You are looking at the eerie granite outcrop that is Roche Rock, a 65-foot-high tor that glowers across the strange clay moonscape of Goss Moor outside the village of Roche, found about 7 miles from major town St Austell. The tor has been there, looking sinister, for over 270 million years, and its power to inspire both awe and superstitious fear within the onlooker has meant that the Rock has been incorporated into many Cornish folktales. Perhaps the most famous of these would be the legend of Tristan and Iseult, whose tale of thwarted love has captured both the hearts and imagination of millions. After accidentally ingesting a love potion, the Cornish knight and the Irish princess fall madly in love, but are doomed to spend a lifetime evading Iseult’s husband and Tristan’s uncle, the vengeful King Mark. The lovers supposedly were sheltered from Mark’s wrath by the hermit Ogrin, whose oratory was perched atop good old Roche Rock. Visitors nowadays can explore the ruins of a fifteenth-century chapel which was reputedly built upon the site of Ogrin’s hermitage, where these star-crossed lovers momentarily found peace.