Zennor Head
Zennor Head is a dramatic granite headland on the north Penwith coast of Cornwall immediately below the village of Zennor, a promontory of ancient metamorphic and igneous rock projecting into the Atlantic Ocean at the point where the moorland of the Penwith plateau meets the sea in a succession of cliff faces and rock platforms of considerable geological and scenic interest. The headland forms part of the South West Coast Path and provides some of the finest walking available on the north Penwith coast, with the full extent of the north Cornwall coast visible in both directions on clear days.
The geology of Zennor Head reflects the ancient origins of the Penwith peninsula, whose basement rocks of schist and greenstone are among the oldest exposed at the surface anywhere in Cornwall, their complex folding and metamorphism recording events that took place deep within the Earth's crust hundreds of millions of years ago. The granite that forms much of the headland was intruded into these older rocks approximately 275 million years ago and its durability has made it the dominant rock of the modern coastline, its massive jointing patterns creating the cliff faces and rock platforms visible at Zennor and throughout the Penwith coast.
The coastal walking from Zennor Head south toward Pendeen and north toward St Ives traverses some of the finest and most exposed cliff scenery on the north Cornish coast, the cliffs here rising to considerable height and the views across the Atlantic extending to the horizon in a way that emphasises the peninsula's position at the very edge of mainland Britain. The chough, a rare crow of the Celtic coastline, can be seen on the headland in small numbers and the Atlantic grey seal hauls out on the rock platforms at sea level below the cliffs.