Boscastle

Forrabury and Minster is a civil parish on the north coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The parish was originally divided between the coastal parish of Forrabury and inland parish of Minster until they were united on the 1st of April 1919.The parish was in the Registration District of Camelford. It is bounded to the north by the Atlantic; to the east by the parishes of St Juliot, Lesnewth and Davidstow; to the south by Camelford parish (ecclesiastical parish of Lanteglos by Camelford); and to the west by Trevalga parish. The population of Forrabury and Minster parish in the 2001 census was 888, which decreased slightly to 838 at the 2011 census.

The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, formerly known as the Museum of Witchcraft, is a museum dedicated to European witchcraft and magic located in the village of Boscastle in Cornwall, south-west England. It houses exhibits devoted to folk magic, ceremonial magic, Freemasonry, and Wicca, with its collection of such objects having been described as the largest in the world. The museum was founded by the English folk magician Cecil Williamson in 1951 to display his own personal collection of artefacts. Initially known as the Folklore Centre of Superstition and Witchcraft, it was located in the town of Castletown on the Isle of Man. Williamson was assisted at the museum by the prominent Wiccan Gerald Gardner, who remained there as "resident witch". After their friendship deteriorated, Gardner purchased it from Williamson in 1954, renaming it the Museum of Magic and Witchcraft. Gardner's Castletown museum remained open until the 1970s, when Gardner's heir Monique Wilson sold its contents to the Ripley's company. In 1954, Williamson opened his own rival back in England, known as the Museum of Witchcraft. Its first location was at Windsor, Berkshire, and the next at Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire; in both cases it faced violent opposition and Williamson felt it necessary to move, establishing the museum in Boscastle in 1960. In 1996 Williamson sold the museum to Graham King, who incorporated the Richel collection of magical regalia from the Netherlands in 2000. The museum was damaged and part of its collection lost during the Boscastle flood of 2004. In 2013 ownership was transferred to Simon Costin and his Museum of British Folklore. The museum is a popular tourist attraction and is held in high esteem by the British occult community. A charity, Friends of the Museum of Witchcraft, has been established to raise funds for the exhibits. The museum also contains a large library on related topics that is accessible to researchers.

The 2004 Boscastle flood (Cornish: An Lanwes Kastel Boterel 2004) occurred on Monday, 16 August 2004 in the two villages of Boscastle and Crackington Haven in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The villages suffered extensive damage after flash floods caused by an exceptional amount of rain that fell over eight hours that afternoon. The flood in Boscastle was filmed and extensively reported but the floods in Crackington Haven and Rocky Valley were not mentioned beyond the local news. The floods were the worst in local memory. A study commissioned by the Environment Agency from hydraulics consulting firm HR Wallingford concluded that it was among the most extreme ever experienced in Britain. The peak flow was about 140 m3/s, between 5:00 pm and 6:00 pm BST. The annual chance of this (or a greater) flood in any one year is about 1 in 400. The probability each year of the heaviest three-hour rainfall is about 1 in 1300 (although rainfall probability is not the same as flood probability). At midday on 16 August 2004, heavy thundery showers had developed across the South West due to a weak disturbance to the northeast of the United Kingdom.The last time Boscastle had suffered notable flooding was in 1996 as a result of Hurricane Lili, but floods are recorded in 1847, 1957, on 3 June 1958 (one man drowned) and on 6 February during the Winter of 1962–63 in the United Kingdom. On 16 August 1952 the small town of Lynmouth, 50 miles (80 km) north-east along the north coast in Devon near Exmoor, suffered extensive damage in a catastrophic flood, in which 34 people lost their lives. Coincidentally, this was 52 years to the day before Boscastle's 2004 flood.

The River Valency (Cornish: Dowr an Velinji) is a short river in north Cornwall, England, UK, with many small tributaries. After running past Lesnewth it cuts a valley before entering the sea at the harbour of the village of Boscastle. One of its tributaries is the Jordan, which runs 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) north before joining the Valency in Boscastle just before the B3263 road bridge. The Valency valley is steep-sided and the sides of the lower section are wooded. The valley has been flooded many times, most seriously in the Boscastle flood of 2004 when significant channel erosion occurred. (Heavy rainfall for 7 hours over a wide area in the afternoon of 16 August 2004 led to severe flooding and structural damage.) The agricultural use and fast drainage within the catchment areas of the Valency and Jordan are related to the extent of the Boscastle flooding.

Willapark (grid reference SX090913) is a 317-foot high promontory just south of Boscastle on the north coast of Cornwall in South West England. It is the site of an Iron Age hill fort and a small nineteenth century folly, now a coastguard lookout.

Boscastle Slate Quarries are a series of disused coastal quarries between Willapark and Trevalga on the north coast of Cornwall, South West England.

The civil parishes to which the Forrabury and Minster parish churches belong were united in 1919 to form Forrabury and Minster parish, within Cornwall, England, UK. The main settlement in the parish is Boscastle. The two rectories had been united in 1800.The original Forrabury / Minster boundary crossed the river so the harbour end of the village was in Forrabury and the upriver area in Minster. The churches were established some time earlier than the settlement at Boscastle (in Norman times when a castle was built there).

Trevalga (Cornish: Trevelgi) is a coastal civil parish and hamlet in north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The parish is bounded on the north by the Celtic Sea, on the southeast by Forrabury and Minster parish and on the west by Tintagel parish.

Saint Nectan's Kieve (Cornish: Cuva Nathan, meaning Nathan's tub) in Saint Nectan's Glen, near Tintagel in Cornwall, Great Britain, is a plunge pool or basin fed by a 60-foot-high (18 m) waterfall on the Trevillet River.

Beeny is a hamlet in north Cornwall, England, UK. It is in a sheltered valley near the coast two miles (3 km) north-east of Boscastle.

Saint Nectan's Glen (Cornish: Glynn Nathan, meaning deep wooded valley of Nathan/Nectan) is an area of woodland in Trethevy near Tintagel, north Cornwall stretching for around one mile along both banks of the Trevillet River. The glen's most prominent feature is St Nectan's Kieve, a spectacular sixty foot waterfall through a hole in the rocks. The site attracts tourists who believe it to be "one of the UK's most spiritual sites," and tie or place ribbons, crystals, photographs, small piles of flat stones and other materials near the waterfall.

Condolden is a hill in north Cornwall, England, UK. The summit is 308 metres (1010 feet) above ordnance datum.Condolden is two miles (3 km) southeast of Tintagel village and is on the eastern border of Tintagel civil parish between Waterpit Down (to the east) and Penpethy (to the west). It is the highest point in the parish. The largest of the Bronze Age barrows in Tintagel is at Condolden (another is at Menadue). On the edges of the hill are (from the north) Halgabron, Trenale, Downrow, Truas, Menadue and Trewarmett. Near Trenale was the Iron Age fort of Trenale Bury which was ploughed up during the Second World War. The barrow has not been excavated and is topped by an Ordnance Survey triangulation point. The land is used for arable farming.