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Sennen Cove (Cornish : Porthsenen) [1] (grid reference SW352261 ) is a small coastal village in the parish of Sennen in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. According to the Penwith District Council, the population of this settlement was estimated at 180 persons in 2000. [2] The South West Coast Path passes through Sennen Cove.
The village of Sennen Cove overlooks the southern end of Whitesand Bay. There is not a cove in the usual geological sense. The village (as distinct from Sennen Churchtown), is on a spur road which joins the A30 trunk road about two miles (3 km) from Land's End. Thus it is the first village from Land's End along the north coast. The road descends gently for about 300 yards and then steeply for another 300 yards to the village which lies above the beach. The beach extends further north along Whitesand Bay. There are a few dozen houses built primarily of granite and some of concrete, arranged mainly in terraces, typical of many of the villages in Cornwall. Several submarine telecommunications cables reach land at Sennen Cove and are connected via landlines to the cable terminating equipment at Skewjack together with others from Porthcurno.
Sennen Cove Lifeboat Station is a Royal National Lifeboat Institution base founded in 1853. It is run by volunteers and operates a Tamar-class all-weather lifeboat and an IB1 inshore lifeboat. They are crewed by a complement of 24 people who ensure that the boats are operational and on call 24 hours a day, throughout the year. [3] Next to the lifeboat station is the restored Roundhouse, now used as an art gallery and souvenir shop, but originally used to house a winch for hauling boats up from the beach.
Sennen Cove has become renowned for its surfing conditions and is highly regarded by local and non-local surfers alike. Sennen tends to be slightly more protected from winds and swell than Gwenver at the other end of Whitesand Bay. Sennen is good at most tides, except extreme high tide, but works best with a westerly swell and a light easterly wind. Surf gear can be hired at the beach, next to a car park and beach café.
The beach was home to Bilbo, the first ever[ citation needed ] UK canine lifeguard. The Newfoundland first started working on the beach in 2005, but the dog was suspended from service on the beach when the lifeguards were taken over by the RNLI in early 2008 (see below), because Bilbo was not being allowed to walk on the sand (the beach is strictly dog free in the summer), and the new RNLI regulation that restricts the carrying of more than one person (or dog) on the beach's quad bike. During the three years he was in service (2005–2007), he raised many tourists' awareness of the dangers of swimming outside the designated zones controlled by the lifeguards, led by the 'Bilbo Says' campaign. [4] Since the restriction of just 4 hours a week in 2008, there has been a public cry for Bilbo's reinstatement. A number of petitions have been posted online, and a paper petition has been created inside the Old Success Inn, Sennen Cove.
Bilbo died in May 2015, and his death was noted in many national newspapers and news sources. [5] [6] [7]
In 2005, the popular children's book Shanti The Wandering Dog of Sennen & The Land's End was published, and tells the story of a collie dog who goes off on his lone wanderings around Sennen Cove, whilst his owner, an old man who spends his day looking out to sea from his hill-top house window, snoozes. The old man never knows that Shanti goes off alone around the cove.
Alfie The MerCat of Sennen Cove is an illustrated story book by one of Cornwall's youngest published authors, Charlie Rose Elliott Peake. The story has a subtle sea-safety message and is about a ginger feral kitten named Alfie whose life is literally transformed by some mermaids who live in the bay.
The village is heavily dependent on tourism and is particularly popular with sea surfing enthusiasts. The main tourist season runs from spring until autumn, peaking in the school holidays in August. "The Old Boathouse", a surf shop called "Chapel Idne", and a public house are located here as well as various small cafes, ice cream stands, souvenir shops, and small private art galleries, most of which are only open during the tourist season. The South West Coast Path passes through Sennen Cove, being about half an hour's walk from Land's End.
On 8 June 1881 the Faraday landed the eastern end of the trans-atlantic cable known as the "Direct American line". A temporary hut was erected about 30 yards (27 m) west of the Cowloe Rocks. immediately below the ″hevva″ station (seine fishery) and close to the road leading out of the cove. [8] The western end of the cable was at Sable Island, off Canada. [9]
A small fishing fleet of seven is protected by a breakwater built in 1908. [10] Mullet used to be an important catch in the bay with the fishery beginning at the end of January and continued towards the end of April. [11] Sennen Cove was the most important seine fishery in Cornwall and, in Edwardian times, large schools were still entering the bay with as many as 12,000 caught at one time. [12] Seining continued into the 20th century with 1200 stone caught on 3 March 1977. [13]
The area of cliffs known as "Pedn men du" in the cove is also popular with rock climbers, having non-tidal access. [14]
First South West runs bus services to Sennen Cove. Service A1 calls at Sennen Cove on the journey between Penzance and Lands End roughly every hour during the daytime. In summer, open top bus A3 calls into the cove on the trip between St Ives and Lands End. Until their demise in 2006, Sennen Cove was a popular destination with enthusiasts of the Bristol VR bus due to the steep incline leaving the cove.
Shoegaze indie-rock band from the UK, Ride titled a track in their 1990 album Nowhere after Sennen Cove, named 'Sennen'. 1920s-30s composer and pianist Billy Mayerl composed a tone-poem titled "Sennen Cove" after Sennen Cove.
The horizon at Sennen serves as the inspiration for a collection of 365 paintings entitled "Sennen: A Moment in Time" by renowned abstract artist Tony Davie.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth century a number of folklorists found folklore stories and beliefs at Sennen Cove. Walter Evans-Wentz collected fairy stories from a local, John Gilbert Guy with references to changeling beliefs, fairies dancing and fairy water. [15] Robert Hunt recorded a mermaid tradition from the Cove. [16] William Bottrell included a section about a supernatural being named the Hooper: a marine creature that appeared as light in the mist just off the Cove and 'hooped' to keep the fishermen off the sea when storms were coming. [17]
Bude is a seaside town in north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, in the civil parish of Bude-Stratton and at the mouth of the River Neet. It was sometimes formerly known as Bude Haven. It lies southwest of Stratton, south of Flexbury and Poughill, and north of Widemouth Bay, located along the A3073 road off the A39. Bude is twinned with Ergué-Gabéric in Brittany, France. Bude's coast faces Bude Bay in the Celtic Sea, part of the Atlantic Ocean. The population of the civil parish can be found under Bude-Stratton.
Perranporth is a seaside resort town on the north coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is 2.1 miles east of the St Agnes Heritage Coastline, and around 7 miles south-west of Newquay. Perranporth and its 2 miles (3 km) long beach face the Atlantic Ocean. It has a population of 3,066, and is the largest settlement in the civil parish of Perranzabuloe. It has an electoral ward in its own name whose population was 4,270 in the 2011 census.
Sennen is a coastal civil parish and a village in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. Sennen village is situated approximately eight miles (13 km) west-southwest of Penzance.
Polzeath is a small seaside resort village in the civil parish of St Minver in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is approximately 6 miles (9.7 km) north west of Wadebridge on the Atlantic coast.
The Brisons is a twin-peaked islet in the Celtic Sea situated 1 mile (1.6 km) offshore from Cape Cornwall in Cornwall, on the south-western coast of Great Britain.
Gwithian is a coastal village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Gwinear-Gwithian, in the Cornwall district, in west Cornwall, England. It is three miles (5 km) north-east of Hayle and four miles (6.5 km) east of St Ives, Cornwall across St Ives Bay. In 1931 the parish had a population of 634. On 1 April 1934 the parish was abolished to form "Gwinear Gwithian".
Harlyn is a small village on the north coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated inland from Harlyn Bay three miles from Padstow and about one mile from St. Merryn.
Praa Sands, commonly pronounced pray or prah, is a white-sand beach and coastal village in Cornwall, England. It is in the parish of Breage and lies off the A394 road between Helston and Penzance. Formerly serving the local mining industry, it is now mostly a tourist-orientated area. The beach is popular with surfers and walkers. Towards the south eastern end of the beach is a WW2 Type 24 pillbox. Originally this was constructed on top of the cliffs but it has been subjected to coastal erosion and has settled down onto the beach.
St Levan is a civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The parish is rural with a number of hamlets of varying size with Porthcurno probably being the best known. Hewn out of the cliff at Minack Point and overlooking the sea to the Logan Rock is the open-air Minack Theatre, the inspiration of Rowena Cade in the early 1930s.
Porthcothan is a coastal village between Newquay and Padstow in Cornwall, England, UK. It is within the civil parish of St Eval.
Widemouth Bay is a bay, beach and small village on the Atlantic coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is about 3 miles (5 km) south of Bude. This stretch of coast is steeped in the smuggling history of times before, and not far south of Widemouth Bay can be found many little inlets and coves.
Skewjack is the name of a plot of land in west Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated about 1.5 miles (2 km) east of Land's End on the B3315 road. It was the site of RAF Sennen, and is now the site of a Fibre-optic Link Around the Globe building.
Whitesand Bay is a wide sandy bay near Land's End in west Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It stretches for one mile between the headlands of Pedn-mên-du and Aire Point. and contains the village of Sennen Cove. It is also a landing point for the Atlantic Crossing 1 international telecommunications cable.
Bucca is a male sea-spirit in Cornish folklore, a merman, that inhabited mines and coastal communities as a hobgoblin during storms. The mythological creature is a type of water spirit likely related to the Púca from Irish, the Pwca from Welsh folklore, and the female mari-morgans, a type of mermaid from Welsh and Breton mythology. Rev W. S. Lach-Szyrma, one 19th-century writer on Cornish antiquities, suggested the Bucca had originally been an ancient pagan deity of the sea such as Irish Nechtan or British Nodens, though his claims are mainly conjecture. Folklore however records votive food offerings made on the beach similar to those made to the subterranean Knockers and may represent some form of continuity with early or pre-Christian Brittonic belief practices.
The RMS Mülheim was a German cargo ship that was built in Romania and launched in May 1999. It was wrecked on 22 March 2003 at Land's End, United Kingdom.
The Mermaid of Zennor is a Cornish folk tale which originates in the village of Zennor. The legend tells the story of a mysterious woman who occasionally attended the parish church of Zennor; a young man followed her home one day, and neither were seen again. One Sunday, a mermaid appeared to a group of local sailors, asking that they raise their anchor to let her enter her home, and the villagers concluded that she was the same woman who had attended their church. The legend is associated with a carved bench-end in the church, which depicts a mermaid.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Cornwall: Cornwall – ceremonial county and unitary authority area of England within the United Kingdom. Cornwall is a peninsula bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall is also a royal duchy of the United Kingdom. It has an estimated population of half a million and it has its own distinctive history and culture.
Presented below is an alphabetical index of articles related to Cornwall:
• The True Story of Bilbo The Surf Lifeguard Dog, by Steve Jmo and Janeta Hevizi, published by Cornish Cove Publishing
• Shanti The Wandering Dog of Sennen & The Land's End, by Janeta Hevizi and Jo Holland, published by Cornish Cove Publishing
