The ancient UK village abandoned over 1,000 years ago with ruins you can visit

In the 1840s, tin miners in Cornwall stumbled upon something unexpected - a stone fogou or underground passageway, a feature unique to the far west of Cornwall, dating back to the Iron Age.

Fast forward two decades, and antiquarian and Liberal politician WC Borlase began excavating the site, focusing solely on the fogou discovered by the miners. A century later, in the 1960s, archaeologists expanded their focus to the wider settlement.

This led to the discovery of the remains of stone houses, circular drainage gullies, and potholes, all remnants of early Iron Age timber roundhouses that had since been destroyed. The village was subsequently named Carn Euny.

The exact timeline of habitation at Carn Euny remains unclear, but the artefacts and houses unearthed suggest it was occupied during the Iron Age and post-Roman invasion of England, reports the Mirror.

The evolution of housing styles indicates continuous occupation over this period, starting with timber roundhouses believed to have been constructed between 500 and 400 BC, which were later replaced with stone houses in the first century BC.

Between the second and fourth centuries AD, these stone roundhouses gave way to larger 'courtyard houses', also made from stone. Today, the ruins of these houses form much of what is left of Carn Euny.

Evidence indicates that the settlement was a hub for farming and possibly tin trading, with field boundaries suggesting that villagers cultivated oats and barley and reared animals like sheep and goats.

The reason behind Carn Euny's abandonment remains a mystery, but it appears that development within the village halted towards the end of the Roman occupation.

Several other ancient villages have been unearthed in the surrounding areas, including Chysauster Ancient Village, which was first inhabited nearly 2,000 years ago. Similar to Carn Euny, the reasons for Chysauster's abandonment remain unknown.