Penzance is a town, civil parish, and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, England, UK. Granted various Royal Charters from 1512 onwards and incorporated in 1614, it has a population of 20,255 people and is currently Penwith’s principal town.
Penzance is in Cornwall. It is a market town and port with a varied and interesting history, famous for its association with Gilbert and Sullivan opera ‘The Pirates of Penzance’. Penzance is an ideal base for exploring the Penwith area of Cornwall and is increasingly attracting those interested in ‘Cultural Tourism’ because of its long association with the arts. Penzance is also the home of the major links to and from the Isles of Scilly via Helicopter service and ferry.
Situated in the shelter of Mount’s Bay, the town faces south-east onto the English Channel, is bordered to the west by the fishing port of Newlyn and to the east by the civil parish of Ludgvan. The town’s location gives it a temperate climate that makes it warmer than most of the rest of Britain.
Penzance and the surrounding area are well served by local bus services. More information is available from the First Bus Cornwall . Note that Sunday services can be quite limited. Routes catering tourists will often only run in the summer months.
See entry on Newlyn/Mousehole - villages 2-4 miles away on Mount’s Bay, The Western Greyhound (formally Sunset) Bus route to St Ives is very picturesque and stops at Zennor on the way. Grand coastal and moorland scenery all the way! Trips to the Isles of Scilly via ship (The Scillonian III), helicopter (the heliport is near Tescos) and fixed-wing aircraft (from Land’s End Airport). Mini buses run from Penzance station to the heliport and airport.
Fishing and sailing trips from the harbour. Bus service to Land’s End. Fishermen’s Memorial statue - Newlyn Promenade. First’s 300 service is an open-topped double-decker tourist bus that travels around Penwith, from Penzance to Land’s End via Mousehole and Newlyn and then back to Penzance via Cape Cornwall, Pendeen and Zennor.
Penzance is located approximately 5 miles (8 kilometres) from the end of the A30 road and 286 miles (460 km) or 5 hours by car from London. Penzance railway station is situated at the bottom of Market Jew Street and close to the harbour. It is the western terminus of the Cornish Main Line which runs above the beach to Marazion, affording passengers good views of St. Michael’s Mount and Mount’s Bay.
Most services are operated by First Great Western, both local services to St Erth, St Ives, Hayle, Camborne, Redruth, and Truro, and direct trains linking Penzance with Plymouth, Exeter St Davids, Bristol Temple Meads, Reading and London Paddington. The Night Riviera train offers an overnight sleeping car service to and from Reading and London. Journey time to Plymouth is typically under 2 hours; to Bristol around 4 hours, and London less than 5½ hours.
CrossCountry run a small number of services (departing in the morning, returning in the evening) via Bristol and Birmingham New Street to Glasgow Central via Preston and Carlisle, also to Dundee via Leeds, York, Newcastle and Edinburgh Waverley. The journey time to Birmingham is just under 5½ hours, and nearly 10 hours to Glasgow.
The bus and coach station is adjacent to the railway station from where National Express operates coach services to London Victoria (taking around 9 hours) via Heathrow Airport. Local bus services run by First Devon and Cornwall connect Penzance with most major settlements in Cornwall, including Truro, St. Ives, St Just, St Buryan, Land’s End, and also Plymouth in Devon.
A ferry service is operated between Penzance Harbour and the Isles of Scilly by The Scillonian III, carrying both foot-passengers and cargo. Sailing time is approximately 2 hours and 40 minutes. Alternatively, a passenger helicopter service operates from Penzance Heliport to the Isles of Scilly run by British International Helicopters.
Flying time is approximately 20 minutes. A bus service run by the Skybus Airline Service connects with Land’s End Airport for fixed wing flights (15 minutes) to the Isles of Scilly. This service operates from the railway station, near the taxi rank, rather than the bus station. Newquay Airport is 41 miles (66 km) away and offers flights to Gatwick, Stansted Dublin and Cork airports. Plymouth Airport is 77 miles (124 km) away has services to Gatwick, Bristol, Dublin and Manchester airports.
Throughout the town there are numerous examples of Regency and Georgian Architecture. Penzance is also home to a lengthy promenade built in the 1840’s. Admire the cool white art deco Jubilee Pool and see the “ballet of the waves” as they crash into the sea wall (particularly spectacular opposite the handsome Queen’s Hotel which is worth visiting for its splendid paintings from Newlyn School artists.) Morrab Gardens situated in the centre of the town is a fine example of a ’sub-tropical’ public garden.
Penzance has an array of interesting buildings including ‘The Egyptian House’ built in an ‘Egyptian’ Style, The Market House -described as one of the finest examples of regional architecture in the UK, and many other examples. The walk down Chapel Street towards St Mary’s Church and the harbour is a delight! Look out for the quaint Turk’s Head Inn and the pirate on the roof of the Admiral Benbow pub! The ‘Union Hotel’ in Chapel Street was allegedly the first place in Britain where the death of Admiral Lord Nelson was announced. At the rear of this hotel were the remains of a Georgian Theatre but they have not been preserved. St Johns Hall (Penzance’s Town Hall) is one of the largest purely granite structures in the world.
The economy of Penzance has, like many Cornish communities, suffered from the decline of the traditional Cornish industries of fishing, mining and agriculture. Penzance now has a mixed economy consisting of light industrial, tourism and retail businesses. However, like the rest of Cornwall, housing remains comparatively expensive, wages low and unemployment high within the parish area. House prices have risen 274% in 10 years the fastest rise in the UK.
The fishing port of Newlyn, which falls within the parish boundaries, provides some employment in the area, but has also been greatly affected by the decline in the fishing industry over the last 30 years. In the 2004 index of deprivation Penzance is listed as having 3 wards within the top 10% percent for employment deprivation, Penzance East (125th most deprived in England) Penzance West (200th most deprived in England), Penzance Central (712th most deprived in England) 18-31% of households in the parish being described as “poor households”. The Penzance East Ward also has one the highest unemployment rates in Cornwall stated as 15.4%.
Large sections of the Penzance Parish are classified as conservation areas under the Penwith local plan and are subject to special planning laws. The current conservation area forms most of the core of the town of Penzance and the historic harbour areas of Newlyn and Mousehole. A number of Georgian and Regency buildings are present in the town. However, the majority of developments in the town centre itself are of mixed date, including several 20th century buildings - one of which, the former Pearl Assurance building (now the Tremenheere Wetherspoons pub), was subject to comment by Sir John Betjeman who wrote, in 1963: Penzance has done much to destroy its attractive character. The older houses in the narrow centre round the market hall have been pulled down and third-rate commercial ‘contemporary’, of which the Pearl Assurance building is a nasty example, are turning it into Slough.
There are three large residential council estates in Penzance: Penalverne, Treneere (both built in the 1930s) and the Princess Royal estate at Alverton (built in the early 1950s). Much of the housing with this area is owned and operated by Penwith Housing Association. The sub-tropical Morrab Gardens, has a large collection of tender trees and shrubs, many of which cannot be grown outdoors anywhere else in the UK. Penzance Regency and Georgian terraces and houses are common in some parts of the town.
Penzance’s former main street Chapel Street has a number of interesting features including the Egyptian House, The Union Hotel (including a Georgian theatre which is no longer in use) and The Branwell House, where the mother and aunt of the famous Bronte sisters once lived.
Also of interest is the seafront with its promenade and the open-air seawater Jubilee Bathing Pool (one of the oldest surviving Art Deco swimming baths in the country), built at the beginning of the 20th century during Penzance’s heyday as a fashionable seaside resort. The pool was designed by Captain F. Latham, the Penzance Borough Engineer and opened in 1935, the year of King George V’s Silver Jubilee. Penzance promenade itself has been destroyed in parts several times by storms. The most recent example was on 7 March 1962 (Ash Wednesday), when large parts of the western end of the promenade, the nearby Beford Bolitho Gardens (now a play park) and the village of Wherrytown suffered severe damage.
Every June since 1991, the Golowan Festival (which includes Mazey Day) has been held in the town. Before the 1930s Penzance was the scene of large May Day celebrations, which saw local children making and using tin ‘May horns’ and ‘May whistles’a small revival of these traditions will take place on May 4th 2008. The Feast Day of Corpus Christi was also celebrated in Penzance. The Corpus Christi fair has been a long standing event in the town, and is currently undergoing attempts to revive it in a more traditional format.
Allantide, a Cornish version of Halloween, was also a popular activity in the town. Many of these customs were recorded by local antiquarian M. A. Courtney and have influenced historical views of traditional Cornish cultural activities. Every December Penzance holds the Montol Festival a community arts event reviving many of the Cornish customs of Christmas including Guise dancing.
Leave a Reply