Whitesand Bay ( kw, Porth Senan, meaning ''cove at Sennen'') is a wide sandy bay near

Land's End Land's End ( kw, Penn an Wlas or ''Pedn an Wlas'') is a headland and tourist and holiday complex in western Cornwall, England, on the Penwith peninsula about west-south-west of Penzance at the western end of the A30 road. To the east of it is ...

in west Cornwall, England,

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. It stretches for one mile between the headlands of Pedn-mên-du and Aire Point. and contains the village of

Sennen Cove Sennen Cove ( kw, Porthsenen) () is a small coastal village in the parish of Sennen in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. According to the Penwith District Council, the population of this settlement was estimated at 180 persons in 2000. The S ...

.Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 203 ''Land's End'' It is also a landing point for the

Atlantic Crossing 1 Atlantic Crossing 1 (AC-1) is an optical submarine telecommunications cable system linking the United States and three European countries. It transports speech and data traffic between the U.S., the U.K., the Netherlands and Germany. It is one of ...

international telecommunications cable. Sennen Cove beach - geograph

Whitesand Bay beach is popular with

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 suitabl ...

. At high tide, the beach is divided in two: Sennen Cove beach to the south (more popular for its size, facilities and surf schools), and Gwynver beach to the north (popular for its typically better surfing waves and walking distance of Trevedra Farm campsite). At the south end, at Sennen Cove, there are toilet facilities, a surf shop, a restaurant, and two car parks, one in a large field above the cliff, and another beside the beach. Dogs are banned on the beach from Easter Day to 1 October every year. 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 along the dunes behind the beach.

History

Perkin Warbeck Perkin Warbeck ( 1474 – 23 November 1499) was a pretender to the English throne claiming to be Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, who was the second son of Edward IV and one of the so-called "Princes in the Tower". Richard, were he alive, ...

landed here at the start of the

Second Cornish Uprising of 1497 The Second Cornish uprising occurred in September 1497 when the pretender to the throne Perkin Warbeck landed at Whitesand Bay (Cornwall), Whitesand Bay, near Land's End, on 7 September with just 120 men in two ships. Warbeck had seen the potent ...

. The bay lends its name to the

Bay class frigate The Bay class was a class of 26 anti-aircraft (A/A) frigates built for the Royal Navy under the 1943 War Emergency Programme during World War II (one of which was cancelled and six completed as despatch vessels or survey ships). They were based ...

HMS ''Whitesand Bay''..

Natural history

The west facing bay is backed by a dune system which has developed from a limited supply of sand trapped within the shelter of the headlands, Pedn-mên-du (in the south) and Aire Point. The dunes contain the only British population of the

shield bug The Pentatomoidea are a superfamily of insects in the Heteroptera suborder of the Hemiptera order. As Hemiptera, they share a common arrangement of sucking mouthparts. The roughly 7000 species under Pentatomoidea are divided into 21 families (1 ...

Geotomus punctulatus ''Geotomus punctulatus'', also known as the Cornish shieldbug, is a species of burrowing bug in the family Cydnidae, found in Asia and Europe. Description A small black shieldbug, 3.5 mm to 4.5 mm in length, with sparse, long hairs ...

'' which was first recorded here in 1864. ''G. punctulatus'' is a southern European species and associated with sparsely vegetated areas of loose sand and feeds on lady's bedstraw ''(

Galium verum ''Galium verum'' (lady's bedstraw or yellow bedstraw) is a herbaceous perennial plant of the family Rubiaceae. It is widespread across most of Europe, North Africa, and temperate Asia from Israel, Lebanon and Turkey to Japan and Kamchatka. It is ...

)''. Another rarity is ''Emblethis griseus'' a seed-eating bug associated with marram grass (''

Ammophila arenaria ''Ammophila arenaria'' is a species of grass in the family Poaceae. It is known by the common names marram grass and European beachgrass. It is one of two species of the genus ''Ammophila (Poaceae), Ammophila''. It is native to the coastlines of ...

''), common stork’s-bill (''

Erodium cicutarium ''Erodium cicutarium'', also known as common stork's-bill, redstem filaree, redstem stork's bill or pinweed, is a herbaceous annual plant, annual – or in warm climates, biennial plant, biennial – member of the family Geraniaceae of flowering ...

''), spurges (''

Euphorbia ''Euphorbia'' is a very large and diverse genus of flowering plants, commonly called spurge, in the family Euphorbiaceae. "Euphorbia" is sometimes used in ordinary English to collectively refer to all members of Euphorbiaceae (in deference to t ...

'' species) and sparse grassland. Never numerous here, it is also recorded in the

Isles of Scilly The Isles of Scilly (; kw, Syllan, ', or ) is an archipelago off the southwestern tip of Cornwall, England. One of the islands, St Agnes, is the most southerly point in Britain, being over further south than the most southerly point of the ...

and

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

References

{{Cornwall, state=collapsed Bays of Cornwall Beaches of Cornwall Dunes of England Penwith