St Michael's Mount

St Michael's Mount (, meaning "hoar rock in woodland") is a tidal island in Mount's Bay, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The island is a civil parish and is linked to the town of Marazion by a causeway of granite setts, passable (as is the beach) between mid-tide and low water. It is managed by the National Trust, and the castle and chapel have been the home of the St Aubyn family since around 1650. Historically, St Michael's Mount was a Cornish counterpart of Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy, France, which is also a tidal island, and has a similar conical shape, though Mont-Saint-Michel is much taller. St Michael's Mount is one of 43 unbridged tidal islands to which one can walk from mainland Britain. Part of the island was designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1995 for its geology. Sea height can vary by up to around 5 metres between low and high tide. Etymology Its Cornish language name—literally, "the grey rock in a wood"—may represent a folk memory of a time before Mount's Bay was flooded, indicating a description of the mount set in woodland. Remains of trees have been seen at low tides following storms on the beach at Perranuthnoe.