Thursday 28 January 2016

The Penwith Peninsula, Cornwall




The Penwith peninsula is the “toe” of Cornwall, comprising the most westerly portion of mainland Britain and including the rocky cliffs of Land’s End. Penwith is of interest to the walker, birdwatcher and enthusiast for history, both ancient and industrial.

The Penwith Peninsula

Most tourists make a beeline for the “first and last house” and the signpost that points the way to John O’Groats in one direction (874 miles) and New York in the other (3147 miles), but it would be a mistake to ignore the rugged scenery of the granite outcrop that leads to this point.

The Cornwall coast path that circumnavigates the Penwith peninsula runs for 36 miles from St Ives to Penzance, although it can be tackled in shorter sections as it is rarely far from a road along which  bus services run (albeit infrequently!) to take the walker back to base.

The path westwards from St Ives, for example, winds between rocky headlands and remote coves which were once used by smugglers. Walkers sometimes need to descend steeply to cross fast-flowing streams and then clamber up the other side, so progress is unlikely to be rapid. That does not matter, because there is much to see here; not only views of the sea breaking against the rocks below, but, depending on the time of year, of birds such as herring gulls, fulmars and auks, and seals in the less accessible coves and on offshore rocks. The natural flora of the area includes pink thrift, purple heather and yellow gorse which is sometimes blanketed by red tendrils of dodder, a parasitic plant.

Cornish tin

West Cornwall was for many centuries a centre for tin mining, although this has now ceased (pending a possible revival). There are many monuments to the industry to be seen, mostly along the coast such as at Botallack near St Just. The mine workings extended half a mile out to sea, but the towers that stood above the shafts and contained the winding gear and engines were built close to the cliff edge. The tin was smelted locally and produced arsenic as a by-product. Some of the furnaces used in this process can also be seen.

One of the last working tin mines was at Geevor, near Pendeen, and the pit has been preserved as a museum that includes underground workings that can be visited. The idea of the museum is to give as faithful an impression as possible of how the mine operated, as well as to provide an enjoyable experience for a family visit.

Abundant evidence of ancient settlements

Inland from the coast, the granite hills of Penwith have changed little for thousands of years. The visitor can see a microcosm of Celtic Britain in the form of burial mounds, monuments, field boundaries and even an entire village. Not only was this region too remote and inhospitable for large-scale development, but the lack of woodland meant that the local people, who started mining back in Bronze Age times, were forced to build in stone, much of which has been preserved down to the present day. Penwith boasts the largest concentration of prehistoric antiquities in the whole of Great Britain.

Burial mounds were formed by setting three or four stones on end and laying a slab across the top. The walls and roof would have been made from turf that has long since disappeared, leaving the stone skeleton behind as a “cromlech” or “quoit”. Lanyon Quoit is one such monument, alongside the road from Morvah to Madron. It was re-erected in the early 19th century after falling in a storm and now stands only one metre high, although it was originally possible for a horse and rider to pass beneath the 13 ton horizontal slab.

Not far away is Men-an-tol, which features a stone set on edge with a circular hole in it, with other holes nearby. The original purpose of this site is unknown, but local folklore maintains that it had healing powers and that children were passed through the hole to cure them of rickets.

The most remarkable ancient site in Penwith has to be Chysauster Ancient Village (see photo), not far from the road between Penzance and St Ives. This was an Iron Age settlement dating from around 100 BC. Each house in the village, of which nine can be traced on either side of a central street, had a central courtyard around which were several rooms that would have had thatched roofs. Also on the site are the remains of a “fogou”, a stone-walled underground passage that may have been used for security or storage purposes.

Mousehole and Penlee

The village of Mousehole (pronounced “Mowsul”) is also not to be missed. This is a small fishing village, grouped around its harbour, that has retained its character down the centuries and will continue to do so thanks to its conservation status. Unfortunately, its very attractiveness causes it to become crowded with tourists in the high season, and so it is best visited at other times of the year.

Not far from Mousehole is the former Penlee lifeboat station that is a stark reminder of how the forces of nature can make life in this area difficult and dangerous. On the night of 19th December 1981, eight volunteer lifeboatmen lost their lives when called to rescue the crew of a cargo ship that had been thrown on to the rocks by an Atlantic storm.

Worth a visit?

This wild and windswept area of land at the far end of England is certainly worth a second look. It would a waste to go all that way just to say you have “done” Land’s End, especially if you are interested in coastal scenery, industrial archaeology or ancient remains. This an area where time does seem to have stood still, and it is not surprising to learn that this was where the ancient Cornish language (related to Welsh and Scots Gaelic) was last spoken as a first language, back in the 18th century, although attempts have since been made to revive it.

© John Welford

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