The Granite Kingdom

A fascinating, lyrical account of an east-west walk across Britain's westernmost and most mysterious region.

A distant and exotic Celtic land, domain of tin-miners, pirates, smugglers, and evocatively named saints, somehow separate from the rest of our island...

Few regions of Britain are as holidayed in, as well-loved, or as mythologised as Cornwall. From the woodlands of the Tamar Valley to the remote peninsula of Penwith – via the wilderness of Bodmin Moor and coastal villages where tourism and fishing find an uneasy coexistence – Tim Hannigan undertakes a zigzagging journey on foot across Britain's westernmost region to discover how the real Cornwall, its landscapes, histories, communities, and sense of identity intersect with the many projections and tropes that writers, artists, and others have placed upon it.

Combining landscape and nature writing with deep cultural inquiry, The Granite Kingdom is a probing but highly accessible tour of one of Britain's most popular regions, juxtaposing history, myth, folklore, and literary representation with the geographical and social reality of contemporary Cornwall.