Saint Nectan's Kieve (, meaning ''Nathan's tub'') in Saint Nectan's Glen, near

Tintagel Tintagel () or Trevena (, meaning ''Village on a Mountain'') is a civil parishes in England, civil parish and village situated on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village and nearby Tintagel Castle ...

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

, is a

plunge pool A plunge pool (or plunge basin or waterfall lake) is a deep depression in a stream bed at the base of a waterfall or Shut-in (river), shut-in. It is created by the erosion, erosional forces of cascading water on the rocks at the formation's bas ...

or basin fed by a waterfall on the Trevillet River.

Geology

The river is carved into

Late Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era during the Phanerozoic eon, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the preceding Silurian period at million years ago ( Ma), to the beginning of the succeeding ...

slate and several earlier kieves can be seen further up the rock walls of the waterfall. The current basin is estimated to be around deep, and the water emerges through a natural rock arch to drop a further to a wide shallow pool.

Origins of the name

The idea that the sixth-century

Saint Nectan Saint Nectan, sometimes styled Saint Nectan of Hartland, was a 5th-century holy man who lived in Stoke, Hartland, in the nowadays English, and at the time Brythonic-speaking, county of Devon, where the prominent St Nectan's Church, Hartland i ...

had his hermitage above the waterfall is myth. According to legend, Nectan rang a silver bell in times of stormy weather to warn shipping of the perils of the rocks at the mouth of the Rocky Valley. Though other legends are also told of Nectan (such as his burial under the riverbed), no evidence exists to substantiate Nectan's presence here. His home was further north, in what is now

Hartland, Devon The village of Hartland, whose parish incorporates the hamlet of Stoke to the west and the village of Meddon in the south, is the most north-westerly settlement in the county of Devon, England. Now a large village which acts as a centre for a ...

. The name is first recorded in 1799 as ''Nathan's Cave'' in reference to a local character, either Nathan Williams or Nathan Cock, and the Cornish word ''Cuva'' (pronounced ''keeva'') meaning ''tub''.

Legend

The legend connecting St Nectan to the falls is the romantic whimsy of the nineteenth century clergyman, Reverend

Robert Stephen Hawker Robert Stephen Hawker (1803–1875) was a British Anglican priest, poet, antiquarian and reputed eccentric, known to his parishioners as Parson Hawker. He is best known as the writer of " The Song of the Western Men" with its chorus line of ...

who first attributed the falls to the saint in his poem, ''The Sisters of the Glen'' in 1846. The "hermitage" written about by Hawker and others was a simple summerhouse and had no connection to any saint. Many of the site's legends are the result of Hawker's poetry and the vivid imagination of nineteenth century Trethevy farmer, William Goard who led tour parties to the falls.

Recognition as a sacred site

Saint Nectan's Kieve is believed by some to be a sacred place or cloutie well, and numerous ribbons, crystals, photographs, inscriptions, prayers and other devotions now adorn the foliage and rock walls near the waterfall. Many visitors add small piles of flat stones obtained from the stream.

In literature

Letitia Elizabeth Landon Letitia Elizabeth Landon (14 August 1802 – 15 October 1838) was an English poet and novelist, better known by her initials L.E.L. Landon's writings are emblematic of the transition from Romanticism to Victorian literature. Her first major b ...

's poetical illustration ''St. Knighton’s Kieve'', on an engraving of a painting by

Thomas Allom Thomas Allom (13 March 1804 – 21 October 1872) was an English architect, artist, and topographical view, topographical illustrator. He was a founding member of what became the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). He designed many bui ...

, is based on a legend she was told concerning hidden treasure submerged at the foot of the falls. In the poem she writes of a charmed golden cup, which, with some poetic licence, is found to be irretrievable.

Wilkie Collins William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist and playwright known especially for ''The Woman in White (novel), The Woman in White'' (1860), a mystery novel and early sensation novel, and for ''The Moonsto ...

visits the Glen, which he terms Nighton's Kieve, in ''Rambles Beyond Railways''. He and his companion find the Kieve impossible to locate, shrouded in impenetrable undergrowth.

The Hermitage

A building reputed to be the site of Saint Nectan's cell is situated at the top of the waterfall; the date of the building is uncertain. It is most probably an 18th-century summerhouse, and the legends are due to the imaginations of R. S. Hawker and William Goard, yeoman of Trethevy. The current owners claim that the ruins of the chapel provide the lower part of the walls of a cottage erected in the 1860s, and extended around 1900. Tea gardens are open in the Hermitage grounds between April and October''The History and Legend of the Hermitage and Waterfall, St. Nectan's Glen, Tintagel'', leaflet, 2007 and a new woodland walkway (opened March 2016) allows visitors to view the falls from above. These views were previously only available by climbing the rocks above the falls.

References

External links

St Nectan's Glen
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Nectan's Kieve Environment of Cornwall Celtic Christianity Waterfalls of England Articles containing video clips