Cornwall Coast

Oh, my gosh. Heave, two, six, heave...

We're back, at the very edge of our isles.

But now, we're on a whole new kind of adventure.

A unique great guide to our coast.

But this is a guide beyond anything

you'll find in your average tourist brochure.

A guide crammed with local knowledge,

amazing discoveries and stunning secret spots.

Coast and our expert group have spent over ten years

navigating this ever-changing natural wonder.

And now we're bringing it all together - and more -

to give you the ultimate guide to our coast.

We've selected eight stretches of British coast.

North, South, East, West,

and some of the best bits in between.

Each week, we'll be taking to the sea

in a remarkable array of boats and ships.

We'll have a completely fresh perspective on the coast.

We'll seek out charismatic characters...

Andy, fancy seeing you here.

..momentous events...

This is Britain's most deadly shoreline.

..secret spots...

and surprising stories.

There's no denying that there's a charge to be had

from holding something like this.

A brand-new view of our coast,

with all the inside info you need to enjoy these shorelines like a local.

Pull away, sailors, pull away.

This time, I'm heading for Cornwall.

This is Coast.

The Great Guide.

400 miles of epic shoreline...

..craggy coves....

..sand and surf...

..and towering ruins of the tin trade.

Classic Poldark country.

Welcome to Cornwall.

With more than five million visits a year,

the Cornish coast is high on any bucket and spade list.

For ten years, the Coast team have sought out stories

unique to this shore,

revealing a treasure trove of Cornish history.

They're solid old buildings, aren't they?

The thing is rocking, basically, on that wall.

That's why the walls are so chunky.

We've searched the deep sea for secrets...

..and experienced Cornwall's wild waters.

This passage of water is notorious for its heaving seas.

I'm beginning to know why.

Now we're back, seeking out the very best Cornwall has to offer

and exploring what makes this coastal county unique.

This is our Great Guide.

I'll be making my own voyage,

stopping off at some stunning sites for our guide.

Popping onto different boats to get tips from the locals.

Stop it every so often, then jerk it on the way down.

You're testing the different depths, all right? OK.

I'll embark from Looe, voyaging down to The Lizard

and on to Porthleven, our most southerly port.

Along my journey, I'll compile our Great Guide,

drawing from the pick of Coast discoveries

over the years from right around Cornwall.

The best, from the River Tamar, to Tintagel Castle.

My journey begins at the port of Looe.

Tourists say it's the fishing villages of Cornwall

that draw them here in their droves.

And it's not hard to see why.

People pour into Looe for a taste of Cornish culture.

Oh, yeah, and the fish.

There's a tradition in Looe that the small commercial fishing boats

also take out tourists to try their hands at angling.

A truly Cornish experience for our Great Guide.

The chance to enjoy the coast and catch supper, too.

That's my first voyage.

Hi. All right? Good to meet you. How do I get on?

'Meet Mr David Bond, licensed to fish.'

What a cracker of the day we've got, hey? It's beautiful.

Take your lifejacket. How does this work?

At the front this bit, yeah?

At other ports, with bigger trawlers,

you can't go out on the working boats.

But at Looe, the boats have to be small.

That's because the harbour's exceptionally shallow,

completely drained at low tide.

So, Looe can only take small boats

which leave and return on the same day.

Ideal for tourist trips.

This dayboat fishing also makes the village's fish super fresh -

the other reason Looe's on our Great Guide.

It was ten years ago that Neil

got the local knowledge.

So, how would I spot that

this is truly fresh fish?

Well, look at the haddock.

I mean, that... How stiff is that? Look.

Slimy. That's a good sign. Slime's a good sign?

Slime's a good sign. Uh-huh.

So if it's really floppy, does that mean it's gone...?

Yeah, unless it is pre-rigor mortis,

which probably takes, to become rigor mortis,

maybe five to six hours.

After it's been caught?

And then from stiff to really floppy is not good.

Cornish fishermen land over 40 varieties of fish -

Britain's most diverse catch.

Looe Market is kept stocked by small commercial fishing boats, like this.

I'm hoping to get the chance to pick up some professional tips

for line fishing.

On these voyages, you get to see the coast like a local.

Just what we want for our Great Guide.

When my skipper is not taking out tourists,

he hunts down the premium catch of any Cornish fishermen - turbot.

They're a difficult fish to catch

and that's why they command such a good price,

and also, you know, restaurants love turbot.

I've got a picture here. This is one...

This is the biggest fish that we had the day before yesterday.

Good turbot.

It's like...diamond shape almost, isn't it? Yeah.

It's about a seven or eight kilo fish.

That actually dwarfs your hand. Doesn't it? It's extraordinary.

They're a massive flat fish.

You know, the biggest one we've had so far this season

was, like, 14 kilos.

So, one fish could be 200 quid.

That's like fishing for gold. Yeah, it's big money.

To land a turbot, you need special nets and skill.

But anyone can try their hand at line fishing.

It's a sustainable catch

and there's local know-how for the novices.

Right, what do I do? Just wind it?

What you're doing is, if you stop it every so often

and jerk it on the way down,

you're testing the different depths, all right? OK.

They could be up under the boat, they could be near the bottom.

If you've got fish on, it'll either stay slack, all right?

Because the fish is swimming upwards and taking the weight of the lead,

or you'll feel it wriggling either way. All right? Right.

Jiggy jig. You're doing well.

Well, according to Dave, it requires quite a bit of patience.

'Or luck.'

Dave, have I got one? Can you feel it?

I'm thinking it doesn't feel like there's a lead on there,

so it must be swimming with the line. Wind it on.

I'm winding, I'm winding.

I'll tell you what, those two birds, the seagull and the fulmar,

are extremely jealous.

Oh, yes! I have a fish on the end of my line.

Aye-aye, skips, look at that! There's loads of them! Quick!

We've got to get them in! Do I just flick them on?

Yeah. Whoa! Right... Whoa!

THEY LAUGH

What are they? They're whiting.

I was going to say, they're not mackerel. They're whiting.

You look suitably impressed. I've caught some fish.

That's supper solved, isn't it? Yeah! Exactly.

And they are very nice fish to eat.

Landing fish on a big scale needs the right gear,

and that's not just the boats -

it's what the sailors wear.

A classic Cornish garment,

the fisherman's jumper, had to feature

in our Great Guide to this coast.

In the 19th century, Cornwall was home to

a contract knitting cottage industry

making jumpers for export.

To unpick how the fishing village of Polperro

became the contract knitters' capital,

who better than wool enthusiast Ruth Goodman.

The Cornish coast to this day

still echoes with the click-clack of knitting needles,

so I've come along to pick up a few tips

and to learn something more about how this fantastic fun pastime

grew out of hard graft.

Fishermen throughout the UK were always recognisable

by their hand-knitted jumpers,

and in the 19th and early 20th centuries,

making them was, for some, the only way to put bread upon the table.

I'm casting off with Mary Wright,

who wrote a book on Edwardian knitters.

Mary knows the work that went into creating these coastal classics.

Knit-frock is the term used in Polperro.

Don't say jumper. Never say jumper.

But I can say gansey. You can.

And you can say jersey. And I can say jersey. Yes.

And if I'm in Polperro, I can say knit-frock. Knit-frock.

THEY LAUGH

This little village has its own knitting vocabulary.

These streets were once awash with women working on their knit frocks.

Women enjoyed being outside.

The light was better,

the social life was better, they could see people,

and people who live in the villages

say that you could hear the clack of the needles

before you turned the corner.

KNITTING NEEDLES CLACK

Polperro's knitting was strung out all around the coast...

..worn for centuries by seafarers.

And some still swear by it today.

I'm meeting Barry Mundy, a fifth-generation fisherman.

I see you're wearing a gansey. Was that just put on for us today?

No, no, I wear that every day. Really? Yes.

It's well over 30 years old. Really?! Yes, yes.

It keeps you warm. Yeah.

It's got that oily texture to it, so it's showerproof.

Right, so the water just sort of stands on the surface

rather than soaking in.

Yes, that's right.

So, as a man who's won a gansey for 30 years... Yes. ..can you make one?

Um...

I think I'd struggle, I think.

This is my beginners' knitting pack. Yeah.

So, we're going to go through the back of that loop towards there.

Yeah. Then, around the needle. Yes.

And then...through.

OK. And slip it off.

Well, let's have a go. Let's have a go. Right.

It's through there. That's the one.

And... A round loop. ..around there.

And... By George...

Oh, you took an extra stitch. Oh!

You've just made it bigger. You've got a double now. Oh!

I think I'm better at the old net mending somehow.

Oh, you'll get the hang of it, you're not bad.

And it is men's work, this is.

Knitting used to be one of those things that everybody did,

men and women both, in order to earn a living.

The trouble is, if I get too good at this,

my wife is going to want me to...to knit her a guernsey.

This is our great Cornish guide.

We'll find the most spectacular surf spot,

Cornwall's number one cove...

..and we'll discover what it's really like

living the coastal dream.

The next stop for me, though,

will be the site of a forgotten shipwreck.

I'll be heading to Dodman Point, for a tale of tragedy.

But first, there's a story on the northern shore

that we couldn't leave out of our Great Guide.

On the north coast,

there's a unique treasure hidden in the granite cliffs - tin.

They are abandoned and derelict,

but these proud stone buildings have made this landscape

a World Heritage Site,

putting Cornish tin mines on a par

with the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China.

Why?

The epic tale of Cornish tin stretches across four millennia.

So vast that, for our Great Guide,

three Coast experts will trace the tin mine story

from ancient beginnings

onto our earliest sea trade

up to the invention of steam power.

A mega-history crucial to Cornwall.

Our tin odyssey began with Neil,

looking back to the Bronze Age.

Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin.

And Cornish tin was the vital ingredient

of Europe's Bronze Age swords for 1,500 years or more.

Throughout the Bronze Age,

ancient armies relied on the Cornish coast

for the raw materials of battle.

Hiya, Neil. Hello.

To see why, I'm meeting Neil Burridge,

who still practices the age-old art of forging bronze weapons.

I've just got the fire going, just starting to warm up.

As the temperature rises,

Neil prepares a mould made of stone so we can cast our own bronze sword.

So, that's it. Oh, I'm so excited.

Hold there. OK.

Inside the fire is a crucible containing the two metals

that together form bronze.

90% copper will make our sword flexible,

10% tin will make it hard, with a cutting edge.

Heated to 1,200 degrees Celsius, we're ready to pour.

That's good. Wow.

Oh, look at that.

Wow, even that's a beautiful thing.

Look at the colour of it.

My first sword.

What I'm going to do is take the clamps off it now.

If we try to move it too quickly, it'll snap. Right.

And if we leave it too long in the moulds,

it'll get stuck in the mould and it won't come out.

So, it's a bit like Excalibur, really. It sure is.

Give it a little wiggle.

I can feel it, so you should be able to draw it out very slowly,

but don't...drop it.

Wow!

Look at that.

That's how you draw a sword from a stone.

Bronze Age swords relied on tin.

It's a very rare metal found hardly anywhere in Europe outside Cornwall.

Thousands of years ago,

Bronze Age tin traders made hazardous voyagers from Cornwall

to ancient Greece and beyond.

Britain's ancient tin traders used these Cornish seas

as their superhighways.

But what kind of prehistoric craft carried tin from this coast?

Discovering those ancient boats for our Great Guide was

a nautical mission from Nick Crane, in Falmouth.

Archaeologists excavated the remains of a boat

that had been buried in mud since the Bronze Age.

That's 2,000 years before the birth of Christ.

And now this extraordinary piece of prehistory has been resurrected.

At the National Maritime Museum, Cornwall,

they've built a life-size replica of that Bronze Age craft.

Now, for the first time, historians can experience

how Britain's earliest-known boat handles.

And row.

Row.

Pretty hard work. These paddles are cut with bronze tools

from solid pieces of ash,

and they're very heavy, so it's pretty physical.

There's evidence these tiny Bronze Age craft

made voyages to rival our oceangoing liners.

These remarkable boats propelled us into the age of metal,

earning their place in our Cornish Great Guide

Also going into the guide

are the most remarkable remains of Cornwall's tin mines,

these 19th-century stone buildings.

In the Industrial Revolution, they sprung up around the Cornish coast.

Now only their shells remain.

By 1860, half the world's tin came from Cornwall.

The boom in this metal was thanks to

a remarkable steam-powered invention.

To keep mine workings dry,

they invented water pumps driven by steam.

An innovation that goes into our Great Guide for its global impact.

Specially-designed buildings to house Cornish steam engines

spread right around the world,

as Dick Strawbridge revealed.

Look at this picture from Australia.

Mine workings from Down Under.

If you note, it's a stone building with an arched door and windows.

And beside it there's a big chimney, obviously for the boiler.

This is the Cornish original. Built 50 years earlier.

From Australia...

to North America.

You'll see copies of the Cornish engine houses

throughout the world.

The buildings all look alike,

because they were made to accommodate similar steam engines

used to pump water from the mines.

Anthony Power, from the Botallack mine,

is going to show me how a steam engine fitted snugly inside

its engine house.

Look at this. Boy! They are solid old buildings, aren't they?

Fantastic, aren't they?

You can see why they have lasted such a long time.

It's amazing, isn't it? What's the layout in here?

We've got the cylinder here. You can see these four bolts.

You've got a massive, great cylinder here.

Steam pumped into that.

Activating the piston inside.

The piston rod going up and down.

Then, attached to this end of it is the beam.

The beam pivots on the wall in front of us,

the massive wall in front of us.

Then, half the beam is on the outside of the wall.

So, the thing is rocking basically

on that wall. That's why the walls are so chunky! Absolutely.

They are really solid. Yes. Yeah.

These dramatic Cornish landmarks are the tombstones of giant

pumping engines that proudly epitomised the age of steam.

Cornish miners became victims of foreign competition from

copycat mines, with their own workings closing down.

But the extraordinary history of tin, spanning millennia,

is why this stunning landscape is now a World Heritage Site.

The tin mines lie mostly on Cornwall's north coast.

My journey is along the southern shore.

I'm heading towards Dodman Point and a forgotten shipwreck.

Then a unique Cornish treasure on The Lizard.

And onto raging storms at Porthleven.

Travelling by boat lets you see the Cornish coast with fresh eyes.

It reveals so many well-hidden gems.

Places like this. Mevagissey.

A picture-perfect, archetypal Cornish coastal fishing village.

Needless to say, it's absolutely mobbed with visitors in the summer.

No sooner does one sight recede

than another comes into view.

On a voyage like mine, sightings of sea life are a treat.

But snorkelling is the best way to get up close.

It's not just seals or even dolphins...

Sharks love Cornish waters.

With basking and blue sharks and even rarer mako sharks

on the prowl.

They share the waters with red-legged hermit crabs

and fragile stalked jellyfish.

Sea creatures who need to cling on, find a home on shipwrecks.

There is one particular wreck so rich in life

it is worthy of its own place in our Great Cornish Guide.

At the Manacles reef,

Miranda Krestovnikoff explored the passenger ship, Mohegan,

which has spent a century on the seabed.

The combination of passing time and strong currents

has stripped the boat bare.

All that remains are the large rusting metal plates

which formed the basic structure.

The ship is now covered with "dead men's fingers",

a rather morbid name for an eerie reminder of the boat's fate.

And all that's needed for the underwater city to start growing

is a little rust or a scratched surface

for the different colonisers to attach themselves to.

Oh, look! Sea fans!

They're beautiful.

The pink sea fan is a protected species.

It grows at right angles to the current,

so that each individual polyp that makes up the colony

has the maximum potential to catch food.

These huge sea fans on The Mohegan show the wreck's age.

These corals can only grow a centimetre a year,

so some of these colonies are over 50 years old.

As we move away from the wreck,

other species start making an appearance.

Jewel anemones produce dozens of little clones of themselves,

creating distinct blocks of colour.

Divers attach great mystique to the wrecks here.

It's easy to understand why.

Nature has adopted and then adapted them to become an integral part

of the underwater landscape.

It's Cornwall at its natural best.

Shipwrecks adopted by nature -

a bittersweet story.

New hope spawned by misfortune.

But it's a forgotten maritime disaster that's the next stop

on my voyage.

I'm approaching Dodman Point -

a place of tragedy.

The skippers on this shore have to be wise to every kind of danger.

With razor-sharp reefs,

strong currents

and swirling waves,

the Cornish coast can snare the most experienced sailor.

And wreck the sturdiest vessels.

Our Great Guide to Cornwall reveals a grim record.

This is Britain's most deadly shoreline.

The Cornish coast has claimed around 6,000 wrecks since records began

700 years ago.

In the long history of Cornish wrecks,

I've arrived at the site of one of the most tragic.

50 years ago,

a party of holiday-makers put their faith in the wrong boat.

This is the Darlwyne. Looks lovely, doesn't she?

In fact, the Darlwyne was an accident waiting to happen.

On a day trip around this coastline

that went disastrously wrong.

It was the summer of 1966.

The Troggs were riding high in the charts

the day the Darlwyne set out.

# I want to spend my life with a girl like you

# Ba-ba-ba-ba... #

She was laden with young people and families.

Bound for a fun day out at Fowey.

A quintessential little Cornish port

with something for everyone.

For those 1960s day-trippers who had arrived aboard the Darlwyne,

Fowey would be their last happy memory.

On the return trip, the weather turned.

Their boat vanished.

All 31 men, women and children on board were drowned.

They were mainly holiday-makers, staying in the same hotel.

The tragedy tore families apart.

Raymond Mills died,

along with children Janice and David.

Their mother, Beryl, survived. She had stayed behind at the hotel

with their youngest daughter.

Then, aged three, Lisa was afraid of the sea.

So, why is this tragedy forgotten?

It happened on 31st of July 1966.

Just one day after Bobby Moore had lifted the World Cup for England.

CROWD CHEERING

'And the crowd, they're going to tear Wembley apart!'

Britain started a party for a triumph still celebrated

50 years on.

But in Cornwall,

seafaring communities were consumed with grief.

The wreck of the Darlwyne was never found,

but it's thought she lies somewhere near here, Dodman Point.

Or its older name, Deadman's Point.

This is the official Board of Trade enquiry into the tragedy.

There is one passage that I found particularly difficult to read.

On the recovered bodies, they found four stopped watches.

One of them, just a child's watch.

And you can see here - a lady's watch stopped at 8.20.

Another lady's watch, 9.17.

Child's watch, 9.19.

It's really heartbreaking stuff.

Half a century later,

relatives still mourn the loss of the Darlwyne.

For years, it has been a private grief

overlooked by the rest of the country.

But at the time,

the impact on Cornwall could not have been more acute,

as the dead were brought into Falmouth harbour.

One of the search crew was David Barnicoat -

a teenager in 1966.

David. Hello, Tessa. Pleased to meet you.

Welcome to the Falmouth lifeboat.

Young David was an RNLI volunteer,

who will never forget what he witnessed.

Bodies had been reported off Dodman Point.

We got on the scene at about 9.30.

We picked up our first body shortly afterwards.

It was the body of a girl from Blackpool, a 14-year-old girl

called Susan Tassell.

The helicopter from Culdrose flew over

and directed us to the first body.

Then, 20 minutes later, we came across the second body.

We didn't know at the time that it was a local girl from Mylor,

called Amanda Hicks, who was 17.

We brought both the young ladies on board and laid them out on the deck

and covered them with blankets. How heartbreaking.

It was quite emotional, yeah. Cos you were just a young lad yourself.

Susan Tassell was only four years younger than me.

And the other young lady was a year younger than me.

So, it really struck home to me.

On the way back, we could actually see one more body

and, when we went alongside it, the buoyancy of the body was such

that when we went astern it sank.

It was quite emotional to see this body in slow motion

going down through the water.

Awful.

When you were bringing the bodies back,

the Queen Mother was here having her birthday.

Yes, the Royal Yacht Britannia was anchored just in the entrance

to the harbour off St Mawes.

And I think I'm right in saying it was

the Queen Mother's 66th birthday.

And as we came around St Anthony's Head in the lifeboat,

the coxswain - Bertram West - told us all to take up stations

along the lifeboat. And we all stood to attention.

And as we steamed in past Britannia, normally you dip to the Royal Yacht,

but the Royal Yacht dipped to us.

There was an officer on the bridge. He saluted.

The White Ensign came down. And we came by.

Then, when we came past the dockyard, all the men on the ships

took off their cloth caps as we went by.

I have here some footage,

if you could talk me through it.

This is the lifeboat Crawford and Constance Coneybeare.

You see the coffins going on board the lifeboat.

And then, they were landed ashore, to the local funeral directors

and taken away.

And what was the impact of this on the local community?

The euphoria surrounding the World Cup was fantastic, then on

the Monday morning, the whole of Cornwall was plunged into despair.

Of course, August in Falmouth, the height of the tourist season,

people didn't really want to go out on the boat.

It did have quite an effect.

Very sombre mood in Falmouth.

CROWD SINGS HYMN

The enquiry discovered the wrecked boat didn't have

a passenger licence,

wasn't seaworthy

and lacked life-saving equipment.

Following the loss of the Darlwyne,

safety legislation was reviewed and the rules tightened.

The tragedy may be forgotten, but its legacy lives on.

This is Coast's Great Guide to Cornwall.

The Coast team have scoured the Cornish shore for over ten years,

discovering hidden stories.

But if you don't have that long, what are the unmissible

must-see sights all around the Cornish coast?

Here's our Flying Visit to Cornwall.

To begin your Cornish adventure,

cross the River Tamar.

Brunel's Royal Albert bridge.

Then you're into classic, craggy coves

like Kingsand,

Polperro

and Gorran Haven.

If you like to see a classic sailing ship,

you might be in luck here at Charlestown.

The harbour was once the hub for the china clay industry.

But no more. As Nick discovered.

Charlestown has reinvented itself for the heritage industry.

It's the home port for a fleet of square riggers

that often star on our TV screen.

Further round is The Lizard.

The mainland's most southerly point.

Beyond that, a centuries-old site of pilgrimage,

the heavenly St Michael's Mount.

Crowned with a medieval church and castle.

Following the rugged shore, there is a wonderful surprise.

A theatre carved in the rock.

The Minack.

A site that still brings Neil out in a rash.

Stage fright.

I've never felt so ill in my entire life.

I think I will break my own leg.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Then, there's Land's End,

England's most westerly point.

A coast rich in myths,

with legends of submerged cities,

underwater bells

and Camelot.

We can't reach Land's End without a mention of these lovely

little outcrops about 30 miles offshore.

The Isles of Scilly.

Or the Scillies.

But never the Scilly Isles.

Don't be silly.

The voyage out to the Isles of Scilly can be a rollercoaster ride,

as the Atlantic rolls in.

This passage of water is notorious for its heaving seas,

a reputation which has given this little ship the nickname...

The Great White Stomach Pump.

And I'm beginning to know why.

The voyage rewards you with a small slice of Paradise.

A cluster of little islands.

And Caribbean-class beaches.

Then, you are on to Cornwall's north coast.

And tin mine territory.

See it for yourself.

The setting for Poldark.

Onto St Ives - a Mecca for artists.

No coincidence it's home to the Tate gallery.

The area here around Padstow

has become a bit of a foodie destination.

Ten years ago, we met young Michael Mallet.

Still, a trainee cook.

I just can't believe I'm here. I still can't believe I'm here really.

In a few years' time, I want to be a famous chef.

That would be really great.

Since then, Michael has cooked in Italy, Egypt and Australia.

Now he's back, combining cheffing and surfing in Cornwall.

Beyond Padstow, there's an outstanding rocky outcrop -

Tintagel Castle.

Said to be where King Arthur was conceived.

A legendary stop on any Cornish tour.

But if you only do the unmissible sights,

then you're missing so much.

Follow us for the fuller picture.

This is Coast's Great Guide to Cornwall.

I'm hunting for a vital piece to put in our guide.

Something uniquely Cornish.

It's rock.

Very special rock.

To get close to this craggy coast,

I've swapped boats.

On my voyage along Cornwall's southern shore

my next port of call is the Lizard Peninsula.

It's virtually the only place on mainland Britain

with the particular geological marvel I'm seeking.

The Lizard is famous for Serpentine - a kind of green rock.

The Cornish have been working with it for centuries,

but it actually took a visit from Queen Victoria

and Prince Albert for it to really take off.

They upped anchor on the Royal Yacht near here,

in a place called Mounts Bay.

And they took away with them

a couple of pieces of the polished stone.

Of course, the locals were quick to claim royal approval

and the Serpentine souvenir industry was born.

A rock with the royal seal of approval?

What makes Cornwall's Serpentine so special?

I'm at Coverack harbour,

to explore the geological secrets of Serpentine.

Hi, Tessa. Welcome to Coverack.

Robin, I gather you're going to explain... I am.

Rock doc Robin Shail from the University of Exeter

has sourced an appropriate Coast souvenir.

Here is your own special... Piece of Victoriana. Indeed, yeah.

Look! It is quite handsome, isn't it?

A Serpentine lighthouse.

What is the green here?

What is the green, in relation to the red?

The Serpentine is green.

The reds that we are seeing here are actually due to iron oxide.

Polished, the rock reveals its true colours.

But there is more to Serpentine than souvenirs.

Even behind us, we have got rocks making up the harbour wall.

All of these are examples of Serpentine.

It's actually a rock type. What, this is Serpentine? Yeah.

Is it? That's Serpentine there, yeah.

What I've got here is actually an example of a boulder off the beach

which is made of Serpentine.

It looks pretty non-descript, but if I pour water over the surface,

then it kind of brings it alive a little bit more.

And we can see that we've got the red colours in particular.

This kind of rusty orange colour that we're looking at?

Yeah, and one of the reasons for this - they react with water.

This is, if you like, rust that's being created, iron oxide,

as these minerals change.

So, what is Serpentine?

The Serpentine that we see here is actually

a rock that comes from the Earth's mantle.

Pretty unusual, these rocks here.

What does that mean, the Earth's mantle?

The mantle is actually the layer immediately below the crust.

We sit on top of the crust. Yeah.

The crust here is about 30km thick.

The mantle sits directly below the crust.

So, generally, we just don't see the mantle at the Earth's surface.

Well, how did it get here?

Well, that's the story of plate tectonics.

This little bit of mantle that we see preserved in The Lizard

is a little flake, as continents have collided.

It may be a little flake in geological terms, but The Lizard

has 25 square miles of very rare rock.

Rock that should be buried deep in the earth.

360 million years ago, The Lizard was left high and dry,

as massive tectonic plates bashed together.

That happy accident created a coastline like no other.

A genuine geological gem in our Great Coast Guide.

The crashing together of continental plates millions of years ago

has left a legacy on this course.

A craggy outcrop of treasures from deep below the Earth's surface.

Now exposed to the elements,

the rock reacts with sky and sea to stain the shore with colour.

Green, gold and red.

Here at Kynance, one of Cornwall's most stunning coves,

it's a great place to sample the Serpentine as nature intended.

Craggy coves are a jewel of the Cornish coast.

But it takes more than a pretty face to get

a place in the Coast Great Guide.

The bathers at Porthcurno are probably oblivious

as to why this stretch of sand demands an entry in our guide.

It's not for its undeniable beauty, but its history,

as Neil discovered.

That secluded little beach down there

conceals a fantastic secret.

It's where, 130 years ago,

Britain was wired up to the world.

A network of cables stretched from under this beach

around the globe.

Mary Godwin knows the story. Cables from here

went to South America, Africa,

through the Mediterranean, to the Far East, Hong Kong, Australia -

the whole world.

And they all come in at this little beach?

There are 14 cables coming in here, yep.

So, are we talking about telephone cables?

No, we're not talking about the telephone.

We're talking about the telegraph.

The telephone hadn't even been invented in 1870.

These were telegraph cables,

whereby messages were sent in a version of Morse code

and translated into letters of the alphabet at the other end.

By the 1860s, they were looking to lay these long cables,

linking distant parts of the empire and Porthcurno...

The cable to Bombay was the first link, the spine, if you like,

of the connections for the British Empire.

MUSIC: Rule Britannia

The Imperial cables from Porthcurno

linked Britain to the furthest outposts of the Empire and beyond.

Communication before took weeks. Now, it was virtually instant.

And it all comes into the cable house. This hut! Yes!

Yes, this plain-looking little building and...

Oh! Look at that!

You can see them physically coming up through the floor.

Bilbao.

Scilly.

Newfoundland. How fantastic. Yeah.

Cables were big business and investment was huge.

It was the new information highway.

But just as Britain was busy wiring up the world,

at the start of the 20th century, along came wireless technology.

In 1901, Guglielmo Marconi was busy making history

just a few miles from here.

This is where the first Transatlantic wireless message

was sent, at 12.30 on 12 December, 1901...

..1,800 miles across the Atlantic, to Newfoundland.

The age of wireless communication had arrived.

Now, if you arrive at Poldhu, on The Lizard,

you can visit the site of Marconi's message across the ocean.

This is our Great Guide to Cornwall.

I am bound for Porthleven, our most southerly port.

What is life like here, at one of Britain's stormiest spots?

I will hear wild tales from the aftermath

of Hurricane Hercules in 2014.

As I journey towards Porthleven, the next story for our guide

is found on the north coast.

The Cornish coast has long inspired painters,

something we discovered when we visited its artistic capital,

St Ives.

The light of St Ives is famous for inspiring renowned artists,

like Barbara Hepworth.

But it is an unsung amateur artist, a simple fisherman turned painter,

who put St Ives into our Great Guide.

Alfred Wallace only started to paint aged 67 when,

following his wife's death, he became a recluse.

Alone, untutored, he painted these memories of his time at sea.

His pictures are now highly prized.

But could painting save Alfred Wallace

from his battle with depression?

For our Cornish Guide, Ian McMillan went to St Ives

to explore the artistic struggle of the former fisherman.

Alfred's fame came from a happy accident.

A gentleman artist, strolling through St Ives in 1928,

discovered Wallace working by candlelight.

Now, his humble paintings

hang in grand galleries, like here at Tate St Ives.

They capture a child-like joy of the coast...

..but it brought no solace to the tortured soul

of Alfred Wallace.

He cared little for the meagre money that dealers paid for his work.

He became preoccupied that some locals resented his fame,

believing he must be making a fortune.

I have got one of his last letters here...

..that I would like to read to you,

written to art collector Jim Eade.

"I am thinking of giving up the paints altogether.

"I have nothing but persecution and jealousy

and if you can come down for an hour or two, you can take them with you

"and give me what you think they are worth to you afterwards.

"These drawers and shops are all jealous of me."

And that, with all its mis-spellings and bad grammar,

gives you the idea of a man at the end of his tether,

for whom painting, in the end, perhaps, wasn't enough...

and yet he has left us

such a fantastic legacy.

As Alfred gave up painting and his passion for the sea,

he gave up his struggle with the ache of life, too.

In 1942,

at the age of 87,

Alfred Wallace died in poverty,

alone and abandoned, in the poorhouse.

I'd like to think that the image of this Atlantic seascape,

that Alfred clung onto for so long inside his head,

was with him at the end.

The final picture for his long voyage to that eternal sea.

As we compile our Great Guide To Cornwall...

..we are rediscovering a decade of stories

from Coast's team of experts.

Leaving The Lizard Peninsula,

I am voyaging to Porthleven, a harbour battered by storms.

While back on the northern shore, the famous surf also finds a place

in our guide.

The Cornish surfing scene

is centred around the sands of Newquay.

Fistral Beach has wonderful sands

and is sheltered the from the worst of the wind.

It is this beach, one of Europe's premier surf spots,

that has rolled into our Great Guide.

Alice Roberts got some tips

from specialist surf photographer Lucia Griggi.

How do you take the ultimate holiday snap of the perfect wave?

The conditions are fairly medium today. The wind's onshore,

so it's a little bit choppy and messy,

but we can still do a lot in this

and it makes it even more fun, really.

The surf's up and soon I'll be out there, trying to take a picture.

'Lucia uses a digital SLR camera

'cocooned in a waterproof case.

'Now, it's time for my crash course

'in underwater photography.'

Presumably, in order to get a good picture of the wave,

I have to be down level with it? Yeah, you need to be level

with the surf or the wave - whatever you're shooting.

So, right now, there's a wave coming and you're going to get down

and hold on to the right-hand trigger point,

and you'll shoot as it starts curling towards you.

OK. And keep them down low. And there you go. Perfect. Now!

'Are we having fun yet?

'Believe me, it's harder than it looks.

'The waves hit you with incredible force.

'In fact, a metre-high monster is roughly equivalent to

'a ton of weight walloping you.

'It's a real challenge to hold on to the camera as the waves hit me

'and try to take some decent snaps at the same time.'

Wow! That's brilliant.

And I love the super-wide angle of the fish-eye.

My pictures put me back in that moment, at one with the wave.

Worth getting wet for.

Whether you are in the sea or riding high on the waves...

here in Cornwall, it is the feeling

of the wind and the water on your face.

That is what makes these waters so appealing.

For visitors, messing about in boats is part of Cornwall's charm,

but locals have to keep a weather eye on the sea.

When storms barrel in,

skippers need a bolthole to berth their boats.

I am heading to a harbour of refuge.

The wild frontier of Cornwall,

it has to feature in our Great Guide.

Straight in front of me, and looking pretty inviting, is Porthleven.

It is my final destination

and also happens to be Britain's most southerly port.

Most of us stay home when gales blow in but, for some,

it is an opportunity to marvel at an angry sea

in a magnificent setting.

The perfect spot to sit out a storm.

So we are just arriving in Porthleven. You can see,

right on the seafront, there is a clock tower.

It is a classic Cornish view but, in fact, keen watchers of the news

might recognise this particular clock tower

from unhappier times.

This harbour faces south-west,

so it is in line for some of the worst weather.

The recipe for a perfect storm.

Knowing wild seas are guaranteed,

what is life like here?

The most severe gales in living memory hit Porthleven in 2014.

I've never seen it like this

and I was here when we had that storm in '89-'90,

when we lost a road. It was nowhere near as bad as this.

This is just horrendous. To discover the impact

of those winter storms, I have lined up a couple of locals -

harbourmaster Philip Ward

and Natalie Williams, a coastguard volunteer.

So, looking at the harbour from here, where did the storm come in?

It was a south-westerly and it came straight in.

One particular wave hit that wall at the right-hand side

and this wave went up... I remember shouting to people -

I was on duty down at the bottom of the hill -

and I was shouting at people to keep back. I could see it sucking back

and I knew it was going to come in big, and it did.

There is a very famous photo.

In fact, there is myself and another guy from the coastguard team

just stood next to the restaurant there.

And looking up at this unbelievable wave

that was just full of seaweed and wood and all sorts.

I was like, "What is in that?!"

It was just crazy.

It was like something from a film. It was phenomenal.

And, Phil, that must do a lot of damage, doesn't it?

It does do a lot of damage.

These roads we are standing on and the quays we are standing on

were awash. People had parked their cars here.

They do park their cars there and they get washed away. Yeah.

They get actually washed away?

Well, they get washed around and then we managed to get them out

and get the boats out within three days.

We took nearly 40 boats out within three days.

It must be quite a, sort of, schizophrenic place to live.

In the summer, it must seem really picture-perfect and ideal

and, in the winter - smash! Yeah. It's great. Do you love that?

Yeah, I absolutely love it.

And were you born to it? Were you born here?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. When we were kids growing up,

if there was a storm coming, we would all be revved up and want

to come down here and have a look. You're an adrenaline junkie!

Totally! And you have had it all your life? Yeah. I love it.

I love it down here.

I love the sea, the smell, the noise, the power.

But I like today - the calmness. Yeah, every day is a different day

in Porthleven, when you look out at sea.

Whatever the mood of the Cornish coast,

the visitors just keep coming,

from the earliest tin traders to the tourists of today.

Touring with our Great Guide...

..at Looe, we took in a classic fishing village.

On the north coast, the World Heritage history of tin.

On the southern shore, the natural splendour of Serpentine.

And we rode the famous ferry to the Isles of Scilly.

All around the Cornish coast,

stunning landmarks rose up to greet us -

rock, sand and surf.

Truly, a shoreline to savour.

Whether you are on the water, in it or just walking beside it,

you can't beat the Cornish coast.

And now we have explored some of its highlights,

it's over to you.