Rame Head

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See Rame Head, Victoria for that place in Australia (named after Rame Head, Cornwall).

Rame Head

Rame Head is a coastal headland, southwest of the village of Rame in southeast Cornwall, United Kingdom.

The site was used for a hill fort in the Iron Age.

The headland has a prominent chapel, dedicated to St Michale, accessible by a steep footpath. The chapel was first licenced for Mass in 1397. It is probably on the site of a much earlier, Celtic, hermitage, Earl Ordulf, who was the owner of vast estates in the West Country. Earl Ordulf, who was the uncle of King Ethelred, gave Rame to Tavistock Abbey (which Ordulf had founded) in 981. It remains as an in-tact shell.

Around the head, Dartmoor ponies are kept to graze. This area is also frequented by deer, sheep and cattle which can often be viewed from the sea. The headland is prominent to sailors and fishermen leaving Plymouth through Plymouth Sound. It is often the last piece of land they see leaving England, and the first they see when returning home; Rame Head thus appears in the sea shanty "Spanish Ladies."

Due its exceptionally high and panoramic vantage point, there is a volunteer National Coastwatch Institution lookout on the top of the headland (next to the car park).