The beach at Porthcothan is backed by dunes and is popular
with families, although care needs to be taken due to the strength of the
currents. At low tide, when the beach expands
in size considerably, the tide comes in rapidly. Facilities include a store, a car park with
public toilets, and a surf school.
Smuggling used to be rife here, and a reminder of those days remains in
the form of Will’s Rock, a rock stack at the end of one of the headlands
overlooking the beach. The story goes
that smugglers left a man from the Revenue on the rock to drown in the rising
tide. However the man, Will, survived to
tell the tale. On the other side of the
beach are some double rock stacks. One
of these, known as Jan Leverton’s Island (I have been unable to find out why –
answers on a postcard) used to be a single large rock with a pair of “windows” going through it, but the section
containing the windows was knocked out by storm waves, leaving a stack on
either side. There is also a collapsed
cave with openings onto the beach and the end of the headland, big enough to
scramble through at low tide. Nearby Park Head is the site of an Iron Age
fort. Fans of Poldark may recognise the
beach at Porthcothan, since it was used in the BBC production to represent
Nampara Cove near Ross Poldark’s home.
There has been a battle brewing over the management of the
beach at Porthcothan. Apparently in late
2014 some locals rerouted a stream in an attempt to protect the Porthcothan
sand dunes. A noble cause one would
suppose, but unfortunately they neglected to get permission from the Council or
the Marine Management Organisation. This
infuriated some of the other residents, who wanted to enlist the help of
experts before wading in and taking action to manage the site. A salutary lesson for anyone tempted to take
such matters into their own hands.
Map of the area.
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| Porthcothan Beach - geograph.org.uk - 314462. Photo by Tony Atkin, via Wikimedia Commons. |
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