Things to do in Cornwall

Cadgwith is one of the most perfectly preserved and most completely authentic fishing coves on the Lizard Peninsula in south Cornwall, a small community of thatched cottages clustered around a shingle beach divided by a central rock outcrop where working fishing boats are hauled up on the beach in a scene of genuine working character that has changed very little in essential character over the past century. The combination of the thatched rooftops, the working boats, the fish cellars on the beach and the pub above the cove creates the most concentrated image of traditional Cornish fishing community life available on this section of the coast. The boats at Cadgwith still work the offshore waters for crab, lobster and various fish species, and the fresh seafood available directly from the fishermen and from the village shop provides some of the finest locally caught shellfish in Cornwall. The crab pasties and the crab salads of the village café and pub have developed a reputation that draws visitors from across the county who seek the authenticity of a fishing village that has not been shaped primarily for tourism. The coastal walking from Cadgwith on the South West Coast Path in both directions provides excellent cliff scenery characteristic of the Lizard Peninsula, the serpentine rock giving the cliffs a distinctive green and brown colour quite different from the granite of the west Cornish coast. The Devil's Frying Pan, a natural arch and blowhole accessible by a short walk south from the village, provides a dramatic natural feature to complement the village visit.

Coverack is a small and remarkably well-preserved fishing village on the east coast of the Lizard Peninsula in south Cornwall, a community of stone cottages around a small harbour whose combination of the working boats, the café and pub above the sea wall and the character of a genuine fishing community that has not been entirely transformed by tourism makes it one of the most authentic small coastal communities on the Lizard. The distinctive geological character of the Lizard Peninsula, with its serpentinite and gabbro rock, gives Coverack's harbour walls and local buildings a green and brown colour quite unlike the granite of the west Cornish coast. The fishing heritage of Coverack is represented by the working boats that continue to fish the offshore waters for crab, lobster and various fish species, and the café and pub in the village provide fresh local seafood in a setting of considerable coastal charm. The village escaped the major tourist development that transformed some other Cornish coastal villages in the twentieth century, and the result is a settlement of genuine character where the fishing community's presence is still felt. The coastal path from Coverack provides excellent walking in both directions along the Lizard's east coast, the serpentinite rock creating distinctive cliff and foreshore scenery with unusual mineral colouring and the characteristic flora of the Lizard's serpentinite grasslands visible on the cliff tops. The National Nature Reserve of the Lizard's heathland is accessible from the coastal path circuit.

Fistral Beach in Newquay is the most celebrated surf beach in Britain and one of the most recognised surfing venues in Europe, a northwest-facing bay that receives consistent Atlantic swell producing reliable waves that have made Newquay the capital of British surfing since the sport was introduced to Cornwall in the 1960s. The beach is the venue for the annual Boardmasters festival, one of the largest surf and music events in Europe, and the headquarters of Surfing England is based in Newquay, underlining Fistral's central position in British surf culture. The beach faces northwest into the Atlantic and receives long-period swell from the open ocean that produces well-shaped, consistently breaking waves across a range of swell sizes. The profile of the beach and the offshore seabed topography combine to create conditions that work in a variety of wind and swell scenarios, making Fistral more reliable than many Cornish beaches that depend on specific combinations of conditions to produce surfable waves. The beach is supervised by lifeguards throughout the summer and the surf schools operating from the beachside facilities make it the preferred destination for beginners taking their first lessons. The setting of Fistral on the headland between the main Newquay town beaches and the open sea gives it a more exposed and dramatic character than the more sheltered bays nearby. The Headland Hotel at the northern end of the beach is one of the most recognisable buildings on the Cornish coast, its Victorian grandeur adding an unexpected architectural note to the surf beach setting. The town of Newquay has developed primarily around surf and youth tourism and the infrastructure of surf shops, beach bars, hostels and restaurants along the approaches to Fistral reflects that culture, providing the social context in which the surfing experience is embedded.

Glendurgan Garden is a National Trust garden in a steep valley running down to the tidal estuary of the Helford River on the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall, a garden of exceptional beauty created from 1820 onward by the Fox family of Falmouth that uses the sheltered, frost-free microclimate of the valley to cultivate tender plants of unusual variety and size. The combination of the naturalistic woodland garden, the famous laurel maze, the views down the valley to the Helford River below and the collection of exotic trees and shrubs of considerable age and stature makes Glendurgan one of the most rewarding gardens on the Cornish coast. The Fox family, Quaker merchants of Falmouth whose commercial success in the shipping business provided the resources for both the garden's creation and the plant collecting that enriched it, laid out Glendurgan in the Romantic tradition of naturalistic woodland gardens that was fashionable in the early nineteenth century. The steep valley sides are planted with a mixture of native and exotic trees including enormous specimens of tulip tree, handkerchief tree, giant redwood and a remarkable range of temperate zone species that thrive in the Cornish climate, their scale and age giving the garden an established quality that belongs to an earlier era of garden-making. The laurel maze at Glendurgan, planted in 1833 in the valley bottom, is one of the oldest surviving hedge mazes in England and provides one of the garden's most popular features, the dense laurel hedges creating an authentic maze experience of considerable entertainment. The path leading from the maze down to the small hamlet of Durgan on the Helford shore, past the thatched cottages of the village, extends the garden visit into the broader landscape of the estuary and the coast. The Helford River visible at the bottom of the valley and accessible from Durgan beach provides a beautiful coastal context for a garden visit.

Kynance Cove on the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall is the most spectacular and most photographed beach in Cornwall, a dramatic cove of serpentinite rock stacks rising from turquoise water between white shell-sand beaches whose combination of the extraordinary geology, the rock arch formations and the colour of the sea creates a coastal scene of such complete visual drama that it has been the subject of paintings, engravings and photographs since Victorian tourists first arrived in large numbers. The National Trust manages the surrounding heathland and the cove is accessible by steep paths from the clifftop above. The rocks of Kynance Cove are serpentinite, an unusual metamorphic rock of striking colour and pattern that is found almost exclusively in the Lizard Peninsula in Britain, its green, red and purple banding and the smooth polished surfaces creating a geological spectacle of considerable visual interest. The serpentinite has been used as a decorative stone for centuries, its distinctive colour making it one of the most recognisable of all British geological materials. The combination of the coloured rock, the turquoise water and the white sand creates an appearance that seems almost deliberately composed for maximum visual impact. The approach to Kynance involves a cliff descent that reveals the cove progressively as the path descends, the full drama of the scene appearing only as the beach level is reached, and the tidal character of the cove means that the area of accessible beach changes dramatically between high and low tide, requiring careful timing for the best experience.

Lamorna Cove on the southwest Cornish coast near Land's End is a small and exceptionally beautiful rocky cove approached through a wooded valley of the Lamorna stream, a destination that combined the qualities of the wooded valley, the rocky shore and the granite pier above the cove in a landscape of such gentle and complete beauty that it attracted the artists of the Newlyn School who made it one of the most painted small coastal settings in Cornwall. Samuel John Lamorna Birch, the most celebrated of the Lamorna artists, took his middle name from the cove and painted its landscape throughout his long career. The cove is reached by the narrow road down the Lamorna Valley, the descent through the woodland of the valley providing a sheltered approach that contrasts with the more exposed granite clifftop scenery of the surrounding Land's End peninsula. The granite quarry above the cove, whose stone was exported by the small pier for use in the construction of London streets and buildings, provides the industrial heritage dimension to what is primarily a nature and landscape destination. The coast path from Lamorna Cove in both directions provides excellent granite cliff walking characteristic of the Penwith Peninsula, and the combination of the valley approach, the cove and the cliff walking creates one of the finest complete coastal experiences available in the far west of Cornwall.

Land's End is the most southwesterly point of mainland Britain, the tip of the Penwith Peninsula in Cornwall where the granite cliffs plunge into the Atlantic Ocean at the end of the long finger of land that makes Cornwall. Its significance as the furthest point from John O'Groats in Scotland has made it a destination for end-to-end walkers, cyclists and travellers of every description, and the combination of the dramatic granite cliff scenery, the views to the Isles of Scilly and the symbolic weight of standing at the edge of the mainland make Land's End a place of genuine emotional resonance for many visitors. The granite cliffs at Land's End are among the most impressive on the Cornish coast, the massive jointed blocks of the Penwith granite eroded by Atlantic waves into a chaotic landscape of pinnacles, sea stacks and deep cliff-edge gullies. The Armed Knight and the Longships Lighthouse visible offshore provide focal points for the view seaward, and on exceptionally clear days the Scilly Isles forty-five kilometres to the southwest are visible on the horizon. The light at Land's End has a quality particular to the far west of Cornwall, the combination of sea air, granite rock and the wide sky producing a clarity and luminosity that explains the tradition of artists working in this area. The visitor facilities at Land's End are managed commercially and include various paid attractions alongside the access to the clifftop viewpoints, which are free. The signpost measuring distances to various destinations worldwide has become one of the most photographed features, providing a focus for the end-to-end travellers who complete their journey here. The South West Coast Path connects Land's End to both the north and south Cornish coasts and provides excellent walking in both directions from the headland.

Lizard Point on the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall is the most southerly point of mainland Britain, the tip of a headland composed of the distinctive serpentinite rock that gives the peninsula its characteristic rich green and red colouring and creates a coastline of extraordinary beauty and geological interest. The combination of the symbolic significance of the southernmost mainland point, the dramatic cliff scenery and the unusual geology makes Lizard Point one of the most visited headlands in Cornwall. The serpentinite rock of the Lizard is part of an ancient piece of ocean floor that was thrust onto the continental margin during a collision of tectonic plates approximately 370 million years ago, creating a fragment of the Earth's mantle that is exposed at the surface across the entire Lizard Peninsula. The distinctive green, red and yellow colours of the serpentine rock are the result of the mineralogy of this mantle material, and the local tradition of working serpentine into ornaments, paperweights and decorative objects has been a cottage industry on the Lizard since the Victorian period. Several workshops in the Lizard village sell handmade serpentine objects alongside the more conventional tourist goods. The cliff scenery around Lizard Point is excellent walking country, the South West Coast Path traversing the headland and connecting it with Kynance Cove to the northwest, one of the most beautiful small beaches in Cornwall whose crystalline water and serpentine rock stacks create a scene of extraordinary colour and clarity. The lighthouse at Lizard Point, whose light has guided vessels through the approaches to the English Channel for centuries, adds a practical and historical dimension to the dramatic natural setting. The surrounding Lizard Peninsula with its rare flora, including the Cornish heath found only here in Britain, and its exceptional coastal habitats provides one of the most ecologically interesting as well as scenically rewarding sections of the Cornwall coast.

Marazion on the Penzance coast of Mount's Bay is the oldest chartered town in England, a small coastal settlement that serves as the mainland connection point for St Michael's Mount and provides the finest views of the mount from the sea wall and the beach extending eastward along the bay. The view across the shallow waters to the mount, with the castle rising above granite rock above the bay, is one of the most frequently reproduced images of Cornwall. The tidal causeway visible at low tide across which visitors walk to the mount, and the boats that carry visitors at high tide, provide the visual and practical connection to the island that has been used since the medieval period. The combination of this crossing experience and the dramatic profile of the mount creates one of the most memorable coastal encounters in the southwest. The beach east of the town is one of the finer sandy beaches in Mount's Bay and the combination of beach, town and the extraordinary view of the mount across the water creates a destination that justifies a full day for those wishing to combine the beach with a visit to the island.

The Minack Theatre near Porthcurno in west Cornwall is one of the most extraordinary and most beautiful outdoor theatres in the world, a clifftop amphitheatre carved from the granite of the Penwith Peninsula above the Atlantic Ocean whose performance space and tiered seating have been created from the living rock of the headland in a setting of natural drama that no conventional theatre can match. The theatre was created by Rowena Cade, who began cutting the stage and seating from the cliff in 1931 with the help of her gardener Billie Rawlings, working through the winters between performance seasons for the rest of her long life, creating with hand tools a theatrical venue of unique quality and character. The first performance at the Minack, a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1932, established the tradition of summer theatrical performance in this extraordinary setting that continues to the present day. A full programme of plays, musicals and operas runs throughout the summer season, the performances taking place against the backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean and the Penwith headlands in conditions that make even productions of modest quality memorable by virtue of the setting. The natural acoustic of the granite amphitheatre is excellent, the cliff faces reflecting sound toward the audience with considerable clarity. Rowena Cade's achievement in creating the theatre from raw granite with minimal resources and machinery is one of the most remarkable individual acts of landscape creation in twentieth-century Britain. The exhibition in the visitor centre documents the theatre's history from its creation and the details of Cade's work, which continued into her eighties, provide inspiration to anyone who has ever considered what persistence and vision can achieve. The coastal walking around Porthcurno and the nearby Logan Rock headland, with the Minack's clifftop setting visible from below, provides excellent complementary activities for a theatre visit.

Mousehole, pronounced Mowzel, is the most completely charming and most frequently cited perfect small fishing village in Cornwall, a community of granite cottages around a small medieval harbour south of Penzance whose combination of the harbour architecture, the tight lanes of the village, the quality of the independent cafés and restaurants and the complete absence of the commercial clutter that has compromised other Cornish villages creates a destination of apparently effortless perfection. Dylan Thomas described it as the loveliest village in England, a claim that Cornish people typically contest. The harbour at Mousehole, built in the medieval period and substantially unchanged in its essential form, provides the visual focus of the village, the granite walls and the fishermen's cottages around it creating a composition that has been painted and photographed since the Victorian period. The passage of time and the gradual replacement of the working fishing community by residents whose primary relationship with the sea is recreational has changed the underlying character of the village, but the physical fabric remains extraordinary in its completeness. The Stargazy Pie tradition at Mousehole, commemorating the legendary fisherman Tom Bawcock who braved a December storm to bring fish to a starving village in the sixteenth century, is celebrated each year on Tom Bawcock's Eve on December 23rd with a procession and the traditional pie whose filling of fish allows the heads to protrude through the pastry lid staring at the sky.

Pendennis Castle stands on a round headland commanding the entrance to the Carrick Roads estuary at Falmouth, a Tudor artillery fort built by Henry VIII in the 1540s as part of his chain of coastal defences against the threat of French and Spanish invasion and subsequently developed into a major fortification that was the last Royalist stronghold in England during the Civil War. English Heritage manages the castle and the combination of the Tudor fortress, the later Elizabethan outer defences and the First and Second World War additions makes Pendennis one of the most complete examples of fortification development in Britain. The original fort of 1540 to 1545, a circular tower surrounded by a circular gun platform, represents the typical plan of Henry's coastal blockhouses that were positioned to engage enemy vessels with cannon fire from both sides of vulnerable harbour entrances. The later development of the outer defences by Elizabeth I in the 1590s, when the threat of Spanish invasion following the Armada remained real, added the substantial curtain walls and bastions that still define the castle's outer profile and demonstrate the shift from medieval to modern defensive planning that occurred during the Tudor period. The Civil War siege of 1646 was one of the most prolonged in Britain, the Royalist garrison under Colonel John Arundell holding out for five months against Parliamentarian forces after the fall of all other Royalist strongholds in England. The garrison surrendered on honourable terms in August 1646, the last English garrison to do so, and their resistance was celebrated even by their opponents as an example of military honour. The headland provides exceptional views over the Carrick Roads, one of the largest natural harbours in the world, and the coastline toward the Lizard and the Helford River.

Perranporth Beach on the north Cornish coast is one of the finest surf beaches in Cornwall, a three-mile expanse of north-facing sand backed by extensive dune systems that receives consistent Atlantic swell and has developed a surf culture over the past half century that makes it one of the most popular beach destinations on this section of the coast. The combination of the long sandy beach, the surfing conditions, the dune walks and the attractive village of Perranporth above the beach creates a destination of considerable appeal for families, surfers and walkers alike. The beach is divided into three sections by rock outcrops that create distinct zones with different surf and swimming conditions, the lifeguard-supervised swimming area between the flags providing safe bathing while the outer sections offer more challenging surf. The rock outcrops exposed at low tide create rock pools of considerable richness and the cave accessible at low water at the south end of the beach, known as the Cathedral Cave, is a large and impressive sea cave worth seeking out. The dune system behind the beach, part of the Penhale Dunes Site of Special Scientific Interest, is one of the most extensive in Cornwall and supports a range of rare dune plants and insects. The Perran Sands holiday park occupies the northern part of the dune system and provides accommodation at the beach. Behind the dunes the grassland of the Penhale Army Camp provides additional open space accessible on public rights of way. The lost city of Perranzabuloe, a chapel and settlement buried by the advancing dunes and now partially excavated, provides an unusual archaeological feature in the dune landscape, and the oratory associated with St Piran is claimed to be the oldest Christian building in England.

Porthcurno Beach in the far southwest of the Penwith Peninsula is one of the most beautiful beaches in Cornwall, a north-facing cove of brilliant white shell-sand enclosed between towering granite cliffs and the headland of Porthcurno Point whose combination of the extraordinary sand colour, the clarity of the turquoise water and the dramatic clifftop setting of the Minack Theatre above creates one of the most visually spectacular small beach environments in Britain. The beach faces north into St Loy's Cove and receives enough wave energy to provide decent body boarding conditions without the exposure of the more Atlantic-facing north Cornish beaches. The sand at Porthcurno is composed largely of crushed shell rather than quartz, giving it the brilliant white colour and fine texture that makes it among the most photogenic of all Cornish beaches. The clarity of the water over this pale sand produces the turquoise colour that appears in photographs of the beach and that gives it its occasionally claimed resemblance to the waters of the Mediterranean, an improbable comparison for Cornwall that is nevertheless periodically justified in the conditions of a fine summer day. The Minack Theatre on the headland above the western end of the beach is one of the most extraordinary outdoor theatres in the world, its clifftop granite seating overlooking the stage with the Atlantic Ocean as a backdrop, and the combination of the beach and a performance at the Minack provides one of the most distinctive leisure experiences available in Cornwall. The Museum of Global Communications at Porthcurno documents the village's extraordinary history as the landing point for the first transatlantic telegraph cables and the nerve centre of British imperial communications from the 1870s onward, a history of world historical significance concealed in this remote Cornish valley.

Prussia Cove is a small and secretive group of coves near Praa Sands on the Lizard Peninsula in south Cornwall, a rocky inlet of considerable natural beauty whose name derives from the eighteenth-century smuggler John Carter, who controlled the cove and its trade with such authority and organisation that he styled himself the King of Prussia after Frederick the Great. Carter was one of the most celebrated and most organised of the Cornish smugglers, his operations run with a discipline and business efficiency that made him a figure of local legend and the model for the fictional smugglers of romantic tradition. The cove is accessible on foot from the South West Coast Path and by a rough track from the road above, the descent to the water requiring care but rewarding visitors with one of the most secluded and least visited sections of the south Cornish coast. The small sandy inlets between the rock platforms and the caves accessible at low water make Prussia Cove a rewarding destination for those seeking the unspoiled character of the Lizard coast away from the more accessible beaches. The musical connection of Prussia Cove has given it a more contemporary fame alongside its smuggling history. The Prussia Cove International Musicians' Seminar, founded in 1972 by the pianist Peter Frankl and subsequently developed by András Schiff and others, brings together some of the finest chamber musicians in the world for intensive rehearsal and performance sessions at the cove each spring and autumn, making this remote Cornish inlet one of the most unlikely venues in European classical music. The surrounding South Lizard coast, including the beautiful church cove at Gunwalloe and the Loe Pool at Porthleven, provides excellent coastal walking and natural interest.