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:-