Talland
Encyclopedia
Looe
Looe is a small coastal town, fishing port and civil parish in the former Caradon district of south-east Cornwall, England, with a population of 5,280 . Looe is divided in two by the River Looe, East Looe and West Looe being connected by a bridge...
and Polperro
Polperro
Polperro is a village and fishing harbour on the south-east Cornwall coast in South West England, UK, within the civil parish of Lansallos. Situated on the River Pol, 4 miles west of the neighbouring town of Looe and west of the major city and naval port of Plymouth, it is well-known for...
on the south coast of 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...
(the parish includes most of the village of Polperro where there is a chapel of ease and formerly also the town of West Looe). It is in the civil parish
Civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and, where they are found, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties...
of Lansallos
Lansallos
Lansallos is a coastal hamlet and a civil parish in south Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated between Polruan and Polperro about 5 miles east of Fowey and is in the Liskeard Registration District....
and consists of a church, the former vicarage and a few houses.
On Talland Bay
Talland Bay
Talland Bay is west of the town of Looe in Cornwall. On Talland Bay are two sheltered shingle beaches, Talland Sand and Rotterdam Beach, and the bay was well known in previous centuries as a landing spot for smugglers. It has also been the scene of many shipwrecks including that of a French...
are two sheltered shingle beaches, Talland Sand and Rotterdam Beach, and the bay was well known in previous centuries as a landing spot for smugglers. There are several small beach
Beach
A beach is a geological landform along the shoreline of an ocean, sea, lake or river. It usually consists of loose particles which are often composed of rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles or cobblestones...
es in Talland Bay, served by a small car park and café
Café
A café , also spelled cafe, in most countries refers to an establishment which focuses on serving coffee, like an American coffeehouse. In the United States, it may refer to an informal restaurant, offering a range of hot meals and made-to-order sandwiches...
. It has also been the scene of many shipwrecks including that of a French trawler, the Marguerite
Marguerite (ship)
The Marguerite was a 1544 ton French ship that was torpedoed by Oberleutnant Howaldt and UB-40 on 28 June 1917. The wreck lies at ....
, in 1922. Two private boats performed a dramatic rescue and all 21 people were saved. The remains of the ship's boiler can still be clearly seen on the beach at low tide.
Two towers mark one end of a nautical measured mile
Nautical measured mile
A nautical measured mile is a nautical mile which is marked by two pairs of towers. A mile is measure by sailing on a given bearing and lining up the pairs of towers...
, the other end is marked by two towers near Hannafore, West Looe.
Talland Parish Church
The church at Talland, dramatically located on the cliff-top, is dedicated to St Tallanus and as such is unique in Britain. Unusually it has a detached bell-tower on the south side which was only joined to the main body of the church in the 15th century. There is old woodwork in the fine wagon roofs and the many benchends (partly ca. 1520, the rest ca. 1600) are of the usual Cornish type and among the finer examples of these.Landscape and development
The area is one of the most unspoiled sections of the south west coast and is a both a designated Area of Outstanding Beauty and a Heritage Coast, in October 2007, Caradon District Council granted planning permission for a development of 40 new homes costing between £285,000 and £350,000. The new buildings have been designed to be in-keeping with the local area and also sympathetically placed to maintain Cornwalls Heritage Coast at The Bayhttp://www.thebaytalland.comTalland Barton Farmland has been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest
Site of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom. SSSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in Great Britain are based upon...
for it's assemblage of nationally rare and nationally scarce mosses; in particular for the many-fruited beardless-moss (Weissia multicapsularis), which is known from only two sites worldwide
History
An important source for the history is Jonathan CouchJonathan Couch
Jonathan Couch was a British naturalist, the only child of Richard and Philippa Couch, of a family long resident at Polperro, a small fishing village between Looe and Fowey, on the south coast of Cornwall.-Biography:...
's History of Polperro, (1871), issued after his death by his son, T. Q. Couch and abridgements of it have been issued many times since: see History of Polperro
Well-known occasional residents
The television presenters Richard MadeleyRichard Madeley
Richard Madeley is a British television presenter and columnist. With his wife Judy Finnigan, Madeley has presented This Morning and later the weekday chat show Richard & Judy...
and Judy Finnegan own a holiday home here.