Lizard Point
| Lizard Point | |
|
National Trust | |
|---|---|
 Lizard Point | |
| Grid reference: | SW701115 |
| Information | |
| Website: | The Lizard and Kynance Cove |
Lizard Point is at the southern tip of the Lizard. Lizard Village stand half a mile from it. It is the most southerly point on mainland Great Britain at 49°57'30"N. With the exception of parts of the Isles of Scilly, it is the southernmost part of the United Kingdom.
Lizard Point is for many ships the starting point of their ocean passage and a notorious shipping hazard. The Lizard lighthouse stands at Lizard Point.
The landscape and hereabouts
This landscape is noted for its rich wildlife and geological interest.[1]
Nearby is Kynance Cove, considered one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and a few miles further along this stretch of coast the beautiful picture-postcard harbour at Mullion Cove protects a small fishing fleet from the ferocious Atlantic storms. Lizard Point and all this stretch of coast are owned by the National Trust.
At Lizard Point stands the Lizard Lighthouse. The first light was erected by Sir John Killigrew by his own expense, built at the cost of "20 nobles a year" for 30 years. The lighthouse caused an uproar over the following years, as King James I considered charging vessels to pass. This caused so many problems that the lighthouse was demolished, but was successfully rebuilt in 1751 by order of Thomas Fonnereau and remains almost unchanged today. The lighthouse is needed, for the Lizard is a jagged tongue of rock reaching out into the approach to Falmouth Roads, and further east lie The Manacles, near Porthoustock: one and a half square miles of jagged rocks just beneath the waves.
Serpentine
The rock of the Lizard is known as serpentine, which may be polished to a bright sheen, and Lizard Village is not short of shops to sell carved serpentine ware[2] which items range from ornaments to the pump handles in the local public house; the Lizard Inn.
Historic interest
The first sighting of the Spanish Armada on mainland Britain was off Lizard Point at 3 pm on 29 July 1588.[3][4] This was one of the greatest invasion fleets in history and consisted of 120 ships armed with over 1,000 cannon and with 29,000 men aboard. It was scattered and sunk by storm and by dauntless English sailors.
References
- ↑ "Caerthillian to Kennack". Natural England. 1993. http://www.sssi.naturalengland.org.uk/citation/citation_photo/1004373.pdf. Retrieved 18 November 2011.
- ↑ Dickens, Charles (9). "Cornish Stone". Household Words: A Weekly Journal 10 (233): 96.
- ↑ Lovett, A. W. (1986). Early Habsburg Spain, 1517-1598. Oxford University Press. p. 184. ISBN 978-0-19-822139-5.
- ↑ Fry, Plantagenet Somerset (1990). The Kings & Queens of England & Scotland. Grove Press. p. 108. ISBN 978-0-8021-1386-3.