Penzance is a town, civil parish and port in Cornwall. It is well known for being the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is approximately 75 miles (121 km) west of Plymouth and 300 miles (480 km) west-southwest of London. Situated in the shelter of Mount’s Bay (Towards the middle of the bay and probably the origin of the name is St Michael’s Mount), the town faces south-east onto the English Channel, is bordered to the west by the fishing port of Newlyn, to the north by the civil parish of Madron and to the east by the civil parish of Ludgvan. A ferry service is operated between Penzance Harbour and the Isles of Scilly by the Scillonian III, carrying both foot-passengers and cargo. Sailing time is approximately 2 hours and 40 minutes. A bus service run by the Skybus Airline Service connects with Land’s End Airport for fixed wing flights (15 minutes) to the Isles of Scilly. The buses leave from the railway station, near the taxi rank, rather than the bus station. Penzance is home to the new Newlyn Art Gallery establishment “The Exchange” which opened in 2007. Penzance is also the home of Penlee House, an art gallery and museum notable for its collection of paintings by members of the Newlyn School. Within Penzance town centre there are a growing number of commercial art galleries. Every December Penzance holds the Montol Festival a community arts event reviving many of the Cornish customs of Christmas, including Guise dancing.
Large sections of Penzance are classified as “conservation areas” under the Penwith local plan and are subject to special planning laws. The current conservation area forms most of the core of the town of Penzance and the historic harbour areas of Newlyn and Mousehole. A number of Georgian and Regency buildings are present in the town. However, the majority of developments in the town centre itself are of mixed date, including several 20th century buildings – one of which, the former Pearl Assurance building (now the Tremenheere Wetherspoon’s pub), was subject to comment by Sir John Betjeman who wrote, in 1963: “Penzance has done much to destroy its attractive character. The older houses in the narrow centre round the market hall have been pulled down and third-rate commercial ‘contemporary’, of which the Pearl Assurance building is a nasty example, are turning it into Slough“.
Penzance’s former main street Chapel Street has a number of interesting features, including the Egyptian House, the Union Hotel (including a Georgian theatre which is no longer in use) and Branwell House, where the mother and aunt of the famous Brontë sisters once lived. The Georgian theatre was built in c. 1787, closed in 1831 and is said to be where the first public announcement of Nelson‘s victory at Trafalgar. Regency, and Georgian terraces and houses (such as Regents Square and Clarence Street) are common in some parts of the town. The nearby sub-tropical Morrab Gardens, has a large collection of tender trees and shrubs, many of which cannot be grown outdoors anywhere else in the UK. Also of interest is the seafront with its promenade and the open-air seawater Jubilee Bathing Pool (one of the oldest surviving Art Deco swimming baths in the country), built during Penzance’s heyday as a fashionable seaside resort. The pool was designed by Captain F. Latham, the Penzance Borough Engineer, and opened in 1935, the year of King George V‘s Silver Jubilee. The grade II listed pool is triangular with graceful curves and is considered the best surviving example of its type, with the exception of the Saltdean Lido in Brighton. The pool is currently closed because of storm damage from February 2014.
Penzance promenade has been destroyed in parts several times by storms. The most recent example was on 7 March 1962 (Ash Wednesday), when large parts of the western end of the promenade, the nearby Bedford Bolitho Gardens (now a play park) and the village of Wherrytown suffered severe damage. On the outskirts of town is Trereife House, a grade II listed Queen Anne style, manor house which now offers accommodation and hosts events.
