As the winter days stretch out before us I’ve found myself looking fondly back on our autumn beach adventures and realised I hadn’t shared our memories of Sennen. Sennen was one of the last beaches that we visited before settling down to working life and routines of a winter farm.
The storm crested waves tore across the cove at Sennen that day, trailing plumes of spray that day and yet when we walked up towards the sheltered honeyed granite harbour with sea worn walls the sea lay surprisingly tranquil. What a timeless memory of a visit to sennen Cove to see my photo album
Sennen Cove and Village
The soft white sands of Sennen beach is only a stones throw from dramatic granite cliffs of Land’s End, with a huddle of old cottages set around harbour sheltered from the worst o the Atlantic storms. The village gives way to thirties villas and even a pavement that could double for a narrow promenade, following the seas westwards towards the slipway, before the sands of the beach backed by the increasing wild Cornish heathland which stretch away towards Gurnards head.
We parked at the bottom of the hill struggling around the sharp corner with Lucy-Land Rover-of-no-lock into the car park and found a parking slot amongst the mix of battered professional surfers vans and gleaming holidaymakers cars, before setting off across the soft yielding sands to walk away from the busy village and find a spot to call our own far along the beach under the dunes.
Picnic on the sands
Hope springs eternal when it comes to a picnic and Charles held our blanket up to spread like a sail in the gathering breeze before spreading it on the pale sands and after all it may be that the weather report was wrong…..after all! It was a good spot though to watch the the world go by at a gentle pace along the empty sands and see the distant frenzy of the sea trailing plumes of vapour across the bay.
The first of the big rolling waves of the winter storms were starting to breeze across the bay, trailing plumes of vapour and defying the summer soft surfers to conquer their heights and it was such a contrast to our last visit when we had enjoyed and Indian Summer at Sennen Cove and the night of Charles birthday when we enjoyed Lobster and a Sunset at Ben’s at Sennen but such is the stuff of memories!
I’m always drawn down to the shore line at some point on a visit to a beach but Charles is content to snooze and read in his sandy picnic cocoon so I crouched amongst the beguiling sea scented vapour to try for a few snaps until I was “rescued” by a concerned golden retriever with a long earnest fate. The dog was quite right of course and as I stepped back a waves shot a shallow skim of water over the sands just where I had been.
Exploring Sennen
We wandered up into the village again and spent a few minutes exploring the half moon of the harbour, neatly stacked with fishing pots with a few small fishing boats pulled up on the slipway and steep lifeboat slipway, where work was going on to preserve the lifeboat slip ready for the serious business of winter when the lifeboat may have to be launched into treacherous storm.
Memories of Sennen
More places in West Cornwall to explore?
Sennen is one of the destination to explore in part four of my Penwith Tour and for more information about West Crownall do visit my page Exploring West Penwith
