St. Piran's Round
OS Grid ref:-
St. Piran's Round, which is situated directly east of the popular resort of Perranporth beside the B3285, consists of an earthwork ampitheatre and is the most famous of all Cornish 'playing places', although the origins of the Round are uncertain, it was dates from well before the Romans invaded Briain and is thought to have originated in the Iron Age.
In the Middle Ages St. Piran's Round became a venue where the Mystery Plays, popular at the time, were performed for religious instruction. The Round is large enough to seat an audience of hundreds, it measures around 130 feet in diameter, the embankment itself is around eight feet high with grassed seats on circular terraces. In 1969 and 1973 productions of the Cornish Medieval plays were enacted there for the first time in many centuries. Today the Gorsedd ceremony is sometimes performed at St. Piran's Round.
The nearby Oratory of St. Piran was built in the seventh century, it was an important early Celtic monastery and a place of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages and was said to contain the relics of St. Piran. Now in the sand dunes, it became submerged by drifting sands in the eleventh century and had to be abandoned.