Carn Euny

The Iron Age village of Carn Euny sits in open moorland west of Penzance, and it's one of Cornwall's most substantial prehistoric settlements - though frankly, you need to know what you're looking at to get much from it. The site consists of low stone walls marking out a series of roundhouse foundations, plus an underground passage, or fogou, which you can actually walk into. That subterranean bit is the main draw: it's properly atmospheric, cool and dim, and genuinely mysterious about its original purpose.

This is archaeology for people who actually want to engage with the landscape rather than read interpretive panels. There aren't many of those - it's just you, the moorland, and some very old stonework. Walkers will enjoy it as a stopping point on a longer route, and history types will find themselves pondering whether those walls once held roofs or served ritual purposes. Families with younger kids might find twenty minutes enough unless they're keen on scrambling about in the fogou.

It's free to visit and accessible year-round, though winter winds across the moor can be brutal. The nearest proper facilities are back in Penzance, a few miles south. If you're staying at Roselands Caravan Camping Park or Lands End Camping & Glamping, Carn Euny makes a decent half-hour detour on the way to somewhere else - worth doing, but don't rearrange your itinerary around it.