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The light fades rapidly as I stand within the Tregeseal stone circle. The granite stones seem to shine in this sombre countryside, resembling curious, spectral figures assembled around to observe our actions. Overhead, a blanket of dried ferns and scrub climbs toward Carn Kenidjack, the imposing rock outcrop that overshadows the open vista. At night, this moorland is believed to be frequented by sprites and spirits, and sometimes Old Nick emerges in search of lost souls.

Unconcerned by potential supernatural threat, we gaze seawards, 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 fellow observer, researcher Carolyn Kennett, and I exclaim. It is breathtaking a spectacle of nature which may have been witnessed by the individuals who constructed this circle in the Neolithic era.

An Ancient Winter Solstice Landscape

We have met at Tregeseal to explore the year's turning point. Carolyn’s work investigates the relationship of Neolithic Cornwall with the cosmos, and she describes the entire westernmost tip of Cornwall as an ancient winter solstice landscape. This, she notes, is because of the spine of granite that travels in a southwesterly direction along the peninsula, toward the midwinter sunset. If, for example, you position yourself at midwinter by Chûn Quoit – the dolmen-like tomb high on the moors south of Morvah – you will see the sun descend over the rocky hill on the southwestern horizon. And probably this is precisely as its ancient engineers planned.

"Where better to celebrate the rebirth of the sun than on the western tip, which points toward the vanishing spot of the sun on the winter solstice?"

It is proposed that Tregeseal stone circle was carefully positioned to allow people to observe the solstice sun going down behind the Isles of Scilly. “Viewed from here, Scilly is a borderland. On a bright day with high pressure, the isles look close up and just seem to leap out. On other days, they’re completely invisible. The monument creators could have perceived Scilly as an otherworldly place, maybe a spiritual domain, connected with the midwinter and the renewal of the light.”

Mysterious Monuments and Countdown Calendars

We pick our way through the darkening copper-colored moor past ancient tumuli and piles of engine waste to a mysterious monument, which may be the UK’s only Neolithic line of holed stones. In contrast to the stone at the famous holed stone a few miles away, it’s impossible to squeeze through the stones at Kenidjack; these apertures are barely big enough to fit my hand through and very low to the ground. Experts remain perplexed.

A proposed explanation is that the series might have operated as a kind of solar event marker, with the sun at dawn illuminating through the holes from late October until December and casting different shafts of light in the stones’ shadows. “Experiencing the warmth of that ray of sunlight in the chilly, gloomy moor gave me a visceral appreciation of how prehistoric people might have experienced winter solstice,” she says.

Numerous ancient sites are aligned to the rising or setting of the sun at midwinter or midsummer for it to be a accident. It makes sense that Stone Age agriculturalists, who depended on the sun for illumination, warmth and the cultivation of crops, would want to monitor the sun’s movement. But in the modern era, the darkness of this time of year still weighs on our moods, and so we anticipate the winter solstice, that day of least light of all before the sunlit time begin to lengthen again.

Ancient Markers and New Traditions

A cutting east wind is whipping, and haunting cries come from invisible cows as I hike through soggy clover to make a pilgrimage the Boscawen-Ros stone, watching over as it has done for countless generations above the peninsula’s south coast. It is just one of many of prehistoric stones that stand in isolation or in alignments all over the peninsula; less than a mile away are the famous petrified dancers, maidens frozen in granite for breaking the Sabbath. I think about how long the stone has persisted here, enjoying its view of the surrounding seas: where once Neolithic coracles would have drifted, now cargo vessels and the passenger ferry sail past.

"Montol reinvigorates the historic practice of guise dancing, with its elaborate masks and costumes, seasonal songs and music of woodwind, percussion and strings."

A filmmaker's captivating film, chronicling one cycle in the existence of this stone, draws attention to the significance of its calm and quiet existence in the dynamic landscape. “And I deliberately began and concluded the film with winter solstice,” he explains, “because it is a moment of unadulterated optimism – the pledge of the passing of darkness and a bright new year ahead.”

On the shortest day, all over this region, people will be marking the turning of the year by walking to ancient rings, sacred springs, hill forts and prehistoric lookout points. Guided walks will be led to observe the sunset. Many will walk to ancient stones in a form of ceremony of introspection and new beginnings. Later, crowds will congregate into the town for Montol, a midwinter festival that {dates only to|was established in|originated in