Cornwall Holidays
Cornwall Holidays, oh Why not take a holiday in Cornwall. You may want to rent or buy a villa or a house, flat, a cottage, a cabin, a hotel room in the county. You may want to see the beaches, the historic sites, the towns the cities.
Cornwall forms the tip of the south west peninsula of the island of Great Britain, and is therefore exposed to the full force of the prevailing winds that blow in from the Atlantic Ocean. The coastline is composed mainly of resistant rocks that give rise in many places to impressive cliffs.
The
north and south coasts have different characteristics. The north coast is more
exposed and therefore has a wilder nature. The prosaically named High Cliff, between
Boscastle and Tintagel, is the highest sheer-drop cliff in Cornwall at 735 feet.
However, there are also many extensive stretches of fine golden sand which form
the beaches that are so important to the tourist industry, such as those at Bude,
St Agnes, St Ives, Perranporth, Porthtowan, Polzeath, Fistral Beach, Lusty Glaze
Beach and Watergate Bay, Newquay. There are two river estuaries on the north coast:
Hayle estuary and River Camel, which provides Padstow and Rock with a safe harbour.
The south coast, dubbed the "riviera", is more sheltered and there are
several broad estuaries offering safe anchorages, such as at Falmouth and Fowey.
Beaches on the south coast usually consist of coarser sand and shingle, interspersed
with rocky sections of wave-cut platform.
The
interior of the county consists of a roughly east-west spine of infertile and
exposed upland, with a series of granite intrusions, such as Bodmin Moor, which
contains the highest land within Cornwall. From east to west, and with approximately
descending altitude, these are Bodmin Moor, the area north of St Austell, the
area around Camborne, and the Penwith or Land's End peninsula. These intrusions
are the central part of the granite outcrops of south-west Britain, which include
Dartmoor to the east in Devon and the Isles of Scilly to the west, the latter
now being partially submerged.
The intrusion of the granite into the surrounding sedimentary rocks gave rise to extensive metamorphism and mineralization, and this led to Cornwall being one of the most important mining areas in Europe until the early 20th century. It is thought Tin was mined here as early as the Bronze Age, and copper, lead, zinc and silver have all been mined in Cornwall. Alteration of the granite also gave rise to extensive deposits of China Clay, especially in the area to the north of St Austell, and the extraction of this remains an important industry.
The uplands are surrounded by more fertile, mainly pastoral farmland. Near the south coast, deep wooded valleys provide sheltered conditions for flora that like shade and a moist, mild climate. These areas lie mainly on Devonian sandstone and slate. The north east of Cornwall lies on Carboniferous rocks known as the Culm Measures. In places these have been subjected to severe folding, as can been seen on the north coast near Crackington Haven and in several other locations.
The geology of the Lizard peninsula is unusual, in that it is mainland Britain's only example of an ophiolite, a section of oceanic crust now found on land. Much of the peninsula consists of the dark green and red Precambrian serpentine rock, which forms spectacular cliffs, notably at Kynance Cove, and carved and polished serpentine ornaments are sold in local gift shops. This ultramafic rock also forms a very infertile soil which covers the flat and marshy heaths of the interior of the peninsula. This is home to rare plants, such as the Cornish Heath, which has been adopted as the county flower. So much facts for Cornwall Holidays.
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