow people to watch the December sun setting behind the Isles of Scilly. “Seen from here, Scilly is a borderland. On a bright day with stable weather, the isles look nearby and just appear vividly. On different days, they’re simply not there. The circle builders could have regarded Scilly as an land of the dead, perhaps a place of the dead, linked to the darkest day and the rebirth of the light.”

Ancient Rows and Solar Calendars

We thread through the shadowy copper-colored moor past ancient tumuli and heaps of mining slag to a mysterious monument, which may be the UK’s only ancient row of holed stones. Different from the stone at the famous holed stone a few miles away, it’s impossible to crawl through the Kenidjack holed stones; these openings are barely big enough to fit my hand through and right down to the ground. Researchers remain perplexed.

One hypothesis is that the series might have worked as a kind of winter solstice countdown calendar, with the rising sun illuminating through the holes from late October until December and casting varying rays of sunlight in the stones’ shadows. “Sensing the glow of that sunbeam of sunlight in the cold, dark moor gave me a profound experience of how ancient communities might have marked winter solstice,” she says.

Too many ancient sites are positioned to the dawn or dusk of the sun at the solstices for it to be a coincidence. It makes sense that prehistoric farmers, who needed the sun for illumination, heat and the success of crops, would want to monitor the sun’s path. But in the modern era, the darkness of this time of year still influences our well-being, and so we welcome the midwinter, that darkest day of all before the hours of light begin to lengthen again.

Ancient Markers and New Traditions

A chilly easterly is whipping, and haunting low sounds rise from unseen cows as I walk through damp clover to make a pilgrimage the Boscawen-Ros stone, standing guard as it has done for thousands of years above the peninsula’s south coast. It is just one of scores of standing stones that are solitary or in alignments all over the peninsula; less than a mile away are the well-known Merry Maidens, dancers transformed into rock for breaking the Sabbath. I think about how long the stone has endured here, enjoying its view of the Celtic Sea and English Channel: where once ancient boats would have sailed, now freighters and the Scilly ferry travel through.

"Montol brings back the old Cornish custom of disguised performance, with its detailed outfits, seasonal songs and music of pipe, drum and fiddle."

A filmmaker's mesmerising film, which documents a full year in the presence of this stone, emphasizes the power of its unmoving and mute being in the dynamic landscape. “And I purposely began and concluded the film with the solstice,” he explains, “because it is a moment of pure hope – the promise of the ending of the dark and a sunny new year ahead.”

On 21 December, all over this region, people will be observing the solstice by processing to ancient rings, sacred springs, hill forts and heritage sites. Excursions will be led to observe the sinking sun. Many will walk to standing stones in a kind of ceremony of reflection and renewal. Later, thousands will congregate into Penzance for the midwinter event, a solstice gathering that {dates only to|was established in|originated in