Near Land’s End is the Minack Theatre, an open -house theatre that is famous not just in Cornwall but all-around England. In summer people come from far away to be entertained in spectacular surroundings. Next to it is Porthcurno Beach, which is full of swimmers and sunbathers in the summer.
But east of Porthcurno beach is Pednvounder Beach, far more difficult to access. Pednvounder must be one of the finest beaches in England, with beautiful golden sand stretching for half a mile and either side spectacular granite cliffs protecting the area. The fact that it is so difficult to access makes it even more attractive.
At the east end of the beach is the Treen Cliff, a promontory shooting out to south towards the English Channel. And on one of the “towers” rising up from the cliffs is Logan Rock. The rock is an eighty-ton granite boulder perched on the edge of the cliffs. Logan means “rocking stone” in Cornish. There are several such stones to be found around England and they are balanced, so that they can be easily rocked from side to side, but still very difficult to dislodge. Logan means just that, to rock and the original Cornish name is Men Omborth, meaning blanked stone.
In the late 18th century, the Logan Rock south of the village of Treen near Land’s End had already become a famous tourist attraction. But the fact that it couldn’t be dislodged turned out to be a challenge for Lieutenant Goldsmith and a dozen of his crew of the cutter HMS Nimble. He brought the crew armed with bars and levers up to the cliff tops and rocked the huge granite boulder until it fell off from the cliff top perch.
Goldsmith wanted to prove that for the English Navy nothing was impossible. But the local residents were upset, because the tourist attraction was gone and with that the income that followed with the tourists. So the local residents demanded that the Admiralty stripped Lieutenant Goldsmith of his commission unless he restored the boulder to its original rocking position.
It took months of effort and the work of sixty men to reposition the Logan Rock, but unfortunately it doesn’t rock as easily as it once did.
The photos I have are deceptive. The scale is huge, and in the second photograph I have marked with a red ring the Logan Stone, but it looks tiny on the photo.
I haven’t visited it myself, but this must be one of my next projects: walking part of coastal pathway, climbing up to the Logan Rock and trying to rock it. But I promise not to overturn it like Lieutenant Goldsmith did!
