Zennor Cliff
Zennor Cliff forms part of one of the most dramatic and wild stretches of the South West Coast Path along the north coast of Cornwall between St Ives and Zennor village, a section of coastline where the ancient granite of the Penwith Peninsula meets the full force of the Atlantic Ocean in a landscape of extraordinary geological drama and natural beauty. The cliffs here are among the most rugged and exposed on the entire Cornish coast, their faces plunging directly to the sea without the benefit of sandy beaches or sheltered coves to soften the transition between land and water. The coastal geology at Zennor is as ancient as any in England. The granite that forms the cliff faces was intruded into older metamorphic rocks during the Carboniferous period approximately 275 million years ago, and subsequent weathering and erosion by the sea have exposed the massive jointed structure of the granite in cross-section. The characteristic blockiness of the cliff faces, with their rectangular fracture patterns and occasional spectacular rock stacks, reflects the jointing geometry of the granite rather than the horizontally layered structure typical of sedimentary coastal cliffs. The walking along the coast path between St Ives and Zennor is among the finest in Cornwall, a section of approximately seven kilometres that passes through a landscape almost entirely uninhabited and largely unchanged from its appearance centuries ago. The Atlantic views to the north are open and vast, the cliffs rising and falling as the path follows the contours of the headlands, and the combination of maritime grassland, heather and bracken on the clifftops with the dark rock faces and blue-green sea below creates a colour palette of extraordinary richness in good weather. Seabirds nest on the cliff faces throughout the spring and summer breeding season, and grey seals are regularly seen in the water below the cliffs or hauled out on accessible rock platforms. Choughs, whose red bills and feet and acrobatic flight distinguish them from other corvids, are sometimes seen along this section of the Penwith coast.