Tag: Helen Glover

Cornwall: Penzance 2 – Penzance and its Environs.

An account of my explorations of Penzance and its Environs, complete with plenty of photographs.

This is the second of three posts I shall be writing about my trip to Penzance yesterday, and deals with my time in Penzance.

EXPLORING

I began my explorations by walking along the sea front and past the harbour, before heading upwards into town. In this early part of my exploration I passed the post box which was painted gold to honour 2012 Olympic Gold medallist and Penzance native Helen Glover. I also renewed my acquaintance with the Egyptian House, a remarkable building in Penzance. After lunching in a pub I followed a different route back towards the station and the path that heads towards Marazion. This road was well chosen as it enabled me to see a statue of Penzance’s most famous son, 19th century science great Humphry Davy.

TOWARDS MARAZION

I walked along the path towards Marazion as far as a point at which there is a bridge over the railway to one side and a route down the beach on the other. I made use of both side routes, doing some photography from the bridge. I turned back at this point, deciding it was time to get a train back to Liskeard. I had enjoyed Penzance.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here is the main gallery for this post…

The Glover gold painted post box (two pics) .
The Egyptian House – many pics.
A connection from Penzance to the legendary Robert Menzies, which extends via Lady Bradman (nee Jessie Menzies, a distant relation of Robert) to Donald Bradman.

Penzance

An account of the time I spent in Penzance on the Saturday of my Cornish holiday.

INTRODUCTION

I have finally edited all the pictures from my recent Cornish holiday and have now at last got time to get back to blogging about it. My last post described my journey down to Penzance, and this post provides the story of the rest of the day.

GETTING MY BEARINGS

Having arrived in to Penzance pretty much bang on schedule I visited the local information office, purchased a detailed and very cheap souvenir map (I will conclude this series of Cornish posts with one featuring all the publicity materials that I collected while down there), and set out on the first part of my exploration of the town. An early necessity was finding somewhere to eat lunch (although I am not entirely inflexible on the matter I generally aim to eat lunch some time close to 1PM), and having walked past the Harbour and the Chapel I found an establishment suited to my needs. The Turk’s Head was not too extortionate (there are no cheap places in Penzance). I opted for a BBQ Chicken, Bacon and Davidstow Cheese melt, and enjoyed it, although I felt that it did not really live up to its name on two counts:
1. There was precious little evidence of bacon (though they had used good quality chicken)
2. Davidstow is supposed to be a strongly flavoured cheese and yet I barely noticed it over the other flavours – if I ask for something of which cheese is a featured ingredient I want to taste said cheese.

Here some photos taken between leaving Penzance station and having lunch:

PenzanceFerryWall painting PenzanceWall Paintings, PenzancePenzance WalksMap, Penzance Info OfficePenzance HarbourPenzance ChurchOld lifeboat station, PenzanceView from the Bridge1View from the bridge 2Mermaid Pleasure TripsMermaid Seal Cove CruisesCornish IFCAWildlife Display BoardShark TripDisplay BoardPelagic TripsChapel

Egyptian House
The Egyptian House

The GlobeTGChurch Tower

Air pressure
The first of a number of shots of interesting items on display at The Turks Head

Decorative plateBrass implementsInternal DecorTurks Head

BN1
There were five sets of framed banknotes starting with this one.

BN2BN3BN4BN5BeermatsHorsebrass 1LanternHorsebrass 2Toby JugsCopper Plate

Devon and Cornwall
Poor lighting prevented me from doing full justice to this map.

Map
This, and the two set of framed cigarette cards the follow it were in a narrow passage that meant that I could not get them fully in shot from front on – had to photograph at an angle.

Cig Cards 1Cig Cards 2otter aleCopperwareBed warmerCopper Pot

POST LUNCH EXPLORATIONS

Having consumed my lunch I headed for the Promenade, and walked along it. From the other end of the Promenade I walked back to the train station and then did some exploring on the other side of the train station, locating a path that ran between the tracks and the sea. Here are some photographs…

Headland

Jubilee Pool 1
In November one would not expect an open-air pool in Engalnd to have much custom, and indeed the Jubilee Pool was empty.

PromontorywavesChurch from PromenadeJubilee Pool 2Penzance Town trailJubilee Pool RestorationJubilee Pool 4MemorialMayor Stuchbery1839 RC

Helen Glover post box
A number of post boxes were painted gold to honour people who were successful at the London 2012 Olympics – this one Penzance is dedicated to rower Helen Glover.

Plaque close upHG Postbox - frontThe BuccaneerPearly Nautilus from the BuccaneerAcross the bayAcross the bay 2walks from PenzanceBranwell's MillAtlantic CoastersBus infoPZPZ support 1PZ Support 2Looking across the stationSurfDomeGothic TowerThe LongboatOutside Penzance Station

I conclude this post with two special sections, firstly…

ST MICHAEL’S MOUNT

Being grey the whole time, and misty for most of it this was not a great a day for taking long-range photographs, but St Michael’s Mount was not a target I could resist, even under those circumstances, so here are the results:

St Michael's Mount through mistSt Michael's MountSt MNichael's Mount IIISMM4SMM5St Michael's Mount and Flying GullSMM7The St Aubyn Estate, atop St Michael;s MountSMM8SMM close upSMM close up 2

You will notice gulls in a couple of these shots, which leads to the second special section, which concludes this post…

BIRDS

There are many seabirds to be observed in Penzance and I was able to capture some of them on camera…

Small Wadersbirds and boatsbirds on a rockPosing cormorantBirds on a rock 2bold gullRock and birdsOne gull, two corvidsGull and corvidGathering of gullsSwimming gullsGullsGulls on seaweedMarine CorvidFlying CormorantSea CorvidMany Gulls

The journey back was uneventful, and with the train departing Penzance at 16:41 on a November afternoon it was too dark for photographing through the windows of that train.