What life is like living on Cornwall's famous landmark

TAKE a look at most tourism brochures about Cornwall and you can be guaranteed there will be a stunning photograph of St Michael's Mount, its causeway glistening in the sunshine at low tide or its castle highlighted against a stormy sky.

- by OLIVIER VERGNAULT

The Mount is probably Cornwall's best known landmark. Used as a film set for Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon, or the German TV adaptations of Rosamunde Pilcher’s books, St Michael’s Mount is certainly one of the county's most visited historic sites.

Last year 300,000 people visited the landmark, with between 3,000 and 4,000 visitors on peak days.

The historic seat of the Cornish aristocratic St Aubyn family, it is jointly managed by the St Aubyn Estate and the National Trust. The estate employs about 100 people. Perhaps less known is the fact that 30 of them do actually live on the Mount all year round.

Darren Little, the head gardener at St Michael’s Mount, is one of them. He lives in one of the cottages overlooking the harbour with his wife and two children, all of whom work for the St Aubyn Estate in one capacity or another.

For Darren and his neighbours, the adage that time and tide wait for no man is particularly relevant.

“You can’t just pop down to the pub like that,” he said as he gave us a private tour of the beautiful gardens at the base of the Mount on a glorious sunny day. “You have to plan it or you might not be able to get back.”

On certain weeks you might be able to stagger home from the pub by walking along the causeway if the tide is low enough, but at other times, plan it wrong and you'll find yourself having to stay the night on the mainland, for the boatman won't come and pick you up at 1am.

All who live on the Mount will tell you it is very much a way of life, and a family tradition. Darren's parents lived and met on the island.

He lived there until he was 16 before he went off to the mainland to study horticulture.