Constantine
OS grid reference :- SW 732291
The vilage of Constantine, known in the Cornish language as Lann Gostentin, which means church enclosure of St Constantine lies around five miles (8 km) to the south west of Falmouth.
The village is named after Saint Constantine, a Cornish saint of the sixth century who has been possibly identified with the Celtic King Constantine of Dumnonia, who is to have given up his crown to become a monk.
Constantine, a village of ancient origins, is refered to in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Saint Constantin. The village church, with its impressive butressed tower which boasts pinnacles pannelled with Gothic tracery, dates to between 1420 and 1480 and replaced an earlier Norman church on the site.
Traditional Cornish granite cottages line Constantine's Fore Street, the nineteenth century Methodist Chapel has now become an arts centre and museum known as the Tolmen Centre. The Queen's Arms pub on Fore Street serves good food. Trewardreva Manor House dates to circa 1600 and was remodelled in 1719-49.
Constantine once had a practice of annually electing a mock mayor in the week which followed its parish feast. This practice ceased to be exercised in the mid nineteenth century after complaints from the local vicar, who found one such "election" in such poor taste that he ensured that the event would never again occur.
Piskey's Hall, a prehistoric fogou and one of the Lizard's best-known monuments, stands about a mile from Constantine at Trewardreva. The monument dates to the Iron Age.
Beautiful Trenarth garden at High Cross, near Constantine, covers four-acres and has been a garden in the making since 1993. The garden is set around a seventeenth century farmhouse in a lovely pastoral setting. There is year-round interest with unusual plants, a courtyard listed garden, yew rooms, vegetable garden, orchard and a new woodland area and gravel garden with panoramic views. The garden is occasionally open to the public for charity.