Penzance Seafront, before The Promenade.
This drawing by Thomas Creswick, engraved by Jackson, is printed in 1842 in An Illustrated Itinerary of The County of Cornwall by Cyrus Redding. The book has 118 illustrations by various artists, mostly by GF Sargent and T Creswick. There is no statement of having been commissioned for the book. I would estimate the date of this drawing to be 1839. It shows St Mary's Church rising above South Terrace. South Terrace was completed in around 1815, and gas lamps installed in Penzance in 1831. Another drawing by T Creswick is that of The Market House, completed in 1837. The seafront engraving, though not a masterpiece, is well enough observed to indicate to me that this is the scene as viewed by the artist in around 1839. First of note is the wide sandy shore, on which is a cart and people on a quiet walk. Regent Terrace was completed in 1839, and shows here rising above what appears to be a sloping piece of land, which forms a small inlet, or cove. This would indicate to me more of a justification for the name Sandy Cove in this area, than any other reason I have seen. It also gives a direct reason as to the layout and positioning of South Terrace, which has always been a puzzle not satisfactorily answered before. The area was obviously later filled. So here we have a not so clean swept curve of the Promenade as was to follow, but this is undeniably the germ of the idea in formation. The angle of the drawing indicates to me that there was a continuation of the sand dunes out over the present day rocky shelf, upon which the artist stood.
