Penzance Harbour Live Cam

• Harbour Bay

Advertisement

The most westerly major town in Cornwall

West Cornwall casts an irresistible spell through its unique and captivating atmosphere, its mystery and romance. Wander across the lonely moors of Penwith and feel the compelling power of the ancient standing stones. St. Michael's ley-line, probably the most famous of the energy sources that are said to criss-cross the earth, starts near Land's End and passes close to St. Michael's Mount before heading across southern England.

Like the enigmatic stone-circles of West Cornwall, ley-lines are thought to be imbued with an earth energy source that has survived intact to this day and which still exercises a magical influence on the enquiring mind. Such inexplicable forces are direct and powerful links with our pagan past, when people gathered at points of contact with earth energy, and there paid tribute to Nature and to the spirits of the earth.

Lanyon Quoit, with its tall upright stones supporting an enormous capstone is a famous monument that stands by the Madron to Morvah road. The famous Bronze Age stone circle of the Merry Maidens stands in a roadside field near Lamorna. Nearby are two tall standing stones known as the Pipers from the legend of their being musicians turned to stone, along with the merry maidens, for daring to play music and dance on a Sunday. Their true purpose was for the no less mysterious pagan ceremonies of the ancient inhabitants of this compelling land.

As well as ceremonial sites, Bronze Age and Iron Age people established secure trading centres and safe havens on strategic hilltops and on easily fortified headlands, such as the 'cliff castles' at Gurnard's Head near Zennor and at the awesome Logan Rock promontory, near Porthcurno.

Domestic life during the Iron Age was centred on clusters of 'beehive' shaped stone dwellings, and at Chysauster north of Penzance, and at Carn Euny near Sancreed are two of Europe's finest examples of preserved villages of Iron Age courtyard houses. At Carn Euny there is a fine example of a fogou, an underground system of passages and chambers, whose true purpose - whether practical or ceremonial - is shrouded in the same intriguing mystery that makes all of West Cornwall's ancient monuments objects of fascination.

Today, in West Cornwall, standing at the stone circles of Boscawen-Un near St.Buryan, or at the Merry Maidens' circle near Lamorna, or passing through the 'holed' stone of Men-an-Tol near Morvah, one can begin to understand and to experience the latent power to which the ancient ones paid homage.

This power rises from the heart of the West Cornwall landscape from granite that now stands unyielding to the sea but which once erupted in a fiery molten mass from deep within the earth. And, through time, every habitation, every church and civic building until our modern age, was built from the rocky bones of the land. Today, the surviving standing stones, the early Christian crosses, the medieval churches are all potent reminders of the need to pay homage to the past.

The Literary Tradition in Penzance

Literature has always been a strong element in the culture of West Cornwall although little remains of the early writings of medieval Cornwall. The area always drew outside interest, however The remarkable diarist Celia Fiennes visited Land's End as early as 1698. A later visit to Land's End by Alfred, Lord Tennyson was followed by a succession of visits by distinguished Victorian writers and diarist's.

In the 20th century, Virginia Woolf was inspired by her association with St.Ives to write her famous novel To The Lighthouse and the remote, haunted countryside of the north coast attracted the novelist D.H.Lawrence who lived for a time at Zennor.

Modern writers, such as the late Derek Tangye lived on the Mount's Bay coast for thirty years and penned his much-loved Minack Chronicles there. The novelist John le Carre has a home on the same stretch of coast. Other modern writers who have drawn inspiration from West Cornwall include, Winston Graham whose series of novels, the Poldark Saga made compelling television viewing.

The successful writer Rosamund Pilcher has strong local connections to West Cornwall. Her novel The Shell Seekers drew on the author's childhood experiences of Lelant and St.Ives and a television film of the book was filmed locally. More recently many of W.J.Burley's Cornish detective Wycliffe novels, now the basis for a popular television series, are set in West Cornwall.

Tourism in Penzance & West Cornwall

Across the ancient Celtic landscape of the Land's End Peninsula and all round its Atlantic coastline lie fascinating villages and hamlets, all within easy reach of Penzance yet all with the compelling aura of a past that is emphatically Cornish.

Zennor village on the wild north coast of the Land's End Peninsula stands within an ancient landscape of Iron Age fields between high moorland and the stupendous sea cliffs of Zennor Head. The village has a handsome 15th-Century church and its traditional pub - the Tinners' Arms - is a popular venue.

Pendeen is made up of a number of old mining hamlets strung out along the dramatic mining coast to the north of St. Just. Information about local mining history is provided at the National Trust's Levant Mine at nearby Trewellard and at the Geevor Tin Mine and Heritage Centre. The Heritage Centre is in the old buildings of what was the last working tin mine in West Cornwall until its final closure in 1990.

There are a number of old 'mining' pubs in Pendeen and there are several restaurants. The Gem and Jewellery Workshop, near the free car park and the village shop, has displays of mineral specimens and of handmade gold, silver and gemstone jewellery.

Between Pendeen and St. Just is the mining hamlet of Botallack, more recently famous for being featured in the popular Poldark television series. The preserved engine houses of the 19th century Crowns Mine at Botallack stand perched halfway down a rugged cliff from where mine workings ran out beneath the sea bed. Today the area is a treasure house of mining remains.

Sennen Village, with its traditional granite church and its well-known First and Last Inn, stands alongside the main road not far from Land's End itself. Sennen Cove lies on the sea shore below Sennen village and is reached down a steeply descending road which levels off at the popular Old Success Inn. Sennen's main beach and the adjoining Gwenver Beach to the north are two of the most famous surfing and body-boarding venues in Europe and are noted for their turquoise seas, golden sands and exhilarating surf. Both are excellent beaches for general bathing and there are lifeguards on duty throughout the summer.

The Round House at Sennen Harbour at the far end of Sennen Cove once contained a wooden capstan for hauling boats up the harbour slipway. The Round House is now a superb arts and craft gallery.

Porthgwarra Cove lies at the southern tip of the Land's End Peninsula below coastal heathland famed for the glorious colours of its heather, gorse and wild flowers. To the west lie the spectacular golden cliffs of Chair Ladder at Gwennap Head, the most southerly point on the Land's End Peninsula. There is a car park and small cafe/shop at Porthgwarra and superb walks can be taken along the coast in either direction.

The Porthcurno valley leads down to the glorious Porthcurno Bay and its golden beach. The bay lies between the famous outdoor theatre at The Minack and Treryn Dinas, a spectacular granite headland crowned by The Logan Rock, a massive boulder that once rocked to the touch of a finger. Porthcurno's main beach is a deep apron of golden sand lapped by a sea of blue and green. The Porthcurno valley was closely associated with world-wide submarine telegraphy from the 1860s and today a fascinating museum details the history of that association.

The sunny south coast of the Land's End Peninsula, between Porthcurno and Penzance, is a mix of granite cliffs and deeply vegetated slopes, wooded valleys and rocky coves. The loveliest and most accessible of these valley coves are Penberth and Lamorna. Penberth lies to the east of Logan Rock and just below the village of Treen and its popular Logan Rock Inn. Lamorna Cove lies at the mouth of a wooded and flower-filled valley, where there is a pub and several potteries and craft shops.