South Pier is located in

Penzance Penzance ( ; ) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is the westernmost major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situated in the ...

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

, England. The original pier predated 1512, but was rebuilt in the 18th century. The pier is a Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

History

The original South Pier was built before 1512, the year that the current harbour in

was built. It was believed to have been up to long. The pier was rebuilt in the 18th century, with a small extension built between 1785 and 1787. It was one of the largest

maritime engineering Offshore construction is the installation of structures and facilities in a marine environment, usually for the production and transmission of electricity, oil, gas and other resources. It is also called maritime engineering. Construction a ...

projects in 18th century Cornwall. The pier was further extended in 1812, at a cost of £6,900, and later between 1853 and 1855, it was extended again. At this time, a

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lens (optics), lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Ligh ...

was added to the end of the pier, to help navigation for boats around the nearby

Mount's Bay Mount's Bay () is a bay on the English Channel coast of Cornwall, England, stretching from the Lizard Point, Cornwall, Lizard Point to Gwennap Head. In the north of the bay, near Marazion, is St Michael's Mount; the origin of name of the bay. ...

. The lighthouse is tall, and its light is around above the

high water High Water or Highwater may refer to: * High water, the state of tide when the water rises to its highest level. Film and television * Highwater (film), ''Highwater'' (film), a 2008 documentary * ''Step Up: High Water'', a web television series * ...

level. South Pier is built of

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, 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 coo ...

and

elvan Elvan is a name used in Cornwall and Devon for the native varieties of quartz-porphyry. They are dispersed irregularly in the Devonian series of rocks and some of them make very fine building stones (e.g. Pentewan stone, Polyphant stone and Cat ...

. In 2003, South Pier became a

. In 2010, its status was upgraded from Grade II to Grade II*, which affected proposed redevelopment work on the harbour in order to provide a ferry link from there to the

Isles of Scilly The Isles of Scilly ( ; ) are a small archipelago off the southwestern tip of Cornwall, England. One of the islands, St Agnes, Isles of Scilly, St Agnes, is over farther south than the most southerly point of the Great Britain, British mainla ...

References

{{reflist Grade II* listed buildings in Cornwall Grade II* listed piers Buildings and structures in Penzance Piers in Cornwall