Place:Porthcurno, Cornwall, England

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Porthcurno is a small village in the parish of St. Levan located in a valley on the south coast of the county of Cornwall, England. It is approximately 9 miles (14 km) to the west of the market town of Penzance and about 3 miles (4.8 km) from Land's End, the most westerly point of the English mainland. Access by road is only available from the north end of the valley along an 'unclassified' spur road off the B3283 'B' class road. The village is also accessible on foot by the South West Coast Path, being about two hours walk from Land's End or about four hours walk from Penzance for experienced cliff walkers.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Porthkornow, Porthcornow

The name Porthcurno evolved from the 16th century Cornish spelling 'Porth Cornowe'. In the Cornish language (standard written form uses "c") meant 'cove/landing place of horns or pinnacles', a reference to the granite rock formations in the vicinity. Some evidence of early commercial port activity exists in the remains of man-made stone tracks for horse-drawn vehicles which may have provided access to the beach, visible on one of the footpaths near the south side of the car park ascending the east side of the valley.

Industrial and wartime developments

Development of the area was dominated for over one hundred years by the operations of the cable station owned by Cable and Wireless plc and its predecessor companies. Probably over 90% of the inhabitants were either employees of Cable and Wireless or were directly supported by it.

During the Second World War, Porthcurno was designated a Vulnerable Point and was heavily defended and fortified as a part of British anti-invasion preparations. At the beginning of the war a small guard of special constables was put on duty at the cable office and cable house, later superseded by a platoon of soldiers who camped on a former bowling green.^[1] Porthcurno valley was declared a protected place and as many as 300 troops were deployed in the immediate area to guard the station. Passes were issued to residents and visitors who had business to be in the area and many mock attacks were staged. The defences included pillboxes and a petroleum warfare beach flame barrage which could be operated remotely from the tunnel.^[2] At the end of the War, although some 867 bombs fell in the (Penzance) area and 3,957 houses were damaged or destroyed, the only damage suffered by any communications equipment at Porthcurno was the destruction of an antenna when a bomb fell at Rospletha Farm, located at the top of the hill about half a mile to the west of the cable office.^[1]

Submarine optical fibre cables

Porthcurno's association with international telecommunications links continues to the present day. The first successors to submarine telegraph cables were submarine telephony cables of coaxial construction, some of which were landed at Porthcurno. In the last twenty years or so these have all been superseded by their very high-capacity modern descendants, those using fibre optic technology as the transmission medium instead of copper. These also have been landed at Porthcurno forming a significant link, part of the UK connection to the international telecommunications 'backbone' infrastructure. These form parts of international cable networks and include systems known as Trans-Atlantic Telephone Cable 12/13 (TAT-12/13), Gemini, Fibre-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG) and RIOJA. Each of these has thousands of times the capacity of all of their predecessors' cables put together. However, all of the successors of the telegraph cables today use Porthcurno merely as a shore landing-point for connecting to the national telecommunications network, passing directly via landlines buried under the local roads to a terminating station at Skewjack about inland from Porthcurno.

Much of the beach and surrounding shores previously owned by Cable and Wireless was donated to the National Trust in 1993.^[3]

Many of the houses built for the former Engineering College have been converted to holiday flats making the population very seasonally dependent. Today the major industry in the area is tourism.

Church of St Levan

The 12th and 15th-century church of St Levan is between St Levan proper and Porthcurno, towards the end of the cul-de-sac main village road. It has medieval foundations and is adjoined by a graveyard which has two of the parish's six stone crosses and a small car park. It sits close to the coast path, lightly wooded slopes and adjoins pasture meadows. The largely unadulterated exterior has featured in the BBC drama Doctor Who.

For further information of a genealogical nature and local administration links, see the parish of St. Levan.