According to The Saxon Chronicle Lyonesse was obliterated on the 11th November 1099. The chronicle tells of the sea inundating the land and drowning towns, people, and animals. . Only one man survived. His name was Trevilian and he rode a white horse up to high ground at Perranuthnoe before the waves could overwhelm him. However, that date may be misleading as there are other references to a date of 1089, or even sometime during the 6th Century. But, whatever the date, the myth of a lost land persists, so it might well be a folk memory of dry land that did exist at some point. And geological evidence shows that sea levels were different within human memory.Today, legend has it that the Isles of Scilly are all that remain of Lyonesse, with the islands having been recorded, during the reign of Maximus in the 4th Century, as one single island. Lyonesse is said to have contained one hundred and forty villages and churches, and local tradition has it that fishermen still find parts of old buildings in their trawling nets. Some even say they’ve heard the church bells ring when the sea has been stormy. There is a report that an ex-mayor of Wilton, while standing on the cliffs at Land's End, had twice seen domes, towers, spires, and fortifications beneath the sea. And, as recently as the 1930s, a News Chronicle journalist claimed to have been woken by the sound of muffled bells ringing one night. His hosts maintained that he had heard the bells of Lyonesse.
The Seven Stone Rocks are held to be the remains of a city that Fishermen call The Town, while in Mount’s Bay the remains of a sunken forest can be seen at low tide. Lending weight to this belief is the fact that St. Michael’s Mount, situated in Mount’s Bay itself, is the oldCornish name meaning " the hoar rock in the wood." Added to this is the locally held idea that the Isles of Scilly are the old hilltops of Lyonesse. And it is a fact that the remains of many ancient stone buildings, including megalithic structures, can be seen below the high-tide mark.
Today, there are roughly fifty islands within the Isles of Scilly group, although only four are inhabited, and have been inhabited since prehistoric times. They have also been identified as the famous Tin Islands that were known to the Greeks. Geologically they are made from granite that is very similar to the granite of Cornwall.
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