Next leg: Porthleven to Penzance

Off again, this time with Nic to join me. He's not only come all the way out here in solidarity but he's nursing a recovering foot as well - he's got more determination than anyone else I can think of. So there's no question that we're going to make it back to Penzance today, not just Marazion
Lots of rain on Sunday so we anticipated a muddy walk today but we came armed with poles (albeit Nic's weren't extending properly) and gaiters - in my case some new ones which hopefully won't fall down all the time. We'd had a quick recce in Porthleven the previous evening and the sea didn't look friendly at all. Funny how a photo calms it all down... the harbour was especially wild. Full Komoot summary here, as usual.

 Almost immediately we came to the restored engine houses at Trewarvas Head. I associate this coastal mining more with the North coast than here (we'll see, or perhaps Wheal Sea?) but it's such a bleak spot you feel for the poor miners who had to get to and then work here. Shortly after that there's another one, called Wheal Prosper

This started operating in 1860 possibly as an extension of the Wheal Trewarvas mine. By the time it closed in 1866 it had produced mostly tin and a little copper.  This particular mine building was used in the filming of a Poldark sequel.

A bit further on the path takes a wide sweep inland to avoid an extraordinary house completely on its own and right on the cliff edge.
It's Rinsey house, built in the late 1920s and early 1930s by Mr G A Gibb, a London stockbroker. Designed as an Arts and Crafts style holiday home, rock had to be blasted in order to build the foundations, taking four years to build with stone from a local quarry.
I think it's now an AirB&B or some such, so you can stay there. It sleeps 10, with 3 bathrooms and 30 acres of land so it could be a great party venue - but it's a heck of a climb to and from the beach. Astonishingly, since it's so high up, in the storms of 2014 the sea broke over the top of the house. You can see a short video here.



From Rinsey round to Praa Sands. I'd hoped to get here on the previous visit (before the massive diversion at Porthleven) but I'm glad I didn't try as it took a good 2 hours to get here. Praa is a huge sandy beach (the light sand is made from seashells that have been pulverised by wave action over millions of years) and immensely popular in summer. We found the only open cafe and repaired for tea and coffee. Nick forced me to have a muffin: most unusual for me. 

The houses you can just see above the beach are very precarious now with considerable erosion having made them very vulnerable. The coast policy generally is one of managed retreat so there won't be any attempts to protect them and I should imagine they'll be gone after the next storm. You can get some idea of the erosion from these trees that used to be on the cliff top and are now on the beach. I'm sure the others will join them soon.

There's a pretty and interesting section after Praa as the path goes round a succession of small coves; King's, then Bessy's, then Piskies. Just before Bessy's are 2 large stone buildings and the path goes right between them. According to the builder renovating the roofs (so who needs Wikipedia?) this is actually a private house but part of an estate of historic houses and traditional cottages called Porth-en-Alls. The main house sleeps 26(!) and is Victorian, built in 1885 for du Boulay, former Archdeacon of Cornwall in his retirement. 

The coastal path passes though a "circus" formed by the listed buildings of Porth-en-Alls and include a crescent shaped "Lodge". 

The International Musicians Seminar (IMS) Prussia Cove held at Porth-en-Alls was founded by the Hungarian violinist, Sándor Végh and Hilary Tunstall-Behrens in 1972.

Just round the corner from this (of course everything's "just around the corner" in Cornwall) is Piskies Cove, one of the prettiest secluded coves I've seen in Cornwall

Just my type of beach, too: all rocks and none of that boring sand. I always preferred rocks to sand, even as a small kid. Seen one sandcastle seen them all.
Apparently the geology's quite interesting here as well, or as a geologist might put it "the coves show the best example in Cornwall of a mildly metaporhosed, differentiated theoliitic intrusive greenstone that retains good relict igneous textures and mineralogy". Quite.

Collectively the coves are known as Prussia Cove after the 18th-century ship-wrecker and smuggler John Carter, also known as the ″King of Prussia″. See also the pub of the same name in Fowey. In April 1947 HMS Warspite ran aground here whilst being towed to the breakers yard. She was later towed to, beached and broken up at Marazion where there is a commemorative plaque on the sea wall.

From there it's round Cudden Point and finally we had destination Penzance in sight. First proper view of the always impressive St Michael's Mount, too. Did look a bit far away though 😠

And so to Marazion, a very pretty village that probably doesn't get the recognition it deserves as it can't really compete with its spectacular neighbour, St Michael's Mount. However the village has some lovely buildings of its own and I particularly liked the Bank

 

Marghasyewe (Cornish: "Thursday Market"). Marazion had formerly the right of returning two members to parliament, but owing to its inability to pay the members' expenses the right was lost. Marazion was not recorded in the Domesday Book of 1088.

Its original Cornish language name – literally, "the grey rock in a wood" – may represent a folk memory of a time before Mount's Bay was flooded (at about 1700 BCE according to radiocarbon dating) and remains of trees have been seen at low tides following storms on the beach at Perranuthnoe. In 1755 the Lisbon earthquake caused a tsunami to strike the Cornish coast over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) away. The sea rose six feet (2 m) in ten minutes at St Michael's Mount, ebbed at the same rate, and continued to rise and fall for five hours.

St Michaels Mount, linked to the shore by a man-made granite causeway covered at high tide, has been the home of the St Aubyn family since 1659 when it was bought by Colonel John St Aubyn whose descendants, the Lords St Levan, remain seated there. In 1954, the 3rd Baron St Levan gave most of St Michael's Mount to the National Trust, together with a large endowment fund. The St Aubyn family retained a 999-year lease to inhabit the castle. A short underground, funicular narrow gauge railway was built in Victorian times, used to bring luggage up to the house.

Historically, St Michael's Mount was a Cornish counterpart of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy (with which it shares the same tidal island characteristics and the same conical shape), and it was given to the Benedictine religious order there by Edward the Confessor in the 11th century.  

This is believed to be the last part of Cornwall to speak Cornish as a community language. Dolly Pentreath, the last recorded fluent native Cornish speaker came from near here.

From Marazion it's a long hard slog along the sea wall to Penzance. Not scenic, except for railway enthusiasts (guess who) so really it's just good to have got it out of the way. Here's the best I could do, before the rain set in:

In fairness, in good weather Penzance is lovely and I have a soft spot for it. Karen and I stayed here once, on our way to the Scillies. Check out the Egyptian House if you get the chance

 You may recognise it from the opening sequence of antiques roadshow. It's owned by the Landmark Trust and you can stay there. It was built in the 1840s by John Lavin, minerologist and Egyptologist. Bonkers.

Penzance (the "holy headland") chose as its symbol the severed "holy head" of St John the Baptist – nice. In 1425, 1432 and 1440 ships in Penzance were licensed to carry pilgrims to the shrine of St James of Compostella, in north-west Spain.

Penzance and the surrounding villages have been sacked many times by foreign fleets. In 1595 a Spanish force of four galleys transporting 400 arquebusiers under Don Carlos de Amesquita, landed troops in Cornwall. They seized supplies, raided and burned Penzance and surrounding villages, held a mass, and sailed away. In medieval times and later, Penzance was subject to frequent raiding by "Turkish pirates", in fact Barbary Corsairs, and during the English Civil War Penzance was sacked by the Parliamentarian forces of Sir Thomas Fairfax

There's a Market House (replacing an earlier one in 1838) at the top of Market Jew Street. The name Market Jew comes from the Cornish Laguage Marghas Yow (orMarghasyewe), meaning Thursday Market, the name of a nearby village now absorbed into Marazion. In 1849 the town was lit by 121 gas lamps from October to March each year, although they were not lit when there was a full moon. The seawater Art Deco bathing pool was built in 1935 and will be heated geothermally.

This next bit's for any railway enthusiast reading (again, wonder who that could be?).

In the 1850s the Scilly Isles Steam Navigation Company was founded and the Penzance railway terminus was opened (by the West Cornwall Railway which operated a broader gauge than the eventual standard gauge and was bought by GWR in 1866). The station was described at the time as a large dog's house of the nastiest and draughtiest kind .The so-called “perishable” train allowed Cornish fresh fruit, fish, flowers and vegetables to access London markets and brought substantial prosperity (and tourists) to the town. In 1904 GWR’s new Cornish Riviera Express made the Paddington to Penzance journey in 7 hours – in 2007 it took 5 hours 5 minutes. I think it took Nic about the same.

Penzance generally is one of the most economically deprived areas of the UK, Penzance Central being 712^th most deprived (putting it in the top 10) and Penzance East having 15% unemployment. It'a part of the reason I have a soft spot for it.

Thandie Newton and Jean Shrimpton both lived here and among those born here were the cricketer Jack Richards (1986 Ashes-winning wicketkeeper), the mother of the Bronte sisters and Sir Humphry Davy, famous chemist, discoverer of laughing gas and inventor of the miners’ safety lamp. The son of a woodcarver he was clearly fearfully bright and by the tender age of 24 was already Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution. There is a statue of him in the main street.

So a quick 14 miles to start the week and slightly ahead of schedule. Our persistence paid off today and hopefully we won't be too stiff and sore tomorrow to carry on.

Peter