Kynance Cove
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Kynance Cove ( kw, Porth Keynans, meaning ''ravine cove'') is a
cove A cove is a small type of bay or coastal inlet. Coves usually have narrow, restricted entrances, are often circular or oval, and are often situated within a larger bay. Small, narrow, sheltered bays, inlets, creeks, or recesses in a coast are o ...
on the eastern side of
Mount's Bay Mount's Bay ( kw, Baya an Garrek) is a large, sweeping bay on the English Channel coast of Cornwall, United Kingdom, stretching from the Lizard Point to Gwennap Head. In the north of the bay, near Marazion, is St Michael's Mount; the origin ...
,
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. It is situated on the
Lizard peninsula The Lizard ( kw, An Lysardh) is a peninsula in southern Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The most southerly point of the British mainland is near Lizard Point at SW 701115; Lizard village, also known as The Lizard, is the most southerl ...
approximately two miles (3 km) north of Lizard Point.Ordnance Survey,Explorer Map 103, The Lizard, Falmouth and Helston. The cove became popular in the early
Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...
, with many distinguished visitors including
Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...
and Prince Albert and the poets
Alfred Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...
and
Algernon Swinburne Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as '' Poems and Ballads'', and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition ...
. The
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
has described Kynance Cove as "one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in the South West". The South West Coast Path, which follows the coast of south west England from
Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...
to
Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...
passes by on the cliffs overlooking the cove. Kynance Cove and the surrounding coast are owned and managed 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 ...
. It is part of the West Lizard Site of Special Scientific Interest and is in 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 ...
. The Kynance Café, which opened for business in 1929, relied on spring water and on a generator for power. When the café became the property of the National Trust in 1999, the Trust renovated it and provided mains water and electricity. Access is via the South-west coastal footpath from the nearby National Trust car park.


Geography and geology

Much of the Lizard peninsula is known for its botany and geology, and about 375 million years ago the molten rock, which eventually became the Lizard, was about 10 km below the surface of the earth and under immense heat and pressure. One of the rocks ( peridotite) is rich in
magnesium Magnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg and atomic number 12. It is a shiny gray metal having a low density, low melting point and high chemical reactivity. Like the other alkaline earth metals (group 2 of the periodic ta ...
and
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 ...
, and changed through heat and pressure to
serpentinite Serpentinite is a rock composed predominantly of one or more serpentine group minerals, the name originating from the similarity of the texture of the rock to that of the skin of a snake. Serpentinite has been called ''serpentine'' or ''se ...
as it pushed upwards from the Moho, the boundary of the earth's crust and mantle. It finally reached the crust's surface, about 30° south of the equator as part of an
ocean ridge A mid-ocean ridge (MOR) is a seafloor mountain system formed by plate tectonics. It typically has a depth of about and rises about above the deepest portion of an ocean basin. This feature is where seafloor spreading takes place along a diverge ...
, in the
Rheic Ocean The Rheic Ocean was an ocean which separated two major palaeocontinents, Gondwana and Laurussia (Laurentia- Baltica-Avalonia). One of the principal oceans of the Palaeozoic, its sutures today stretch from Mexico to Turkey and its closure result ...
. Over the next 80 million years the Rheic Ocean disappeared and the mass of rock headed north crossing the equator about 250 million years ago. The rock mass, which became the Lizard peninsula, passed the
Tropic of Cancer The Tropic of Cancer, which is also referred to as the Northern Tropic, is the most northerly circle of latitude on Earth at which the Sun can be directly overhead. This occurs on the June solstice, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted tow ...
less than 100 million years ago and finally reached 50° north at about the start of the last
Ice Age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...
. There are two types of serpentine at Kynance: bastite and
tremolite Tremolite is a member of the amphibole group of silicate minerals with composition: Ca2(Mg5.0-4.5Fe2+0.0-0.5)Si8O22(OH)2. Tremolite forms by metamorphism of sediments rich in dolomite and quartz. Tremolite forms a series with actinolite and fe ...
. The rocks at the car park, cliffs to the south and the path to the cove are bastite serpentine, which is the primary serpentine on the Lizard. The rock is coarse-grained with large shiny crystals of bastite which give a flecked appearance. The islands and stacks within the cove and the valley are of tremolite serpentine which is fine-grained and banded. Tremolite is different from bastite serpentine because it was subject to higher pressure within the crust. Kynance Cove is an important site for geologists because of the exposures of the two types of ophiolitic serpentinite, together with granite and gneiss pods within the serpentine. The area has been designated as 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. There are a number of small tidal islands and stacks within Kynance Cove which were formed because the tremolite serpentine was broken into blocks and invaded by other types of rock, including
granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...
and
basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90 ...
. These softer rocks were eroded by the sea and the four largest stacks from left to right are The Bishop, Gull Rock, Asparagus Island and Steeple Rock. It was thought that Asparagus Island, which is cut off on almost every high tide, was connected to the mainland by a sand
tombolo A tombolo is a sandy or shingle isthmus. A tombolo, from the Italian ', meaning 'pillow' or 'cushion', and sometimes translated incorrectly as ''ayre'' (an ayre is a shingle beach of any kind), is a deposition landform by which an island becom ...
. The winter storms washed the sand away to reveal a rocky ridge, probably formed more than 100,000 years ago when sea levels were higher. At about half-tide a snorting can be heard – the sound of the ''Devil's bellows'' a blowhole on Asparagus Island which was caused by the sea tunnelling along a fault. A second blowhole, the Post Office is so named because there is enough suction to post a letter in it.


Wildlife

Kynance Cove was the venue for the first British record of Porter's rustic (''Athetis hospes''), a rare migrant moth from southern Europe.


Popular culture

Kynance Cove features in the 2015 production of Agatha Christie’s ''
And Then There Were None ''And Then There Were None'' is a mystery novel by the English writer Agatha Christie, described by her as the most difficult of her books to write. It was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1939, as ...
'', a
period drama A historical drama (also period drama, costume drama, and period piece) is a work set in a past time period, usually used in the context of film and television. Historical drama includes historical fiction and romances, adventure films, and swas ...
of three daily episodes first broadcast on 26 December 2015. It is also used as a location for the TV series
Poldark (2015 TV series) ''Poldark'' is a British historical drama television series based on the novels of the same title by Winston Graham and starring Aidan Turner in the lead role. The book series is 12 novels long but the TV series only portrays the first seven ...
, as Ross Poldark’s beloved Nampara, and in the episode ''The Devil's Foot'' from '' The Return of Sherlock Holmes''.


References

{{Cornwall, state=collapsed Beaches of Cornwall Blowholes Geology of Cornwall Lizard Peninsula National Trust properties in Cornwall Coves of Cornwall