Penzance 1675
St Ives 1900
Newlyn 1900
Penzance Market 1882
Penzance 1675
Exposed
Civil Defence
Penzance School of Art Invitation
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Penzance 1675

A section of the first Road Maps of Britain, surveyed and prepared by John Ogilby in 1675.These surveys were made with 'Wheel Dimensurator' and an early theodolite. In that way a fairly accurate route could be recorded, with gradients. Streams, bridges and fords were recorded. This was to set out the Post Roads. Having crossed the sands below Gulval with the actual coast to the North side of the 'road', the coaches go through Chyandour and up through Penzance, passing a road which continues North, and then on to the position of the Market House, where the road breaks off through Alverton. Just what is shown around St Mary's Church, I have not yet fathomed. The road continues onwards to Newlyn, past 'Laregon'. There are houses at Treveneth. The numbers on the map are distances from Charing Cross. The whole of this seafront has altered dramatically; This is an exploration of as much written record as I can find.
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The above is written in response to rubbish which is written and found on the Net, including comments like 'Marazion is the oldest Roman town and named Ictis', as well as a number of assertions that Diodorus 'mistook Ictis for Vectis'. Diodorus was rather more intelligent than to make such basic linguistic and geographical mistake, let alone the logistics of getting ingot laden carts all the way to the Isle of Wight by some non-existent causeway, passing havens along the way. The Cornish are brighter than that, and Diodorus noted that fact.
 
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In 1883, George Clement Boase writes On the Western Green there were no houses west of The Folly. The portion of the Promenade to the west of the Baths was not as much dreamt of. In its place were low grassy towans, extending from the Folly [the area of land given over for public enjoyment] to Lariggan River. The only walk was a rope walk by the side of the road. These Towans were fine playing grounds and were much appreciated by all the schoolboys. The towans reached to high water mark at a spot considerably seaward of the front of The present Promenade and served to prevent the inroads of the sea. The first announcement of the destruction of these towans that I remember was when they were cut up to lay foundations for the engine house, the counting house and the Smith's shop for the Wherry Mine, in 1836 on the site of the present Wherrytown, the houses of which are to a great extent built from the stone of the old engine house, chimney stack and their surroundings.
So, there you have it, the pressure has to be dispersed somewhere. That is why ancient submerged forests get exposed.
 
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To add to the Marazion story. The station was originally Marazion Road in 1852, renamed in 1896. The station is built on land reclaimed from marshes. In 1852, the marshes at that point ran right down to the sea edge. A series of drains, culverts and pipes were run under the embankments.
 
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Adding this with the information from the 1851 map of Long Rock and the Wheal Darlington plan nearly completes this exploration of the coastline edge and the changes over the years. Next, a look at Polwhele of 1814.
 
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Polwhele says 'The sea has been sensibly [it is noticable to the observer's senses] encroaching upon the land, and we feel its violence at present. Yet let us step back into former times. Leland tells us 'In the bay betwyxt the Mont and Pensants be fownde neere the low water marke rootes of trees yn divers places ... there has been much land devoured of the sea betwixt Pensandes and Mousehole'. In 1414 Bishop Stafford says 'as the chapel of Mosel [Mousehole], formerly built in honour of The Blessed Virgin, and situated near a port or creek of the sea, is now by the force of the sea entirely thrown down and demolished; which while it stood was a mark to seamen ... as the revenues of the said chapel are by no means sufficient to repair, or more truly to rebuild the same ...' He continues that as recompense for not insisting a charitable donation to the church, the local people shall apply themselves to re-building and repair the Quay of Mousehole and he also sent an instruction that 'the Key or Jetty at Newlyn in the parish of Paul' be also repaired. Polwhele continues 'We also have seen the sea before, encroaching so much upon the land of the South East of Marazion as to insulate [isolate, make an island] by 100 yards in breadth, since the days of Leland. On the east side of Marazion, many yards in the breadth of the cliff have been washed away within 24 years past, about half a mile in length. About 70 or 80 years ago, a spring tide was driven by a terrible hurricane with such a force upon the town itself, as to beat down a whole row of houses within in it and to carry them, with their foundations, into the sea. It was due to the endowment of the vicar of St Hilary in 1313 that allowed the burials from Marazion to be undertaken in St Hilary, because of the influx of the sea, which may hinder ceremony, or even preventing the passing to The mount or to Marazion. Polwhele relates of half way between 'Chyendower and Marazion in the road from Penzance to the east, about 300 yards below high water
mark were seen a few years agao by Mr Giddy upon an extraordinary recession of the tide, several stumps of trees in their native soil, with the roots shooting out of them, and with the stems apparently cut off. These trees had been felled, in apprehension of the encroachments.'

Polwhele continues 'Betwixt Newlyn and Penzance, on the Penzance side of the brook parting Maddern from Paul parish, were some fields within memory that are now covered with the sea. There were also five or six houses upon the beach west of the pier, which in memory have been undermined and demolished by the sea.' He relates of Lanisley, 'half of which is now buried in the sea.' He then discusses the townlet that was in Leland's time 'defaced and lying under the water'. He makes plain the charter of Edward the Confessor, where St Michael's Mount is described 'St Michael near to the sea'. From the Notitae Monasticum 'Sanctum Michaelens qui est justa mere'.

There is one defining of a distance. Worcester informs 'The space of Ground upon St Michael's Mount is 200 cubits surrounded on all sides by the ocean at flood tide. It would appear then that at ebb tide the flats surrounding the Mount were extensive; He states that the Mount was at some time originally enclosed with a very thick wood, distant from the ocean six miles, affording the finest shelter for wild beasts.'

At the time of Polwhele there was an assertion by the people of Penzance that 'persons could once walk directly from The Mount to Newlyn, by crossing the body of the Bay on foot in a line obliquely from North east to South west.
 
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Polwhele refers again to the writings of Worcester, Solinus and Strabo. Then to Dr Borlase who speaks of the inundation of 1014, that in the reign of Edward I, the inundation of Ireland in 830. It appears that Henry the First was made aware of some concerns over the state of the Isles of Scilly as far as the sea was concerned. Robert, Earl of Montaign states in 1070 remarks ‘the monks serving the holy church of St Michael of the Danger of the Sea’ (Notitae Monasticum). A rather strange phrase to apply. But it stuck.

Whilst much can now be seen to have been the result of isostatic rebound, that was a concept unknown then, the inundation of 1014 is a different matter, as are other more widespread coastal floods. Without talk of a storm or of foul weather. This must be the result of a Continental Shelf movement or of an Eathquake. The latter is traceable from other records. There is an account of 1014 written by Malmsbury describing ‘that the sea flood which the Greeks call Euripus and we call Ledo, swelled out in so wonderful a manner, that no memory of man can equal it; covering townsat the distance of many miles and drowning the intercepted inhabitants of them. Another such event took place in 1099. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle ‘This year eke on St Martin’s mass Day [11th November] sprang up so much a sea flood and so myckle harm did, no man minded that it ever did before; and there was this ylk day a New Moon. The fact of the 1014 event not being bracketed with the 1099 event indicates that the second was far worse than the first.

Polwhele writes that Dr Borlase was of the opinion, after inspecting submerged hedges and cottages on the Isles of Scilly that at least 16 feet of water had progressed since the date of building and of occupation. Of course, at that time, they had two choices, either the land suddenly dropped into the sea, or the sea had risen dramatically and stayed at that height. Polwhele then postulates a third possibilty, but without actual cause, and that is that gradual encroachment, and that the ground is sinking from beneath our feet now. That is a profound thought in the light of limited knowledge of the greater forces that are at play in our world. But he retains a consideration of the violent. His other thoughts extend to a moving globe and a moving water from America.

He adds that the trunks which were observed by Mr Giddy were in their natural ground, they were vertical but deliberately cut, he considered the soil in which they were either planted or seeded would have been a minimum of twelve feet of change in level. This can be dated and it will indicate coastal changes.
 
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For notes [1817] on the origins of The Ridge, which later was built as The Causeway, please see 'Marazion 1820'.
 
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For details on the Sea and its anomolies and conditions,
Violent Storms and Tsunamis
see 'St Michel's Mount 1830'
 

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