Polzeath (; kw, Polsegh, meaning ''dry creek'') is a small

seaside resort A seaside resort is a resort town, town, village, or hotel that serves as a Resort, vacation resort and is located on a coast. Sometimes the concept includes an aspect of official accreditation based on the satisfaction of certain requirements, suc ...

village 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 Minver St Minver ( kw, Sen Menvra) is the name of an ecclesiastical parish, a civil parish and a village in north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The civil parish of St Minver is in Bodmin Registration District and is nominally divided into St Min ...

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 approximately north west of

Wadebridge Wadebridge (; kw, Ponswad) is a town and civil parish in north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The town straddles the River Camel upstream from Padstow.Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 200 ''Newquay & Bodmin'' The permanent populat ...

on the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

coast.Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 200 ''Newquay & Bodmin'' Polzeath has a sandy beach and is popular with holiday-makers and

surfers Surfing is a surface water sport in which an individual, a surfer (or two in tandem surfing), uses a board to ride on the forward section, or face, of a moving wave of water, which usually carries the surfer towards the shore. Waves suitable ...

. The beach is wide and extends from the seafront at

low water 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 ca ...

; however, most of the sand is submerged at high water. At exceptionally high

spring tides 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 ca ...

the sea floods the car park at the top of the beach. Polzeath beach is patrolled by lifeguards during the summer and is described on 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 ...

website as "a wide, flat beach with some shelter from winds, it sees good quality surf and is quite often extremely crowded". Dolphins may sometimes be spotted in the bay and the coastline north of Polzeath is a good area for seeing many types of birds including

corn bunting The corn bunting (''Emberiza calandra'') is a passerine bird in the bunting family Emberizidae, a group now separated by most modern authors from the finches, Fringillidae. This is a large bunting with heavily streaked buff-brown plumage. The se ...

s and

puffin Puffins are any of three species of small alcids (auks) in the bird genus ''Fratercula''. These are pelagic seabirds that feed primarily by diving in the water. They breed in large colonies on coastal cliffs or offshore islands, nesting in crev ...

s. The main street runs along the seafront and has a parade of shops catering for holidaymakers and residents. There are pubs, cafés, restaurants, a caravan site and several camping sites in the immediate area. The road rises up steep hills at both ends of the seafront, towards the village of

Trebetherick Trebetherick ( kw, Trebedrek) is a village on the north coast of Cornwall. It is situated on the east side of the River Camel estuary approximately six miles (10 km) north of Wadebridge and half a mile (800 metres) south of Polzeath.Ordn ...

to the southwest and New Polzeath to the northeast. Looking back towards Polzeath

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 ...

runs from Daymer Bay in the South through Polzeath and up to Pentire Head in the North.

Geography

The catchment surrounding Polzeath is approximately 40,900 hectares and is drained by several streams. The Polzeath Brook stream rises near

to the east, and with several tributaries drains farmland before flowing through the middle of the Valley Caravan Park campsite and into the sea across Polzeath beach. The Trenant Stream is 900m long and also crosses the beach, this time entering from the north east corner. There is also a small stream one and a half kilometres long, which flows onto Pentireglaze beach (also known as ''Baby Bay'') which is at the northern end of Polzeath beach but is separated from it at high tide by Slipper Point. Shilla Mill at the edge of Polzeath, stands at the confluence of the streams. Built around 1590 it ceased working as a mill in 1885 and was converted into a house.

History

In 1911 a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

chapel was built on the road towards Trebetherick at Chapel Corner. The original building was demolished in 1932 when the village street was widened and a new chapel was opened on 15 April 1933. Since 2006 the chapel has been called the Tubestation and is an active church with services every Sunday. The rest of the week it is a surfers cafe. Until 1934 the main street through the village crossed the stream by means of a

ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

and a footbridge was provided for pedestrians although this was sometimes washed away by winter storms. For vehicles the road surface stopped short of the ford and cars splashed through the water on a sandy area occasionally causing vehicles to become stuck in the sand. In 1934 the current road bridge was built with a low wall separating the road from the sandy beach. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

the beach would, alongside other beaches in Cornwall, have barbed wire on it in preparation for a German naval invasion. The winter storms of 2014 changed the topography of the beach creating a sand bar up to 1m high located at approximately the high tide mark, a feature that was not previously recorded. This was gradually washed away so that by 2019 the beach had returned to the even slope visible in pictures up to 2014.

Economy

Tourism developed in the 19th and 20th centuries to be the most significant part of the local economy. UK Prime minister

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...

and his wife holidayed there from 2010 to 2015. Bathing water quality is measured at Polzeath by the Environment Agency with measurements being taken between May and September each year. The quality was rated as "excellent" in 2020 based on measurements taken between 2016 and 2019.

Literary associations

Polzeath was a favourite haunt of the poet laureate,

Sir John Betjeman Sir John Betjeman (; 28 August 190619 May 1984) was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture, ...

, and is celebrated in some of his verse. Another poet, Laurence Binyon, wrote the

Remembrance Day Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day owing to the tradition of wearing a remembrance poppy) is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth member states since the end of the First World War to honour armed forces members who have died in t ...

ode ''

For the Fallen "For the Fallen" is a poem written by Laurence Binyon. It was first published in ''The Times'' in September 1914. Over time, the third and fourth stanzas of the poem (usually now just the fourth) have been claimed as a tribute to all casualties ...

'' in 1914 while sitting on

The Rumps The Rumps ( kw, Din Pentir, meaning ''fort at Pentire'') () is a twin-headland promontory at the north-east corner of Pentire Head in north Cornwall, United Kingdom. The promontory is formed from hard basaltic rock (see also Geology of Cornw ...

, Polzeath (or "Polseath" as it was called), during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. In the first of

Enid Blyton Enid Mary Blyton (11 August 1897 – 28 November 1968) was an English children's writer, whose books have been worldwide bestsellers since the 1930s, selling more than 600 million copies. Her books are still enormously popular and have be ...

's '' Famous Five'' novels, the eponymous children express disappointment that their holiday will not be spent at Polzeath as usual. The cartoonist

Posy Simmonds Rosemary Elizabeth "Posy" Simmonds MBE, FRSL (born 9 August 1945) is a British newspaper cartoonist, and writer and illustrator of both children's books and graphic novels. She is best known for her long association with ''The Guardian'', for wh ...

created a fictitious place in Cornwall called "Tresoddit". When the BBC made the short film ''Tresoddit for Easter'' in 1991, it was filmed in and around Polzeath. The BBC adaptation of Winston Graham's

Poldark ''Poldark'' is a series of historical novels by Winston Graham, published from 1945 to 1953 and continued from 1973 to 2002. The first novel, '' Ross Poldark'', was named for the protagonist of the series. The novel series was adapted twice ...

series of books filmed some scenes at Pentireglaze. In his book ''Poldark's Cornwall'' Graham described this as "an area which could hardly have changed in a century".

Notable people

Edgar Anstey Edgar Anstey (16 February 1907 in Watford, Hertfordshire, England – 26 September 1987 in London, England), was a leading British documentary film-maker. Anstey was educated at Watford Grammar School for Boys and Birkbeck College. He spen ...

(1917-2009),

Civil Service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

lived in Polzeath from 1977 and died there.

References

External links

*
Local government census report, 2004

Cornwall Record Office Online Catalogue for Polzeath
{{authority control Villages in Cornwall Beaches of Cornwall Seaside resorts in Cornwall Populated coastal places in Cornwall