The Town of Penzance

Historic Dates in our Cultural Heritage

4th-3rd millennia BC
Neolithic antiquities
Quoits
Chambered cairns
2nd millennium BC
Pre-Celtic antiquities of the Bronze Age
Field systems
1st millennium BC
Hill forts, courtyard house villages and fogous
Cornish tin exported to Mediterranean
1st millennium AD
Romans come and go
Development of Celtic Christianity
Contacts with Brittany
King Athelstan's charter to St Buyan in 943 AD
Middle Ages
Growth of villages - charters, markets, fairs, feasts, and festivals
16th Century
Spanish raid on Mousehole, Newlyn, Paul & Penzance in 1595
17th Century
Charter granted to Penzance in 1614 and to St Ives in 1634
Penzance made a Coinage Town in 1663
Growth of town and port
18th Century
Cornish language survives longest in Penwith
Wesley and others bring Methodism
Town houses built in Penzance
Borlase Rector of Ludgvan
Humphry Davy born 1778
19th Century
Industrial Revolution copper & tin mining in St Just area
Foundries and shipbuilding at Hayle
Quarrying at Lamorna, used to provide stone for London Bridge and elsewhere
Cable-laying at Porthcurno
Railway comes to Penzance and St Ives
Growth of scholarship and the arts - Penzance Library and Geological Museum (museum now closed)
Schools of Mining at Penzance and St Just
Artist JMW Turner in Mount’s Bay and St Ives
20th Century
Development of the arts - Newlyn and St Ives schools
Creation of the Minack Theatre
Music - male voice choirs, silver bands, international seminars
Literary visitors - D H Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, Dylan Thomas
Conservation and restoration of Heritage Sites incl. Levant Engine House, 1994
National Trust preservation of houses, gardens and coastal footpath, etc.

More on the Antiquities & History of Penzance can be found at:-