Penzance began as a fishing village which grew into a market town and port. The harbour expanded greatly in Victorian times when the railway was built.
Penzance dry dock has been working since 1834, making it one of Europe's oldest dry docks. It was rebuilt in 1882 and the lock gates were replaced in the 20th Century.
The Dolphin Tavern is one of the oldest inns in Penzance and was frequented by sailors who were recruited to fight the Spanish Armada during Tudor times. It is also said to be the first place on the British mainland where Sir Walter Raleigh smoked tobacco. The tavern is aptly named as before the sea wall was built, the cellars were flooded with seawater during storms.
Penzance is from the Cornish "penn sans" (holy headland) which is thought to have been a reference to the mediaeval chapel of St Anthony. The chapel is thought to have been located somewhere here, possibly on the opposite side of the passageway from the Dolphin Tavern. In the 1800s the remains of the chapel was used to build a cellar and this became a boat store which was in use during the 1980s. The gardens were opened in 1933, named St Anthony Gardens to commemorate the lost chapel and contain an archway said to have been taken from the chapel site.
Jubilee Pool was opened in 1935 to celebrate the silver jubilee of King George V. The pool is built on an area of rocks that had been a traditional swimming spot. The shape of the pool is carefully designed to cope with storm waves breaking against the sea walls. The pool was borrowed for use as a gun battery during WW2.
By 1992, the pool had become dilapidated and its future was in doubt. It was rescued when the Jubilee Pool Association was formed and was restored in 1994 and is Britain’s largest surviving seawater lido. The pool was badly damaged in the 2014 storms but was restored once more and reopened again in 2016. Part of the pool will be heated by geothermal energy - the first in Britain.
During storms, the sea front may be closed. This is for protection from more than a bit of spray and seaweed. If the risk of being dragged under the railings by a large wave wasn't enough, the sea picks up rocks from the beach below and hurls these over the sea wall. When the sea is rough, they can be seen scattered across the slabs after high tide and some are impressively hefty.
Mounts Bay is a partially-enclosed body of water which is prone to a phenomenon known as seiching where the tremors from an earthquake form a standing wave which reflects back and forth between the opposite coasts. The seiche from the Lisbon Earthquake in 1755 caused a sudden 8ft rise in sea level which flooded Penzance.
At low tide, an area of rock is exposed where tin was discovered. The rocks are 19ft under the sea at high tide, so a stone collar and wooden tower was constructed to keep out the water for as long as possible as the tide rose. Mining began in 1778 but progress was slow as the mine flooded each time the tide came in and needed to be pumped out before each shift. By 1790 the mine was 36 feet deep and it took four men 2 hours to pump out the mine.
The tin ore was initially brought ashore in flat-bottomed boats known as "wherries" and this is why the area is known as Wherrytown. Later a bridge was built to the shore.
Mining came to an abrupt end in 1798 when a ship broke free of its moorings in a storm and obliterated the wooden tower. The mine was reopened in 1836 but closed after 4 years.
Bathing machines were once situated along the beachfront.
The bathing machine was a device, popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, which purported "the most refined female is enabled to enjoy the advantages of the sea with the strictest delicacy". Bathers entered the small room of the machine whilst it was on the beach and once inside changed into their bathing suits. The device was then hauled out into the sea either by horses or strong locals. Once in the water, the occupants disembarked down steps from the sea side. It was considered essential that the machine blocked any view of the bather from the shore. Men and women were usually segregated, so nobody of the opposite sex might catch sight of them in their bathing suits, which (although modest by modern standards) were not considered proper clothing in which to be seen.
The Newlyn Art Gallery is along the road to the right as you enter the car park.
The Newlyn Art Gallery was opened in 1895 as an exhibition space for the Newlyn School of Art and was extended in the early 21st Century. The historic works from the Newlyn School have been relocated to the Penlee museum and gallery in Penzance. The Newlyn Gallery displays contemporary artwork, though still with a focus on painting and drawing.
A settlement was recorded in this area in 1316 as Talcarne. The name is from the Cornish word tal which can mean "front" or "end" and carn which means "rock pile" (also used for a tor).
At this point you may want to take an optional diversion to the left to have a quick look at Newlyn harbour and then continue the walk from here.
The walk continues ahead past the Florence Place sign to the junction with the main road.
The first record of the settlement of Newlyn is from 1279 as nulyn. As there are also records of the name as "lulyn", it is thought that the name is based on the Cornish word lyn for "pool" and that the initial part of the name was originally lu which is a Cornish word meaning "army" but here could have been used to mean "fleet".
Newlyn is still the harbour with Cornwall's largest fishing fleet. The majority of the harbour piers date from Victorian times but the oldest part dates from before 1435.
Corn mills were located in this area, fed by a leat that was channelled off the river and run along the side of the valley. These were still working in the 1880s but by 1909 had been demolished and the new (main) road was built.
Two settlements in Cornwall were both known locally as Newlyn which wasn't too much of a problem when travel involved a horse or a boat. To disambiguate, the one near Newquay became known as (St) Newlyn East whilst the one next to Penzance is sometimes referred to as Newlyn West or Newlyn-by-Penzance but generally still just "Newlyn". Despite this, there was a period where Wetherspoons proudly displayed that their fish was caught locally in the land-locked location of the former.
An axe head from the late Bronze Age was found at Newlyn. The seam along the cutting edge remains from the original casting which implies the axe head was never used. It's thought that it might have been used as currency. It is on display in the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro.
In the UK, Cordyline australis can often reach around five metres high. In New Zealand it normally reaches around 8 metres. The largest specimen of the plant is thought to be around 500 years old, is 17 metres tall and has a circumference of nine metres at the base!
During late winter or early spring, if you encounter a patch of plants with white bell-shaped flowers, smelling strongly of onions, and with long, narrow leaves then they are likely to be three-cornered leeks. Once you're familiar with their narrow, ridged leaves, you'll be able to spot these emerging from late October onwards.
The plants get their name due to their triangular flower stems. As the name also suggests, they are members of the onion family and have a small bulb. In fact, in New Zealand they are known as "onion weed". They are also known as "snowbell" due to their white bluebell-like flowers.
This area is known as Lariggan and was originally a separate settle from Penzance, recorded in 1327 as Lanrygon. The "lan" in the name may suggests a religious site but nothing is known about it. Lariggan House is one of the older buildings still standing, built in the early 19th Century by a wealthy merchant from Penzance. The area was mostly fields during Victorian times so it would have had a nice view.
Since members of the crow family will eat the eggs and chicks of other birds, there has been concern that magpies might have an effect on the songbird population. However, an extensive study by the British Trust for Ornithology using 35 years of data found that the presence of magpies appeared to have no measurable effect on songbird numbers. It is thought that availability of food and suitable nesting sites are probably the main factors limiting songbird populations. Hedgerows are a particularly important habitat.
The lane has been known as Love Lane for more than a century. The name was recorded on the 1880s Ordnance Survey map.
The Lariggan River rises on the Penwith Moors near Lanyon Quoit and also collects water from Trengwainton. A corn mill and fulling mill were located near the mouth of the river. The corn mill was converted into a serpentine works in Victorian times which eventually became steam-powered.
The feral pigeons living in urban areas are descended from rock doves that were originally domesticated as a source of food. Dove cotes were built to house quite a large number as there is not much meat on a pigeon. Later, these domesticated birds were also used as carrier pigeons. Escaped birds have thrived in the food-rich urban landscape where the stone buildings resemble the rock outcrops they have evolved to nest on.
Penlee House was originally built in 1865 by the wealthy Branwell family. The house and gardens were described as "delightful" and a "perfect picture" in the Cornishman Newspaper which the Branwell family also happened to own. The estate was sold to the council in 1946 so the gardens could be used as a WW2 memorial and the house was used for a museum. The cross outside the museum dates from the 11th Century and was originally located in the Green Market.
As you exit the park, the Penzance School of Art is along the road to the left.
Penzance art school and library was designed by one of Cornwall's most famous Victorian architects - Silvanus Trevail. This was the first art school to be established west of Bristol and became the centre for regional development of art in the late 19th and early 20th Century, in particular the Newlyn School.
In 1915, a cannon was salvaged from Low Lee Rock which was thought to be from the 1588 Spanish Armada and, after some refurbishing in the 1950s, was positioned with the help of a small crane outside the art school. Sadly it was stolen in the 1990s when there was also an attempt to steal a cannon from St Micheal's Mount (but the latter was prevented).
Red valerian is also known as kiss-me-quick, fox's brush and Devil's or Jupiter's beard and can be seen flowering in early summer in hedgerows near the coast. The plant is originally from the Mediterranean and is thought to have been introduced as a garden plant roughly around the Tudor period. It has since become naturalised and the brightly-coloured flowers provide nectar for bees, butterflies and moths. Over time the base of the stems can get as thick as a small tree trunk which can lever apart the walls in which it can often be seen growing.
Red valerian occurs with three main flower colours: about 50% of plants are deep pink, 40% are red and around 10% have white flowers. Very pale pink also occurs but is much rarer. These distinct forms are an example of flower colour polymorphism. The red pigment within the flowers is an anthrocyanin compound and the different colours are due to different amounts of the pigment.
The gardens were originally part of Morrab House which was built in 1841 as the residence of a wealthy brewer. In 1889 the gardens were bought by the Penzance Corporation to provide a public park for tourists. A competition with a prize of 20 guineas was held for garden designs and the layout today is based on the winning entry by a landscape designer from London. Morrab House became an independent subscription library and the original plans for the gardens are on display in the library. The mild climate has allowed a range of subtropical plants to grow to maturity which have been sourced from across the world including the Americas, Africa and Australia. In the 1800s, exotic plants were very difficult to come by and were donated by wealthy estates who had brought back specimens from plant collecting expeditions abroad. Gardeners' Chronicle captured the excitement in 1889: "One of its features is a Palm-grove, where tourists may fancy themselves in the tropics or on Mediterranean shores."
As well as forgetting where they buried some of them, squirrels may also lose a quarter of their buried food to birds, other rodents and fellow squirrels. Squirrels therefore use dummy tactics to confuse thieves by sometimes just pretending to bury a nut.
Morrab Library was established in 1818, and moved here into Morrab House in 1889. It is an independent subscription library, available to members for a modest annual fee, as well as day visitors. The library has some beautiful spaces to read and research and also organises regular talks or workshops. There is an extensive collection Cornish literature, archives and local newspapers dating back to 1811 and also a significant historic photographic collection of over 15,000 prints and negatives.
Opening times are Tuesday to Saturday 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM. It's free to go in to have a look around and there are also free tours every Friday afternoon at 2:00 PM. To use the facilities (books, study space etc.), there is a small charge for the day.
The interdependency between plants and pollinating insects is thought to have accelerated the formation of new species (i.e. a group where members can only reproduce successfully with other members from that group, not from other groups) both for the plants and for the insects. This is thought to explain why there are a few hundred species of conifer but a few hundred thousand species of flowering plant. This has allowed flowering plants to become highly specialised for habitat niches (e.g. salty coastline) and so dominate many of them.
Humpry Davy was born in Penzance in 1778 and worked in a dispensary in the town. He is commemorated by a statue next to the market hall.
After experimenting with nitrous oxide, Davy coined the term "laughing gas" and identified its potential as an anaesthetic as well as a hangover cure!
It is thought that consideration of why the iron floodgates at Hayle were so rapidly corroding may have been the start of Davy's scientific journey which led him to invent electrochemistry.
Davy used electrochemistry to discover many chemical elements including potassium, sodium, calcium and magnesium and he worked out that chlorine was an element and named it. He also pioneered the use of sacrificial metals to stop ships corroding. He created the first incandescent lamp, the first arc light and a safety lamp for coal miners.
His laboratory assistant Micheal Faraday built on his work and became one of the most influential scientists in history.
The sundial on the wall tells Cornish Time.
Whilst there's a bit of a joke that Cornish Time is "d'reckly", the reason why things happen a bit later in Cornwall can be explained by a brief introduction to marine navigation (possibly in more ways than one by a local who is not amused!):
Longitude is the east-west position around the globe in degrees (0-360). Greenwich in London was chosen to be 0 degrees, known as the "meridian". The sun rises in the east so places east of the meridian get the sun earlier and places west get the sun later.
Each global 1-hour timezone covers 15 degrees of longitude (360 degrees divided by 24 hours). Being the most westerly part of the UK mainland, Cornwall is roughly 5 degrees or a third of a timezone away from London - about 20 minutes behind GMT. Since clocks are not set differently, everything involving the sun - dawn, dusk etc - happens at a later time.
The take home message is that it's therefore possible to enjoy a couple of glasses of wine watching the sun set over the sea whilst the capital is in darkness.
St Mary's Chapel is recorded in the 14th Century. This was burnt in a Spanish raid in 1595 but the chapel was not completely destroyed and a pew survived dating from 1574. The chapel was eventually repaired some time after 1664 and was enlarged in the 17th and 18th Centuries. It was demolished and replaced with the present church in 1834.
In 1985 the chapel suffered an arson attack which destroyed the interior including the organ, elaborate altar and work by Newlyn School artists. The organ now in the church was from St Mary's Church in Oxford.
The Turks Head is reputed to date from the crusades when the Turks invaded Penzance in 1233. It was the first Inn in England to be named "The Turk's Head".
Alterations were made during the 16th Century when part of the building was burnt down during the Spanish Invasion. A smugglers tunnel lead directly to the harbour and still exists to the right of the building (which was originally larger). There was also a cell at the rear where drunks could be locked-up for the night.
Chapel Street is thought to be the oldest in Penzance, dating from mediaeval times. It linked the market to the port, hence the inns.
The Egyptian House dates from about 1835 and the style became popular after Napoleon's campaign in Egypt in 1798. It is a very Victorian English interpretation of Egypt which includes the Royal Coat of Arms and an eagle. It was originally a museum and geological shop and was described in an 1845 guide to Penzance as "the astonishing gaudy and eccentric Egyptian House recently built by John Lavin, mineralogist and Egyptologist". By the 1960s it had become neglected and painted over but was then painstakingly restored and repainted in something as close as possible to the original scheme. The building is now owned by the Landmark Trust and the upper floors are let as a holiday cottage.
The market house (now Lloyds Bank) was built in 1837 and the basement included prison cells. The building replaced both the previous market house built in 1614 and the 17th Century coinage hall that stood alongside it.
The street name - Market Jew - is a corruption of the Cornish Marghas Yow which refers to the name of a small village near Marazion to which the street leads. It means "Thursday market".
The "coinage" in the names of some buildings and streets in Cornwall comes from an early method of measuring the purity of metal ore (assaying). Before ingots of tin were sold, a corner of the ingot (known as a "coign") was broken off. The coign was weighed and then reduced with carbon (e.g. anthracite powder) in a furnace and the amount of metal produced was also weighed. The building where the measurement was carried out became known as a Coinage Hall.
For 4.5 billion years, the Earth has been very slowly cooling. Heat that is still left over from the formation of the Earth is supplemented by heat generated by radioactive decay within the Earth. The heat slowly makes it way up to the surface, mostly into the oceans where the crust is thinnest, and then radiates away into space.
By drilling a borehole, down to hotter rocks deeper in the Earth's crust, it's possible to mine for heat. Cool water can be pumped down, and depending on the depth, hot water or steam comes back up which can be used for heating or electricity generation, respectively.
The red-and-white hut next to the lighthouse on the end of the pier at Newlyn is where Britain's Mean Sea Level was measured by Ordnance Survey. A float on a pole moved a pen on a chart plotter (which was originally powered by clockwork and had to be wound up each day). From a long period of recordings, the average value was calculated - the mean sea level. Consequently, all contour lines on OS maps and the height of every mountain in Britain have been calculated relative to the float under the scruffy hut on Newlyn pier.
The Landmark Trust was founded in the 1960s to rescue buildings of historic interest by making them available as holiday lets to fund the restoration work. The first properties six properties were made available for rental in 1967 and in 2018, the 200th was completed. The history of each property is researched in detail and an album including photos of the restoration is included in each property.
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