When we looked out of the bedroom window after we arrived yesterday you could hardly see the bottom of the garden. Now Godolphin Hill can be seen on the left of the photo and in the distance on the right is Mount's Bay
We headed straight for the beach, Perran Sands at Perranuthnoe just down the coast from Marazion.
After walking on the beach we then took to the coastal path walking back towards Marazion. Rounding the corner you get an amazing view of St Michael's Mount. this is the south east face - the normal vantage point in Marizon is of the north face.
St Michael's Mount is a tidal island 400 yards off coast and is linked to Marazion by a man-made causeway of granite setts, passable between mid-tide and low water. Originally the site of a Benedictine Chapel, castle dates from the 14th Century. (For more see http://www.cornwall-online.co.uk/heritage-trail/heritage-national-trust/stmichaelsmount/Welcome.asp)
In the afternoon we took a drive on the Lands End peninsular finishing at Porthcurno.
At the top of the beach is a small white hut (on the left in the photo above). This is the known as The cable House. The following is from Wikipedia : Porthcurno is unusually well known for its size because of its history as a major international submarine communications cable station. In the late nineteenth century, the remote beach at Porthcurno became internationally famous as the British termination of early submarine telegraph cables, the first of which was landed in 1870, part of an early international link stretching all the way from the UK to India, which was then a British colony. Porthcurno was chosen in preference to the busy port of Falmouth because of the reduced risk of damage to the cables caused by ships’ anchors. In 1872, the Eastern Telegraph Company (ETC) Limited was formed which took over the operation of the cables and built a cable office in Porthcurno valley. The concrete cable hut, where the cable shore ends were connected to their respective landlines, is a listed building and still stands at the top of the beach. ETC and its cable operations expanded through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in 1928 to merge with Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company Limited to form Imperial and International Communications Limited which was renamed Cable and Wireless Limited in 1934. In the Inter-War years, the Porthcurno cable office operated as many as 14 cables simultaneously, for a time becoming the largest submarine cable station in the world, with the capacity to receive and transmit up to two million words a day.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porthcurno)
A short walk up the coastal path from the beach is another famous Cornish landmark : The Minack Theatre. From the car park at the top there is viewing area from which the photos were taken. Again from Wikipedia : The theatre was the brainchild of Rowena Cade, who lived at Minack House overlooking Porthcurno Bay. In 1929, a local village group of players had staged Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in a nearby meadow, repeating the production the next year. They decided that their next production would be The Tempest and Miss Cade offered the garden of her house as a suitable location, as it was beside the sea. Miss Cade and her gardener made a terrace and rough seating, hauling materials down from the house or up via the winding path from the beach below. In 1932, The Tempest was performed with the sea as a dramatic backdrop (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minack_Theatre)
We then went back to Newlyn (by Penzance) - photo below is the Art Deco Jubilee Pool - the name comes from when it was built : 1935 the year of King George V's Silver Jubilee.
The Art Deco Yacht Inn meets Victorian Gothic (St Mary's Church was built in 1832–35)
Another Cormorent looking for supper.
Fish and Chip supper
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