Qualla: Plen-an-gwary https://qualla.com/plen-an-gwary en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:10 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/v/plen-an-gwary-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Plen-an-gwary https://qualla.com/plen-an-gwary Plen-an-gwary: Introduction https://qualla.com/plen-an-gwary/ Photo credit Public domain. Penryn, around 1587. A boat full of Spaniards lands intending to sack the town. The streets are deserted. The raiders pause, suspicious. Then, from somewhere inland, a deafening shout - thousands of voices at once. The Spaniards run back to their boats and shove off. They had stumbled on a performance of the miracle play Samson, and the audience was cheering at the moment when the gates of Gaza fell. The story is exactly the kind of thing that a plen-an-gwary - a Cornish playing place - was built to produce: not a sober Roman amphitheatre, but an outdoor circle holding thousands of people, watching a play in their own language, and shouting hard enough to be heard at sea.

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/v/plen-an-gwary-wp/gbgv-plen-an-gwary-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Plen-an-gwary: Playing Places https://qualla.com/plen-an-gwary/ Photo credit Public domain. Plen-an-gwarry, or plain-an-gwary - the Cornish words mean simply "playing place" - was the Penwith name for a kind of structure once common across the west of the duchy. A roughly circular earth-banked amphitheatre, open to the sky, used for plays, sports, and any public busines...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/v/plen-an-gwary-wp/gbgv-plen-an-gwary-playing-places.mp3 0:06 2 full Plen-an-gwary: The Plain at St Just https://qualla.com/plen-an-gwary/ Photo credit Public domain. The St Just plen-an-gwary sits in the middle of the town, a circular green between the streets, ringed by a low grass-topped wall. It is roughly 38 metres across at its central playing area, old enough that no one really knows when it was first dug. Cornish wrestling tournaments ...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/v/plen-an-gwary-wp/gbgv-plen-an-gwary-the-plain-at-st-just.mp3 0:06 3 full Plen-an-gwary: Plays in a Vanishing Language https://qualla.com/plen-an-gwary/ Photo credit Public domain. The Cornish miracle plays were noisy, bawdy, and entertaining - this is the testimony of contemporary observers, not modern romanticism. They were written in Cornish, which is to say in a Brittonic language closely related to Welsh and Breton, spoken across most of Cornwall in th...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/v/plen-an-gwary-wp/gbgv-plen-an-gwary-plays-in-a-vanishing-language.mp3 0:06 4 full Plen-an-gwary: Saint Piran's Round https://qualla.com/plen-an-gwary/ Photo credit Public domain. The best-preserved plen-an-gwary anywhere is not at St Just but in the parish of Perranzabuloe, midway between Perranporth and Goonhavern on Cornwall's north coast. Saint Piran's Round - sometimes called Perran Round - is a substantial circular earthwork, larger and more dramatic...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/v/plen-an-gwary-wp/gbgv-plen-an-gwary-saint-pirans-round.mp3 0:06 5 full Plen-an-gwary: Other Rounds, Other Echoes https://qualla.com/plen-an-gwary/ Photo credit Public domain. The map of vanished plen-an-gwarys is a map of vanished Cornish community life. The Long Sentry field southeast of St Mabyn church holds the probable site of the most northerly playing place. There is evidence that Bartinney Castle near Sancreed in west Penwith may have been an I...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/v/plen-an-gwary-wp/gbgv-plen-an-gwary-other-rounds-other-echoes.mp3 0:06 6 full