Life at Porthcurnick

As I walked on Porthcurnick beach with my grandfather some forty years ago we came across the gnarled roots of trees some way down the beach, where a recent gale had scoured the sand. He reminded me that we were walking where once there had been a forest, long submerged.

Such has been the erosion here that all trace has vanished of the road which continued along from Rosevine, across the beach and up the hill on the Gerrans side and thence via Tregassa to Gerrans. (The ‘new’ road from Portscatho to Tregassa was not constructed until the early years of the twentieth century.) Gone also are the cottages and lime kiln which a hundred years ago stood on the Rosevine side of the beach, though their ruins were standing within living memory and many still recall the last resident, Hetty Rowe, who died in Portscatho in 1943 at the age of 91.

The cottages on the landward side of the road were part of the estate of the Cregoes of Trewithian, while those to seaward, including the lime kiln, were owned by Enys. In 1705 Thomas Dillon leased here ‘a platt of land in a close called Pentolvadden’ and in 1734 his son Joseph was erecting a house on the site. Other Enys leaseholders included Robert Teague with his ‘one little house at Pencarnick’, subsequently described as Richard Sarah’s two houses and a garden.
Dwellers here were in a good situation to benefit from the spoils of the sea. The landlord held the right of wreck but this did not deter men from availing themselves of anything useful which might fortuitously arrive on their doorstep. So it was that in October 1795 William Pearce, the Enys reeve was obliged to write the following to the steward of the estate:

Three Dayes Back ther was a part of a mast of a Ship with Iroun Bendes on him found under Pentendaven by Thomas Pearce and Gorge Ball. I went and sow the mast and tould them that I expected the Salvige Part for Mr Enyes … After I tould them that the should not sill it Nor move it without my Liberty, the went the same evienin and Carred it awaye and sould it, So if you dont dou something in the matter, it is No youes in Clemen of aney mor wreck.

Thomas Pearce lived at Porthcurnick and Gorge Ball at Trewithian. It is highly likely that Thomas was related to William, who nevertheless put duty before kinship. Thomas’s father, Samuel, was a man of some substance, described in the 1841 census as independent. In the Tithe Apportionment of 1841 Samuel is entered as leasing all the houses at Porthcurnick, both Cregoe’s and Enys’s.

Of the many families who occupied these houses in the 19th century – Johns, Crewes, Hooper, Olivey, Prime, Rowe and others, most breadwinners were agricultural labourers, although we do find James Sawle, pensioner from the India Office, i.e. a seaman retired from service in an East Indiaman, two blacksmiths and a number of widows. One of the latter, Martha Crewes, was living ten years earlier at Lowertown, Trewithian, with her husband George. He was described as a retired farmer, though only thirty-one years of age. By 1861 she was a widow, living at Porthcurnick with her two young sons, then aged ten and six. Both George Henry and his brother Charles were to become master mariners, the latter owning the vessel Eshcol and building Eshcol House in Portscatho.

As the sea continued to encroach on the land at Porthcurnick so the occupants of the houses must have listened with foreboding to the pounding of the waves when south-east gales coincided with spring tides. For how much longer would it be safe to remain there?

The Lime Kiln
For years the dwellers at Porthcurnick had blamed the farmers who took sand from the beach for hastening the incursion of the sea. The taking of sand for agricultural purposes was a long-established custom, practised wherever it was possible to make a track for a farm cart onto a beach. This habit gradually died out as burnt lime became available, although seaweed was still carried off in great quantities. From the late eighteenth century onwards kilns were established in coastal harbours or beside beaches, supplying lime for agricultural use and for building. There were few deposits of limestone to be found in Cornwall and kilns along the south Cornish coast were supplied from Plymouth.
The kiln at Pendower can still be seen but that at Porthcurnick has long gone. It stood to seaward of the cottages, built onto the beach and throughout the nineteenth century catered for local needs. Sailing vessels arrived at high water, discharged their cargoes of limestone and coal and departed on the next tide. William Olivey of Trewithian, farmer, was the limeburner, assisted by such men as were required at firing times, most likely the agricultural labourers living nearby. Coal was scavenged from the beach and for many years after the disappearance of the kiln limestone was to be found there. The first kiln succumbed to the forces of nature and in 1883 was re-built by Captain John Henry Nicholls of Portscatho. This prosperous shipowner was now described as coal merchant. His vessels brought coal to Percuil and also to his kiln at Porthcurnick.
Mass production of lime and the coming of the railway signalled the end of these little local kilns by the end of the century. At Porthcurnick, however, erosion inevitably hastened the decline.

The End of the Road
The nineteenth century censuses record that some six cottages stood at Porthcurnick. In 1871 no less than twenty-seven people were living there. As the century drew to a close, however, so the houses fell into decay, first those on the seaward side of the road and then those to landward until finally Hetty Rowe, the last resident, was obliged to move to Portscatho. The ruins remained and in the early 1900s children played there and asparagus grew wild in the old gardens.

Steps at Porthcurnick (courtesy of Hilary Thompson)

While the houses were still in occupation there was greensward to seaward of the road across the beach. A footbridge crossed the stream. In 1899 this was washed away in a storm, to be rebuilt a year later by the Parish Council. By 1907 the road was closed to vehicular traffic and in 1912 concrete steps replaced it on the southern side. A last attempt to reinstate the road was made in 1922, when a proposal was put to the Parish Council to ask owners of land abutting the beach if they were willing to grant land for cutting a road suitable for vehicular traffic, though nothing came of this.

Porthcurnick Beach, May 2006

Larks soar and gulls still wheel overhead at Porthcurnick, as they did when carts rumbled over the beach, neighbours gossiped, children played, smoke rose from the chimneys and all was bustle and activity as the smacks hove in sight with their cargoes of stone and coal.

Article © Hilary Thompson 2006, reproduced here with the kind permission of Hilary.

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