St Loy's Cove is a small wooded valley and beach in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

St Buryan St Buryan ( kw, Pluwveryan) is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of St Buryan, Lamorna and Paul in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village of St Buryan is situated approximately west of Penzance along the B3283 tow ...

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 ...

, England, UK. It is located two miles to the south of St Buryan churchtown, and between

Penberth Penberth ( kw, Benbryhi) is a valley, coastal village and cove on the Penwith peninsula in Cornwall, England. It is approximately southwest of Penzance. Most of the village is within the parish of St Buryan and the boundary with St Levan foll ...

and

Lamorna Lamorna ( kw, Nansmornow) is a village, valley and cove in west Cornwall, England, UK. It is on the Penwith peninsula approximately south of Penzance. Lamorna became popular with the artists of the Newlyn School, including Alfred Munnings, Lau ...

. There are just a few buildings in the cove, one of which, Cove Cottage, provides bed and breakfast and a cafe. St Loy's is within the Cornwall

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is an area of countryside in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Areas are designated in recognition of thei ...

(AONB), the Boscawen SSSI (

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

) and is part of a GCR

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 a ...

site. The

South West Coast Path The South West Coast Path is England's longest waymarked long-distance footpath and a National Trail. It stretches for , running from Minehead in Somerset, along the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, to Poole Harbour in Dorset. Because it rises a ...

passes through the cove.

Geography

The stream at the bottom of the valley flows out to sea under a boulder

storm beach A storm beach is a beach affected by particularly fierce wind wave, waves, usually with a very long fetch (geography), fetch. The resultant landform is often a very steep beach (up to 45°) composed of rounded Cobble (geology), cobbles, shingle be ...

backed by soft orange–brown cliffs of

head A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple animals may ...

deposits formed by

solifluction Solifluction is a collective name for gradual processes in which a mass moves down a slope ("mass wasting") related to freeze-thaw activity. This is the standard modern meaning of solifluction, which differs from the original meaning given to it ...

when the climate was similar to that of Greenland's today. These cliffs are easily eroded and amongst the rounded boulders on the beach are irregular shaped granite stones that have fallen from the cliff.

Boscawen SSSI

The Boscawen SSSI, which encompasses the whole of the cove, "is a nationally important site for

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...

geomorphology Geomorphology (from Ancient Greek: , ', "earth"; , ', "form"; and , ', "study") is the scientific study of the origin and evolution of topographic and bathymetric features created by physical, chemical or biological processes operating at or n ...

and Quaternary

stratigraphy Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock (geology), rock layers (Stratum, strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary rock, sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Stratigrap ...

. Coastal exposures at the site show a sequence of granitic shore platform overlain in turn by raised beach deposits and head deposits".

References

External links

Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

Boscawen Geological Conservation Review Site

St Buryan Community Site

Cornwall Online Parish Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Loy's Cove Beaches of Penwith Coves of Cornwall Penwith Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Cornwall