Sennen Cove is a small coastal settlement in the parish of Sennen

Sennen

Sennen is a coastal civil parish and a village in Cornwall, United Kingdom. Sennen village is situated approximately eight miles west-southwest of Penzance....

, in Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is 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 has a population of , and covers an area of...

, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. According to the Penwith

Penwith

Penwith was a local government district in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, whose council was based in Penzance. The district covered all of the Penwith peninsula, the toe-like promontory of land at the western end of Cornwall and which included an area of land to the east that fell outside the...

 District Council, the population of this settlement was estimated at 180 persons in 2000.

Geography

Sennen Cove is not a cove in the geological sense, and would be more properly described as a Bay

Headlands and bays

Headlands and bays are two related features of the coastal environment.- Geology and geography :Headlands and bays are often found on the same coastline. A bay is surrounded by land on three sides, whereas a headland is surrounded by water on three sides. Headlands are characterized by high,...

.
Sennen Cove, as distinct from Sennen Churchtown

Sennen

Sennen is a coastal civil parish and a village in Cornwall, United Kingdom. Sennen village is situated approximately eight miles west-southwest of Penzance....

, is found at the end of a spur road which joins the A30 trunk road

A30 road

The 284 miles A30 road from London to Land's End, historically known as the Great South West Road used to provide the most direct route from London to the south west; more recently the M3 motorway and A303 road performs this function for much of the route and only parts of A30 now retain trunk...

 approximately one mile (1.61 km) from Land's End

Land's End

Land's End is a headland and small settlement in west Cornwall, England, within the United Kingdom. It is located on the Penwith peninsula approximately eight miles west-southwest of Penzance....

. The road descends gently for about 300 yards and then steeply for another 300 yards to the village which lies just above the beach at an altitude of 5 metres (16.4 ft) to 10 metres (32.8 ft). The beach extends further north along the coast towards the peninsula of Cape Cornwall

Cape Cornwall

Cape Cornwall is a small headland in Cornwall, UK. It is four miles north of Land's End near the town of St Just. A cape is the point of land where two bodies of water meet and until the first Ordnance Survey, 200 years ago, it was thought that Cape Cornwall was the most westerly point in...

 a few miles further to the north. There are a few dozen houses built primarily of granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 and some of concrete

Concrete

Concrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...

, arranged mainly in terraces

Terraced house

In architecture and city planning, a terrace house, terrace, row house, linked house or townhouse is a style of medium-density housing that originated in Great Britain in the late 17th century, where a row of identical or mirror-image houses share side walls...

, typical of many of the villages in Cornwall. Several submarine telecommunications cables

Submarine communications cable

A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the sea bed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean....

 are landed at Sennen Cove and are connected via landlines to the cable terminating equipment at Skewjack

Skewjack

Skewjack is the name of a plot of land in west Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated about 1.5 miles east of Land's End on the B3315 road...

 together with others from Porthcurno

Porthcurno

Porthcurno is a small village in the parish of St. Levan located in a valley on the south coast of the county of Cornwall, England in the United Kingdom. It is approximately to the west of the market town of Penzance and about from Land's End, the most westerly point of the English mainland...

.

Surfing

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 Gwenvor at the other end of the bay. Many people have commented on Sennen's laid back and friendly atmosphere which adds to the feel of Sennen Cove, making it a popular tourist destination for holiday makers and surfers alike. Sennen is good at most tides, bar extreme high tide, works best with a westerly swell and a light easterly wind. Surf gear can be hired at the beach, situated next to a large car park and beach cafe.

The story of Bilbo

The beach is also home to Bilbo, the first ever UK canine

Dog

The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...

 lifeguard. The Newfoundland

Newfoundland (dog)

The Newfoundland is a breed of large dog. Newfoundlands can be black, brown, gray, or black and white. They were originally bred and used as a working dog for fishermen in the Dominion of Newfoundland, now part of Canada. They are known for their giant size, tremendous strength, calm dispositions,...

 first started working on the beach from 2005, although was suspended from services on the beach when the lifeguards were taken over by the RNLI in early 2008 (see below), due to the rules that confine Bilbo from 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 use of more than one person (or dog in this instance) on the beach's quad bike. For the three years he was in service (2005–2007), he raised huge awareness to many tourists about the dangers of swimming outside the designated zones controlled by the lifeguards, led by the 'Bilbo Says' campaign. 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.

Lifeboat

Sennen Cove Lifeboat Station

Sennen Cove Lifeboat Station

Sennen Cove Lifeboat Station is the base for Royal National Lifeboat Institution search and rescue operations for the sea around Land's End, Cornwall in the United Kingdom. The first lifeboat was stationed at Sennen Cove in 1853...

 is a Royal National Lifeboat Institution

Royal National Lifeboat Institution

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is a charity that saves lives at sea around the coasts of Great Britain, Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, as well as on selected inland waterways....

 base founded in 1853. It is run by volunteers and operates a all-weather lifeboat

Lifeboat (rescue)

A rescue lifeboat is a boat rescue craft which is used to attend a vessel in distress, or its survivors, to rescue crewmen and passengers. It can be hand pulled, sail powered or powered by an engine...

 and an inshore lifeboat. They are manned by a crew of 24 people who ensure that the boats are operational and on call twenty-four hours a day, throughout the year. Next to the lifeboat station is the restored Roundhouse, now used as an art gallery and souvenir

Souvenir

A souvenir , memento, keepsake or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. The term souvenir brings to mind the mass-produced kitsch that is the main commodity of souvenir and gift shops in many tourist traps around the world...

 shop, but originally used to house a winch

Winch

A winch is a mechanical device that is used to pull in or let out or otherwise adjust the "tension" of a rope or wire rope . In its simplest form it consists of a spool and attached hand crank. In larger forms, winches stand at the heart of machines as diverse as tow trucks, steam shovels and...

 for hauling boats up from the beach.

Economy

The Cove is heavily dependent on tourism

Tourism

Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...

 and is particularly popular with sea surfing

Surfing

Surfing' is a surface water sport in which the surfer rides a surfboard on the crest and face of a wave which is carrying the surfer towards the shore...

 enthuiasts. The significant part of the tourist season extends from approximately the spring until the autumn, peaking in the school holidays in August. "The Old Boathouse", a surf shop called "Chapel Idne", and a public house

Public house

A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...

 are located here as well as various small cafes, ice cream stands, souvenir shops, and small private art galleries, including The Round House, most of which are only open during the tourist season. The South West Coast Path

South West Coast Path

The South West Coast Path is Britain's longest waymarked long-distance footpath and a National Trail. It stretches for , running from Minehead in Somerset, along the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, to Poole Harbour in Dorset. Since it rises and falls with every river mouth, it is also one of the more...

 passes through Sennen Cove, only being about half an hour's walk from Land's End

Land's End

Land's End is a headland and small settlement in west Cornwall, England, within the United Kingdom. It is located on the Penwith peninsula approximately eight miles west-southwest of Penzance....

.

A small fishing fleet of seven is protected by a breakwater built in 1908. Mullet

Mullet (fish)

The mullets or grey mullets are a family and order of ray-finned fish found worldwide in coastal temperate and tropical waters, and in some species in fresh water. Mullets have served as an important source of food in Mediterranean Europe since Roman times...

 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. 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 one time. Seining continued into the 20th Century with 1200 stone caught on 3rd March 1977.

Transport

First Devon and Cornwall run bus services to Sennen Cove. Service 1 calls in at Sennen Cove on the journey between Penzance

Penzance

Penzance is a town, civil parish, and port in Cornwall, England, in the United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is approximately 75 miles west of Plymouth and 300 miles west-southwest of London...

 and Lands End roughly every hour during the daytime. In summertime, open top service 300 calls into the cove on the section of the trip between St Ives

St Ives, Cornwall

St Ives is a seaside town, civil parish and port in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The town lies north of Penzance and west of Camborne on the coast of the Celtic Sea. In former times it was commercially dependent on fishing. The decline in fishing, however, caused a shift in commercial...

 and Lands End. Until their demise in 2006, Sennen Cove was a popular destination with enthusiasts of the Bristol VR

Bristol VR

The Bristol VR was Bristol's rear-engined bus chassis, designed as a competitor to the Leyland Atlantean and Daimler Fleetline.-Development:...

bus due to the steep incline leaving the cove.

External links