Abandoned UK village left to rot 1,000 years ago only accessible by hidden cave passage

Daily Mirror

26-07-2025

Around 1,000 years ago, a village that can only be accessed through a hidden passage was left abandoned, and the mystery about what happened to its inhabitants has never been solved
A group of miners working in Cornwall were itching to make a discovery of tin - the metal was a valuable resource, and the Cornish countryside was well known to be a rich source for this major industry at the time. But as they searched the countryside, hoping to get lucky, they would make an unexpected discovery.
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However, nearly 200 years ago, the miners, whilst digging, found something else entirely: an underground passageway.
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Also known as a stone fogou, this has only ever been found in West Cornwall, so the group of miners had stumbled across something incredibly significant, even if it wasn't what they were initially trying to find.
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It wouldn't be for another 20 years, in the 1860s, when an antiquarian and Liberal politician, WC Borlase, decided to excavate the fogou further.
Despite Borlase's interest becoming piqued, his investigations stuck to the fogou itself, and little did he know that beyond the underground hidden passageaway, were the remains of an entire village, which was last occupied centuries ago.
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It would take a further century for archaeologists to excavate far enough to find the rest of the remarkably well-preserved Iron Age village.
When they did, they found remnants of stone houses, and circular drainage gullies and potholes that would have once been part of timber round houses - that are long gone.
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Dubbed Carn Euny, the village is the best preserved settlement from this era that has ever been discovered, with walls up to a metre high in some places being excavated in the ancient village in the South West.
Artefacts and the types of timber round house buildings discovered during the dig indicate that this village was first built and occupied between 500BC and 400BC
Later, these were replaced with stone houses during the first century BC, but Carn Euny was occupied for a long time, and throughout the centuries, its inhabitants continued to upgrade their homes.
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Between 200 and 400 AD, courtyard houses made from stone replaced the traditional round houses, and many of these ruins can still be explored today.
The experts have deduced that the people who lived in this ancient village are likely to have kept some animals - like cattle, sheep and goats - and relied on growing oats and barley.
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Clear signs of field boundaries indicate this was something of a farming community in the 40 acres around the village - though it would have differed extensively from our modern conception of agriculture. The community would also have likely dealt in tin sourced from the local area - just as the miners who would later unearth this historic site would centuries later.
Carn Euny was home to a thriving community throughout the Iron Age and Roman occupation, but the answer to why the village was one day abandoned has never been conclusively found.
Towards the end of the Roman Empire's occupation, Carn Euny was left by its inhabitants in 400 AD - and they never returned.
Carn Euny is an English Heritage site and for any history lovers, it is well worth exploring when you are visiting the South West of England.