ZENNOR

The B3306 road heading west from St Ives has been described as one of the country’s most spectacular drives.  Having travelled that road many times myself, I can testify to this fact.  There is a raw beauty out here, with the bleak West Cornwall moorlands rising up on one side, and the churning Atlantic Ocean on the other.  Several miles out of St Ives, the road reaches the village of Zennor, with its medieval church and its pub the Tinners Arms.  D H Lawrence famously put up here during the First World War when he arrived in 1916 with his German wife Frieda.  They stayed in the pub until they found a cottage to rent – Higher Tregerthen was the cottage they settled on, and can be found to the south of the village.  It was while staying in Zennor that Lawrence finished writing Women In Love.  Lawrence thought he had found paradise on earth in Zennor, which must have seemed a world away from the horrors of war.  However, 18 months months after their arrival the Lawrences were ordered to leave Cornwall, having been wrongly accused of spying for the Germans.  There has been a church on the site of  the current village church, St Senara’s, since at least the 6^th century, although the present church was rebuilt in the 12^th century.  The most notable feature in the church is the Mermaid of Zennor, a carving of a mermaid admiring herself in a mirror, which graces the Mermaid Chair, believed to be at least 600 years old.  Zennor Head is a short walk from the village, and is the nearest point on the South West Coast Path.  A triangulation point on top of the headland records a height of  314 feet above sea level.

Map of the area. 

Zennor Head - geograph.org.uk - 912882. Photo by Row17, via Wikimedia Commons.