Penhallick Wharf is a disused coastal

loading dock A loading dock or loading bay is an area of a building where goods vehicles (usually road or rail) are loaded and unloaded. They are commonly found on commercial and industrial buildings, and warehouses in particular. Loading docks may be exterio ...

between

Tintagel Castle Tintagel Castle ( kw, Dintagel) is a medieval fortification located on the peninsula of Tintagel Island adjacent to the village of Tintagel (Trevena), North Cornwall in the United Kingdom. The site was possibly occupied in the Romano-British pe ...

and

Trebarwith Strand Trebarwith Strand ( kw, Trebervedh Sian; locally sometimes shortened to ''The Strand'') is a section of coastline located near the coastal settlement of Trebarwith on the north coast of Cornwall, England, UK, south of Tintagel. It has 800m of san ...

on the north coast of

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 ...

South West England South West England, or the South West of England, is one of nine official regions of England. It consists of the counties of Bristol, Cornwall (including the Isles of Scilly), Dorset, Devon, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. Cities and ...

. The wharf served the Tintagel Slate Quarries, particularly those without easy access to the loading beach at

Tintagel Haven Tintagel Haven also known as Castle Cove is a small beach on the north side of Tintagel Island on the north coast of Cornwall, South West England. Slate from Tintagel's coastal quarries was brought by donkey to the cliffs above Tintagel Haven. ...

. These include Caroline,

Dria Diondria Elaine Thornton (née Thomas) (born October 7, 1981) is an American singer-songwriter born in Houston, Texas. Early life Thomas was born in Houston, Texas, United States, and raised in Fullerton, California. Her father was a public ...

, Bagalow and possibly Lambshouse and Gull Point quarries.«Coastal Slate Quarries – Tintagel to Trebarwith” (1990) Adam Sharpe, CAU archaeological survey for the National Trust. ISBN 1 871162 95 5 With no harbours between Boscastle 3.6 miles (5.8 km) to the north and

Port Gaverne Port Gaverne is a hamlet on the north coast of Cornwall, England, UK, about east of Port Isaac and part of St Endellion parish. Although it is a geographically discrete hamlet, some consider it as part of the larger village of Port Isaac locat ...

6.3 m (10 km) to the south, there was a shortage of landing points on this stretch of coastline. Before the railway reached Camelford and Delabole in the 1890s, the only way for slate to be transported was by sea.

Location

The wharf consisted of a

revetted A revetment in stream restoration, river engineering or coastal engineering is a facing of impact-resistant material (such as stone, concrete, sandbags, or wooden piles) applied to a bank or wall in order to absorb the energy of incoming water an ...

stone platform on the south side of Penhallick Point, just north of Dria quarry. It was accessed by a zigzag trackway that can still be seen from 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 ...

above Dria Cove.

History

The wharf predates the 1890s arrival of the railway and was already incomplete by 1884. The 1907 OS map shows a projecting wharf made from revetted stone, but which had already fallen into disuse.«Coastal Slate Quarries – Tintagel to Trebarwith” (1990) Adam Sharpe, CAU archaeological survey for the National Trust. ISBN 1 871162 95 5 The projecting stone wharf stood 115ft (35 m) above the sea but has since completely disappeared.

Use as a loading wharf

There are remains of a plinth on which slate was stored prior to shipping. Penhallick will most likely have had a loading crane, which would have winched slate onto ships berthed alongside the wharf.

References

{{reflist Ports and harbours of Cornwall Tintagel