In the first chapter the author traces the history of the parish of Zennor in West Cornwall from the first Mesolithic farms to the early Iron Age.

Chapter 2 covers 400 BC to 400 AD when the Celts dominated society. Hilltops and headlands were fortified but later these were abandoned and the first courtyard houses built as peace reigned.

Chapter 3 is from AD 400-1000 and includes the coming of Christianity. The farms were named and organised by the Anglo-Saxons into Cornish acres under the tithings system.

Chapter 4 After the organisation of tithings and manors, Zennor at last becomes a parish with boundaries in its own right.

Chapter 5 covers 1100 t0 1300 when Zennor church was built. People lived in long-houses with cattle at the bottom end in winter. The first vicars and parishioners are named.

Chapter 6 starts with the Lay Subsidy Roll of 1327 when 38 heads of households were named. The results of The Black Death and subsequent plagues in the fourteenth century were followed by a growing prosperity in the fifteenth century and enlarging the church.

Chapter 7 is in two parts starting with landowners, muster rolls and tin production in the sixteenth century. The second part discusses farming at Treveglos and tithes at the end of the sixteenth century.