The name Lizard comes from the Cornish lysardh which literally means "high court" but could also be interpreted as "fortress". It is possibly a reference to the high cliffs along the coast and maybe also that it is a peninsula. Much of the rock making up the peninsula is known as "serpentine" but this is thought to be a coincidence; the name is thought to be based on the appearance of the rock and not a reference to the place name.
The church was founded in the late 6th or early 7th century and is dedicated to St Winwaloe, the son of a Cornish prince who was an Abbot in Brittany. The current building dates from the 12th century, from which the Norman doorway remains. The church was rebuilt in the thirteenth century when the porch was added and in the fifteenth century with a new window in the tower.
There has been a lifeboat at The Lizard since 1859. It was originally launched from the boathouse at Polpeor (the most southerly point) which was on the cliff, making launching difficult. A second station was built in 1885 that was further down the cove and in 1914, a third station was built with a slipway. The exposed location on Lizard Point needed a lot of maintenance and made launching dangerous in rough seas, so in 1961 the lifeboat was moved to Church Cove.
In 2010, the Church Cove lifeboat station that was built at the end of the 1950s was demolished and, in 2012, was replaced with the current one which features a funicular railway line to transport lifeboat crews from the boathouse to the clifftop car park.
The RNLI was founded in 1824 under the original name of the National Institution for Preservation of Life from Shipwreck. It was renamed to the RNLI in 1854. Until 1890 all the lifeboats were rowed with oars until some steam-powered boats were introduced. By 1905, petrol-powered boats were being trialled and fairly quickly replaced the bulky steam-powered predecessors. Today a fleet of over 340 lifeboats provide a 24/7 search and rescue service around the UK. The charity has saved over 140,000 lives since it was set up.
The National Coastwatch Institution was set up to restore visual watches along the UK coastline after two Cornish fishermen lost their lives within sight of an empty Coastguard lookout in 1994. The first station - at Bass Point on The Lizard, where the fishermen had died - opened in December 1994. The organisation, staffed by volunteers, now runs 50 lookout stations around England and Wales.
The red wall below the coastguard lookout is another marker for The Vrogue rock which lines up with red and white marks on Lloyds signal station.
In April 1872, the signalling station opened to pass messages to ships arriving in the English Channel, which removed the necessity for ships to call at Falmouth. Messages were passed using flags, which was limited to fine weather and daytime. Initially, messages back from the ships were sent by horse rider to the nearest telegraph station at Helston. Two months later the telegraph cable was extended to the station which enabled near real-time messaging. As winter approached and daylight hours grew shorter, night-time signalling was tried using arrays of coloured lights, steam whistles, rockets and guns but was not that effective, particularly right next to a massive lighthouse and huge foghorn. Despite the limitations, the savings made by bypassing Falmouth meant the station was heavily used and a rival station soon opened up next door. The resulting confusion, arising from two rival stations both signalling from shore with flags, was fortunately short-lived when the companies merged and the second station was demolished. In the early 20th Century, the station was extended by adding two additional buildings known as "night boxes" to enable night-time lamp signalling without interference from the lighthouse and were used until the 1950s when they were taken over by the Coastguard.
In 1900, Guglielmo Marconi stayed in the Housel Bay Hotel in his search for a suitable site for marine communications using wireless technology, and given the already established telegraph links to semaphore signalling station here and lack of anything tall to interfere with radio transmission, he leased a plot of land on The Lizard, at Pen Olver, close to the lighthouse. Here he built the Lizard Wireless Telegraph Station which was primarily intended for ship-to-shore communication as ships were being fitted with new Marconi radio sets.
He also used the station for some tests. At the time, most scientists thought that radio waves would not propagate beyond the horizon. Marconi proved this not to be the case: on 23 January 1901, Marconi received a wireless signal here that was sent from the Isle of Wight, 186 miles away, thus proving that radio signals could be bent around the surface of the Earth and paving the way for modern telecommunications. After this, Marconi went on to build a larger transmitter at Poldhu which he used to send the first transatlantic signal.
In its capacity as a marine signalling station, the wireless hut was also the first to receive an SOS signal, in 1910, from a ship called the Minnehaha which had run aground further along the Cornish coast. Based on period photographs, the station has been restored by the National Trust to almost exactly how it was in 1901.
The steel-hulled Queen Margaret was considered by many to be one of the fastest and most beautiful sailing ships built in the 1890s. Whilst steamships didn't rely on the wind, over a long distance they could not compete with sailing ships which did not require coal or freshwater and were much faster than steamers. The Queen Margaret had a cargo of 4,500 tons of wheat from Australia and approached the signal station at the Lizard to receive orders for where to land the cargo. The ship signalled that it needed tugs to pull it against the strong headwind but could not read the answer so the captain manoeuvred closer to the shore to be able to read the flags. In doing so, the vessel grounded on Maenheere Rock. Water entering the hold caused the grain to swell which split the ship open and it became a total loss. The ship was salvaged for scrap and some of the remainder still lies on the seabed in 12 metres of water beside Maenheere Rock.
The SS Ilston was a merchant steamship armed with a deck gun during the First World War. In 1917 it was on its way from Swansea to France with a cargo of railway rolling stock. It was torpedoed by a German U-boat and sank off the Lizard with the loss of 6 crew members.
In November 1911 the sailing ship "Hansy" was bound for Melbourne with a cargo of iron and timber from Sweden. It was wrecked in Housel Bay in a gale but three of the crew were saved by the lifeboat and the remainder (including the ship's dog and cat) were rescued using rocket apparatus. The cargo of timber was used to build or repair many of the local cottages and the pigs of iron were fished out of the bay for use as ballast. When a salvage party boarded the wrecked vessel after the storm had died down, they found two goats had taken up residence in one of the seamen's bunks.
The current lighthouse building was completed in 1751, which Trinity House describes as consisting of "two towers, with a cottage built between them, in which an overlooker lay on a sort of couch, with a window on either side commanding a view of the lanterns. When the bellows-blowers relaxed their efforts and the fires dimmed, he would remind them of their duties by a blast from a cow horn." The twin towers were described by Tennyson as "the southern eyes of England". However, since 1903, only one of the two towers has been used and the lantern has been removed from the other tower. The lighthouse is the most powerful in the British Isles: the light has a range of 21 miles and its reflection can be seen 70 miles away.
The most southerly point of the British mainland - Lizard Point - protrudes far into The Channel and it is surrounded by shallow reefs which extend for roughly half a mile south of the Lizard. The individual rocks each have names: Ennach, Maenheere (furthest south) and Carligga, Carnvel, Man o' War and Mulvin (furthest west).
Also, even without any wind, the tidal race around the headland can reach 5-6 knots. The combination of these factors makes it the single greatest hazard for shipping in British waters. The Admiralty still advises navigators to stay at least three miles away from the Lizard in rough weather.
The "National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty" was founded in 1895 when snappy names weren't in fashion. Their first coastal acquisition was Barras Nose at Tintagel in 1897. Five years later, Tintagel Old Post Office was their first house to be acquired in Cornwall. The National Trust now owns over 700 miles of British coastline.
Project Neptune was started by the National Trust in 1965 to purchase and protect large portions of the British coastline. By 1973 it had achieved its target of raising £2 million and 338 miles of coastline were looked-after. The project was so successful that it is still running although mainly focused on maintenance. There is still an occasional opportunity when privately-owned coastal land is sold. A particularly notable one was in 2016 when the land at Trevose Head was put up for sale and successfully purchased by the National Trust.
The Ramblers Association and National Farmers Union suggest some "dos and don'ts" for walkers which we've collated with some info from the local Countryside Access Team.
Do
Don't
Jackdaws are able to recognise eye gestures from humans (e.g. if someone looks at where a food item is hidden). It has been suggested that jackdaws may use this with other birds too and this may be the reason that they have a striking blue eye colour that is easily seen from a distance.
Alexanders are a member of the carrot family and grow along roadsides in places similar to cow parsley. The leaves are more solid than the lacy cow parsley leaves and the flowers are yellow rather than white. The name arises because the plant was introduced to the UK by the Romans and was known as the "pot herb of Alexandria". It is also sometimes known as horse parsley.
Kissing gates are documented as far back to the 16th Century. The design allow humans to pass through but prevents large farm animals such as cows from passing (sheep have been known to wiggle their way through) without the need for a latch. As well as on footpaths, kissing gates are common in churchyards to allow easy public access whilst stopping farm animals from ruining the grass and relieving themselves on graves.
If there are sheep in the field and you have a dog, make sure it's securely on its lead (sheep are prone to panic and injuring themselves even if a dog is just being inquisitive). If the sheep start bleating, this means they are scared and they are liable to panic.
If there are pregnant sheep in the field, be particularly sensitive as a scare can cause a miscarriage. If there are sheep in the field with lambs, avoid approaching them closely, making loud noises or walking between a lamb and its mother, as you may provoke the mother to defend her young.
Sheep may look cute but if provoked they can cause serious injury (hence the verb "to ram"). Generally, the best plan is to walk quietly along the hedges and they will move away or ignore you.
The village of Lizard dates from early mediaeval times. It was recorded in the Domesday survey of 1086 and at the time was held by a landowner named Richard who had 1 hide, 4 wild mares, 3 cattle, 20 pigs and 60 sheep. The relatively small amount of beef available in mediaeval times is notable. It would have been eaten mainly by the wealthy landowners and the peasants would have kept a pig. At this point in time, a pasty, based on the meat of the gentry and on potatoes from undiscovered South America, would have been a decadent and futuristic fantasy.
The settlement of Tregaminion was first recorded in 1302. Other than the obvious tre, meaning farmstead and implying an early mediaeval origin, the origin of the name is not known. There is another small settlement with the same name on Gribbin Head near Fowey, very close to where Daphne Du Maurier lived.
The chapel is thought to have been built in the 1860s by the Wesleyan methodists.
By the time John Wesley died, the majority of Methodists were not attending Anglican church regularly, and following his death a Methodist church was formed, separate from the Anglican church. In the first half of the 19th Century, the Methodist movement fragmented into several different factions, often each with its own chapel in the same town. The Bible Christian movement was one of these, founded in North Cornwall in 1815 by William O'Bryan from Luxulyan. His followers are also known as the Bryonites, although after falling out with most of his ministers, O'Bryan emigrated to America. In 1907, the Bible Christian movement amalgamated with other Methodist groups to form the United Methodist Church.
There are over four hundred complete stone crosses in Cornwall and at least another two hundred fragments.
In the mediaeval period, stone crosses were sometimes placed by the road or path to mark the route to the parish church. Farms and hamlets were usually linked to the church by the most direct and level route. Crosses were also placed along routes of pilgrimage. Both of these have evolved to become some of today's Public Rights of Way.
Crosses were sometimes used to mark sites of chapels and holy wells or as a signpost for the tracks that led to them. Often churches were later built at this holy site, resulting in the cross being within the churchyard or close by.
A number of mediaeval crosses have been found built into walls, used as animal rubbing posts, gateposts and stream crossings. Many were rescued and moved into churchyards during Victorian times. A number were also moved from their roadside locations into churchyards.
The English Channel is a relatively recent name. The Saxons called it the "South Sea" (their "North Sea" still remains) and then became known as the "Narrow Sea" until the 18th century.
The English Channel is thought to have been formed by two catastrophic floods from lakes that built up behind a dam of ice. The first was about 425,000 years ago and broke through a range of chalk mountains between the Weald and Artois. Then about 225,000 years ago, a second ice-dammed lake at the end of the Rhine broke through another weak barrier and created another massive flood channel. The waterfalls during these floods are thought to have created plunge pools around 100 metres deep and several kilometres across.
The fulmar is a grey and white bird related to an Albatross although it can be mistaken at a distance for a gull. Close up, the beak is the giveaway: the fulmar has a tube on its beak which is visible as a black bar across the beak at a distance. The tube is a gland for excreting salt from the seawater that they drink. As a defence mechanism, the fulmar regurgitates foul smelling oil from its stomach - the name comes from the Old Norse for "foul" (full) and "gull" (mar). The oil disrupts the waterproofing of predatory birds' feathers in a similar way to a crude-oil spill, so they avoid preying on fulmars.
In 1923, the five masted sailing ship, the Adolf Vinnen, was wrecked on the Lizard just three months after she had been launched. Although the ship was also equipped with two massive diesel engines, these were unable to make headway against the southerly gale and she was driven into Green Lane Cove below the signal station. The crew of 24 were all rescued from the clifftop using a breeches buoy secured with a line fired on a rocket. The wreck now lies roughly 12 metres below the surface, broken into two main pieces.
The breeches buoy is a piece of life-saving equipment devised in the 1860s. It is essentially a zip-line to which a "cradle" (consisting of a lifebelt with a pair of attached shorts) is connected. The flotation device provided a backup if the line broke or sagged into the sea. The breeches - whilst not glamorous - were an effective way of preventing the person being rescued from being washed off the zip-line by breaking waves.
A lightweight line was first sent from the shore to the wrecked ship possibly via a kite, rocket or mortar. This was then used to haul out a more heavy-duty rope (known as a "hawser") on which the zip-line could run. Lighter ropes were also secured to the cradle from each end so it could be hauled in each direction to bring each crew member ashore and then send it back for the next one.
One of the challenges with the mode of rescue was length of time needed for transferring the crew one-by-one. During this period the vessel could roll, drift away or sink. Training the rescue team to operate at the maximum speed possible was therefore important.
In 1913, the Cromdale - a large elegant iron-hulled sailing ship - was on her way back from Chile with a cargo of nitrates. She entered The Channel in thick fog and ran straight into Bass Point under full sail. Fortunately, the sea was calm so the crew were able to board lifeboats and row safely to shore. However, the ship was badly holed and when the weather changed, it broke up within a week. The ribs and steel masts of the ship still lie in rocky gullies off the point roughly 10 metres below the surface.
In March 1935, the French steam trawler Le Vieux Tigre ran aground at Bass Point. She grounded so close to the shore that men in the signal station heard the shouts of the crew as the boat hit the rocks. Rockets were fired and the Lizard lifeboat was launched and rescued most of the crew. The skipper and four of the crew refused rescue, electing to stay onboard but the vessel soon sank and they managed to escape in a small boat. The remains of the wreck are scattered so widely that some parts of are mixed with those of the Mosel.
The first lighthouse on the Lizard was built in 1619 by Sir John Killigrew of Falmouth, whose family had a colourful history involving smuggling and piracy. A few years before, Sir John had divorced his wife, accusing her of having become a prostitute after having been "first debauched by the governor of Pendennis Castle". Sir John applied for a patent to build the lighthouse and this was granted on the understanding that it be extinguished on the approach of pirates or enemy vessels. The lighthouse maintenance was intended to be funded by collecting voluntary contributions from the ships that passed it. Once built, despite its great benefit to shipping, the shipowners contributions did not materialise. The maintenance cost was bankrupting Killigrew, so James I set a fee of 1 halfpenny per tonne on all vessels passing the light. The uproar at this from the shipowners was so great that the lighthouse was demolished in 1630.
The serpentinization process results in rocks that are quite soft. The rock is often also very colourful and may contain veins of green, yellow and red, due to iron compounds within the rocks. Its softness and attractive colours were first noticed on stiles and cattle rubbing posts which had highly polished areas where walkers or cattle had rubbed against them. An industry grew up in the 19th Century making ornamental stone, initially for quite large architectural pieces but it was popularised by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert who ordered serpentine tables for their home. Over time, serpentine proved less suitable than marble for architectural purposes due to its tendency to crumble in heat and to absorb water and crack. Interior ornaments are still produced although the quarrying of serpentine is now very strictly regulated.
Several churches in Cornwall have been dedicated to St Winwalloe (or Wynwallow) including at Gunwalloe and Landewednack on the Lizard, Tremaine near Launceston and Poundstock near Bude. Winwalloe was the son of a prince of the Celtic kingdom of Dumnonia (now known as Cornwall) born in 460. He fled to Brittany to avoid the plague, founded a monastery and died at the age of 72.
The beach at Housel Bay is granite boulders at high tide but as the tide goes out some white sand is revealed. The beach is divided by a protruding cliff which cuts the right side (facing the sea) off at high tide. The beach is relatively sheltered from the wind both by the headlands either side and because it faces southeast away from the prevailing westerly winds. There are very strong currents around Lizard Point but as the beach is at the back of quite a deep bay, it is also sheltered from the worst of these. However, the close proximity to Lizard Point means that it still gets plenty of swell coming up the Channel from the Atlantic so there are sometimes reasonable sized waves breaking onto the rocky shore.
At the bottom of the slipway is a small beach of coarse grey sand which extends around the corner to a second area of beach at low tide. To the left of the lifeboat ramp is a large rock platform which extends out from the headland at low tide and contains a number of rockpools. The strong currents around Lizard Point make this an unsafe beach for swimming.
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