Open Country St Just in Midwinter broadcast Christmas Eve 2022 Available now (indefinitely?) on BBC Sounds

Helen Mark tries to live in the moment at a deserted cliff edge chapel, hears carols that have deep ties to Cornwall's tin mining heritage, and comes face to face with hell's snarling jaws as she visits the town of St Just in Penwith.

In the heart of the town is the "plen-an-gwari", one of the last of the Cornish medieval amphitheatres built to host a sequence of religious mystery plays, the Ordinalia. Centuries after their suppression, the plays were revived in the 2000s as a community-wide venture that once again brought them, and the "plen", to the centre of community life.

And at the Miner's Chapel we hear how the tin mines which once dominated the area gave rise to a tradition of local carolling that survives to this day, with Alan Cargeeg and his fellow singers.