Hotels in Cornwall

Much of Cornwall consists of high and hilly land, composed chiefly of granite. Although moorland covers a vast area of the county, there are also numerous thickly wooded valleys that descend from the moors down to the sea, where there are many attractive sandy bays, especially along the north coast.

Many areas of Cornwall are scarred by the tin-mining industry, which subsidised Cornish income for over 3000 years until the exhaustion of the shallow workings in the mid-20th century.

The Romans occupied Cornwall at the start of the 1st century AD and remains are found in many parts of the county. The departure of the Romans saw the Celts move in and many Cornish families can trace their ancestry back to those Celtic forebears. The native Celts strongly resisted Saxon advances but were finally defeated in 836 AD. After the Norman invasion of 1066 Cornwall became an earldom owned by sons or other relatives of the Kings of England. In 1337 Prince Edward, was given the title Duke of Cornwall by his father Edward III. This title and the revenues from the duchy are still held by the sovereign's eldest son.

Bodmin is the official county town of Cornwall, but the small cathedral city of Truro is the administrative centre.