Carn Brea, rising but a couple of miles from Land's End, is consequently said in lore to be the 'First and Last Hill in Britain'. Yeah, despite rising to just 650ft, it completely dominates the locale, the cairn-topped summit a great viewpoint to watch the comings and goings of aircraft into/from the nearby airport... just as folk may have viewed maritime traffic back in the day. Such an overwhelming topographical presence is no doubt a prerequisite for a 'Mother Hill', right?
To be fair, this is not so 'New Agey' mystical as it might at first sound, given that the aforementioned cairn is pretty stupendous in scale and form. And it is not alone, surrounded by several smaller examples, like chicks to Mother Hen. Not to mention the remains of a Neolithic Long Cairn. You get the picture...
The Citizen Cairn approaches from the dedicated NT car park to the northeast, frequented by local dog walkers and tourists alike. The summit cairn is a superb Neolithic 'entrance grave', a unique variant of chambered cairn found in western areas of the UK - particularly in Cornwall, The Isles of Scilly, and parts of lowland Scotland etc (so, not JUST Cornwall, before any muppet shouts) - overlain by a massive Bronze Age cairn with secondary cist, still intact. The eponymous chapel was erected upon that during the C13th, to be eventually demolished in 1816... superseded by an RAF radar post during WW2! Important place, right?
However, the extensive panorama of West Penwith takes the plaudits for me.
Негізгі бет Chapel Carn Brea, the 'First and Last Hill in Britain'... near Land's End, Cornwall (SW3858 2806)
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