Carnewas and Bedruthan Steps ( kw, Karn Havos, meaning "rock-pile of summer dwelling" and kw, Bos Rudhen, meaning "Red-one's dwelling") is a stretch of
coastline
The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in ...
located on the north Cornish coast between
Padstow
Padstow (; kw, Lannwedhenek) is a town, civil parish and fishing port on the north coast of Cornwall, England. The town is situated on the west bank of the River Camel estuary approximately northwest of Wadebridge, northwest of Bodmin and ...
and
Newquay
Newquay ( ; kw, Tewynblustri) is a town on the north coast in Cornwall, in the south west of England. It is a civil parish, seaside resort, regional centre for aerospace industries, spaceport and a fishing port on the North Atlantic coast of ...
, in
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
, United Kingdom. It is within the parish of
St Eval and is part-owned by the
National Trust
The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
.
The trust maintains a shop and café, and the cliff–top views of rocks stretching into the distance along Bedruthan beach make the area a popular attraction for tourists and painters. The property affords walks along the
coast path and the steep steps at Bedruthan allow access to a series of rocky beaches at low tide (not owned by the trust). Signs at the top of the steps down to the beaches warn visitors not to risk swimming in these waters due to heavy
rips, fast tides, and submerged rocks.
A rockfall occurred in February 2020 affecting the lower steps and the safety netting on surrounding rocks resulting in closure of the steps.
History
People have been in the area since at least the
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...
with six
barrows nearby to the north, and overlooking Bedruthan Steps is Redcliff Castle, which dates back to at least the
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...
. Redcliff Castle has three ramparts divided by two ditches, part of which have been quarried to improve the defences. Much of the internal parts of the castle have been eroded by the sea. A second castle is within a mile to the north at Park Head and two miles to the south at Griffin's Point, a third. Cliff Castles or
promontory forts are defensive structures that are thought by archaeologists to have been permanently occupied.
In 2009, a ''
menhir
A menhir (from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large human-made upright stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. They can be found ...
'' or longstone was discovered in a boundary hedge close to the coastal footpath. The stone lies on its side and is long.
Evidence of mining exists as shafts on the cliffs nearby at Trenance Point, and adits above the beach at Carnewas. Carnewas mine itself started in 1855 and followed a
lead
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
lode accessible from near the tideline at low water with lodes containing
silver
Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...
,
copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...
/
antimony
Antimony is a chemical element with the symbol Sb (from la, stibium) and atomic number 51. A lustrous gray metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (Sb2S3). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient t ...
(
Tetrahedrite
Tetrahedrite is a copper antimony sulfosalt mineral with formula: . It is the antimony endmember of the continuous solid solution series with arsenic-bearing tennantite. Pure endmembers of the series are seldom if ever seen in nature. Of the two, ...
) and
nickel
Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow ...
at a lower level.
This working ceased operation in 1863 but the workings were opened again in 1868 to extract
iron
Iron () is a chemical element with Symbol (chemistry), symbol Fe (from la, Wikt:ferrum, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 element, group 8 of the periodic table. It is, Abundanc ...
(
Hematite), closing in 1874 having produced over 6000 tons of
iron ore although between 1871 and 1874 total production was only 940 tons. Ladders and steps to the beach are thought to have been needed to reach the mine workings. The National Trust shop was originally the count house (office) of Carnewas Mine, and the cafe was one of the mine buildings.
The name Bedruthan Steps is said to be taken from a mythological giant called Bedruthan, who used the rocks (stacks) on the beach as stepping stones, and seems to be a late-19th-century invention for Victorian tourists. The first written record of the name is from the
West Briton newspaper in February 1847 and is likely to refer to one of two cliff staircases used by miners to get to the mine workings and now refers to the whole beach.
Each of the stacks has a name and from north to south they are Queen Bess, Samaritan Island, Redcove Island, Pendarves Island, and Carnewas Island. Queen Bess rock was so named as it was supposed to resemble the outline of
Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
El ...
, although the head was lost after a storm in 1981.
Samaritan Island is named after a ship the ''Good Samaritan'', which was wrecked there in October 1846 with the loss of nine lives (another source states that the wreck occurred in 1850
). A rhyme written at the time states, "The ''Good Samaritan'' came ashore, To feed the hungry and clothe the poor, With barrels of beef and bales of linen, No poor soul shall want for a shilling"
Environment
The section of coastline from Carnewas to
Stepper Point is part of the
Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
The Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty covers in Cornwall, England, UK; that is, about 27% of the total area of the county. It comprises 12 separate areas, designated under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 for ...
and subject to special landscape protection. In addition, Bedruthan Steps and Park Head is an
Site of Special Scientific Interest, designated for its
geological
Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other E ...
and
biological interest in 1951. The site was subject to a revision in 1973 and renotified in 1986. It is noted for its
slates and
fossils from the
Middle Devonian period, various
mosses, and
beetle
Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...
s. Bedruthan Steps is also a
Geological Conservation Review
The Geological Conservation Review (GCR) is produced by the UK's Joint Nature Conservation Committee and is designed to identify those sites of national and international importance needed to show all the key scientific elements of the geological ...
site because it is a ″source of rare fish specimens″, which were first reported in 1848 by W Pengelly.
;Flora
The coast here is exposed to westerly winds and the clifftops provide an exposed environment best suited to low-growing plants. Flowers to be found along the cost between
Mawgan Porth and Bedruthan include
Bird's foot trefoil,
Kidney vetch
''Anthyllis vulneraria'', the common kidneyvetch, kidney vetch or woundwort is a medicinal plant native to Europe. The name ''vulneraria'' means "wound healer".
Description
''Anthyllis vulneraria'' reaches of height. The stem is simple or more ...
,
Sheep’s-bit and
Spring squill, plus the distinctly maritime species
Sea Pink (Thrift) and
Sea Campion.
;Geology
The bedrock at Bedruthan Steps is at the northernmost extent of a series of sedimentary rocks classified as sandstone, siltstone and mudstone and known as the Bedruthan Formation. The underlying rock from Bedruthan Steps to Trevose Head is Middle Devonian slates (386–377 Mya) with
Staddon Grits to the south towards Trenance Point. The thickness of the slates have been estimated at over .
Marine erosion by the sea carrying sand and pebbles has worn away the weaker, softer rocks to leave the stacks seen today. Fossils of fish,
coral
Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and ...
s,
trilobite
Trilobites (; meaning "three lobes") are extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. Trilobites form one of the earliest-known groups of arthropods. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record defines the base of the ...
s, etc. have been found in the
Eifelian
The Eifelian is the first of two faunal stages in the Middle Devonian Epoch. It lasted from 393.3 ± 1.2 million years ago to 387.7 ± 0.8 million years ago. It was preceded by the Emsian Stage and followed by the Givetian Stage.
North American ...
slates on Samaritan and Pendarves Islands.
Few fossils are useful for dating here, but one (although considered to be problematical) ''Pteroconus mirus'' dates the formations to the Eifelian. At the end of the headland of Park Head () is a
subvolcanic rock,
Diabase.
;Dark Sky discovery site
In 2014, the area was granted "Dark Sky" status by the
Science and Technology Facilities Council
The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) is a United Kingdom government agency that carries out research in science and engineering, and funds UK research in areas including particle physics, nuclear physics, space science and astro ...
. Dark Sky discovery sites must be free from light pollution and have good views of stars and the
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. ...
, and be accessible to the public.
References
External links
Carnewas & Bedruthan Steps information at the National Trust
{{coord, 50.488, -5.03465, display=title
Beaches of Cornwall
National Trust properties in Cornwall
Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 1951
Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Cornwall
Tourist attractions in Cornwall
Dark-sky preserves in the United Kingdom
Cornish coast