Hawker's Cove is a small coastal settlement in north

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, United Kingdom. It is situated one-and-a-half miles (2 kilometres) north of

Padstow Padstow (; kw, Lannwedhenek) is a town, civil parishes in England, 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, ...

on the west side of the River Camel estuary .Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 200 ''Newquay & Bodmin'' The hamlet consists of two terraces of cottages, a few detached dwellings, a coastguard station and a boathouse with a

slipway A slipway, also known as boat ramp or launch or boat deployer, is a ramp on the shore by which ships or boats can be moved to and from the water. They are used for building and repairing ships and boats, and for launching and retrieving small ...

which once housed the

Padstow lifeboat Padstow Lifeboat Station is at Trevose Head west of Padstow, in Cornwall. It is run by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), and the current lifeboat is a Tamar class boat called ''Spirit of Padstow''. History * 4 January 1827 - T ...

. The actor

Edward Woodward Edward Albert Arthur Woodward, OBE (1 June 1930 – 16 November 2009) was an English actor and singer. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he began his career on stage. Throughout his career, he appeared in productions ...

lived there until his death in 2009. The first lifeboat, built by the Padstow Harbour Association, was kept at Hawker's Cove and in 1855 the Padstow branch of the

RNLI The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is the largest charity that saves lives at sea around the coasts of the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man, as well as on some inland waterways. It i ...

was formed. A new boathouse with a roller slipway was built in 1931. By the 1960s,

silting Siltation, is water pollution caused by particulate terrestrial clastic material, with a particle size dominated by silt or clay. It refers both to the increased concentration of suspended sediments and to the increased accumulation (temporary or ...

was becoming a problem and in October 1967 the Padstow lifeboat relocated to a new boathouse and slipway at

Trevose Head Trevose Head ( kw, Penn Trenfos, meaning ''farm of the wall's headland'') () is a headland on the Atlantic coast of north Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated approximately west of Padstow. The South West Coast Path runs around the whole pro ...

, a few miles to the west. Facilities at Hawkers Cove are limited, although there is now a (tiny) tea garden at the back of the two-hundred-year-old ‘Coastguard Houses’, approximately 150m from the slipway at the beach. Evidence has been found of occupation during 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 pri ...

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 mostly appl ...

and

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

periods, and the use of Harbour Cove for trading vessels. Road access to Hawker's Cove is via a lane which leads from the Padstow-

St Merryn St Merryn ( kw, S. Meryn) is a civil parish and village in north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is about south of the fishing port of Padstow and northeast of the coastal resort of Newquay. The village has a primary school, a veterinar ...

road through

Crugmeer Crugmeer ( kw, Krugmeur, ''great barrow'') is a hamlet in north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated one-and-a-half miles (2 kilometres) from Padstow to the west of the River Camel estuary. The hamlet consists of half-a-dozen house ...

to Lellizzick . As traffic is discouraged beyond Lellizzick, motorists are directed to a nearby carpark from where a track leads to the coastpath at

Tregirls beach Tregirls ( kw, Tregryllas, meaning ''farmstead of the ruins of an ancient dwelling'') is a farmstead in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated approximately half-a-mile (1 km) north of Padstow. The settlement consists of a farm and conve ...

Geography

Between Padstow and Hawker's Cove 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 Gun Point, site of an abandoned gun emplacement and fortifications dating back to the

Napoleonic War The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

. This stretch of path has fairly easy gradients and is well-surfaced, but beyond Hawker's Cove it steepens on the climb up to Stepper Point. There are no toilets or other public facilities nearby. The

ebb tide Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide tables can ...

uncovers a wide sandy beach which, at low water, extends across the estuary mouth towards Trebetherick Point. But at high water, the beach is submerged and the

sand bank In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body of water to near the surface. It o ...

is the notorious

Doom Bar The Doom Bar (previously known as Dunbar sands, Dune-bar, and similar names) is a sandbar at the mouth of the estuary of the River Camel, where it meets the Celtic Sea on the north coast of Cornwall, England. Like two other permanent sandbanks ...

which presents a hazard to shipping.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Cornwall Populated coastal places in Cornwall