Grade 7 took part in an active and exciting trip to Cornwall this fall.

Cornwall’s main claim to fame arises in the form of King Arthur. The legend is believed to be based on a real king or general who tried to prevent the Anglo-Saxons (the main ancestors of the modern day English) from over-running Britain. He is thought to have assembled an army somewhere near Bristol to fight them. Arthur’s forces were defeated and the ‘wealas’ (now Welsh) as the Anglo-Saxons called them, retreated either into Wales, which they successfully held, or into South West or ‘horn’ of England. Those who moved into the Southwest of England became known as the ‘corn-wealas’ later adapted to Cornwall. The Welsh language survives to this day and Cornish continued to be spoken until 200 years ago. Arthur himself may have been a Briton or from anywhere else in the Roman Empire. His famous sword, Excalibur is believed to have been very rare for being exceptionally light and sharp and from a far away country, possibly China or Japan.

The students visited Goonhilly – the main satellite communication centre for the UK with large numbers of giant satellite dishes, all of them named after various members of King Arthur’s court.

However, Cornwall has been a centre of global interest since the Bronze Age when one of its natural resources, tin was in wide demand and as one of the key ingredients for bronze for making swords and ploughshares. So the trip included a visit to a tin mine, which until twenty years ago was still being used and includes tunnels which, stretch several miles out under the sea.

In shedding its history of mining, not just for tin but also for clay lead a number of enterprising individuals to put a disused clay-pit to good use for environmental applications. The students visited the Eden Project, which now stands, on one such site, with its several different domes with different climatic conditions, each packed with plants and a few animals appropriate to each region.

Just off the coast for South Cornwall lies a small tidal island, separated from the mainland at high tide, St. Michael’s mount. This featured strongly in the English civil war 300 years ago as did another even more impressive site; Pendennis Castle where the students were able to take part in a guided, costume drama complete with armour from the civil war period.

Other features in this action packed trip included an evening walk-about to Newquay Zoo, the best time of day to see animals feeding. The outward and return journeys also included visits to Brunel’s first suspension bridge at Bristol and a somewhat earlier architectural achievement, 5000 years earlier, at Stonehenge.