Porthcurno

Coordinates: 50°02′35″N 5°39′14″W / 50.043°N 5.654°W / 50.043; -5.654
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Porthcurno
Aerial view of Porthcurno Beach showing the Minack Theatre in the cliff face, Green Bay and the generally faint cliff-top course of the South West Coast Path.
Porthcurno is located in Cornwall
Porthcurno
Porthcurno
Location within Cornwall
OS grid referenceSW384223
Unitary authority
Ceremonial county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townPENZANCE
Postcode districtTR19
Dialling code01736
PoliceDevon and Cornwall
FireCornwall
AmbulanceSouth Western
List of places
UK
England
Cornwall
50°02′35″N 5°39′14″W / 50.043°N 5.654°W / 50.043; -5.654

Porthcurno (

Treen
.

It is centred 6.6 miles (10.6 km) west of the railway, market, and resort town of Penzance and 2.5 miles (4.0 km) from Land's End, the most westerly point of the English mainland. Road access is via the north end of the valley along a long cul-de-sac with short branches off the B3283 and land traditionally associated with the village, including its beach, is on the South West Coast Path.[1]

Amenities and homes

The village comprises houses and apartment blocks together with a few commercial premises along the access road known as "The Valley". The road curves inland past Minack Point to St. Levan's Church about 0.5 miles (0.80 km) from the village.[1] At the southern end are:

The route is marked as two hours from Land's End or about four hours walk from Penzance for the most agile cliff-side path walkers.[3]

A low-frequency bus service links Penzance, Lands End and nearby villages and hamlets including

Treen, Trethewey, Polgigga and Sennen
.

Porthcurno is largely not farms or fisherman's cottages today, having its linear centre inland, centred 6.6 miles (10.6 km) west of the railway, market, and resort town of Penzance and 2.5 miles (4.0 km) from Land's End, the most westerly point of the English mainland. In most local-level organisational and community bodies, it is in civil and ecclesiastical parishes named Saint Levan and usually spelled as St Leven since the 18th century.[1][4]

The Cable Station and Engineering College

Main article:
Porthcurno Telegraph Museum
Porthcurno Valley looking north showing the car park and a few of the former Engineering College buildings
Porthcurno Valley looking north showing the car park and a few of the former Engineering College buildings.

Porthcurno is unusually well known for its size because of its history as a major international

Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company Limited to form Imperial and International Communications Limited which was renamed Cable and Wireless Limited in 1934.[7] Cable and Wireless Limited was a predecessor company of Cable & Wireless Worldwide and Cable & Wireless Communications
.

In the inter-war years, the Porthcurno cable office operated as many as 14 cables, 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.[8] Porthcurno is still known colloquially by the acronym 'PK' being represented in Morse code as 'di-dah-dah-dit' followed by 'dah-di-dah', communicating with a line operator and testing connections, an acronym often sent.[9][10]

Over the years, many

Porthcurno Telegraph Museum was opened. This museum has been featured locally and nationally on educational programmes, including the BBC TV documentary series What the Victorians Did for Us and Coast
. It occupies some of the former college buildings and includes many exhibits, in 'The Tunnel'.

World War II tunnels

The cable office at Porthcurno was a critical communications centre and considered at serious risk of attack during the

gas-proof doors. To provide evacuation for staff in case the defences failed, a covert emergency escape route was provided by granite steps cut into a steeply rising fifth tunnel leading from the rear cross tunnel to a concealed exit in the fields above.[13]

Each of the main tunnel interiors was that of a windowless open-plan office constructed as a building shell within the granite void, complete with a

pitched roof to collect water seepage from the rocks, a false ceiling, plastered and decorated walls, and all the necessary services. In total about 15,000 tons of rock were removed to construct the tunnels. The construction work progressed relentlessly day and night, taking nearly a year, and the completed tunnels were opened in May 1941 by Lady Wilshaw who was the wife of Sir Edward Wilshaw, Chairman of Cable and Wireless at the time.[14][15]

The concrete defences around the tunnel entrances and the nearby buildings were camouflaged with the help of a local artist: the design, when viewed from the air with some imagination, resembled a belt of trees, complete with rabbits and birds.[16] The tunnel environment being secure, dry, and at a virtually constant temperature proved to be ideal for the sensitive telegraph equipment and it continued to house the subsequently upgraded equipment after the war until the cable office closure in 1970. It was then used for training facilities for the Engineering College until the college itself also closed in 1993. Today the tunnel houses exhibits of, and is itself an exhibit of, the Museum of Global Communications, operated by PK Porthcurno.[17][18]

Porthcurno coastal area

Porthcurno Bay and Logan Rock headland

The cliffs and coastline around Porthcurno are officially designated

Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and widely considered as some of the most visually stunning in the United Kingdom.[19][20]

Porthcurno Beach and bay enclosed by the Logan Rock headland has been listed among the ten most beautiful bays in the World.

above mean sea level and are formed from a bedrock of prismatic granite; over the geological timescales having been eroded, shaped and divided vertically and horizontally sometimes almost into rounded cubic blocks.[2][3][24][25]

An ancient

Ramblers Association. This was probably used by horse-drawn carts to collect seaweed which was used for land fertilisation.[citation needed
]

Porthcurno Beach and Bay, a few hundred yards south of the village is situated in the shelter of the Logan Rock headland just less than one mile (1.6 km) to the east. The beach is noted for its sand of crushed, white sea shells, privacy, and isolation rather than the movement of ships.[26][27][28] Porthcurno Bay has been described as "floored by glorious white sand that shines through translucent water".[29] Sometimes combinations of wind, tides and sea currents can change the 'sandscape' dramatically in a few hours, but the volume of sand is sufficient that it is unusual for the beach to be completely inundated by the sea at high tide. To the immediate east of Porthcurno beach, on the other side of Percella Point is a small tidal beach called Green Bay. Sometimes this is accessible with caution from Porthcurno Beach at low tide.[3]

sand bank forms off Pedn Vounder at low tide. Unlike the nearby fishing coves of Penberth and Porthgwarra
, about one and a half miles (2.4 km) to the east and west respectively, Porthcurno has no known recent history of commercial fishing activity.

Demography

2011 published statistics: population, home ownership and extracts from physical environment, surveyed in 2005[30]
Output area Homes owned outright Owned with a loan Socially rented Privately rented Other km2 green spaces km2 roads km2 water km2 domestic gardens km2 domestic buildings km2 non-domestic buildings Usual residents km2 total
St Levan (civil parish) 102 54 19 41 7 9.18 0.13 0.13 0.18 0.03 0.04 446 9.75

White pyramid

Saint-Pierre and Miquelon near the coast of Canada, and then a further 500 km (310 mi) to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. In 1919, another Compagnie Française cable was laid to Porthcurno but this was terminated in the Cable Hut at the top of the beach a few hundred yards to the west where it remained in operation until 1962.[34]

Logan Rock

Main article: Logan Rock
Logan Rock from the Sea

The

Treen
.

Just to the north of the peninsula is evidence of an

cliff fort called Treryn Dinas, a scheduled monument comprising about five ramparts, ditches and some evidence of round dwelling huts.[3][24][37][38][39] There is a small rocky island off the Logan Rock peninsula called Horrace and another smaller granite island called Great Goular which is only visible at low tide.[3]

Climate and tourism

Porthcurno beach

The

micro-climate being sheltered from winds in most directions. For the more exposed cliff-top areas, gale-force
winds are common throughout the year which occasionally cause moderate structural damage to buildings locally.

In the summer months, Porthcurno is popular with families on holiday with young children who enjoy playing on the beach and perhaps some supervised bathing, as the beach is prone to strong

Porthcurno Telegraph Museum and the Minack Theatre
, both bring visitors to the area.

History

Porthkornow, Porthcornow

St Levan's Church, St Levan

The name Porthcurno evolved from the 16th century Cornish spelling 'Porth Cornowe'.[41] In the Cornish language 'porth kornow / porth cornow' (standard written form uses "c") meant 'cove/landing place of horns or pinnacles', a reference to the granite rock formations in the vicinity. Some evidence of early commercial port activity exists in the remains of man-made stone tracks for horse-drawn vehicles which may have provided access to the beach, visible on one of the footpaths near the south side of the car park ascending the east side of the valley.

Industrial and wartime developments

Development of the area was dominated for over one hundred years by the operations of the cable station owned by Cable and Wireless plc and its predecessor companies. Probably over 90% of the inhabitants were either employees of Cable and Wireless or were directly supported by it. [citation needed]

During the

British anti-invasion preparations. At the beginning of the war a small guard of special constables was put on duty at the cable office and cable house, later superseded by a platoon of soldiers who camped on a former bowling green.[12] Porthcurno Valley was declared a protected place and as many as 300 troops were deployed in the immediate area to guard the station.[42] Passes were issued to residents and visitors who had business to be in the area and many mock attacks were staged.[43] The defences included pillboxes and a petroleum warfare beach flame barrage[44] which could be operated remotely from the tunnel.[42] At the end of the War, although some 867 bombs fell in the (Penzance) area and 3,957 houses were damaged or destroyed, the only damage suffered by any communications equipment at Porthcurno was the destruction of an antenna when a bomb fell at Rospletha Farm, located at the top of the hill about half a mile to the west of the cable office.[12]

Submarine optical fibre cables

Porthcurno's association with international telecommunications links continues to the present day. The first successors to submarine telegraph cables were submarine

Fibre-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG), and RIOJA.[45][46][47][48][49][50] Each of these has thousands of times the capacity of all of their predecessors' cables put together. However, all of the successors of the telegraph cables today use Porthcurno merely as a shore landing-point for connecting to the national telecommunications network, passing directly via landlines buried under the local roads to a terminating station at Skewjack
about 2 miles (3.2 km) inland from Porthcurno.

Much of the beach and surrounding shores previously owned by Cable and Wireless was donated to the National Trust in 1993.[28]

Many of the houses built for the former Engineering College have been converted to holiday flats, making the population very seasonally dependent. Today the major industry in the area is tourism.[citation needed]

Church of St Levan

Main article: St Levan's Church, St Levan

The 12th and 15th-century church of St Levan is between St Levan proper and Porthcurno, towards the end of the cul-de-sac main village road. It has medieval foundations and is adjoined by a graveyard which has two of the parish's six stone crosses and a small car park. It sits close to the coast path, lightly wooded slopes and adjoins pasture meadows. The largely unadulterated exterior has featured in the BBC drama Doctor Who.

Minack Theatre

Main article: Minack Theatre

Narrowly out of sight of Porthcurno beach in the cliff face to the west is the

Shakespeare to the more contemporary. The theatre is accessible on foot from the coastal footpath by a rugged path in the cliff face or more easily by road taking the steep narrow hill leaving Porthcurno to the south towards St. Levan Church and turning left at the top. It was built virtually single-handedly by the late Rowena Cade
who worked there into her eighties with the support of local labourers. Today the Rowena Cade exhibition centre, coffee shop and theatre are open to visitors for most of the year except during performances.

Minack Theatre and view over Porthcurno Bay.

Wireless Point

The original pivoted cage which supported a 170 feet (52 metres) mast and antenna erected by the Eastern Telegraph Company in 1902 at Pedn-men-an-Mere near Porthcurno to monitor wireless transmissions by Marconi from Poldhu, across Mount's Bay

A small headland to the west of the Minack Theatre called Pedn-men-an-Mere, which is now owned by The National Trust, (Cornish: 'rocky headland by the sea') is known locally as 'Wireless Point'.

Shortwave Beam Wireless System at Poldhu would be so successful that Eastern and many other cable telegraph companies were forced into near-bankruptcy
by 1928.

There is a pair of large boulders near the cliff edge of which the smaller one, weighing about 5 tons, can be rocked by the weight of one adult.

Cornish wrestling

Cornish wrestling tournaments, for prizes, were held in Porthcurno in the 1800s.[53]

Porth Chapel beach

Porth Chapel Beach from Pedn-men-an-Mere

Pedn-men-an-Mere overlooks the small secluded tidal beach of Porth Chapel to the west. Porth Chapel beach is named after the remains of a Christian site and

Sophie, Countess of Wessex
.

Notable residents

The British philosopher

Kate spent the summer months from 1922 to 1927 in Porthcurno.[54]

See also
  • Abermawr – the 1866 eastern terminal of the transatlantic telegraph cable

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Ordnance Survey Landranger Map, 1:50,000 scale, Map Sheet 203 Land's End and the Isles of Scilly
  2. ^ a b St. Levan Parish Plan (2006); p 5
  3. ^ a b c d e f Ordnance Survey Explorer Map, 1:25,000 scale, Sheet 102 Land's End
  4. ^ Result of Ecclesiastical and Ancient Parishes Finder Archived 2 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine The Church of England. Retrieved 12 March 2015.
  5. ^ a b c Godwin; p 67
  6. ^ Hart-Davis; p 102
  7. ^ Godwin p 75
  8. ^ Godwin p 75.
  9. ^ Bell; p 4
  10. ^ Cutler
  11. ^ Foot
  12. ^ a b c Bell; p. 6
  13. ^ a b Godwin; pp. 76–77
  14. ^ Bell; p 1, p 29
  15. ^ Bell; p 5
  16. ^ Bell; p 12
  17. ^ Godwin; p 79
  18. ^ "Museum of Global Communications". PK Porthcurno. Retrieved 12 September 2022.
  19. ^ "Penwith Character" (PDF). Cornwall AONB. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 July 2011.
  20. ^ Knowlden; pp 8–9
  21. ^ St. Levan Parish Plan (2006), Introduction
  22. ^ King; p 49
  23. ^ Fedden; p 448
  24. ^ a b Knowlden; p 8
  25. ^ Transactions of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, Vol. 17 (1950)
  26. ^ Andrews; p 506
  27. ^ Long; p 184
  28. ^ a b Andrews; p 24
  29. ^ a b Rainsley; p 147
  30. 2001 census
    ) Retrieved 27 February 2015.
  31. ^ Godwin; p 75
  32. ^ Information from the commemorative plaque mounted on the pyramid.
  33. ^ Godwin; p 69
  34. ^ Godwin; p 74
  35. ^ Godwin; p 45
  36. ^ UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  37. ^ St. Levan Parish Plan (2006); p 8
  38. ^ Chapman; p 21
  39. ^ Andrews; p 25
  40. ^ Viccars; p 35
  41. ^ Craig Weatherhill: Cornish Place-Names and Language
  42. ^ a b Bell; p 7
  43. ^ Bell; p 17
  44. ^ Foot, 2006, pp 81–87
  45. ^ Lightwave; 30 September 1997
  46. ^ Lightwave, December 1995
  47. ^ Submarine Fiber Optic Communications Systems; June 1995
  48. ^ House, D. J.; p. 179
  49. ^ Electronics Weekly, May 1998
  50. ^ Allen
  51. ^ a b Godwin; p 72
  52. ^ Information from the plaque fixed to the concrete plinth.
  53. ^ Western Morning News, 4 April 1877.
  54. ^ The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell. Psychology Press. 1998. p. 386.

General references

External links

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